Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

fig. a: sweet dreams

Michelle had a dream the other night. This wasn't particularly unusual--she has dreams almost every night, some of them rather vivid. But this one was a little different.

It was essentially a work dream, but Michelle loves what she does, so any and all stress and anxiety was balanced by feelings of pride and satisfaction. It was also quite a bit sweeter than your average work dream.

Michelle had been asked to make the desserts for a large fundraising gala. She wasn't 100% sure what the cause was, but the guest of honour was none other than René Redzepi, the acclaimed chef of Copenhagen's Noma. The dessert she'd chosen to serve in her dream was a raspberry dessert that she'd been working on in real life earlier in the week, but that she hadn't quite finalized. In her dream, though, the dessert was fully visualized and complete, and she took it to be some kind of sign. So when she went back to work, she made the necessary adjustments--the ones she'd seen in her dream--and promptly placed her new, improved raspberry dessert on the dégustation menu.

fig. b: are made of this

Then she did the only logical thing: she tweeted about it.

Michelle_Marek: Dreamt I was doing a fundraising dinner and @ReneRedzepiNoma* was the guest of honour. What I made in my dream is now on the Laloux menu.

A tad matter-of-fact, perhaps, but that's what you get for 140 characters or less.

Apparently not too matter-of-fact, though, because hours later, she received this response:

ReneRedzepiNoma@Michelle_Marek: what is the dish?

To which she replied:

Michelle_Marek@ReneRedzepiNoma: It's a dessert: raspberries stuffed with creme fraiche, honey glazed puff pastry with orange flower water...

Michelle_Marek@ReneRedzepiNoma: ...raspberry-rose gelee, burnt honey ice cream and a pimenton-rose-mint-pistachio powder sprinkled lightly over it.

If all that wasn't enough, about an hour after this exchange, Michelle got a phone call--not from Mr. Redzepi (darn!), but from someone who asked if she'd be interested in producing the desserts for a fundraiser. For the very first time. You might think Michelle had gotten such invitations before, but you'd be wrong--this was actually a first.

No word on who the guest of honour will be.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. What about the raspberry dessert itself? Well, I loved the whole thing, from the ripe raspberries, to the crispy puff pastry, to the unexpected zing of that pistachio powder, but if I had to single out my favorite element, it was those those raspberry-rose jewels, which had the most delicate flavour, and the most extraordinary texture.

Overall: pretty dreamy.

aj

* If you're not a Twitterer, you should know that Michelle actually typed "René Redzepi"--again, very matter-of-factly. When she did, because she "follows" Redzepi on Twitter, it appeared as "@ReneRedzepiNoma" and linked to his Twitter account.