2 Early Bird gets the worms

Lixia woke up 10 minutes before 5am. After tidying her bed, she walks to the bathroom, washed her face and brushed her teeth. She changed into workout clothes, grabbed her phone and keys then go for a morning run. The city still half asleep when she went out of her apartment. Listening to her favourite playlist, she finished 4km run this morning.

Everyday, Lixia will spend at least one hour for exercise. Back when she was a first year student in university, she was addicted to watch tv dramas, especially Korean and Chinese dramas. During that time, she will eat lots of junk food and unhealthy snacks while watching her favourite drama. Her favourite snack combo was honey butter Korean fried chicken and huge glass of strawberry milkshake. Within 3 months, she gained 15kg. Her parents was horrified looking at their daughter figure. They were afraid she will get diabetes or other scary diseases.

One day, her brothers forced Lixia to watch a documentary film about obesity. It was a wake up call she needed. For the next 6 months, Lixia eats healthy food and workout regularly. Her parents hired a personal trainer to help her losing weights. After 6 long months, Lixia's weights went back to healthy range and until now she managed to keep her healthy habits. She learns to cook, avoid junk foods and only dine outside when necessary.

When her parents bought this apartment, they equipped the kitchen based on Lixia's request. It looks like a professional kitchen from cooking show on tv. Her favourite feature is the marble kitchen island in the middle. Lixia loves baking, she spends most of her weekend at this apartment trying or creating new recipes.

Feeling hungry, Lixia took a quick shower then cook herself a hearty breakfast.

Breakfast this morning consist of scrambled eggs with spinach and feta cheese, grilled sourdough bread and freshly squeezed orange juice.

'Hmm, i'm still hungry and I want something sweet' thought Lixia. She walks to the freezer and she saw frozen bananas inside a container. She wants to make a small bowl of banana ice cream. It's easy to make, put frozen banana chunks in food processor, she added frozen strawberries chunks and two medjool dates as sweetener. Lixia put her masterpiece in a bowl, add a handful of chopped almonds and cacao nibs then eat the ice cream with delights. After finished eating, she cleaned the kitchen and take a quick 20 minutes rest before her hectic day started.

She has so many things to do today. First, she has to make two different cookies for Yoona eonnie then in the afternoon, she needs to prepare ingredients for their dinner in the evening. Lixia decided to bake cookies for her parents and brothers as well. It's been a while since she baked for them. Tomorrow she will visit Youxuan ge and Youchen ge offices before she go home to Tan residence.

20 minutes later

Lixia puts her apron on and started her mise en place. She likes to be organised in the kitchen. Baking is like a chemistry, you need a proper measurements to make sure you achieved the best result. Lixia started to gather all necessary ingredients to make her famous oatmeal and raisin cookies.

First, Lixia soaked the raisins in warm water to make them plump. Then she gathers the dry ingredients: all purpose flour, rolled oats, salt, bicarbonate soda, and cinnamon. She puts the dry ingredients inside a bowl then make sure everything is mixed properly.

After that she started to measure the wet ingredients: unsalted butter, vanilla extract, granulated sugar, brown sugar, molasses, and large eggs. Because Yoona and everyone like soft and chewy cookies, Lixia use more brown sugar than granulated sugar in her recipe.

Happy with her preparation, Lixia proceeds to the next step. Using her trusty stand mixer, she beats the butter and both sugar until smooth. Then she adds the eggs, one at a time. After that she adds the rest of the wet ingredients and beat the mixture until combined. Last but not least, she added the dry ingredients in two batches and mixed until combined in low speed. The dough need to be chilled in the fridge for 30 minutes because it's too sticky at the moment.

Meanwhile, Lixia preheat the oven into 177C and prepared her baking tray. While waiting for the dough in the fridge, she makes another two batches of cookie dough. Not long after, you can smell cinnamon and buttery cookies from the oven. After removing from the oven, Lixia let the cookies cool down on the tray from 5 minutes before transferring them into cooling rack. She repeated this process twice before move to make white chocolate macadamia cookies. Lixia divides those cookies into several airtight containers to keep them fresh.

It's almost time for lunch when her phone ringing.

"Little squirrel, are you busy? Would you like to have lunch together?" Kim Taeyang's deep masculine voice can be heard from the other side.

"I'm baking cookies Oppa, just finished the last batch." answered Lixia with cheerful voice.

"Oh, what did you make? Raisin oatmeal cookies? What about my favourite white and macadamia cookies? Did you bake some for me?" Taeyang asked with teasing voice.

"Of course! I'm planning to give them to you later. How could I forget your favourite cookies?" replied Lixia with serious tone.

"Haha, Little squirrel, you're a sweet talker, aren't you? Okay, what do you want for lunch? Oppa will bring them to you. I have your favourite Madelines with me."

"Can you bring lamb souvlaki from our usual place on Chapel street? I still have to prepare ingredients for our dinner so I can't go out."

"Will do. You don't want raw onion right? I'll be there in 30 minutes. Wait for me." Says Taeyang before he hung up.