August 10, 2007

I went to the gym around 8ish and i couldn't finish my work out because a couple of days ago I pulled a muscle in my leg and it hurt so bad I had to leave. I came home and showered, got dressed, and drew a picture of the sugar sculpture I was going to make today. I went to school rather early for no reason! At 12:30 we made the guinea fowl with chorizo. It was SOOO tasty! Chef thought so too. It was also with a cauliflower puree with satay...even more tasty! The whole dish is outstanding! I saved it knowing i was going to need dinner at school tonite :) Chef said my sauce was good, my farce was good, my cauliflower was good, and my plating looked nice. So i think i did pretty well today!

We got done rather early so I sat with Manuel in the computer room and chatted. His class got out early from sugar design BECAUSE the fuse broke and the lamps stopped working. SO...their class moved from today to monday and our exam moved from monday to tues! So then we wondered if our class was still going to proceed...well it did! So at 3:30 we had sugar class. however the other class made a sculpture where we only PULLED sugar. We pulled from 3:30 to 6, took a break til 6:30, then pulled again til 8:15ish. I was the rebel of the group (amongst others) who chose not to wear gloves...and i now have blisters on my fingers...BIG OLE BLISTERS :) and i didn't have any product to take pictures of. Sorry :( It was a good productive class because now I know what to do and what NOT to do. It will be good for next week. But man...6 hours is a LONG time. I can't wait to see what our final is gonna be like! Sheesh! after class I went to monoprix to pick up some bleach to clean my uniform. Came home, cleaned my uniform and I'm about to go to bed pretty shortly. Doing some research for my cuisine exam! Nite all!

August 9, 2007

EXAM DAY! My first class was at 8:30 and it was a CP. I was the only one out of my group of friends that was there. It was nice because I had so much space to work in and I worked dilligently and fast. Everything went well. Chef said my sauce had good flavor but had a little too much acidity, probably from the wine. The gnocchi had good flavor but a minute undercooked. And my plating was beautiful but he taught me something new. When you slice meat and lay it out like I did, never put anything on top! Interesting huh?!?! But overall he said I did a great job and worked really hard today.

I then went to the gym, came home showered and left pretty quickly because I knew if I stayed home I wouldn't study! I went to school and barely studied there either :) At 3:30 we took our Cuisine written exam! It was actually the easiest one out of the basic, intermediate and superior exams! I nailed my recipe that I had to memorize (remember out of 10 they chose one!) And the rest I think i did ok on! I walked home and ate an early dinner because I didn't eat much during the day. I also talked to some people about my exam. Then eventually i got REALLY bored and decided to read some magazines. Went to bed at 10!

August 8, 2007

So today was an annoying day! I woke up and was trying to move my sugar sculpture into the other room where there was no sun, and because the house was so humid...it broke :( So that was sad! I then went to school and at 8:30 I had a CD. We made the Lamb in bread with artichoke puree. My jus was horrible...according to me. Chef said it just needed some salt. But whatever. He said my meat could have been cooked a second longer. But I disagreed. He said my bread was good (that was the part I did), Kaili did the artichoke puree. He like that as well. I also did the bread design by myself on top of my plating! It was fun!!!
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After class I went to the gym, came home showered, and went right back to school. At 3:30 we had the demo we've all been waiting for. The unimportant thing was that we learned corn galette with cep mushrooms and figs in a vierge sauce, Guinea Fowl stuffed with a chorizo and masarcpone stuffing with asparagus wrapped in bacon, and figs with a mascarpone meringue. Food was AMAZING today and we had a basic chef! But he rocks! Anyway, the IMPORTANT part of the demo was we got our basket for our exam!!!!! Ok...so a brief explaination of how it works. We have to make 4 identical plates in 4 hours. 1 main part, which is fish, and 3 sides. (1 simple, 1 composed and 1 farce). On the day of the exam we have to turn in a colored picture drawn by us, as well as the ingredients, the name, and the process of our dish IN FRENCH :) We were given a list of foods. There are 4 ingredients on the list that we HAVE to use and then the rest are upto us. If anyone is REALLY good at food combinations PLEASE contact me so I can give you a list of my foods and you can help me :) So that proccupied the rest of my day, night, and LIFE!!!! After that I came home and was so focused on that I couldn't do much. I barely studied for my exam. I barely ate dinner. I barely did anything. Eventually I fell asleep dreaming of different plates that I could do :)

August 7, 2007

I woke up at 7:45 and went to the gym. I studied a bit a the gym. I always get my best studying done there. And I had a really good workout! I then came home and got dressed and talked to some friends online. At 12:30 I had a CD (i haven't even had the practical for the last demo yet!!!) We learned vichy (chilled leek and potato cream soup), rumpsteak with baby artichokes, and cherries in a ginger syrup with vanilla bean ice cream. All were pretty tasty! After class we pretty much went right into PP which was sugar!!! For me it was pretty easy cause I've done it before. However it's been so long I didn't remember what I was doing and it's pretty much luck of the draw, not to mention the weather plays a HUGE role! Anyway, I only had to my sugar once and it came out great! Chef wanted me to take a picture of the class to show what class should NOT look like :) we were very unorganized today!

I was very proud of my work today. It wasn't what I planned on doing, but it came out really well. So that's all that matters. Chef said it was shiny and clean and then he started to pull it apart! I was like NOOO!!! he said he wanted to see how well I stuck it together. So it obviously came apart. So I had to restick it. But atleast it didn't break! He said i worked clean and organized. And my sugar came out nice. Enjoy the pics!






After class Manuel was leaving at the same time so I begged him to walk me home. He held my bag and I held my sugar piece :) As we walked home we stopped for a flute gana and then i saw my cheese shop opened up! so we stopped for cheese! So i made it home and had a great baguette and cheese for dinner! YUM! I then organized my life and now...who knows. But i'm signing off. It's been a long thinking day and I dont wanna sit at the computer anymore! Suprisingly enough!!! Niters!

August 6, 2007

Start of an annoying week...with a final thrown in there! So my first class at 8:30 was a CP. We made the pigeon. It was a pretty easy class. We had a chef we hadn't had in a long time. He is really helpful though. He showed us how to turn mushrooms and it wasn't even on this dish! Anyway, he said my jus was good, but it needed a little more salt...not much though. My pigeon could have been could 2 minutes less. And my presentation looked nice. My potatoes and beans were perfect. He also said I worked very clean and organized which is VERY important to them at school.

We got out SOOO early, so Kaili and I went to Monoprix. She bought a fan and I got lightbulbs. I then went back to school (it was raining) and I chatted with people. At 12:30 we had PD. We watched the chef pull sugar for 3 hours straight...and he went the ENTIRE time. He went til exactly 3:30!!!! We started our next class, CD, at 3:45! In that class we learned green asparagus with an asparagus puree, lamb wrapped in a dough with artichoke puree, and a mango and pineapple chutney with avacado sorbet. At my old school we made avacado ice cream which I thought had more flavor than the sorbet...but it was still outstanding! After school I went to the grocery store to stock my fridge and then came home. Ate dinner, and tried to study. But I did laundry, and cleaned my room. THEN i started to play email tag with a friend i just found out is coming to Paris next week...so i got all excited that I couldn't study! I went to bed around 10ish.

CHAUD!

MISTAKE: July 27th I put up the wrong picture for my class dinner. So if you didn't see my class dinner pictures, they are now up. Feel free to go back and look at them. Sorry for the inconvenience. (obviously no one reads the blog because someone besides my mother would have told me before now!)

It was boiling today! I tried to sleep as late as i could, but 9:45 it was. I was lazy when I woke up but decided to put on clothes and at 11:45 I left my house and walked to the Marais. It was so hot I was sweating terribly! I met up with Manuel and Rodolfo for brunch. We had AMAZING brunch at the same place we went to last weekend. There was SOOOO much food for only 21 euros. I don't have to eat for the rest of the day! After lunch I left them and went to WHSmith to pick up some magazines. I like to read fluff during finals time because I focus so hard on studying :) I came home and wasn't feeling well from the heat so I took a 2 hr nap. I was so tired I didn't even want to wake up! However I did. I emptied the fridge because there was a lot of rotten food, and then began studying! Ok...so I didn't get much studying done. I started to get VERY antsy. SO i paced the hallway and talk to liz. Im not kidding. I actually was pacing the hallway. I didn't want to do anything. So finally I made up my mind. It was WAY too hot to shower, so I was going to go to bed early and wake up early. So i read a magazine for a little and went to bed at 9 pm. It was just one of those days!