Continue to be the bigger person and do what you can to deal with your useless partner. It will reflect well on you and show that you are able to work with people who are difficult. That's an important quality to have in any business.

quote:

Originally posted by dolmansaxlil:
Continue to be the bigger person and do what you can to deal with your useless partner. It will reflect well on you and show that you are able to work with people who are difficult. That's an important quality to have in any business.

I'm doing my best. I only have to deal with him for another 3 weeks and then we're off to different classes. I can usually deal with useless people, but when it messes up my hard work...very little patience.

Last night went better than I thought it would! I got 39/45 (86%) on my practical (on eclairs and fresh fruit tart). If we didn't have the lumpy pastry cream I would have gotten an A. Oh well. Got a 96% on the written, I only missed two questions! Woohoo

If I did the math right I should have a 92 in the class, the practicals keep dragging down my grade. Ugh. Don't know what else I can do to prepare for them, I study, I practice at home, I ask questions, I stay after class to get help. Oh well.

I was Kitchen Manager last night. That was pretty funny. I have no desire to run a kitchen of 20 people. I don't like raising my voice. But I did it and got it done, glad I won't have to do that again this class!

Don't remember if I mentioned my Chef fell down the stairs last week. He's fine but banged up and sore so he's switching to teaching Accounting at the other campus so he can sit. Our new Chef S is great as well. He's not as technical as Chef W but I think he'll be fun to learn from. He and his wife, also a Chef at SCI, have been on the Food Network often (most recently was over the summer but they just filmed something yesterday too) and together they won 1st place in the 2006 National Bread and Pastry Team Championship, etc. Good guy to learn from even if he isn't a certified master baker .

Pictures!

Eclairs and fruit tart from the practical:





Blitz puff pastry:

Oh my. I'm coming to visit. I just hope I get there before Doug.

I live closer!! I'll get there first!!!

. There's always baked goods in this house, whether it's from class or practicing for practicals. Plenty for everyone and then some. Please take it all away!

I do like to start my day with a tart...

quote:

Originally posted by Doug:
I do like to start my day with a tart...

SM is now spoiled. A good day starts with a tart. A bad day starts without a tart. Guess who's making a ton of tarts?

quote:

Originally posted by musicasacra:

quote:

Originally posted by apple*:
i sure am enjoying this thread and suggest you save your posts as a journal... sometimes posts are lost here.

it's really fun to read.

True, she could have a blog. I was required to keep a journal for my Europe MBA class so I wrote daily blog entries with photos. Now I can go back to that blog anytime, and it's full of details I have since forgotten.

I was thinking the same thing, this would make a great blog! I love reading all of this, and the pictures are even better!

quote:

Originally posted by Doug:
I do like to start my day with a tart...

I'll bet you do.

Today went okay. We had our first 100pt exam in my Sanitation class. Spelling counted on this one and they're long evil scientific names for icky pathogens and germies that we're being trained to keep away from food. I answered all of the questions right...and lost 20pts because I mixed my "e"s and "a"s up on a lot of works (1pt off per LETTER and there were ~15 names. Ugh). So I got an 80, but I had a 100 in the class so now I have a 90? I hope. Sigh.

We met our new Chef in our kitchen class today, he will be our Chef for the rest of the class. He's very nice and is an amazing Chef (I think their next Food Network Challenge will air in the Spring! They taped it last week, not telling the results! FN has talked about doing a challenge just between him and his wife Tracy (they're partners in all competitions) which would be so cool. They're game because then either way the $10,000 comes home ). He's less technical in his production work but still great to learn from. He's a huge stickler about looking professional, which we understand...but our last Chef understood that baking can sometimes be messy. I got in trouble because I had flour on my shoes during production . Oops. Not very professional of me. I iron all of my uniforms but he wants them starched and ironed. Ugh. Polishing my shoes is the last thing on my list to do. Way below laundry and pulling weeds in the front yard. Maybe I can talk SM Sr into doing it...he's gotten really good at polishing work boots. My kitchen shoes are just short versions of those

Today we made chocolate sponge cake aka chocolate genoise. Sounds so much fancier! We also made a yellow butter cake and Italian buttercream. No pictures since we just made everything. Tomorrow we're making the chocolate genoise into a black forest cake and icing it with the Italian buttercream. We're also making a simple buttercream. Then I think the day after that we're learning boarders and script and making the butter cake into a pretty happy birthday cake.

quote:

Originally posted by Muffin's sister:
....we're learning boarders and script and making the butter cake into a pretty happy birthday cake.

From what I've seen, you could teach that portion of the class.

Too bad about spelling--it seems weird that they would care about that. I can understand being concerned about not being messy, because it's creepy if you think that the person doing your food prep isn't clean. But flour on your shoes? That seems uber-picky to me.

Thanks Nina

I completely understand the not being messy part. But how are you supposed to roll out bread or whatever without being messy? It's a messy process! Then you clean up your mess immediately after.... Oh well. Now we just have to be really careful since we only have one practical and one exam left in the last week. Meaning our only grades until then are our station grades and I bet that'll be based on our produced product and uniform/cleanliness during production!

Last night was a disaster! My partner didn't show up so I was on my own. We had a TON to do and I got stuck with the small mixer bowl (most of them are ~9qts and there's 4 or 5 that are ~7qts) so I didn't make his product (a couple different buttercreams, usually if your partner isn't there you should pick up their slack... but he's a jerk and the one that decided not to show up and I could barely keep my head afloat just me). I was so swamped. We were supposed to make a couple buttercreams then use one of them to ice/decorate our Black Forest cake (we baked the cake the class before). By the time I had one cream made and part of the other one scaled out to be mixed the whole rest of the class was onto decorating their cakes. I got reamed out by Chef and a snobby student and was just so overwhelmed and in the weeds. Had a little anxiety attack. One of the guys in my class that just doesn't get that I'm happily married took me out in the hall for a minute and helped me chill for a minute. That helped a lot. Went back in and slopped together my cake. I could barely see I was so flipped out. I got a B and didn't bother to take pictures of it when I got home. So disappointed in myself but just couldn't do it anymore. Doesn't help that no one can leave class until the whole kitchen is cleaned and I was just starting to work on my cake while other students were mopping up so they all stood and stared at me until I was done.

Thankfully the nice guy that doesn't get that I'm married helped by taking care of all of my dishes so they didn't all just stand there and do nothing.

Tonight was a little better. My partner showed up. All we had to do was make/bake lady fingers for tiramisu tomorrow and fill/decorate our butter cake. Our lady fingers got a little too brown since they only took literally 4 minutes in the ridiculous ovens and we got distracted. Then we spent the rest of the class fighting with the cake Chef makes it look SO easy. I didn't have any crumbs in my icing but my edges weren't "square" and my script needs a LOT of work . But I managed an A! Surprising.

I'm starting to feel dragged out. I'm really excited about working on Saturday but that's all day and then Andrew and I have plans to go to the zoo with a play group on Sunday, all day. Wish I had a little time to just lie on the floor and not have to do anything than play with toys with my kid. Maybe next weekend!