Where i've been

Geese a pete, has it really been since August that I last posted? Well to let you know why, college has a way of draining other thoughts from your mind. Here's a quick overview of what I've done my first two and a half months in Culinary School.

I started this whole adventure off by packing all my worldly possessions into the back my parents mini-van (and some of my car too) and drove eight hours to North Carolina. I never realized how much I love driving until I was doing it by myself for the whole trip. My family and I's caravan made stops along the way but even still thats a lot of time alone in a car. I got to listen to a lot of good music and enjoy the view of the mountains. It was a long but good trip.

After just about every one in my family had a heart attack from carrying all my stuff up to the second floor of my dorm, I realized I had packed a lot. But now looking around, it all fits, it all has its own spot in this 16' x 10' room.

I started out first day of classes with Essentials of Dining Room. I found out very quickly i'm not made to be a server. I have the memory of a goldfish and i'm clumsy as hell. But I made it through and I had the chance to learn a bit about wine and tea and some other tid bits that are pretty interesting.

Then nine days later, on to Intro to Baking to Baking and Pastry. Also a side note, i'm not much of a baker. Don't get me wrong I love to make pies and cakes and everything, just don't ask me to decorate them. And shaping dough into different knots, yeah I don't have the patience for that. But now from that class I know how to make a simple soft dough, pate a choux (used to make éclairs, cream puffs and other pastries) and pastry cream. It was well worth it to take the class, but that doesn't mean it was easy for me haha.

The next class I went to, I thought would be really difficult but it turned out to be the opposite. We had the coolest, calmest teacher who reminded me a lot of the dad sea turtle off of Finding Nemo. Soups, Stocks and Sauces actually turned out to be a lot of fun. Mostly knife cutting to make mire poix (2 parts onions, 1 part celery, 1 part carrots) to make stocks, and other cuts so we could make sauces. I feel better about my knife skills now because of that class and I can proudly say I know all the mother sauces and have made most of them. (Different types of roux's shown below)

Today will be day seven of Traditional European Cuisine. If you can braise and stew you can pass this class because that is about 90% of what it is. I actually think this is the hardest lab I've been in so far. It's the first time we've had to plate food (we serve our food to the dining room), and it is a lot more fast paced. But I really enjoy it so far, but really can you not like a class where it's main ingredients are meat and potatoes.

I've been involved in a couple clubs while being here. My main three that I like a lot are Book Club, Random Acts of Kindness (R.A.K) and my Democrat Club.

My roommates (except one) and I all go to book club every Friday. Right now we're reading Uchic, The College Girl's Guide to Everything. It's an alright book but its more of an index. We're talking about maybe keeping the club together and starting another book soon so i'm really excited about that.

For R.A.K, we do just what it says. We've only gone to one event but it was a lot of fun. It was called Trunk or Treat and it was for inner city kids to come and get free candy from our parking lot where it was safe to be out at night. My roommates and I made crayon costumes out of fabric and hot glue and decorated my car with cardboard to make it look like a crayon box. Very fun night, and I enjoy the club too.

I feel like I get the most out of my Democrat Club. I get a hard time because my roommates call it my "I Love Obama" club. But I deal and go anyways. I doubt I have many readers so I don't mind getting too political. But last night we talked about health care and how many people it would benefit if it was nation wide. Yes I've heard the arguments (taxes will go up, we won't get to choose our doctors, etc.) but the thing is right now businesses (not all do) pay for their employee's health coverage. For a small business that is a substantial cost. With our companies having extra costs we aren't able to compete as well with other countries companies who don't have that cost. I don't know how the bill is going to be thrown all around and eventually settled but if we only have to pay higher taxes, those same people will be saving money with their businesses. Not to mention the millions of people who don't have health care because they can't afford it. People's health shouldn't be an option.

So in these past two and a half months I've learned quite a bit, been involved as much as possible and have enjoyed my time being "independent". Oh and I've learned how to iron haha. If you're coming to Culinary School you better know how to iron because your jackets have to be pristine. But anyways to wrap this up, if you're reading please leave me a comment, i'm starting to think the only people who read this are my friends.

And I promise I won't take so long to post again.

All my love,

Emily