Day 70

OMG I was completely useless today.  My brain is just fried after last night and the lack of sleep certainly hasn't helped!  I was supposed to start on my showpieces for my next project, the buffet project, which is due next Friday (the 13th) but since I really didn't have any idea what I wanted to do, I spent all day in the computer lab trying to plan out what exactly the food on the buffet would be.

The term "buffet" is a little misleading in this instance since it's really just a tray full of small items and 3 show pieces.  So here are the Terms and Conditions:

I have to have a minimum of 27 pieces of food on the buffet.  3 categories, 3 items from each and 3 pieces of each item. Confused yet?  So the first category is pastries, which encompasses a lot but the most important factor is that each item must be 3-6 bites.  This includes tartlets, cream puffs, puff pastry, etc.  The second is petit fours which need to be 2-3 bites and is also pretty well anything; cookies, small cakes, etc.  The last category should be 1-2 bites and is candies and accessories; filled chocolates, truffles, jellies, I could go on... I've pretty well designed my menu for it and, once again, it has a theme. Liquor! Because who doesn't like BOOZE??

The showpieces will be a bit more difficult.  There have to be 3 of them, one a minimum of 6"w x 10"t and the other two have to be at least 3"w x 5"t.  I have to make one of them out of pastillage, kind of like a clay that will dry hard, one out of chocolate and one out of sugar.  The sugar piece itself has to have 3 elements, a cast piece (pouring liquid sugar into a mold to set), a pulled sugar piece and a blown piece (kind of like blown glass).  I was becoming very frustrated because everything I came up with kept getting shot down by finding out more about the requirements for the pieces so tonight, when I got home, Vince helped me come up with a new plan.  MARIO! YAYYYY!  I am excited about it and will start on it tomorrow. :-D

Oh!  In all the excitement yesterday, I forgot to mention that I got a call from Pix and they offered me the position as an extern.  I haven't called back (I just haven't had time) but I am going to let her know that I appreciate it and I am definitely considering it but that I'd like to keep my options open for a little while longer.  I am still not a big fan of the idea of doing everything in the microwave.  I'm going to spend some time this weekend exploring other places and see what I can find.