School So Far

Pastry school, three weeks in. We've finished our first block, which is good. Since it was the introduction, the lesson plan was a little schizophrenic. Chocolate chip cookies to pastry cream to chiffon cakes in less than two weeks. Yeesh.

We started on January 5th with 24 students. In the intervening weeks that has dropped to 21. One girl left the program because it turns out that what she was looking for was a fancier version of a Wilton class, so all this talk of cost control and food chemistry was too much for her, another girl left because she broke her leg (although she'll be back in 3 weeks) and the third girl left because she got really, really sick and missed too much of the first block (she should also be back in three weeks). The other three guys in my class are still around, so at least I have some male company.

On the subject of company, I have made friends. Huge surprise, they're all girls. I could make some excuse about the ratio of girls to guys skews the probability towards that end, but that would be bullshit. I've always found it easier to make friends with girls. Which I guess is a plus in this field.

There have been a couple of bad days (literally a couple, and 2 out of 15 is not bad). But, by and large, I'm really enjoying myself. My chef is great. She's funny and very patient and an excellent teacher. We're all really happy that we've got her for our next three week block (breads! yay!).

Elswhere in the world: Obama is president (yay!), Bush no longer has the bully pulpit (double yay!!) and Cheney is apparently morphing into some hybrid of Dr. Strangelove (the character, not the movie), Darth Vader and the Penguin (wtf?). This is all great, but it is a little disappointing that 43 and his Stepford Wife are now permanent residents of my home state. Thankfully it's big enough that I'm unlikely to run in to him. Also, my mom is home from Vegas and her stupid little schnauzer has gone home.

I'm considering entering the Chocolate Expo at school in February. Seeing as how I have no real experience with chocolate, I'm thinking about doing cupcakes. I'm trying to be creative (yikes!) and come up with some interesting flavors and my lovely wife has offered to be my guinea pig and taste the potential disasters. So now it's off to Central Market to get stuff to experiment with cupcakes.

I'll try and post some pictures soon.

#@$%!@$#$#@!!

Just in case you were wondering, there is, in fact, a huge difference between .06 and .6 ounces of salt. Fortunately, I noticed. This dough is being used to make a fruit tart tomorrow and it would have been even worse had I baked the whole damn thing only to notice when I ate it that it tasted like a pretzel. *sigh*

Then the ephin' biscotti. I like cookie dough. A lot. Raw biscotti dough is pretty terrible. That would have been less of a problem if it hadn't already been in the oven for 40 freakin' minutes.

So that was my day. I reamained remarkably cordial throughout the ordeal. I was more embarrassed than anything else. Tomorrow will be better. Right?

Thank God that's over.

We finished the sanitation block. Now I just have to pass my test tomorrow. I'm not too worried; it's multiple guess and it's just pass/fail. Even better, there is no pressure. My passing or failing will have no effect on my class standing, I'll just have to take it again later.

After the test we start learning how to bake. Well, actually we're going to go over the fun toys we got in our kits at orientation and then have a knife skills lesson. There will also be a tour of both of TCA's working kitchens (Ventana and Bleu River Grille). Friday we start the baking. I believe it will be cookies, but the principal lesson is supposed to be baking methodology (i.e. prep, cleaning, following the recipe, weighing ingredients, etc.). I'm still looking forward to eating my first project.

It's now day 2 with the devil schnauzer (my mom's dog, Shadow). She's a bona fide pain in the ass. She won't eat unless we put her food in little piles on the floor and it's kinda hard to keep Cali (this blog's namesake) out of those little piles while Shadow decides whether or not she's going to eat them. Thankfully I've only got one of them. Max, the other one, is with Sister #2 in Rockwall. So far as I'm concerned, he can ephin (pronounce it phonetically) stay there. The other problem with Shadow is that she has no idea how to play with Cali. This leaves my poor puppy very confused and, at least in my head, a little hurt. How could anyone not want to play with her?

Two days left in week one. I've learned how to tie that damn cravat, at least I think I have, and now I'm ready to bake. I just have to prove to ServSafe that I know how not to get sued in the process.

Day 1 (a.k.a. Let's Get Sanitary!!)

So today was all about food safety. That's just a boring as it sounds. The worst part is that most of the focus is on the handling of meat products and, seeing as how I'm in the pastry program, doesn't really apply to me. Thankfully there are only a couple more days before we actually start working in the kitchen.

My class is 24 people. There are only 3 other guys; I figured I'd be out numbered, but not by quite so much. Our chef (instructor) is pretty great. She's got a great presence and (thank God) a sense of humor. I can't imagine how awful the sanitation bit would be if she didn't.

It will be interesting to see how this first week goes. Most everyone was nervous and it took most of the day before we started conversing during the breaks. Tomorrow will be less overwhelming as will, I'm sure, the day after that. Now if I can just learn how to tie that damn cravat.

The Beginning

Well, here it is. A blog of my very own.

The genesis of this blog is to track my progress through the Baking and Patisserie program that I'm starting tomorrow. I suppose that I will probably end up writing about other things, too. To be honest, I'm not really sure how these things work; I have several friends with blogs that I follow and I love keeping up with them, but I'm still don't really know what I'll write about. And it's even less obvious who in the hell will read this thing. Oh, well. Here it goes.