Skooz!

This is a black current mousse I made for a class. It is presented on an Orange flavored  Macaroon cookie with chocolate sauce on the plate, orange sauce on the mousse and three red currents on the mousse as well.  The wedge of chocolate is decorated with gold cocao powder.  It was a pretty nice dish, all things considered. But decorating desert plates really isn’t my thing.  I think I am a baker at heart and will probably be making bread in the future.  I love bread.

Drinking wine at 9 AM has a lot of perks.  My theory is that once you have a drink you can drink the rest of the day.  So days have been short, naps have been plentiful and food has been good. I always make/buy better food when I am drinking.  And my teacher has actually been getting really decent wines.  We tested 24 of them this week. I am definately a New World wine drinker. 

Of course it can’t last.  Class is over next Friday and we actually are drinking coffee and tea on Thursday of next week.  Back to my sober life in less than  a week. 

Here is a cake I made in my last class. It isn’t my wedding cake but I haven’t uploaded those pictures yet so this will have to do for now…

I have to put together a portfolio of the work I have done in my classes. Not difficult as each chef I was taught by required this to pass their class. Now I have to choose a series of pictures and written descriptions and figure out how to put it together in a way that will make someone want to hire me. 

My biggest problem is I still don’t know what I want to do when I graduate.  I know I want to cook, but lets face it, school is not the real world. I haven’t worked in a hotel, restaurant or any other facility in a food service job.  I don’t really know what would be best suited to me, except it can’t be boring. 

I am a bit tired though.  Classes are almost over and then I get the fun task of finding a job and becoming productive again.  What a drag.

But here is something I have to complain about for just a second.  I am in Viniculture and the History of Dessert right now. We had a test on chocolate.  Question reads “What species of tree grows the pods for making chocolate?”  I answered cacao and got it wrong. Appently the teacher was looking for “evergreen” as an answer. 

Here is the ITIS listing for Theobroma cacao  (aka cocoa tree)

I don’t see evergreen in there.  Perhaps I expect too much when I think questions should actually have correct answers, not made up by the teacher answers.

someday I will figure out how to post multiple pictures in one post…maybe.  I keep forgetting to upload the picture to the editor and though I suppose I could just go an hit the edit button and put the picture in it just takes a long time for that screen to load. A new post is easier…for me anyway.

Chocolate croisant….mmmmmm

baking at home is where my passion for baking for formed.  I don’t do it nearly as neatly or accurately at home as I do at school.  I think it is the idea that people would see me making a mess that keeps me so neat at school.  Also my oven is different here(conventional, not convection) and though the teachers keep saying conventional ovens are so much nicer and bake better only my bread has turned out superior here at home. 

So I can keep practicing I bought a 50 pound bag of bread flour and a 50 pound bag of pastry flour at the restaurant supply store that sells to students. This was three weeks ago.  I just finished one bag and have less than a third left of the other. I am making a lot of stuff!  here are a few things I made recently.

been there, done that.  Unfortunately many of my classmates have not had the college experience so they are getting an associates degree at the same time they are taking food based classes. I don’t think this is a bad thing, per se, just it is turning into an annoyance for me. The chefs are under orders to reinforce the lessons of the academic side of the program so my current chef keeps assigning us papers to write.  It is driving me nuts. Not because I can’t write, but because I can.  It is almost impossible to write three paragraphs on something when you are used to writting real papers and a thesis.  I feel like I am turning in an outline. 

However, I am also getting a 103% in the class for written assignments so I guess there is an upside.

we’ll see if this works

My current class in cooking school is Introduction to Culinary Arts. This may seem like an easy, basic class, but I am a pastry student for a reason.  I really don’t like tons of knifework.  I am not really good at it for one thing.  Or rather, I am not good at not cutting myself.  Give me a knife and a carrot and chances are one of us is going to bleed a lot.  And since it is usually me, I then have to wear bandages and latex gloves the rest of the week which doesn’t make cutting any easier. 

I am trying to figure out how to upload a picture that shows what I was working on all last week. Basically it is a bunch of cut up veggies and an orange with an Imperial cut. Then we did it all again with potatoes.  Not much fun, but rather colorful.  The tray I have pictures of is not one that I did as mine wasn’t as neat or as not bloody as the one of the woman next to me. I figured you guys won’t care if it is mine, as long as you get the idea, right?