Are you in love? Because this is salty...

Today we made puff pastry from scratch and crepes. My friend Allison made some crepes that apparently were very salty. The chef asked her if she was in love, because apparently women in love over salt their food. It was pretty funny. For me today was not the best. My first attempt at puff pastry was a fail, because I used the wrong flour. Attempt number two I ended up not adding enough water and the dough completely crumbled when I tried to fold in the butter block (literally a block) into it. Finally on attempt number 3, I got it right. My crepes were coming along quite well and was my saving grace for the day...I had them perfectly plated with my citrus sauce. I turned around to grab something off the stove and apparently the saran wrap had rolled off the shelf behind me, hit my crepe plate and off the counter it fell. My crepes obviously ruined and the plate shattered into about 100 pieces. Thankfully I did have one crepe left over, so I ended up presenting that one. It definitely was not my best one, but it had good flavor. I didn't dare ask my grade for the day haha! After 7 hours of class I grabbed an afternoon snack with my friend before heading back to my dorm. It was a nice way to unwind from the craziness of the day. I am getting excited, because my cousin Melissa is coming to visit me in a few weeks and my college roommate Naomi is coming for a few days. I cant wait to see them!

"You smell like Christmas dinner!"

Earlier this week I had to roast a chicken, make mashed potatoes, broccoli, and all the trimmings. It really wasn't too hard, which was nice. Well I had been in a hot kitchen with 10 other people making the same thing I was...obviously I smelled like chicken dinner. I got on the tube around 7:30 on Tuesday and it was quite crowded. There was a young business man standing next to me and about 5 seconds into our trip he said "well you just smell like Christmas dinner!"...haha awesome, just what I wanted to hear. Needless to say two showers and two days later I still smell like garlic.
Yesterday was quiche day and fruit tart day! Yum! It was really fun and I learned how to make the crust from scratch...which I have never made before. My teacher had just come from the school in Paris and did not speak English very well. Thankfully the guy I happened to be next to that day has his degree in French, so he translated for me. The chef was so nice, I just had no idea what he was saying half the time. Well this quiche has enough butter to clog all the arteries in your body and the filling had straight up heavy cream. I decided it would not be a good idea to take this home with me. I always see a few homeless people in the tube on my way home. Of course the one day I want to get rid of something they are not there. At my tube stop I finally saw one and gave him the quiche. He was very grateful. He did ask me if it would still be good in an hour because that is when he got off...sweet, I just gave my quiche to a professional beggar. Oh well, maybe I impacted him through my quiche Lorraine!
Only had one class today and we learned about puff pastry, crepes, and brioche. I am thinking it will also not be a good idea for me to take that home tomorrow. After class my friend Jasmine, Carmen, and I went to a little cafe/specialty cheese shop...I don't know why, but cheese keeps appearing in my blog. Anyways, it is SO cute and they have all kinds of crazy things like candied lilac blooms. After that we went to a few specialty kitchen stores to get a few more things we needed. I got to talk with some friends on skype tonight and that was really fun. More to come!

Blowtorches are dangerous...

Boiled Chicken...well apparently in England the whole chickens have not been completely cleaned (inside and out). Let me tell you it was fun to smell an unclean raw chicken at 9 in the morning. We had to blowtorch the remaining feathers and skin off before we could cook our chickens. The girl next to me caught a paper towel on fire when she was using the blowtorch...thankfully we put it out before the chef saw what had happened. We are still laughing about it.
Creme Brulee...is there really anything better than that?? Answer: No, there isn't. I learned to make Creme Caramel, Creme Brulee, Creme Anglaise, fruit coulis (which sounds fancy, but its just fruit and sugar cooked down), and Tuile biscuits. Pastry has be so much fun, because you get to be so creative with your plating. Tuile biscuit cookies have been a lot of fun to make, because you can decorate them anyway you want. When they are hot you can twist them and stretch them into really cool things. For example, if you make a leaf shaped cookie you can twist it when it is warm and it looks really realistic. I turned mine into butterfly wings and put them on either side of my Creme Caramel...the chef liked it so much he is going to use it for himself next time! We had to use our blowtorches to finish the Creme brulee...we were a little hesitant...nothing caught on fire this time thankfully.
Yesterday I went to see Legally Blonde the Musical. The theater was very small, but the show was great! There was a group sitting in front of us, who were friends with the girl who plays Vivian in the show. We were all very disappointed when they did not invite us to go to the cast party with them.
After about 12 days of absolutely NO sunshine, we finally have a sunny day! I am off to picnic in Hyde Park and soak up some rays that will hopefully last me until the next sunny day.

You can get a degree in cheese...

Today we had a 3 hour cheese lecture. It was actually incredibly interesting. The man who came to talk to us has his degree in the history of cheese and apparently there are only a handful of people who have that degree in the world. He is one of 3 in all of Great Britain. He travels and gives lectures on cheese to all the most luxurious restaurants and hotels in the world, the Savoy and the Ritz to name a few.
Fun facts to know and tell….did you know that the original confectionaries started from cheese makers. We tried a type of cheese today, which is made in the Netherlands, and I kid you not tasted like caramel and cheese. It looked exactly like a caramel candy. It sounds gross, but it was just more different than gross. Guess how Nestle started?...yup cheese, or at least that is what the cheese expert told us. We were able to try some of the best cheeses from all over the world. We were able to taste some homemade Buffalo Mozzarella from Italy. Apparently there are only a few people in Italy who still can make it the old fashion way. They take the whey in their hands and dunk them in boiling hot water to make the mozzarella. Everyone in my class was squirming when the cheese expert was explaining the process. It is the best I have ever had…it sets a whole different standard for me now.
I also had my test on artichokes and turned carrots…have you ever tried to hand cut turned carrots?! It is really hard. Oh well even though my chef said that I “had the whole family of carrots” because they were all different sizes after I finished cutting them, they tasted pretty good.
Tomorrow is my test on stocks and boiled whole chicken. Just to give you a preview…I have to use a blowtorch to get off the extra feathers on the chicken.

You want me to do what?!

I forgot to add on my last post that during my fruit salad lesson we also learned how to make little sugar sculptures...which really ended up looking like little squiggles of sugar. It was so much fun. The only catch to it is that you have to get the sugar boiling and it has to be a particular temperature and consistency. Apparently the only way you can know what stage the sugar is at is by sticking your fingers in the boiling sugar. So yes, we had to soak our hands in freezing ice water (you know to make sure we could not feel our fingers) and then stick them into the boiling sugar. When our chef first mentioned it, I thought she was crazy. It was very daunting at first, but you honestly get used to it. After a few times, it actually was really fun and one of my favorite lessons.
Last night a group of about 5 of us from the dorm decided to go hangout at a little piano bar around the corner and we were going to meet up with one of our group members friends. When we got there we were just introducing ourselves and saying what countries we were all from. There was one girl from Texas. She had brought two of her friends who were studying abroad. I asked them where they were from and they said that they were from California, but went to Baylor. I just about fell off my chair in shock! What are the odds that I would meet them at a random neighborhood pub. It was really fun chatting with them and I think we may go see a show together next weekend.
Sunday Sam (my fashion school friend) and I decided to brave Oxford Street to catch some of the sales in the afternoon. Let me just say that we were not the only ones who had this idea. After a few hours of snowy London and very crowded stores, we decided to call it quits and come back to the dorm.

"yes chef, sorry chef, thank you chef"

The title of this entry just about says it all. During all of my classes we respond with "yes chef", "sorry chef", or "thank you chef". I have been going for 3 days and cooking 9 hours each day, and yes even Saturday. I have been having so much fun. Vinaigrettes, mayonnaise (making it makes me never want to eat it again), pastry creams, meringue cookies, and the most expensive fruit salad known to man kind. We started pastry class on Wednesday and I am getting to work with some incredible ingredients. I learned how to cut a papaya and other exotic fruits that I have never even heard of before. I also learned how to turn half of an apple into a swan...thats right a swan! We made a fruit salad, which sounds super easy, but no. We had to make a simple syrup infused with some of the yummiest spices you will ever smell and cut the fruits in very specific ways...it took us almost 2 hours to make our fruit salads if that gives you any idea. We were able to be a little creative with our plating and that was so much fun. The pastry chef is so nice and she is very talented.
Thursday was my test on vinaigrettes and a few salads, the head chef said "oh wow thats actually quite good". I am taking that as a good thing, but every chef I have keeps saying the same thing to me. I am not sure if I should take that comment as I am doing a good job, or that their expectations were low and I happened exceeded them haha! I did not get home until 10:30 that night, so all I had for dinner was my fruit salad from class. We also learned how to make cocktail sauce and different mayonnaise's, along with the salads we have to put them on. It is funny sometimes you just don't think about how much labor goes into making mayonnaise, its actually quite a science...you also realize how bad it is for you after you make it.
Friday was a pastry filled day. I loved every minute of it! I learned how to make different varieties of pastry cream, which is basically heaven mixed with butter. That has been my most challenging task yet. Measuring the milk, getting it to the perfect temperature, add the sugar at the perfect time, making sure the butter is just the right consistency, and on it goes. We also started to learn how to pipe shapes. We made meringue cookies and piped them out making hearts, shells, and other little squiggles. After we baked them, we got to decorate them, dip them in chocolate, and put the fresh 'creme mousseline' (Kirsch flavored pastry cream) in-between two of the meringues. The danger with those things is that I brought them home...and they are the perfect size to pop in your mouth. I think I did my personal best during this exam, because once again the chef said "oh wow that is actually quite good". Didn't get home until late last night as well, so I had a granola bar for dinner...ironic that I am training in culinary school and I cant even make myself dinner. Friday night I also got to try to do laundry for the first time and that was an adventure. I cant believe I didn't ruin anything. The washer and dryer are in the basement and there are mouse traps in basically every corner downstairs. London is a big city and I know that those little critters can be a problem, but I was on 'high alert' when I was down there. Every sound I heard I thought was a mouse running at me.
Saturday we had a health and safety seminar all day. It was actually pretty interesting. Hopefully I passed the test this afternoon, so I can get my health and safety license. London is under a blanket of snow, which is very rare apparently. I walked through part of Hyde Park this afternoon on my way back to my dorm and everything looks like a fairy tale. All the beautiful buildings are covered with a dusting of snow. A few people I have met in the dorms and I are going to go take pictures of it tomorrow. About to go out with some friends from the dorm, more to come tomorrow.
PS...my julianne carrots are still too thick

There are many ways to cut vegetables...

Well I had my first official day of class. I did not have class until 4, so I got my cooking pants shortened and got some other things for my room. So I get to school and I get changed into my cooking uniform...I wish I could post pictures, but I am not allowed to put them on the internet. I will show them to you all when I get home. I look pretty funny in my uniform, but I am not going to lie it does make me feel a little bit more like I know what I am doing! Everyone in my classes are SO nice and helpful. The program is extremely intense. Basically I have a sit down observation/take notes class and then I have a hands on class in which I am graded on what we learned in the observation class. Today we learned how to cut vegetables in different ways and segment an orange with no skin. It sounds super simple, but it was actually kind of hard. Apparently my julienne carrots where not as thin as they should be :(. About half of my class has quite a bit of prior experience in the restaurant business, but there other half is in the same boat as me. I was the last one to leave the kitchen today, but I was not the last one to finish my dishes. It took me a while to clean up my mess. I have definitely learned that if I ever open a kitchen the first person I hire will be to clean up after me! We have them in our classes and they are called the porters. They are extremely helpful when you are rushing around the kitchen trying to finish a dish. I finished school at 9 and then headed back to the dorm. Thankfully there are many little cafe's open late, so I was able to pick up some dinner. Finally I got home at 10...I think there will be a lot of late nights. I am having a great time and I know that I am learning so much. Get excited for some fun dinner parties when I get home! Only one class tomorrow, but Thursday and Friday I have 3 (which equals 9 hours). More to come!

Wait whats your name?

Today was my first day of class and the jet lag finally hit. I woke up at all kinds of crazy times and was wide awake from 1:30am-6am. By 7:30 I was off and ready to brave the very cold streets of London. It is an experience just riding the tube in the morning. You stand next to all kinds of people (all whom look incredibly chic) ready to go to work dressed in: suits, scrubs, and various uniforms. I actually found the school, which for me is an accomplishment in itself. I got there a little early, so I stopped to grab some breakfast at a cafe around the corner from the school...or as the lady at the front desk told me to "stop off and get a coffee". I ordered a fruit cup and some tea. To be honest I was expecting a little fruit cup like the kind you get at McAlisters or Jasons, but no no I was able to pick the fresh fruit I wanted to be hand cut and it was served with home-made greek yogurt...yum! It makes you remember the special touches that family owned restaurants have and the relationships they are able to have with their customers. The owners seemed to know everyones name as different customers came and went throughout the morning.
Everyone was waiting outside the school door entrance on the sidewalk, until the school opened. I met some really amazing people from all over the world. The principal said there are 51 countries being represented at the school. We started out getting our uniforms, towels, knife set (which is SUPER heavy), welcoming packets, and binders full of recipes. We had a welcome from the principal of the school, who is very nice and helpful. We then tried on our uniforms, which I will need to get altered, and our lockers. We then broke out into our groups and met our mentor, who will be teaching many of our classes. My mentor is French and has a very thick accent. He seems strict, but has a good sense of humor and knows what he is talking about. I feel like I will be learning a lot, but it is going to be quite intense. My class consists of students from Russia, Costa Rica, Germany, England, France, a country in the Middle East, and Zambia. It is quite the variety considering there are only a few people in my group and It took me a while to get everyones names. I felt bad, but I found myself saying "wait what is your name again?" many times throughout the day. All the names are so different and some of them I could not even try to pronounce. There are many different accents going on in that school. Thankfully speech path has helped me be able to listen carefully and be able to make out what everyone is saying. We were also given our schedules and none of my days are the same. Some classes I have early in the morning and then some start at 7 in the evening. Every day will be different for the most part. As most first days are it was overwhelming, but very exciting.
I finished off my day trying to find a specialty shoe shop to buy my "cooking shoes". I did end up finding it and although I did have many other things to do, I was exhausted! I called it quits for the day.

What do you mean there is no shower???

Well family and friends my life has been a whirlwind these past few weeks, but I finally got to London. Flights went great and I had no problems traveling, so thank you for all of your prayers. I slept on the plane for maybe 2 hours, so I was quite tiered from traveling once I arrived. I got into London around 10am and decided not to brave the London train system and took taxi to my dorm...it was well worth the money!

The dorm is in a beautiful part of town and looks exactly how London should...quaint. My room was not ready until 4:00pm, so I found the closest grocery store/pharmacy, which is just down the street from my dorm. I spent the rest of the time waiting/sleeping in the lobby for about 5 hours. I met another American staying in the dorm, he is from New Jersey and going to the Fashion Institute for school. We were in the same boat waiting for our rooms, so we chatted a bit. Everyone is very friendly and from all over the world. Not too many people are here yet, as the dorm does not officially open until January 9. So finally I got to my room and it is small but perfect for what I need here. The bathrooms are in the hallway and there is one right next to my room. Well after I unpacked I took a peak at the bathroom and there was only a tub, no shower. I just laughed and thought "this should be interesting in the morning". After exploring a bit I did find a tiny closet that they had put a shower in, and boy was I relieved! To finish off the day I just finished unpacking and went to bed.

I did end up sleeping until about 6:30am, so that was a blessing. I feel like it wont take me too long to get adjusted to the time change. I got ready, which felt a lot like living in Collins freshman year of college and I ate some breakfast, which was actually very good. Then I decided to try attacking the London transit system. The school I am going to is not exactly close to where I am living. After about an hour of searching for routes and looking at the tube schedule online, I just decided to go ahead and figure it out as I went along. About 30 min of tube rides and 20 minutes of walking around trying to find this tiny street, I decided to hale a taxi. Fortunately I was in the right area, but had gotten off one tube stop too far. Its a good thing I took a taxi because the school is down a tiny little road off a main road and it looks like an alley...I never would have found it. Once you get down it, you realize that there are tons of houses and cute little restaurants. Tomorrow morning should be interesting as it looks like I will have about a 40min commute in the mornings and I am not entirely sure where I am going. At least now I have a visual and general idea of where to go.

London is still decorated for the holidays and looks exactly how you think it would. There are lights hung above the streets, strung from one house across the street to the other. Big lit decorations are hung high above the streets making every corner look magical. Tomorrow is my first day of class, so I am getting very nervous and excited. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers!