I'm ready

to be done. I know how I always talk about how much I love culinary school and all that bullcrap (which I do), but hell, I'm ready for this semester to be over. I want finals, all my lab cleaning, and the freaking last lab to be over (damn cheese).

I'm sick right before I'm supposed to have a presentation in the morning, a snow storm is threatening me to miss two classes and write yet another 2,000 word paper, and I can't take it. Plus I still need to get my scholarship application in and all of my Christmas shopping done. If anything, I should be healthy for all of this.

End rant.

Thanksgiving

Oh man, I love thanksgiving. It's like the ultimate in foodie holidays. This year it was mostly done by me with some help from the sisters. Our menu included:

Appetizers (always eaten around 1:00) -

-Toasted baguette slices with goat cheese and balsamic tart cherries
-Veggie platter
-Deviled eggs
-Brie wrapped in phyllo dough with jam
-Stuffed dates

Dinner -

-Turkey (which I vowed not to overcook, and succeeded!)
-Homemade apple cider gravy
-Roasted sweet potatoes
-Roasted brussels sprouts
-Green bean casserole (which I personally despise, but other people like it)
-Onion and celery stuffing with raisins and walnuts
-Cranberry mousse (a dessert from the 50's made with lots of jell-o and cool whip. It's delicious, I don't care what anyone says. And somehow even though it's a dessert we always eat it with dinner.. though I'm totally not complaining)

Dessert -

Pumpkin cheesecake (i.e. the best thing ever)



In between preparing and eating all of this goodness we played lots of board games and watched movies. Good holiday in my book.

Maybe I can actually make a difference.

Last Wednesday was my last week of teaching at RPI for the semester. Usually by that point in time, we'd probably have 5-10 students left in lindy 1 and lucky if we still had a lindy 2 class going.

At the start of the semester I tried to be optimistic and even threw in a different set up, starting with them off with some easy solo jazz steps (thanks Jesse and Mike!), which I continued to do throughout the semester.

Now, I don't credit myself to being the best teacher ever, but I can definitely see when people are struggling. A month or two in is when I started to see the frustrated faces of the kids trying to get their swing outs, that's when I knew it was time to switch gears and say to hell with swing outs for a couple weeks. That's when I broke out my super fun and silly classes, guaranteed to get some laughs and make people feel like it's ok to be a little less serious. For me that means mess around, mini dip, and some easy styling. I don't know whether these classes are more for me or the students, but it makes me so excited to see them having fun.

When I was teaching the girls their first swivel, I was talking about how I think of it as the opposite of a "model walk". So for the hell of it, we did model walks up and down the floor. The boys even got a kick out of it while they were having their pow wow in the corner. I love having them do ridiculous things. Hahaha, I should never have this much power. ;)

To my surprise, come October into November will still had a good 30-40 kids for lindy 1. So for the last week we threw a party for them after class. During this time we had elections for all of the club officers, and they gave their speeches telling everyone why to vote for them. It made me ecstatic to see people who had just joined that semester so enthusiastic and telling everyone that swing club was their favorite club.

Afterwards we all hung out, ate pizza and danced. I can't even begin to say how proud I am of every single one of them, they've all come such a long way and are SO excited about it. It makes me proud to teach them. :) We even had a special performance by the lindy 2 class, who are getting so good! I love teaching those guys.


I had a lot of people come up and thank me before they left, and when I asked them if I'd see them next semester, I think the general response was, "Psssh, of course!"


:)

Late Night Thoughts.

Up late, thinking about where I want my life to go.

I've recently been trying to figure out what part of baking I want to go into. The four main categories would probably be:

Cake Decorating - "Pros" - Normalish job hours, lot of room for creativity. "Cons" - Extremely competitive, you have to extremely good at what you do to get anywhere, and you have to have major artistic talent. I've pretty much written this one off considering I have pretty much zero artistic talent. Can't draw for beans.

Artisan Bread Baking - "Pros" - It's bread. Who doesn't love bread? It's simple, beautiful art. Yet extremely complex, which makes it a very interesting challenge. Something about it seems magical. "Cons" - Hours. Getting up at 2am and going to work. Pretty much killing having a normal life. That means if I wanted to go dancing, I'd have to dance, leave early and go to work. Which might work out extremely well, I haven't quite decided. Also, I might get bored. I don't like routines so much, and baking bread is very routine. Same thing, day after day. Despite those things, this one is high on my list.

Plated Desserts - "Pros" - Somewhat flexible hours, a lot of room for creativity. "Cons" - very complex.. which is either good or bad depending on who you're talking to. Up to you to keep up with the latest culinary trends. For me, all that creativity and trendiness might wear me out eventually. Very time and labor intensive.

Everything that goes under the "Bakery" umbrella, which usually includes some form of bread, plus danish, cookies, pies, etc.. "Pros" - ... "Cons" - Way too much going on. Crazy hours. I've seen the effects of what this setting does to people. It makes them crazy. I hate making cookies, pies and danish in large quantities. I think I would for sure go insane. This is at the bottom of my list, if you hadn't already noticed.


As you can see, I've thought about each one of these in detail. These aren't even all of my options, just the main categories I could come up with. Top of my list: Artisan bread. I'd really love to go into a "just" bread bakery and see what it's all about. It's on my long list of things to do.


Yup, I think about this stuff a lot.

Parts of my life.

Can't say how fantastic is was to go to Rochester last weekend. It's really become my second home with all of the wonderful people and dancing. I even got to perform my super fun routine with Jesse, just having choreographed half of it that day. Good times. It will be better for Lindy Focus, I promise.
As always, Steven and Virginie continue to inspire every year, always leaving me wanting more. And that band was totally kick ass. My god. The best I've heard in a really really long time. I'm pretty much music in love with them.

On a different note, with the exception of last Tuesday, I've pretty much been boycotting Tuesday practices for a couple reason. Tuesday is really my only night where I'm not obligated to do something, so it's nice to be lazy and go to bed early so I'm not exhausted at my 8am class on Wednesday. The other and probably more prominent reason is that the scene doesn't inspire me anymore. The people, the music, the general feel of the scene. Now, you can call me a snob, I really don't care, but before you do, let it be known there is no one my level in Albany. Most people think they have it bad when they have a group of five or ten people to have great dances with. Well you don't. Because I have no one.
This isn't meant to insult people in Albany because some of you are good and trying to get better, I've been there and respect that. But the fact still remains that there's no one to push my dancing. So if you don't see me out, you know why.

Now, this is a subject I don't talk about very much, if at all. In my regular day to day life, I'm pretty much stressed out all of the time. Another reason why S&V was great, I wasn't stressed out because I don't think about stressful things when I'm having fun.
The main reason being that my parents (second) divorce trial is in a week and stepping into my house at the current time is emotionally draining, I usually can't relax and I'm pretty on edge. If it wasn't for school, I probably wouldn't still be here. But on the upside of this, something, if good or bad, will happen in a week, hopefully making my life better. So if you see me looking tired and stressed, that's probably why.

Life happens, we deal with it.

<3

ACF Practical Exam

Today I had my practical exam so I could get certified by the American Culinary Federation. The test was in conjunction with my Garde Manger class, which in a previous post I explained my general dislike of. Now, I must say that while I'm still generally uninterested in the class topics, the class is teaching me some possibly useful things, so it's not all bad.

Last week our class had a practice week, which went well, and I tried to fine tune the things that needed work leading up to today. The whole exam required preparation of the following:

Batonnet & Julienne of carrots
Finely chopped parsley
Mirepoix
Chicken stock
Fabrication of a whole chicken into thighs, wings, skinless boneless breast, airline breast (chicken breast with the wing bone attached), drumsticks, and carcass free of usable meat
One entree of choice, preparing the airline breast, proper starch and vegetable

My batonnet & julienne of carrots turned out well, with the minor exception that they were a little short, but they were all the same size so I don't think that effected my score a great deal. Parsley was easy, but most people get impatient and don't chop it fine enough, so go me.
Mirepoix, easy. Chicken stock, easy.
I must say, I freakin rocked that chicken fabrication. My best go yet, plus I even got the stupid oyster muscle clean. Rock.

For my entree I did Indian spiced chicken, curried cauliflower and cardamom rice. My chicken was perfect during practice week, but I put too much salt in my spice mix this week so it ended up a little salty (damn it), but it was perfectly cooked so screw it. My chef complained that my cauliflower was a little undercooked during practice week, so I cooked it longer this time and to his standards it was perfect. Word. Rice is easy, the end.

All in all, I passed with an A/95 and am now certified by the ACF. Which means that I have something to make my resume look good and I don't have to go back over Thanksgiving break to retake the test. Yeah man.


Now I can relax.

Favorites

You know, whenever people ask me my favorite food, or my favorite thing to make, I get pretty pissed. I mean.. not really.. but I hate the question is what I'm sayin'.

I'm in culinary school, I have TONS of favorite foods. I also love making tons of different things, it all depends on what mood I'm in.

Now, I have my "fancy" favorite foods: Goat cheese, super dark chocolate, etc.. But I don't know that I could consider them favorite because I wouldn't want to eat them all the time. They would lose their specialness.

Then I have my comforting favorite foods: Plain cheerios, banana yogurt, oatmeal, cold cream of wheat, skim milk (I have a dairy obsession..). While looking at this list I notice that these are all, for the most part, extremely bland foods. But these are all foods I grew up on and came to adore. I could eat them every day.

As far as my favorite thing to make, I think I've made it obvious that I like to bake cakes, but it's not my favorite. I do love making chili, and I make a mean one at that, but still not my favorite.
I guess sometimes, I like doing the time/labor intensive thing - croissants, apple strudel, bread, etc.. but sometimes I just want to get baked goods into my tummy as quickly as possible - quick breads, cookies, muffins.. or I just want a quick healthy meal that will fill me up - wheat pasta with tuna and veggie sauce or some delicious turkey chili.


So if you ask me either of these questions, I most likely won't punch you in the face, but I might want to.

If someone says charcuterie - I say run.

What I want to know is who, in their right mind, thought that meat jell-o was a good idea. Ever see anything in aspic? That's what it is, kids, meat floating in meaty jell-o. bleghhgh. I need to go bake something...



Busy couple weeks in Ellie land. Hence why you haven't been seeing any new posts from me. I guess I've been busy with being an international lindy hop champion, attending SONH, and helping to host my exchange here in Albany. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Also new, school has officially started as of last week. Fully contributing to my busyness recently. I'm starting to realize that while taking five labs may not be a total death sentence, it'll still do a great job of kicking my butt.

Good news is that only one of my four professors is a total ass. Just because you have a masters in gastronomy doesn't mean you rule the world, you know. His class actually inspired the title of this blog post; Garde Manger.
The name Garde Manger comes from one of the stations in a classical brigade French kitchen; the Garde Manger chef works mainly with cold items: salads, sandwiches, hors d'oeuvres and charcuterie. Charcuterie is primarily the making of sausage, pate, terrines, mousseline, etc..

I already have the doom and gloom feeling that me, this chef, and this class are not going to get along. Keep in mind that I'm not really on the squeamish side of the food spectrum, and I'll try most things, but some of this stuff is disgusting. Flipping through my text book and seeing sausage confit (sausage preserved in ridiculous amounts of fat).. makes me kind of ready to run for the hills.
I'm a baker. Not a huge fan of animal fat. My body says it's not a good idea, and I happily oblige.

Speaking of baking, my two baking classes are going well and I think I'll learn a lot from them. Although the unfortunate aspect is that the heat of the 4th floor and something about my chef's voice makes me extremely sleepy. I do care about gluten development. I promise.


This blog post was sponsored by crepes. A nom x4 recipe.

Finally. A Cake.

I sometimes complain about how I never get to bake cakes. Now is one of those times.

I always love the process of baking and decorating cakes, but it gets dangerous to have a gazillion of them laying around the house as you can imagine. And for the record, usually even when I think I'm going to get to bake a cake, it doesn't happen. You know why? Because anytime anyone's birthday rolls around, they don't want cake, they want pie or something stupid. It's a birthday people. Birthday = Cake. Get with the program.

Anyway. I informed Jesse that when it came time for her going away party, I was making cake. The end. She tried in one mere attempt to veer me away to something less cake-y, but I stood my cake-y ground and won. Score Ellie: 1 Pie: 0

In the end I decided to go for a chocolate coconut cake. Now, I've never made this before, but usually when I think something will work in my head, it does, so I decided to go for it.
When I make chocolate cake I pretty much always stick with the same recipe. The one on the back of the Hershey's Cocoa box. It's the shit, people. Just roll with it. Oh - and my chocolate frosting recipe? You guessed it, also on the back of the Hershey's box. De-freaking-licious.

For the filling I decided to take my standard pastry cream recipe and make it coconutty. For me that just meant substituting most of the milk for unsweetened coconut milk. I also toasted up the coconut and added that to the cooled cream. When it was finished I decided it a little too sweet and puddingy for my liking, so I whipped up some cream and folded that in. Much better.

I cut the cake in half, added the filling, and proceeded to frost with that yummy chocolate frosting. I toasted up some more coconut and put that one the sides and top. Then finally, I piped some frosting around the edge to give it a more finished look. I think it looked pretty pretty.

All in all, good times. It tasted super yummy, the coconut wasn't too overpowering and obviously who doesn't like chocolate. No one, that's right.


Anywho ..I love cake! And you should too. Nyam nyam nyam.


-E

p.s. Isn't it beautiful? I'm SO proud. :)

Hawt Shoes.

Jessekins surprised me today with an early birthday present. I am now the proud owner of the hottest shoes in the whole entire universe. I thought I had you beat with that fantastic scarf I gave you for Christmas, but you now hold the title for best present.


LOVE!!!

Talk About Muffins

As per Jesse face's request, I will now explain why I talk so much about muffins. I guess it started a few years ago when Albany people actually carpooled together, so we had a lot of time to kill with stupid conversati- I mean, really good times.

Anyway, when Shannon was still around, her, Jesse and I particularly liked to make fun of Josh. We thought a good nickname was in order, so we decided on "Joshy". I think he secretly loved it.

One day Joshy got the crazy idea that the rest of us should have nicknames too, so at the Philly exchange in.. '06? Josh said he came up with the perfect nickname for me. You guessed it. "Muffin". Because apparently I'm just so "cute and muffiny" according to Josh.

Unfortunately for me, it stuck. At one point we even decided my flavor. Peach spice.

So there you have it. I'm a peach spice muffin.

And because I always like to drag other people into things, Jesse's nickname is Toody! Because of her attitude of course. Bring it back, people! Bwahaha, I'm SUCH a good sister.



<3 Ellie

Schooly school school

"When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me... at the present I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins." - Oscar Wilde, Irish dramatist and writer.



Have to say, even though I just ended my summer session, I'm really looking forward to the fall semester. I love learning, despite having to clean the labs everyday, despite working with the occasional irritating lab partner, I just love it.
I'm especially excited to get to take both of my baking classes from Paul Krebs, who I've heard is very talented and I expect to learn a lot from.

Just started ordering my books today, I can't wait to flip through both of my fancy new baking books that branch out of the basics into more of the advanced pastry work (sugar work, plated desserts). Fun fun fun. - Anyone know what method cards are?

One of my classes I'm not so excited about though. Classical cuisine. i.e cooking for the school restaurant. Run for the hills, kids, that means I serve the public. It's pretty much exactly what I don't want to do with my life, which is being on a line. Too high stress, big.. flaming things, ticket orders, people yelling.. bleeeeck. I'm not excited.


Although, being out of school does have its perks. Like I get to go to the Wednesday farmer's market instead of the Saturday one. i.e. A lot less crowded and more veggies to choose from. Yay! I could totally do a blog about how much I love veggies... eh, for another time. ;)



-El

Croissant Day

Last year I started a new holiday. Croissant Day.

Croissant Day is exactly what it sounds like, a day dedicated to making croissants.
Backtracking to early 2007, I decided that making these wonderful light pastries would be something good to master. I tried I think, a total of 5 recipes, ranging from 2 hours, to 10 hours.

Having never made croissants before, initially I thought I could beat the system and go for the 2 hour method. I quickly learned that all that lead to was weird rolls, so I kept upping the time on my recipes, but still didn't produce anything close to those fluffy layers of croissant goodness.

So I decided to have a talk with me friend google search, which lead me to the 10 hour recipe. I spent the whole day rolling, refrigerating, turning, more rolling, more refrigerating..etc.. They turned out wonderfully perfect. Just how you would imagine a perfect croissant to be.

Fast forward to now. Croissant day is back, and this time I'm taking the overnight method to somewhat keep my sanity intact.

With a pound of butter and a rolling pin, I say cheers.
-El