Day 71

I got my pastillage done today!  Well, at least as done as I could today.  I have to wait on it to dry (possibly done by tomorrow) and then I have to paint it and put it all together but that's the easy part!

Here's what I've got so far:

These will be the background for my display, they're the hills from Super Mario!!  

The only thing is, I did run out of pastillage before I made the brace to make it stand up, so I will either have to make some more or use some of someone else's if they have extra.  In the mean time, I am going to do my chocolate piece tomorrow and hopefully start my sugar piece.  I would like to have all of my showpieces done this week so that I can spend all of next week making the food for the buffet.

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.

Day 69--Menu Project Day!

Today was Cuh-raaaaaay-zeee.  I cannot tell you how glad I am that it's over!  I'm super exhausted and I've only had a few hours of sleep in the last few days.  That being said, things went very well.

We basically had 3 hours to prep in the kitchen today, an hour to get everything we needed together/finish things and then it was go time.  We had 15 minutes to plate 2 desserts (I know it doesn't sound like much but when you're super nervous and shaky and forgot to draw your stupid diagrams, the time goes FAST).  So at 6:45pm we started plating the plate going out for service (which was my pastry) and one of the other 3 of our choosing.  At 7:00pm, while Chef was evaluating the ones we'd finished, we started plating another of the service plates for our classmates to evaluate and one of the remaining two.  At 7:15pm, we plated the last dessert.  It was a nerve-wracking but somewhat enjoyable process and I feel pretty proud of what I did.

If you remember, my connecting element was ginger between all the plates but I challenged myself to introduce it in new ways each time.  First up was my custard.

Dream A Little Dream

Orange dreamsicle cheesecake topped with vanilla buttercream and a candied orange slice dipped in ginger sugar, garnished with ginger creme anglaise.

Next was my chocolate piece:

The Number 42

(because chocolate is the answer)

A layer of Devil's Food Cake, topped with ginger chocolate mousse, wrapped in a tempered chocolate band and garnished with white chocolate, chocolate sauce and raspberry coulis.

My fruit dish:

Princess Peach

White peach slices coated in ginger sugar lining a caramel batter bowl and filled with raspberry curd.  Garnished with ginger creme anglaise and raspberry coulis.

And last but certainly not least, my service plate and what I hope will be one of the signature dishes of *nom*:

The iTart

A triple ginger cookie crust filled with thinly-sliced apples and brandied cherries, topped with crumble topping and served with vanilla bean ice cream in a caramel bowl, garnished with caramel sauce and the cherry brandy juice cooked down into a sauce.

It was definitely a learning experience and there are a few things I would change but over all I am happy.  And glad it's done.  So very glad.  My scores on my plates were decent two 17's and two 18's out of 20.  I won't know my full project scores until Thursday since there are two more groups yet to go.  

The best part?  I have fabulous friends!  I had 8 people come out to support me and it was wonderful!  I could feel the love all the way in the kitchen. 

Up front is Liza, I've known her since we were little and it was her birthday!  <3

From the back left, Brandon (who I had not met in person, he's another hotel vampire like me), Chanelle in the back right, Victoria next to her, then Roy, then Gloria and Matt.  And of course, front left, my lovely friend Vincent, who I could not have done this without (at least not as sanely as I did).

Thank you again to everyone who came, it means so much to me and I am really happy I got to share this with all of you. <3 <3 <3!!!

Sunday-Prep Day

I have now basically spent every waking moment (that I'm not at work) at school since Thursday.  I did run some errands on Friday and Saturday morning but I'll say more about that later.  

I got a couple of pictures of my prep work today as I spent 10 hours in the kitchen trying to get ready for tomorrow.  I still am not where I'd like to be but I feel much better.  Poor Vince has had to bring me down a couple of times in the past couple of days when I got too agitated.  I pretty much had a panic attack last night before work.  <3's to him!

I made candied oranges dipped in ginger sugar....SO TASTY!  These are for my custard dessert

These are for my service plate. :-D

So here's some interesting news!  Friday I went to an interview at a restaurant for my externship, only to discover when I got there that the pastry chef that I talked to Wednesday to set up the interview had either been fired or quit the day before...so...yay.  I called the coordinator at school and left a message but I don't know what will happen with it.  Saturday, after getting up far too early to drive out to BFE to run an errand, I went to a working interview at Pix Patisserie.  They had me make caramel ganache and I think it came out ok.  I feel pretty good about it.  I had fun but I'm not sure it's the place for me.  They don't really have a real kitchen.  There's no stove, just a microwave and basically a two-burner hotplate. Also, they listen to NPR all day and I'm not sure I could take it (sorry Mom).  Anyway, we'll see.  Trying to keep my options open until I HAVE to make a decision.  I don't want to get stuck somewhere I won't be happy with. 

Wish me luck tomorrow.

Day 68

Ok, so everything is scaled out and ready to be made.  The production isn't very interesting so far so I didn't take any pictures. I did get my ice cream made today for my service plate.  I am definitely not where I need to be and have a feeling I will be at school all weekend to make up for it.  I only have 3 hours on Monday to prep everything and I am such a perfectionist (and insist on making everything complicated and fancy) that it's going to take me some time.

I've already had one nervous break down on this project, we'll see how the weekend goes.

Chef has been demo-ing things and talking about the requirements for our next big project but I can't think about that right now.  I am having a hard enough time keeping myself together as it is.  I will worry about it Tuesday.

Day 67

I managed to get all of my plates done today, which is good since tomorrow is my prep day for my menu project.  I have been making lists and lists and more lists of things I need, recipes, scaling information, etc while I'm at work but I am not feeling confident that I will get everything I need to do done.  I already know I have to come in this weekend since my stuff won't last the weekend, but...ugh.

Anyway, here are my final four check-off plates before our two big projects and the end of term.

This was a pear poached in spiced red wine and placed on top of a ball of vanilla ice cream.  I wanted to put more on the plate but couldn't decide what, nothing looked right

This is more of the vanilla ice cream but I mixed some brandied cherries that I made a week ago into it with a cold stone (that was fun!) and made a little caramel bowl for it.  The smudges on the plate were caramel sauce cherries but I forgot to take a picture before Chef Hall checked it off. Oh well.  He loved the ice cream!

This was strawberry sorbet in a tempered chocolate cup with a tuile garnish.  Tuiles are paper thin little cookies that can be shaped when they're hot, kind of like the fortune cookies.  

Finally, my chocolate marquis.  It's a frozen mousse that's quite tasty.  I was attempting to make it into a Mayan temple with a road leading to...well, somewhere that has a giant strawberry rose but Chef didn't get it and had to ask what I was going for.  Oh well, true genius is never appreciated. ;-P

Tomorrow should be interesting, we'll see how much I actually get done.  

Day 66

Well today was a complete waste of emotion.  Absolutely nothing went right today and I got nothing done...it was just not my day.

WHAT?  It's not Monday??? 

Aw, Crap.