haveilearnedtocookyet

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My Final for Bakeshop I passed:)  The black box challenge was interesting. The hard part was getting the menu printed. We went into the kitchen. We got to choose from a number of hotel pans with ingredients in them. From there we had to go upstairs and print out a menu and a work plan for our afternoon. Everything seemed to be going well until I hit print. Then nothing happened. Ana said, “send it to your email and print from there”. I couldn’t open my email. She said,”send it to your Facebook and print from there. I couldn’t remember my FB password. By this time I was in a complete panic. We were only given 30 minutes to do this a be back downstairs. That should have been plenty of time. I was looking at my finished product but unable to make it jump off the screen and into my hands. As I burst into tears Ana said, “don’t worry, I will email it to myself and print it off for you”. She totally came to my rescue. She took her precious time to help me. Without that help I would not have been allowed to produce my final plate. I will forever be grateful for Ana.

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My Moroccan dessert Date with almond paste stuffing Rich Chocolate cake Vanilla biscuits dipped in chocolate Cranberry reduction Such a pretty way to end the meal

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More Moroccan Dinner Lamb Tangier Zucchini ribbons Lemon and Pomegranate Couscous

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Moroccan Briouats This past Wednesday was my International dinner. I was so nervous. It was a lot of work. Choosing the menu, converting the recipes, creating a table menu, putting in the requisition form and discussing my choices with the Chefs. Preparing and giving a presentation in the dinningroom in front of 70 hungry people. At the end of the day I was so pleased with how it all came together. Thanks to the great help from my class of Culinary arts students.

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Moroccan Briouats This past Wednesday was my International dinner. I was assigned Morocco. It was a lot of work. Choosing the menu, converting the recipes, creating the table menu, giving a 5 min presentation infront of 70 hungry people. It couldn't have turned out better. At the end of the day I was so pleased and especially grateful for the rest of the Culinary arts class that made it so perfect.

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A Surprise Cake

We went to the McAdam train station today to see there Christmas display they put on every year. In a very country Christmas room was this cake. It represents a log with plaid cake inside. This must have been a lot of work. I love the way they did the bark with chocolate. http://mcadamstation.ca/events/

I got a post on FB this week that said FB is deleting posts with Nativity scenes. I’m not really sure how the administration of FB works but I am a little tired of the whole thing. If my posting a picture of the Nativity scene offends someone they can just scroll past. If I say Merry Christmas and they take offence that is there problem not mine. I am not asking everyone to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ the same way I do any more then my Jewish friends ask me to celebrate Hanukkah with the same feeling and devotion they show. 

I love Christmas trees. I don’t think they need to be called holiday trees:(

It’s time to get ready for Christmas. Time to celebrate. Time for good food and family and friends. Time to be thankful and generous and kind. Time to let our best selves shine.

[haveilearnedtocookyet]

10 posts!

Oh my

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The Fundy Foot path. This is the one hike I thought I could get done this year. The year is quickly coming to a close and I have not done it. Labour day weekend I had it planned then someone really needed my help. Sept and Oct flew by with school and practicum. I watched the date the gates close for the season pass by. This would now add another 11km to my hike in addition to the 8.4 in Fundy park at the beginning for a total of 65km. 

When I got back from the AT everyone said good job, well done BUT have you done the Foot Path. Like it was some extraordinary challenge that compared in some way to hiking 2189.1 miles for 159 days!  I just want to do it to say that I have and to be able to tell them how it compares to the AT. There were a few people I know who did it this summer. They took five days to do it. The fastest I know of was a trail runner who took 28 hours to do the 45.6 km. I planned to be in Alma early Fri morning, do 20km a day and be picked up by 6pm Sun evening. Well it didn’t happen. My son needed my help Fri. My friend wanted to visit family in New Hampshire and I was the only one who could look after her 30 year old horse. I happily do this all the time for her BUT not THIS weekend:( My husband was delighted I wasn’t going. He said it was too cold. I know it would have been cold. Honestly I’m sure I would have had a great time all by myself.

Ok, I’m getting depressed talking about this. I will get it done. Probably not when there is snow and ice. Too many river crossings for that

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Sounds like you have a great practicum. The staff there sound really encouraging. You where the star of the show at the carving station. 

Obscuring the “Autumn in Orillia”

I love offsite catering gigs. It’s like a mystery bag, the only prior knowledge I had of the function was the bolded phrase “offsite 1-1030″  branded on my work schedule. I went into work saturday ecstatic to find out where the funcion would be held, aswell as who I would be working with.

After arriving at the Delta, It was unveiled that we would be working a 500 person function with  live stations for the grand reopening of the Beaverbrook art gallery. The Delta kitchen was simultainiously prepping for 2 seperate other functions besides the one i had been tasked to, needless to say kitchen staff was spread thin, timelines were tight, and oven capacity was maxed out. 

I am noticing a difference in the workplace now since the beginning of practicum in particular, I notice my coworkers, for lack of a better term “turning up the heat”. For example saturday afternoon while we were prepping hor d’ourves for the art gallery function, my first task was to garnish 7 full baking sheets worth of cristinies with fig compote and brie cheese. Greg Godfrey, the head Chef of the Delta kitchen, whom also happend to be managing the art gallery offsite, walks up behind me and asked me how long I thought it’d take to garnish all those cristinies: the man is 7 ft tall and naturally intimidating, so it kind of put me on the spot. I estimated 10 minutes a tray so a little more than an hour total. Chef places a loonie next to my toolbox and said “I bet you cant do it in an hour.”  I naively accepted the bet and began garnishing. in total it took me an hour and 15 minutes to complete them all, and the whole time everyone on my prep team was cheering the bet on. honestly I loved it, its a sense of community, being surrounded by people who push me to grow, improve and succeed.

finanly after 5 hours of prep cooking we began to load the event truck and prepare for service, it wasn’t until I was changing into clean whites, that I began to get the butterflies. We split into teams of two, covering 3 satelite stations in different wings of the art gallery, there was a oyster station, a sushi station &  a carving station. I was tasked to the carving station, I carved while my coworker Zack prepared open-face beef tenderloin sliders with pickled sweet onions, sliced tomato and horseradish Aoli sauce. 

It was an interesting night, it felt like people were more excited for the food and drinks than they were the art. Ive been thinking about what an awesome opportunity it was to go be able to see the art before it was open to the public. it was truly wild standing in a room full of donors & VIP’s, all tipsily excited to watch me slice beef..

[haveilearnedtocookyet]

Some times school is fun

The tall guy in the middle is one of our teachers. The lady with the cap on is me:)  I taped a red seal to my jacket. I figured that was scary enough for Halloween.

This past week has been much less stressful at school. It was much needed by all of us I think.

I am still struggling to find balance between school, family, and personal space. I really need me own, by myself, de-stress  time. Most of the time an hour walking will do it for me. Lately all I think about while walking is the list of things I have to do at home, ha ha, not helpful.

Well, the time has changed. Winter is coming on. Daylight is shorter. The thing to do now is make the most of the daylight we have. Be grateful I live in town and have lighted streets to walk on. And just generally try not to hibernate. Embrace winter it’s coming. Ok, snow shoe, skate, cross-country ski. Winter camping humm:)

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My practicum hours are finished

http://www.europainn.com/  This first semester we need 90hrs in a kitchen outside of school . Not at home, haha. I choose the Europa. It is a beautiful place owned by Chef Markus Ritter and his wife Simone. We are a very small town here in St.Andrews NB and I count myself very lucky to have gotten this one practicum spot with Markus.

I learned to make Spatzle, Beet Carpaccio, Blaubeer Grutze and French Onion Soup Markus style. I was constantly surprised at how much fun I had with Markus. At first he thought I might be a little deaf. I had to get him to repeat himself several times. Not good when you are trying to help in a hurry. I’m not deaf yet:) Markus has a very thick German accent. It didn’t take long for me to figure out what I had to do.

I got my 90 hours done between Oct 4 and Oct 28. This and school and family and other odd jobs I do for everyone has left me exhausted. I haven’t had much time to walk the dog never mind get any hiking in. I wonder what my family would say if I took off on a hiking vacation for Christmas break, hummm.

[haveilearnedtocookyet]

Fine dinning in the woods

This picture is from Tuesday August 2 2016, Shaker Campsite Massachusetts Mile 1538.2 of my Appalachian trail thru hike.  www.trailjournals.com/Hazel

It is such a luxury to be able to sit down at a picnic table to eat at the end of a long day. I love meeting people and finding out what brought them on their hike. Some people are just out for a short time. Some are out to attempt the whole trail all 2189.1 miles. One in four people with this goal will complete it. I am one. 

The trail is really life in a capsule. The beginning, the middle, the end. Did you reach your goal? Did you know where you were going? Did you get lost? Did you allow others to divert you from your progress or change your course all together? Did you quit when it was too hard? Did you ask for help when you needed it? Did you accept help? Did you offer to help? Did you make the world a better place today because you are here? Note: I try to do this by picking up trash but if I am able to help someone it is a bonus day.

All these questions could really be asked of the students at school. Something brought them to this course. They must have goals and hopes for their future. I guess it’s the” Mom” in me that worries about the ones that are not in class regularly.

[haveilearnedtocookyet]

Fine dinning in the woods

This picture is from Tuesday August 2 2016, Shaker Campsite Massachusetts Mile 1538.2 of my Appalachian trail thru hike.  www.trailjournals.com/Hazel

It is such a luxury to be able to sit down at a picnic table to eat at the end of a long day. I love meeting people and finding out what brought them on their hike. Some people are just out for a short time. Some are out to attempt the whole trail all 2189.1 miles. One in four people with this goal will complete it. I am one. 

The trail is really life in a capsule. The beginning, the middle, the end. Did you reach your goal? Did you know where you were going? Did you get lost? Did you allow others to divert you from your progress or change your course all together? Did you quit when it was too hard? Did you ask for help when you needed it? Did you accept help? Did you offer to help? Did you make the world a better place today because you are here? Note: I try to do this by picking up trash but if I am able to help someone it is a bonus day.

All these questions could really be asked of the students at school. Something brought them to this course. They must have goals and hopes for their future. I guess it’s the” Mom” in me that worries about the ones that are not in class regularly.

[haveilearnedtocookyet]

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I’m proud of this little guy

More adventures in Culinary class. The Blitz Puff Pastry and Pastry Cream was fun to make and play with. I had never made the swan before so I was very happy to try it. I knew we had to make a sugar garnish for our plate so I looked up several different ideas and settled on a nest for my swan. I found out I love to play with sugar. No surprise there :)

The hardest part of my time here in school is all this computer stuff . Well I’ve already lamented over that. The second biggest challenge is the “kids” . Oops, Chef says not to call them kids. As a mature student I am old enough to be their MOM. They are all kids to me. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t think I am smarter then them . I have so much to learn. They are all so much smarter on the computer. It is wonderful how willing they are to help me.

I am loving my time with all the kids. They are friendly. There is one however who is somewhat annoying . For example he just asked, “can you burn pepper”. He is very funny and I hope he makes it here because the classes would be a little dry without him. One day he said to me, “is this the new adventures of old Christine , or the old adventures of new Christine”. He gave me something to think about. For some reason the Chefs put us in a team together. I don’t know if this was their idea of a joke or punishment, but I am glad of it because I am having fun. I’d like to thank this crazy guy for making me feel included in the class.

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the next adventure will be about my time in Culinary arts class.  I’ve been making a lot of changes in my life over the passed few years.  In 2016 I thru hiked the Appalachian trail, all 2189.1 miles of it. I had a lot of time to think about what I want to do with my life. I finished Sept 21 and started adult learning classes to prepare to write my GED.  I passed the exams and registered for community college. Here I am trying to figure out all kinds of new things, mainly computer related. I am very comfortable in the kitchen but I had never even heard of tumblr before. Tag windows, hashtags, hyperlinking and screen cast videos send me running for the woods. Just give me flour ,sugar and butter then something great will happen. Before I went on my hike I got a lot of negative comments. Like, “your quitting work to do what”, “what makes you think you can do that”, “you’re going alone are you crazy”. I got used to it. I shut them all up by DOING IT:) Now I am on my next adventure and I have interesting comments to listen to again. “ you have homework what is it - cooking dinner for your husband”. I guess the only thing to do is be successful here too. The difference this time is I don’t have to prove anything to anybody. I am doing this for myself and I plan to have fun.