Happy Summer!

Well hello summer!!!! This semester has been one crazy ride, classes started to pick up and I honestly just fell behind.  My apologies and I plan on not only sharing a lot of the adventures from this summer but also going back and sharing some of the lessons from my classes as well. 

            One of the big things currently going on with us is that our oldest cat Midori has come down with some kind of random skin infection and after two different vet visits, one MUCH better then the other, we are finally starting to see some good progress.  But that also means she’s trapped in our guest room. 

As you can see above she’s not really loving the whole process.  The scary part is they still don’t know what’s going on with her.  Fingers crossed the new meds will help though.

            I have also started a new part time job.  I work in the bakery department of the Needham Sudbury Farms.  My first full week was last week and while I was really nervous, I am really loving it.  It’s been a long time since I’ve worked with the public in a customer service role.  But I find that I am actually good at it and enjoy it.  Presently though, I am not actually baking anything.  Which for me is sad though, I am hoping to start getting things balanced time wise and baking one new thing a week to share with you all! 

            I am planning on doing one weekly update of what’s going on with us, and another update of things I learned in school.  Starting on June 1^st we will move up to three entries a week and hopefully have a few parenting topics to talk about as well, as there are things going on with Gray that I would like to share and hopefully get some feedback from you all!  I hope your still reading and you enjoy our new logo!   

Catching up

School officially started for me on January 19^th, obviously this blog started after that so I am going to play a little catch up so you can be involved in every moment and so I can try and remember all the small events that occurred during this life changing adventure.

My first class I will fully admit I was a nervous wreck.  I didn’t feel prepared, especially without my full uniform and knife set.  I had ordered everything at Orientation the prior Tuesday but there was no way they would be in before that following Saturday.  So that Saturday morning I drove to the Green Line station with my (husbands) backpack full of my textbooks (4 massive ones I might add) and a notebook and took the train in.   From the train station I hopped onto the schools provided shuttle (a service I didn’t know existed until orientation after I had already walked the ½ a mile UP hill) and got to the dining room/lecture hall where the head of the Adult Continuing Ed program was waiting for me with a large box containing a loaner uniform!!!

Here is my first photo in my first chef shirt….

I hope you enjoy the bathroom fixtures from where I got changed :)

 

The class is small, there are only 5 of us and even worse (for Chef) 4 of us are Pastry students, and women.  Chef is a graduate of Johnson and Wales with a solid Savory background.  Needless to say I think he may have gotten the short end of the stick with this group.   Class runs from 8am to 4pm (most days) with an hour break for Lunch. 

There are lots of notes, from both of our 3-hour lectures, 1-2 hours in the kitchen involving knife skills and product identification and then a lot of reading assigned afterwards for at home.   Our first week also included our first paper; we had to describe the experience of eating a single food.  I chose an avocado, mostly because it meant I got to bring one home which I don’t do often as Wally doesn’t eat them and it’s hard for me to eat a whole one alone.  But thankfully, Grayson appears to love them as much as I do so we will be bringing them home more and more. 

Week 2 involved a lot more product identification; our “food journals” are these pages of blank charts that Chef has made with groups of different foods.  We spent 3 hours alone on herbs and spices, so as you can tell it’s intensive.  But I love it; it’s fast paced, overwhelming at times.  But I really love it and I’m starting to find my groove. 

Happy snow day!

Well sadly, class has been cancelled for tomorrow. I know I maybe one of the few who is actually sad about this but I really enjoy class, plus its one of my few days baby free right now. We are about 45 mins west of Boston. For those of you watching the map that would be smack in the center of the "pivot point" of this lovely storm called Nemo, anyone else find it weird that its named after a Pixar character? I mean I am sure there are other memos in the world or history etc but let's be honest everyone is really thinking about that little lost fish...anyways. Being that lovely pivot point means that we have the chance to be the ever so lucky recipients of 30 plus inches of snow. I have never hoped for something to be so wrong before!

The three of us are hunkered down with movies, snacks, jammies and lots of spare firewood in case our power goes out. I am hoping to use this time to catch you all up on classes thus far. Last week was exciting and involved a lot of cooking from Chef and I even snuck a few photos for you. Hopefully we don't lose our internet before I can get everything up. Stay warm everyone!

Welcome to the chaos

Hi all...

Thanks for joining in on my grand adventure!  As you see in the about me section, I have a few things going on.  I wanted to follow my travels through Pastry school as a record for myself and something my son Grayson can see later on when he gets older and wonders... "why was my mom so crazy when I was little?"

First a little background.  My husband Wally and I got married in June of 2011, I accepted a brand new job as we were heading to the airport for our honeymoon.  A 12 day cruise of Italy, we had an amazing time, a few too many martini's from the beautiful martini bar and came back to find out 3 weeks later that maybe that martini bar was a little TOO much fun.  Our son Grayson was born in March, and I was laid off from that new job in June. 

After the initial fear and shock of it wore off, Wally looked at me and asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  While I had loved my old job, I wasn't loving where my career was heading.  I couldn't think of anything that I would really want to do for the rest of my life.  So I thought, thought and thought, only to have my answer be "Well if we had a million dollars (who wouldn't love that option right) I would be a cupcake baker." 

I should mention now, I am a very lucky lady.  My husband has not only been one of the most supportive people in my life but he is also my best friend.  He allows me to vent, he's a great dad and he actually tells me to do things I always think I can't.  So that September we started Sweet To The Core, and I started a search for Culinary school option that wouldn't cost us our house but would provide a good education at the same time.  Needless to say Johnson and Wales, the CIA and Cambridge School of Culinary Arts were out (did you know that most of them don't offer financial aid options!)

This January, for the first time in .....12 years I attended a college orientation.  Ordered my uniforms and knife set (WOO HOO KNIVES) and started this adventure.  I hope to share every week with you something I've done, made or learned in this process and maybe inspire a few others to do what they love.  So...let the adventure begin!

Just so you can see everyone.  This is my little family and our first Christmas card together.  This beautiful photo (and so many others) was taken by the wonderful Colleen Dolan.
www.colleendolanphoto.com