In the Beginning...

My class and I began working in the kitchen on Monday! We're all now in the process of adjusting to our new way of life, some more drastically than others. I consider myself lucky in that my commute is only 30 minutes or so, including walking time. Many students travel well over an hour to make it downtown by 6:30am! Knowing this, I now feel lucky i get to sleep until 5:30 every morning. (I never thought I'd say such a thing, and I'm fairly certain several of you never thought I would, either!)

It's been a pretty basic couple of days: learning our way around (without constantly bumping into one another), figuring out where ingredients are kept, and - most importantly - discovering the most efficient ways to work together to make the kitchen sparkle before the afternoon class arrives. According to a recent graduate (who now works at the French Laundry), our cleaning ability will be one of our most marketable and most appreciated skills when we graduate.

The food side of things is beginning to pick up the pace. After turning apples into large dice, small dice, and julienne-sized pieces on Monday (knife skills are important!), we spent today initiating some semblance of piping skills, and creating pate sucree (sweet dough), streusel, and almond cream. Tomorrow we will make pastry cream and both Italian and French meringues before moving onto chocolate candies for the remainder of this week and all of next week. I am very excited for this portion of class, and am curious to see how well my classmates and I work together in an extremely time-sensitive environment. I'm sure in a few weeks we'll be a fine-tuned, well-oiled machine...