Dream Catcher

The other night I had a dream that I was a contestant on Top Chef. It was a dessert challenge, and I thought the winning route was to adapt a dish from my heritage. So I used my Grandma's recipe for Bánh Pâté Chaud (aka Banh Ba Te Xo), a Vietnamese-French puff-pastry stuffed with ground meat pocket of goodness which I have made before. Instead of a meat filling, I used jam, condensed milk, and fruit as the topping. I meant to use something other than jam but ran out of time. During judging, Padma spit it out because it was too sweet (a la Episode 2 this season) and Jill (the Ostrich egg girl) laughed at me. Fortunately Tom Coliccio was there to give me a hug and to tell me not to listen to them.

I often have very vivid dreams. The reason why I am writing this one down though is because:

1. The day after, when I went to my grandma's house, she said she had made Bánh Pâté Chaud, which was weird because she does it make it that often. (She later realized that she meant flan, but that's not important).

2. Today I found out that Wednesday's Top Chef quickfire is about making a dessert without adding sugar. Therefore, my dish would qualify.

3. This is my second dream about failure this week. The other day I had a dream that the California Bar called to let me know that while I was ethical enough to practice in the rest of the country, I would have to take the MPRE again for California. Considering that I already got my grades back from my two most challenging classes and did well, these dreams can only mean that bar exam nightmares have already begun. I didn't even think I was worried about the test. I blame the subliminal "failed the California bar exam" google ads that I get.