2/28/05-Monday
I spent more time spring cleaning and enjoying the good weather this weekend when I should've been studying. I did tryout a new buttercream icing recipe from my schoolbook though. Today the class made blueberry pies. Mine turned out well. The crust extra flaky and light.

Tip: Use Pastry flour when making pie dough and don't over work it. You should never knead the dough. Cut the fat into the flour until "pea" sized. Add the ice water gradually and "fluff" or "toss" the dough. Form the dough into a ball and let it hydrate on its own. It will be a bit dry, crumbly, and not mixed thoroughly, but that's what you want. The chunks of fat will create a flaky crust.

The Monday glooms hovered around me today. Even though I enjoy class I was still tired and slow shuffling. Maybe it was the champagne I drank while watching the Oscars last night. I was bummed "Super Size Me" didn't win best documentary. Although I hear "Born into Brothels" well deserved it. But "Super Size Me" was so insightful and humorous. Anyone including fast food in their diet should watch this documentary.

Best Dressed Actress: Kate Blanchett was classy as all hell in her pale yellow gown with dazzling jewel broach.

Best Dressed Actor: Clive Owen was hot. I didn't see what he was wearing...It don't matter!

2/25/05-Friday
The chocolate tasting was very informative. The class tasted 16 different chocolates and had to rate them "expensive, moderate, cheap" plus list the flavor and graininess. Some of the expensive chocolates I thought were moderate, but I could identify the cheap ones atleast. My homework is to eat more high grade chocolate and train my palate. The torture!

Tip: if a chocolate has a high graininess and takes a long time to melt in your mouth, or is waxy tasting, it's a low grade chocolate

My fave Chocolate: Criollo - from Venezuela. It was very rich with a slight coffee flavor. An expensive chocolate. My other fave was Dagoba's chocolate with chili and nutmeg. It's a little spicy, but not overly spicy, pleasantly spicy.I also liked a more moderate chocolate "Callebaut" . A smooth chocolate we use at school.

As for the salt tasting I liked the "Fleur de sel" salt and "Alea" salt from Hawaii. It had a red clay tint to it. Both very expensive, but after I tasted Kosher, plain, and iodized salt with a cucumber I relaized how awful they are. The Kosher is ok for general use, but the plain and iodized salt made the cucumber taste terrible. The Fleur de Sel and Alea glorified the flavor of the cucumber!

We also made struedal today. Struedal dough has a very hight gluten content which allows it to stretch very thin. Emily, Corree, Amanda, and I stretched the struedal dough out at the same time to maintain a uniform circle about 3.5 feet around. We each grabbed an edge and stretched until paper thin. We coated it with melted butter, nuts, and sugar then rolled it on up. We'll bake it Monday. It's alot like a puff pastry or phyllo dough.

Then we made ice cream out of the Creme Anglaise sauce we made yesterday. It's a custard ice cream , because the Anglaise has egg yolks in it. It only contains milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla. Producing a French Vanilla Ice Cream.

A great day in general. How often do ya get the chance to taste 16 different chocolates in one day?! Although, Chef Peter passed around plain cocoa butter for us to taste and didn't tell us what it was. I thought it was a white chocolate and took a mouthful a little too large for my fancy. Ick!

2/24/05-Thursday
We discussed eggs today.

Tip: If your raw eggs are slightly green it means there is more roboflavin in them. They aren't bad, just a lower grade. But, higher in B vitamins.

I made a Pastry Cream and Creme' Anglaise' today with success. They are both standard custard like cream sauces that are the base for many others. Mother sauces. Tomorrow we Chocolate taste! Also salt taste!

Today the air is sweet and green scented. Plants are starting to bloom...very early.

2/23/05-Wednesday
Maaan I'm tired. It's midnight. I just finished typing up my Baking resume, cover letter, and references. I have to meet with career services to begin my search for an externiship. October is my externship month. 6 weeks in the baking field. I want to work in a cake shop or chocolate factory like Moonstruck.

Today Chef Peter discussed sugar. Cane sugar vs. beet sugar and the refinement process.

Tip of the day: "Sugar in the raw" is NOT less refined sugar. It's a marketing ploy.

We boiled up caramel sauce as the sugar study and also whipped up raspberry mousse to study the effects of gelatin.

One of my class mates was very scared of burning himself with the sugar. We started discussing what burns were worse....oven vs. water vs. sugar when he suddenly spilt his fresh hot hot really hot! coffee all over his hand. Hmmm...

Until my site gets more exciting check out another Pastry Student's Life at the French Pastry School in Chicago. http://www.375degrees.com/. J.T. is making a Croquembouche. A cream puff pyramid surrounded with spun sugar. It's a common French wedding cake. I get to make this down the road. He posts great photos. The French pastry school instructors are the guys and gals you see on the Food Network Pastry Competitions. The ones sculpting chocolate and sugar towers. They are the best! Chef John Kraus won the recent Chocolate competition that was on Food Network Feb.13th. $10,000 What a competion! The techniques and clever tools they use just to mold and shape chocolate. Home Depot has much more to offer than just home improvement supplies.

I've learned in cake assembly and decoration that you need a fair amount of imagination, logic, and creativity with household items to solve design problems. More and more specific cake-tools are being developed to make common tasks easier, but every cake is different. The scariest part is taking on a new challenging cake design you think you have figured out and your solution to the challenge fails. Then ya punch yourself for not being accurate, take lots of deep breaths, then roam the house for tools that might work until viola'! the cake fairies guide you to the magic tool. If at first you don't succeed.....

2/22/05-Tuesday
I'm a little behind in entries, but nothing much happened besides more sanitation lecture and pizza. On Friday Chef Peter made pizza dough for the class to play with. I learned how to properly form a pizza with my fists...stretch and pull stretch and pull. I made 3 pizzas for dinner. This is a huge benefit of attending a culinary school, I won't be a starving student. We had a sanitation test and a baking equipment identification test. Aced both! They were very easy. Chef Peter read all the answers to the sanitation test the day before anyway.

Today was "Ingredients" lecture. So much wonderful information about flour and starch. Chef Peter had a milling machine he ran grains through and had us taste. Everything from winter wheat flour to spelt to kamut. When we start baking we'll be milling our own flour....I'm so happy! Chef Peter is already a baking god in my eyes. He trained at the New England Culinary School in Vermont, which is a very intensive start at 3am, 8-hour a day, 6 days a week, 2 year program. He's traveled far and wide studying, milling, and baking whole grain breads. He's worked for many bakeries and ran many bakeries. He worked on a farm in Vermont milling the wheat grown there then baking bread in wood stoves inside the barn, sometimes around the clock. He knows about vegan bread and organic flour. He's very much against chemicals in flours and believes hand kneading bread is better than any machine. You know how when you see a very talented musician perform and his instrument seems to become a part of him as he's playing? Chef Peter is like that when he kneads dough, totally natural.

Tip of the day: Use the correct flour for the job. Use bread flour for bread, pastry flour for pastries and cookies, cake flour or pastry flour for cake.

Be aware: use unbleached organic flours when you can. Many flours have "potassium bromate" added to strengthen the protein and age it faster. It may cause cancer. Cake flour is always bleached with chlorine bleach or benzyl peroxide to weaken the protein and whiten the flour. There is no cake flour that hasn't been bleached. The solution is to use organic Pastry flour and adjust the tenderizing ingredients. I'll post more on this when I get to the cake lectures.

Random thoughts: These last 2 days have been spring-like. Daffodils are starting to bloom! I jogged up to the park today and saw the cutest little miniature Pincher with a vest on. Although, it could've been a greyhound pup though. Skinny little pups!

Rich and our backpacking buddy, Paul, installed patio french doors this weekend. We actually have a back door now. I'm still entering from the old side-door though. Old habit.

I'm sprouting new seeds for spring. A bunch of medicinal flowers and herbs like Yarrow, Feverfew, Primrose, and Chia. One tablespoon of chia seeds mixed in water is reputed to be sufficient nutrition to sustain for 24 hours. Used by native Chahuahuan's and Southern Indians in long runs and treks.

2/14/05-First Day of School!
I survived my first day without being late or tripping or being scolded!
My bus ride downtown was very peaceful. It's nice not to worry about driving. I tested my route last Thursday at the exact time I was to attend school. I haven't bused since high school...oh and the summer brewfest. I arrived early and sat next to Coree. Another girl, Emily, sat to my left. I smiled at her when she walked in cause she seemed like she was aware and sane. I guess I looked ok too, so she sat next to me. Really, you don't want to be partnered with a glazed over dope and chances are high that person next to you will be your partner all through class.

Chef Robert Parks (Patisserie Chairman) and Chef Peter Edris (Introduction to Baking Instructor) ran the class. They spoke much about being a good student and leader. Be professional, practical, and on-time. Wear your uniform with pride, take out your piercings and don't dye your hair hot pink. I'll save the pink for after graduation. We received several books: Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen, Culinary Math by Julia Hill and Linda Blocker, and Book of Yields-Accuracy in Food Costing and Purchasing by Francis Lynch. We also received several hundreds of dollars, my several hundreds of dollars, worth of pastry supplies contained in a large piece of luggage. Yeah! it has wheels and a drop down handle plus straps to carry as a backpack, which helped me lug the heavy load home on bus in one piece. New knives, zesters, pastry tips, spatulas and many tools I don't even recognize!

Tomorrow we learn about sanitation.

2/5/05-Orientation
My orientation was on Saturday 10:30-1:30
I met the Institute Director and Head Chefs of each department. They made us new students feel very welcome with a Bananas Foster demo, Wine Tasting, and Truffle Demo. The Truffle demo was my fave run by "Chef Steve". I met "Chef Steve" at an open night chocolate demo January 13th. He's a master at tempering chocolate, which is melting it up to 113 degrees then down to 83 degrees so you can form chocolate into new shapes with a shiny shell. For lunch they treated us to a massive spread of breads, cold cuts, fruit and veggie platters. The platters toppled with sweet pastries. They even displayed an ice sculpture of a Turkey. I left feeling very privileged to have this educational opportunity. Pinch me!
I also made a new friend, Coree, who's a Food Network addict. Speaking with her made me realize that "I was home". We were in a special place with other sickly obsessed food lovers....we understood each other.

2/1/05-Bistro Night
Rich accompanied me to "Bistro Night" at the International Bistro in downtown. A few currently enrolled culinary students provided a Mexican themed meal to all new incoming students. It was so students could chat with other students...get to know each other. But, Rich and I couldn't get to a table, we sat at a long bar-like table, so only spoke with one other student sitting next to us. I didn't get the guys name, Rich casually picked on him for wearing an LA Lakers cap in Portland which started the chat, but he was furthering his culinary education after studying in Chico. He' was excited about learning to Ice carve. He even told us about one of his fave Ice carvings of a perfectly oval ball of ice with an exotic flower centered in the middle as if floating. Simple and elegant.

After dinner we decided to see "The Aviator" at Pioneer Plaza. There's a "Godiva Chocolate" shop at the plaza, so we were sucked in to find chocolate for the movie. It turns out the cashier is attending the Pastry program at the Institute. I asked her a few questions about the instructors and any "intimidation" practices if any. She was very kind and said the instructors she has had were not difficult or harsh.

I learned more from her than at the dinner!