What I'm Up To

Figured I should put a little something about what I've been up to lately.

I just finished my 2nd Lucy Maud Dinner rotation. This is making plated desserts for the dining room for supper service, as well as doing any functions. I found this rotation to be the most stressful of all of them. It's stressful for a few reasons.

First of all, I just feel like the expectations for quality were higher on this rotation than any other. So when you mess up, it's a bigger deal.

Second, you have to stay in the evening 2 nights of the week to plate desserts when people order them. This just adds a bit to your exhaustion level, b/c it creates a 12-14 hour day at school. And service is very BORING. You just stand there for upwards of 5 hours waiting for people to order your dessert. This rotation I spent both weeks working Friday/Saturday which sucked. It takes up a lot of the weekend.

Third, it has the biggest and fanciest functions. Functions for this rotation tend to be for 120-250 people at a time, rather than the 40 person functions you get for lunch. We lucked out with our rotation and only had 2 functions. One was a small function for 40. The second was a function for 240 people for Sticky Date Pudding. This was a challenge to plate for the function because it's a warm dessert. So, you're trying to time 250 desserts. Now, everyone knows that any banquet for 250 people starts late by the time whatever event it is finishes going through opening remarks, grace, etc. So, as kitchen staff, you're waiting for them to start, and as pastry staff, you have to wait for them to go through 3 courses before they get to dessert. And you can't start plating too early b/c it will get cold, but neither can you plate too late or the serving staff will be waiting for you. It's tricky.

Anyway, I'm glad it's over. I'm starting to like plated desserts more and more. I'm thinking of making Friday night dessert-night when I'm at the parent's place. B/c having dessert every night is expensive and unhealthy. But once a week seems good.

I now move on to Chocolate. It's only a 3 day rotation, so I'm not too worried.

Thursday we have our written theoretical final. I'm really not worried about it. It's basically an amalgamation of all the tests we've already written, plus some food costing. Food costing is very simple - it's just memorizing the conversions from imperial to metric that can be confusing.

We have Friday-Monday off for Easter. Then we start practical exams. I'm scheduled to do my practical the next Thurday - one week after the theory final. For the practical we have to do something frozen, a cake, cookies, a custard, and a bread. The custard and the frozen dessert have to be plated with sauces and garnishes. We have from 6:30am until about 2:30pm to do this. Should be a fun challenge! I'm mostly worried about when you sit down with the chefs face to face at the end to discuss how you did. I have trouble being told I suck to my face. I prefer th university method of just giving me a crappy mark and letting me deal with it. Here they have to bring you in and tell you. It's like being on American Idol and having Simon yelling at you.

After that, we go in on the 24th to clean the kitchen and do some other wrap up stuff.

Then I fly home on the 25th. Sleep for a week. Then go to NYC.

So, yeah. That's an update!