So, I went crazy with my camera phone today, so I've decided to just do a quick photo blog of the day's adventures. Enjoy!
Today we made danishes. Here is a big braided danish I made. This is an in-progress picture. I didn't cook it, as I didn't want to take it home. So I just made it then tossed it into the freezer. It'll just need to be thawed, proofed, and baked and it'll be good to go! 
Finished product before freezing! 
Here are some danishes myself and a classmate made. Mine are on the left. Mmmmmm, cinnamon rolls made with hazelnut filling. 
Here's a picture of that tray baked out. Something was different about our doughs and hers took much longer to cook. So, since we had to leave them in until hers cooked, that meant that mine were a bit overcooked. You can see mine clearly in the back as they are much, much darker.
I said I'd try and get some pictures of the kitchen, so here are a few. This is a picture of the bread making area. This has been my station so far this year as we're just sort of plunked anywhere for the moment. Once we start rotations, this is where I start, as I'm on Bread and Retail for my first 2 weeks. 
Clearly you can see we are HARD at work. That's my knife kit right at the front with the pizza cutter. The rolled out dough you see with the square and triangle? Yeah, that was my failed attempt at making croissants. Apparently those aren't the type of triangles that you use to make croissants. The triangle needs to be more "pizza slice" shaped. What is that? And isosceles triangle? I think so. 
This is facing over towards the other side of the kitchen. I think the Lucy Maud stations are over there. You can see all our little mixers lined up. We also have bigger mixers for making larger quantities of dough. 
And what I think is my new favourite picture of myself. :)
Apparently you do not want me to sleep tonight. Fine then. I shall blog.
Neck is...well, I don't even know. Sort of better but sort of worse. It's more of just a general pain now, but it's moved up into my head, which I'm not liking. I did get some Advil, and it helped for a bit.
I was supposed to go to a workshop on pears tonight, but apparently the bus broke down. And being that this is Charlottetown, there is no replacement bus. How very unhelpful. I could have maybe made it there somehow, but my head hurt anyway, so I just went home. It was an optional thing anyway. I will have a rant about the bus later. Oh, it's coming.
Charlottetown...what to say about it? Oh, I know. I don't like it. I really don't want to stay here. I'm mostly counting down the months until I can leave. OK, that came out really mean. It's a nice enough city, probably a good place to raise kids, but there's jack squat here to do. I've spent every weekend just bored out of my mind. I'm attempting to find stuff to do, but overall, I'm just sort of unimpressed with the city. Everybody told me I'd fall in love when I came out here. Well, in all honesty, it's not much different than back home except it's more boring. Perhaps it's nicer if you're just sort of popping in here as a tourist. But living here - not my cup of tea.
I did find out that the school hires 2 pastry students to work the summer. (Did I mention this last post? I can't remember.) So anyway, I would be willing to stay 4 extra months if I were to get that job, but that's it, then I'm outta here.
Oh, and everything here is SMALL, did I mention that? I went and got a library card today, and once I got in there and was looking at the books I was like "Seriously? This is it?" This is the capital of the province and the library is smaller than the one in Weyburn is. And Weyburn is 1/3 the size of Charlottetown. This place just isn't big city enough for me.
Had to go to school today for a "Library Skills " class. Just another "Here's the library, here are the books, here is how you find a book" class. As if I can't figure that out myself. What a giant waste of time. And it was MISERABLE out - thank you Tropical Storm Kyle.
OK, this blog is super negative...hmmm....need something positive...
I did hear back from Girl Guides and I'm going to meet with the coordinator tomorrow! They definitely need people, so once I get a record check done (working with kids, that's sort of a standard thing) and fill out some paperwork, that should be something for me to do!
I got woken up tonight at 7:30 (yes, I went to bed at 6:30, I was tired!) by Zellers who was phoning me for an interview, so I have that tomorrow afternoon. So perhaps I might have a job. Although I'm at the point now where I wasn't expecting one and now I'm not so sure I even want one. But I'll go - if it turns out I don't want a job, I can always quit. :) I just need to make sure I can balance everything. I do want to volunteer, so that's my girl guides, and I have school of course. So the question is if I can put a job on top of that. I think I can. I just don't want to go too insane. Need to find a happy balance.
I'm getting a personal trainer. I decided the money was worth it. I'm just going to be meeting with her once every two weeks to keep me on task in terms of working out while I'm here. So, hopefully that all works out well. I met with her last week and really like her, so I foresee good things with that. Didn't work out today though - mostly b/c my neck still doesn't really work and I don't want to strain it more before it heals.
I think I've run out of things to say for the moment. Tomorrow we take the dough we made last week and make final products out of it! So, hopefully I shall have some pictures for you. :)
I don't know which muscle is responsible for keeping my head upright and moving it around, but I pulled it last night. So I'm not feeling so great today. Took some Tylenol and that gave me a small amount of movement, but I'm still quite limited. I think I'll be spending a lot of time laying down today so that I don't have to hold my head up.
So! The rest of the week! Wednesday we made fillings - blueberry, hazelnut, and pastry cream. All quite simple and easy. Yes, I managed to boil my milk over but my pastry cream still turned out. There was a big banquet yesterday for the Olympic Youth Team, so the summer pastry students had been spending the whole week preparing for it. So, if we had spare time in between doing what was planned for the day, we helped them out. So, on Wednesday I helped with coring some apples for apple crisp. My first time using my melon baller...I suppose that's exciting. :P
Thursday we made Danish Dough! Thursday was definitely my best day in the kitchen. My dough turned out great and I got it done quickly. In my spare time I helped slice up pears - pears that had been soaked in a mixture of red wine and spices - so my uniform got a bit messy.
Friday...ugh, Friday. The downside - I let myself fall asleep for a couple hours when I got home Thursday (still trying to get used to the new sleep schedule) so I was up until 12:30 and then awake at 5am to get ready for school. So, grumpy and tired to begin with. Then we made Puff Pastry which is the devil. In the end, the puff pastry worked out, but it's definitely not my favourite thing to make. The way Danish Dough and Puff Pastry get the butter content in is to make the dough and then roll it out. Once it's rolled out you just put a block of fat in the middle, fold the dough around it, and then roll the fat into the dough that way. And if the fat doesn't stay in the dough, you have a problem. Therefore...I had a problem with my puff pastry. The upside to Friday was that I still had time to help out with the banquet stuff, so I got to help make Truffles! I piped chocolate into pre-made truffle casings and then when we ran out I got to make my first Ganache...basically a type of chocolate sauce to simplify it. So that was fun!
So, we made the doughs this week - next week we use the doughs to actually make the Danishes and the different types of Puff Pastries. Not too sure how that'll go, but we'll see.
Overall, kitchen is awesome. Some things are frustrating - two in particular. The first is just having to share things like the scales. Which I just need to stop being a baby about. I just like to work fast and I don't like getting slowed down b/c I don't have access to equipment. However, once we get into our regular rotations, everybody will be making different things, so that should alleviate the demand for all the equipment. It was very frustrating on Wednesday when we needed a burner to make our fillings and there weren't enough, so we just sat there with nothing to do. The second thing that frustrates me is trying to work with classmates who haven't done the minimum amount of work required to get ready for class - like finding their recipes. I'm hoping that stops soon and that people will get the idea that you need to spend 10 minutes each night getting organized for the next day. Really, there's very little homework - more just preparation for the next day. There's no excuse not to have a recipe ready when you know what you're making the next day.
At home I made perogies on my own for the first time. I've helped make them before, but never done it completely on my own. But I said I'd bring some for Thanksgiving - one of my classmates has invited everybody over for Thanksgiving supper so I'm looking forward to that. I'll have to make probably one more batch just so that we definitely have enough. I didn't think I had made that many, but after they were frozen and I put them all in the same bag, I found I had made a lot more than I thought.
I'm finding Charlottetown quite boring. I've sent an e-mail to the Girl Guides to see if they can use me as a volunteer to help run their programs - I'm hoping that works out. I found a list on the UPEI website of places to volunteer and that's the one that interested me the most, so we'll see if that pans out. But I really need to find SOMETHING to do. Clearly nobody wants to hire, not just me, but anybody in our pastry class. Our schedules flip flop too much and no employer wants to deal with it. I'm definitely going to be giving that as feedback about this new style they're trying with the pastry class. But yeah...I'm super bored here and I need to find something to occupy my time. I'm wishing I'd registered for a web class with the U of S to get a bit closer to finishing that degree. Next term I'm definitely registering for at least one, if not more, that I can do during my spare time here.
Anyway....my neck is giving out, so I'd better go lay down for a bit. Riders game in an hour - go Riders!!!
Subtitle: WTH PEI?
Seriously? 10% PST? You make me sick.
Oh yes, I made those. And Chef Richard called them "Excellent Specimens" in front of the whole class. Granted, I didn't know they were mine at the time. And granted, most of you have probably made bread like this before. But, making something this simple was a good intro to the kitchen - where to find things, how to use the oven (which is GIGANTIC), and other handy things.
Now, the rolls I made. They actually taste better than these braided loaves, but they didn't turn out so great in the looks department. So, you don't get pictures. :P
Overall, waking up early wasn't so bad. I went to bed early, so it really makes no difference - as long as I got enough sleep! Also, a classmate was awesome and came and picked me up, so that saved me about 40 minutes of walking. :) His car is in the shop tomorrow morning, so I'll be walking but that's ok. I figure every day that I can get a ride is one less day I have to walk, so I should be grateful for it.
On one hand, my feet are going "You idiot! This is why you got a desk job. We hurt!" But on the other hand, the time flew by and I was glad I wasn't just sitting behind a desk anymore. :)
Voting!
So I voted today! Yes! That's right! I went in to register, as I'm registered back in Saskatoon and that's not real helpful to me. So, after much paperwork the lady said I could vote right then, or on the 14th, and I was all like "Let's do it now!" So I did. Now, I've never advance polled before, so this was new to me and exciting. Yet very complicated. I am given a ballot with a blank line that just says "Write the candidate's name" or something to that effect on it. So, I was like "Oh shit, I don't know any of the candidates...I rarely do, I just look at the party beside the name and vote like that." So I piped up and asked if there was a list in the thingy that you vote in. You know...half of a cardboard box. And she says they can't make up a list of people - you know in case some scandal occurs and somebody drops out. ;) But she told me the names and I memorized the guy I wanted. Then I went in with my ballot and little envelope and write the name down. Then I had to stick the ballot in the envelope without folding it and seal it. Then I had to stick the sealed envelope into ANOTHER envelope, sign it, and seal it. Whew! But there it is! I've voted!
This means that when the results from advanced polls come in, they will reflect my vote! Which is, granted, insubstantial in the grand scheme of things. But hey, at least the dude I voted for will at least be able to go "Well, I didn't get 0 votes, whooo!" That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Or something.
Now it's your turn!
Bus Insanity!
A few short months after the murder of Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus, another stabbing has occurred! Here's my understanding of the timeline:
-Police in Ontario take a guy into custody for disturbing the peace, charge him, then release him
-He later that day comes back and asks them to take him to the hospital for psychological reasons
-The police do so, he's assessed by a doctor, deemed safe, and released
-He had a "strong desire to go home" so the police used social assistance funds to pay for a ticket for him to go home on the bus
-The police put him on the bus (this is misleading...not sure if they just bought the ticket, or if they dropped him off at the bus station, or what exactly happened there)
-He apparently has a knife and stabs somebody on the bus about 2 hours into the trip
-He goes to the front and asks to be let off the bus, the bus driver stops, lets the dude off, and then just drives away
-The police arrest him on the side of the road.
Now, I swear this is straight out of a movie. If it wasn't for the fact that people are getting killed, injured, traumatized and more, this would almost be hilarious. Instead it's just tragic.
What is crazy is some of the comments people are leaving on the CBC website in reply to the article. Let me quote some of my favourites:
"The police are funny. Like clowns. And seriously?! They let the dude off the bus and kept going??????? "
"I got off a bus in Moose jaw Sask this week end and a guy was selling crack on it."
"I really wish people would stop referring to criminals or other ungentlemanly men as gentlemen."
"The era of taking naps on Greyhound buses is probably now over."
"Again? Why is it these knife carrying crazies are always headed toward Winnipeg? "
And last but not least...
"Commenter wrote: "The OPP are out of control. If the police put that violent man on the bus, it was a fearmongering conspiracy to push people towards a neo con police state."
The bus was heading the right direction ;-)"
Well, sort of an exciting week.
Let's see...I last blogged on Monday. Yes, exciting news there - no need to take my 2 core classes - excellent!
Since then, let's see. Tuesday was CPR. Boring, but I haven't taken it since my Bronze Cross days, so it was very good to get a refresher and get officially certified. There have been changes to both CPR and First Aid in the past few years, but nothing crazy. Wednesday was First Aid. Overall, these two I'd taken before, but I find them interesting, so they weren't too bad of days. I did learn that one of the symptoms of a stroke is an impending sense of DOOM!
Thursday morning we did WHMIS. For those who don't know, that's Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System. Not nearly as bad as I expected! It's something you need to learn, but once you've learned it, it's a lot of common sense. Read labels, don't pour stuff into an unlabeled container, don't use anything if you don't know what it is, etc., etc.
So, once the paperwork goes through, I will be officially certified for CPR, First Aid, and WHMIS!
Onto Thursday afternoon! FINALLY we got to meet as a group with our chef instructors. There are a few classmates we hadn't met yet. People who took the culinary previously didn't have to sit through the core classes again, so we haven't seen them the first two weeks. And we had never been officially with our instructors. So, this was exciting! Oh, Thursday I also came down with a cold...so while exciting, I was also sitting there quite miserable with a sore throat. And I'm still miserable as I type this.
We got our officially "bibles" for Pastry - a GIANT binder with recipes, notes, and definitions. Now, nothing is ordered or indexed or anything - so it's up to us to go through it and put some dividers in and figure everything out. So, I'll be doing that with a couple hundred pages of recipes this weekend. We aren't necessarily given the recipe for everything. So if we're told that we're making a particular thing and don't have a recipe, it's up to us to go find a recipe from somewhere. Perhaps our textbooks, perhaps the library from a book, or perhaps just go online and find something.
We also FINALLY got our schedules for the entire year. The first three weeks we're doing basics - so we're either am or pm. I, of course, am scheduled for the morning. After that we start bi-weekly rotations. We're on one of 6 stations for 2 weeks, then we go somewhere else. 3 of the stations are in the morning, 3 of them are in the afternoon. And if you're on one particular afternoon station, there are also Saturday night shifts that you may have to come in for. Not cool. Chef Richard, teaches the AM class and Chef Pam teaches the PM class. Chef Pam is definitely more strict, but you can tell that you'll be able to learn a lot with her. Chef Richard has a lot of knowledge and sometimes it's a bit overwhelming as I'm definitely a beginner when it comes to professional pastry arts.
So, there are 12 bi-weekly rotations. I'm on mornings for 7 of them and afternoon for only 5 of them. And I only get one afternoon rotation this term and the other 4 are next term. Which I guess is ok since next term will be the colder/snowier one. So, for those of you who are texting me at 8pm Saskatchewan time, I can assure you I will have been in bed for at least 3 hours by the time you text/phone me.
Last thing on Thursday...UNIFORMS! Yay! How exciting! I am now wearing sweat pants to school every day - I just change when I get there anyway. So, our uniform consists of:
- Checkered Pants - they're hard to see in the following picture, I had my apron too long. Suffice it to say, it's very small checkers. The pants are very poofy around the hips. And mine need at least 4-5 inches hemmed off them, which I'm hoping to accomplish this weekend. We get 3 pairs of pants and we're in charge of washing them.
- Chef's Jacket - this is embroidered with our first and last name. Just a white jacket. There is a tiny white pocket in the upper left sleeve for pens/pencils. Other than that, no pockets. Just some in the pants.
- Necktie - You think tying a regular tie is hard? Try a chef's knot. It's craziness. But I think I've got it down.
- Black Steel Toed Shoes - these we had to supply ourselves. I found a pair that are like runners - paid about $75 at Mark's.
- Chef's Hat - this is just made of paper. My understanding is that the taller it is, the more senior you are. Your hair has to be completely underneath it.
- Apron and Side Towel - those are fairly basic. They're white and go around your waist. My apron in this picture is tied much too long. I think I'll shorten it a bit next time I tie it.
Anyway, here's the picture! I texted some of you. If you didn't get a text...well your phone doesn't do pics or I don't have your cell number. :P
Today was our first Theory class in the demo kitchen. You know those kitchens you see on TV with a chef behind them showing you how to make something? Exactly the same thing. In about 2 hours Chef Richard made 2 batches of bread, blueberry filling, hazelnut filling, and pastry creme. So, I'm assuming that's what we'll be making on Tuesday when we get in the kitchen. Theory class is cool, but it's obvious I've never done this professionally as I had no idea what he was talking about half the time. I definitely have to do a lot of reading. After theory was done, they took us on a really quick tour of the kitchens. And that was it! So, now I'm off until Tuesday! Hopefully I can kick this cold by Sunday. :)
Anyway, I have more to say, but I've talked enough for one post. I'll save the rest for another post.
It sucks. It's slow and I hate it.
But I'm still happy I have it.
I got exemptions for both of my Core classes, which are both on Mondays! I've already taken both courses at the U of S (or the same information at least) and gotten credit, so I can use that in place of having to re-take it. So, no Business Communications (writing memos, doing speeches) or Computer Skills (let's learn how to use Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint!). Bleh! So boring, both of them! So happy to be exempt!
So, what does this mean? Well, I'll tell you!
First of all, I don't have to go anymore. So, my Mondays are free. In December I'll have to start going in the morning only for Theory, but my afternoons will remain free.
Secondly, I get reimbursed for my books. About $200 worth I believe. I'm not sure about tuition yet - the person who would know is out sick, so I have to wait for her to get back so I can ask.
Anyway - I'm really happy right at the moment! :)
Well, that sure was on crazy week to start classes!
On Sunday, a federal election was called! Yay! I love elections, I have to say. I love watching the results pour in and I love the debates that happen throughout. Especially the nonsensical ones that I have with people! I'm too lazy to change my layout into a blue one, so we'll stick with my diary layout...but hey, the Conservatives have lots of secrets in a diary of their own, so I guess it's appropriate enough! Go Conservatives! I'm not going to get into a political rant right now...but it'll come, just wait. I haven't had a chance to read any platforms yet, so I'd be talking out my rear if I said anything right now.
Monday we started our first class and we're already finished it! No need to go into detail as I ranted about it a couple posts back, but suffice it to say, I'm glad it's done. The test went well...I know I passed, it's just a matter of how well I passed. We had to get 75% to pass - I'm hoping I got at least 85%.
On Friday we finally got to see the kitchens! Very exciting! Our kitchen is huge, has lots of fun equipment, and a lot of flour. I think I'm going to have a blast! My one chef instructor gave us a short little rant about how the chocolate you get at the stores is basically just pure crap. And that what we'll be using is quality. Yay for quality! Anyway, once we get in there, I'll sneak my camera in and get some pictures for you of our kitchen. I have say, having been here as long as I have - I picked the right institution. I don't think I could have picked a better one. For example, a team from my school won the World Youth Culinary Championships last year and are headed to the Culinary Olympics very shortly. So, being top in the world is nice - it definitely increases the value of the certification I will get as well as makes me confident that I will get the best education possible.
Everything here is quality. The food we use is quality. The chef instructors are some of the best, most experienced chefs in the world. The equipment is top of the line - our dishwasher is worth $80,000 - it's the only one east of Montreal. The oven the culinary students use is worth about $28,000. They have high expectations for us, but in return, we get to train with the best of the best.
I don't think I've mentioned this, but every day we get a free meal. Well, I'm sure it was worked into our tuition, but they didn't mention anything about it until we got here! Right now it's lunch, but I think if you work the early shift they also do breakfast. And by a free meal, I mean that we're getting a gourmet lunch every day. So far we've had things like stuffed porkchops and ratatouille. (Yes, ratatouille! We were excited too.) For most of the things, in all honesty, we have no idea what they are. We sort of line up and go "well, that looks good, give me that" and point to what we want. They write the names of the stuff on a white board, but we don't know what it means. So, every day we get a main course (meat, starch, vegetable), our choice of soup or salad (remember...gourmet...this is no plain lettuce salad), dessert (right now made by the culinary students...clearly not as good as what we'll be making, haha), and a drink. Pretty darn good! On first glance it almost seems like the students are sort of working for free, but it's actually a great setup. This way we get to learn by experience, actually making the food, but we don't have to pay for it and we have somebody to eat it, so it doesn't go to waste. I consider the free lunch a perk after those two other things. But anyway, for anybody who was wondering...yes, I'm eating healthy. They plate the food for us and everything, so you don't even have the option of taking big servings, therefore, it's a healthy, well-rounded meal that we get. Overall - one sweet perk to culinary school.
I spent some time on Friday touring around Charlottetown some more. I'll start that series of posts soon. So far my plans for "series" are the Oddities of PEI, Residence Life, and A Tour of Prince Edward Island. Hopefully I can keep them relatively interesting. My plan is to write those posts when I'm in a blogging mood, save them, and then post them to fill in when I'm not in a blogging mood!
Today I went out and did a bit of applying for some jobs. I'm mostly just looking for something for the weekends so that I have something to do. And the cash would be nice too. So, here's hoping that something pans out. Then I went to a movie with a friend. Just FYI - the movie Traitor is good...not great, but good. Then I decided to stay up for the Riders game - started at 11pm my time. We lost. :( But BC did play a good game - so at least it was entertaining!
Plans for tomorrow are to do some wandering around Charlottetown in the more residential areas that I haven't seen yet. Of course, that will depend on the weather. If it rains, I'll stick inside. I cleaned during the Rider game, so tomorrow can just be a lazy, lazy day I suppose!
Anyway, I'll probably post again tomorrow, but I hadn't posted for a while, so I figured I had better write something! I'm sure you all didn't mind the break in reading though - I can go on and on sometimes. Like this time. :P
Have a good day all!