Tuesday, February 8th, 2011     1:35p
The last few days seem like a blur. This not only comes from what all has been done in the last few days, but also from the fact that I'm going on to my 33rd waking hour. I didn't sleep at all last night or this morning. More of a matter of negligence than insomnia. Sunday morning, before work, I purchased a game that caught my eye for the Xbox 360, called Monday Night Combat. It's recently been ported to the PC via Steam, and with my extra income from near full-time work, I couldn't turn it down at $15. So that was part of the reason for the all-night; being a slack-ass. Given how busy my schedule is anymore a moment (or in this case, a whole night) of relaxation is welcome. Despite being the night of the Superbowl, was was busy Sunday night. Travis had me bake up about 40 trays of cookies, along with doing breakout for the morning baker by myself, on top of regular cleanup. I got everything baked and boxed, but not labelled, and still I got out of work 30 minutes late. Not that big of a deal, since I can take on more hours without reaching that dreaded point of overtime. On the school side of things, everything is much more busy. Yesterday was the "VIP" registration for classes. As of right now I'm scheduled to be at the school Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for Management by Menu, Asian Cuisine with Chef Josh (which I'm looking forward to the most), and World Cuisine with the new adjunct Chef Breugh. In the MG club meeting we learned spherification, which is used to make faux caviar. Originally we had scheduled this week for learning agar clarification, but since we have a big dinner even to prep for, which will include an apple caviar, it was better to cover the material now. I don't remember if I mentioned this dinner in my entries in my previous journal or not. At any rate, there is a big dinner being held on the 11th floor, in the school's student run restaurant. The Garde Manger class is being highlighted by the dinner by making a buffet for the event. The MG club was also tapped for this event to get more awareness for the club with the big school executive types that this dinner is being held for. The idea of MG helping with the event is simply to go "Hey, look at us! Look at this cool stuff we make!" This might then get word spread to other Ai campuses to get a campus wide club going, like what Ai has for the fashion students and the Beau Monde club. However, I'm getting tapped twice by this dinner, since I'm in the class being highlighted. Chef Lechti is back from...whatever it was he was away for and a bit agast at what all needs to be done. Not only does some of the prepwork for the dinner have to be done by the class, but he also has to cover the material missed due to the weather last week, this week's material, but also the midterm practical next week. For the midterm we're to create a themed buffet table, and present it properly with strong lines that guide the eye into the buffet. Being partnered with Mikey has already proven interesting. Our group brainstormed in the library for nearly two hours thinking on our theme, what to serve, and how to present it. I think those two hours were the most fun I've had in the class so far; brainstorming ideas left and right. That does remind me; I've a quiz I need to finish before class today. Would I have remember it in the current fog my head is in today from the lack of sleep, if I hadn't written this entry? No way to tell now. It's fairly short, so I'm not pressed for time. I might even bang out some of my recipe cards for European as well.

Friday, February 4th, 2011     12:05p
Wednesday I had to call off work, since the county was under a class 1 emergency, allowing emergency vehicles on the road only, and towing anyone trying otherwise. My father seemed to catch a bit of cabin fever pretty quick. He speant spent most of the day cleaning the house, floor to ceiling. He even tried to wax the kitchen floor, but I shut him down on that with my remedy for cabin fever; baking some English muffins. With this latest batch, I tried something new; I made a makeshift proofer box out of the oven by setting a baker's sheet full of water on the floor of the oven, and setting the temp as low as it would go; in the case of our oven, 170°F. The results were pretty good; they proofed in a matter of about 25-30 mins, instead of an hour or more, and the crust was moist enough that it didn't crack (much) when I seared them. Later that night however, my father got more drunk than he usually does, and found something that he could yell at me about, and throw a temper tantrum over; I left three dishes out that needed to be hand washed. He raved on how I don't contribute to the house in keeping it maintained. He always gives this speech whenever he gets into one of his OCD cleaning fits, that I don't help around the house. This, despite the fact that usually the one cleaning the messes he makes in the kitchen. I won't write on this more, since it's far too petty to give any thought to. Last night at work, being on the deli side, I drummed up some dialoge with Pat. I've not worked with her before, but I know we'll get along just fine. She's another can-do types that can see what all should and needs to be done in our little kitchen. It's good to work with people like that; build motivation and plays a bit of Darwinism into the group. Class this morning started at a fast pace, since I walked into class, and noticed from the other students that there was a test we needed to print out and complete. I scrambled to the computer lab around the corner and finished it, purely by guessing and what little I knew already. In the end, I got a 50% on it. Thanks to the extra credit I got from being sous last week, I'm still sitting on an A. After that, production was rather slow paced. A number of dishes were slow to finish or took very little time to cook. I took one recipe, purely on a single word; "clear" chicken stock. Knowing what I learned last quarter in MG club, I treated the stock with some agar, froze it, and filtered it to remove all of the sediment and fat in the stock. By the time the chef rolled around to critique, my soup got lukewarm rather than hot, but he did like the presentation and the clarity of the soup. During the massive downtime while waiting for my stock to freeze, I bumped into Jessica, one of the baking specialty students I've worked with before. She was in tears from making a mistake in class. I gave her a good little pep talk. Later on in the day, I saw her smiling. So I feel I got a bit of karma going from the encounter. I've got a good deal of time to kill before I have to get to work tonight. Aside from finishing this entry, there's nothing keeping me here at school. Hopefully tonight I'll get off in time, unlike last night. I suppose I forgot to mention that.

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011     9.39p
If you couldn't the tell from the timestamp, I'm not in class tonight. Due to the blizzard that's more-or-less blanketing the nation,not only was the school closed, but the whole stat is more or effectively shut down. My father has been in a mild panic, saying we're going to lose power, and heat, and we'll get snowed in and not have enought to eat. I've been calm about the whole situation, aside from now losing three days of Garde Manger. I made best of the situation and did some laundry, and slowly pecked away at my recipe cards for Classical European. I'm not sure what I'll do for the journal, since I was the sous for the day, and really didn't get critique on food I made. Though I did get praise from the chef throughout the class on my performance as sous. I suppose that could be the base of my journal, rather than the food. To sate my urge to cook, I reheated some meatsauce my father made a few weeks back, and topped some spaghetti with it, and made some focaccia to go with it. I had to substitute a number of the herbs, but it was good all the same. I think if there wasn't a no-drive emergency out, I'd still have gone to the school; I'm just that maddly devoted to learning how to be a chef. I'm wondering how to get to work tomorrow morning, since this emergency won't be lifted until 7p tomorrow. I'll have to call before my shift to find out, I doubt they'd tell me to break the county-wide... curfew I guess would be best to call it.

Moleskine Two Gets Some Colour

Monday, January 31st, 2011  10:36a

Mondays and Tuesday I'll be spending early mornings here at the school. Not only to finish up any homework I've yet to do, but also to meet up and be available for Molecular Gastronomy club; of which we are having our first real meeting of today. I've already prepared a bit for today by signing out a camera, and toying with a bit to document our meetings. It's a bit intimidating to carry around a $2,000 Nikon D80, knowing it's on loan to me, and should anything happen to it, I'm financially responsible for. On another subject of school, I'm concerned about my grade in my management class. Aside from attendance and participation, most of the grade comes from the chapter quizes, which are nothing more than rote memorization of minutia. Because of this, I'm barely breaking a C average on them. The official grades haven't been posted, which I'm hoping is an indication that the instructor might grade on a curve. Hearing from some of the other students, apparently I'm not the only one seeing these quizes as a problem. I'll find out soon enough today in class. Yesterday was a very relazing day. From looking at my work schedule, it was the first day in nearly three weeks that I didn't have to put on a uniform; school or work related. I got most of my homework done, and watched movies, as well as thought on how to be more creative with this journal. I've already mentioned the scrapbook idea, which I'm going to stick with, but I'm going to drop the idea of drawing here. As I'm no artist (in an illustrational sense) it won't do well to ruin pages in this journal with awkward half doodles and scribbles in pen. Instead, I'm dropping using the Zebra F-701 as my dedicated journal pen, and moving to a set of coloured Zebra F-301's. It's all the same ink and cartridge anyway. I've got black, red, green, and blue. What I'd like to do is colour code this journal by mood.

Blue: calm, peaceful, perspective broadening, and informative.


Red: the polar opposite to blue, being energetic, eyecatching, confidence for chasing one's dreams, life and vitality. A colour I might be using a long lot.

Green: may pose a problem, as Zebra sells the pens in a set only, and don't sell refills for. It symbolizes nature, life, respect and well being, growth, balance, harmony, and new ideas. I might run out of this colour of ink all too soon.

Black: shows power and authority, as well as submission, oddly enough. Used commonly as the colour of evil. Also mystery and concealment, and the default colour of pens the wour world-round.

At any rate I'd best end my ramblings here, since I've a meeting with MG club to get to now.