Oh Where Oh Where has my sunshine gone?

Wow! I just arrived back to Utah this afternoon and all I can say is cold!! I thought Arizona was cold but no I will never take my 60 degree weather for granted again! I love the fact that I can normally wear a short sleeve shirt and a light jacket and be perfectly warm! I also still have green grass at home and flowers....it is so weird to look everywhere and see white! It snowed from Cedar City to Brigham and I thought I had missed the snow...I quickly learned I haven't. It is cold and wet and slick and I don't miss it at all! I am missing my sunshine and green grass right now!I am just cold and I can't get warm! My ears to my toes are cold and I just can't get warm! Oh where oh where has my sunshine gone?

No More School!

I finished my last day of school today! I am so incredibly excited and proud to have accomplished culinary school! I worked my butt off and have a 4.0 GPA to show for it. I am also the only one in my class to have one! Go Megan Go! It was great to end around the holidays...it was kinda like a Christmas present to myself! It has been a busy and stressful week! We have had tests and projects due and we were all so excited to be done that is was hard to focus! I did well on my final also...I only missed one and it was on the crazy french we had to know. And might I note that we did not take a french class in school.

We had some real jerks eat in the restaurant this week and may I just say to the general public...be compassionate of those cooking and serving your food! It is a tough job and being mean and picky makes us irritated and unwilling to help. If you have a problem be polite and courteous and it will get fixed so much quicker and happier. Everyone makes mistakes and unless you have never one you don't have a right to be so darn upset when someone else makes one! So next time your steak is undercooked, or you get the wrong dessert just take a deep breath and remember...be nice! We are trying!

Gingerbread Success!

My gingerbread party came and went! It was so much fun! Not to many people came but the few of us there were had a blast! We decorated for hours! Valerie's house was pratical and cute, Lola's truly Arizona (it has grass), Candice's unique (it was a crime scene) and mine traditional with lots of love! It was a blast! The gingerbread was tough to make and took so long! Tips for gingerbread....warm dough is easier, and make sure to cut straight and lay super straight on the cookie sheet! It is fun though! I am now officially in the Christmas mood after a day with gingerbread and Christmas music and smells! Christmas is only 12 days away!

Gingerbread Galore!

I am so excited! The advanced baking class at school is making gingerbread houses and displaying them in the restaurant. After staring at them for days I decided to make some but it would be no fun by myself so I am have a gingerbread house decorating party! I am so super excited! I have never decorated a real gingerbread house before and I am making them for everyone! I hope everything works out well! I made cute little gingerbread men for invitations and then wrapped them like candy to give to my guests. It was super easy to do and they look super cute and taste great as well!

The Christmas spirit is in full swing at school. We have gingerbread villages in the restaurant as well as we have been serving holiday sangrias and next week we are making candy cane martinis and the drink "The Grinch" whatever that entails! We are so excited for the holidays and just can't wait!

As other notes today I served in the restaurant and I spilled a coke all over some lady's arm. I felt so awful and my day was a diaster after that. It was awful. I am much better suited to the kitchen and am glad that is where I have chosen to stay! If I drop something there normally if doesn't affect anyone but me...and it for sure doesn't ever hit a customer! I miss the kitchen and am excited to get back to it!

Red Hats

Today has been an awful day. I am sitting at home on my red couch with a hundred things to do and yet I can not muster any energy to do them. I am just exhausted. I am in the front of the restaurant and have been completely bored the whole week until today. Today was a diaster. It would take to long to explain the details but the first half of the problem was I did two people's job today and it killed me. The other half of the equation is that we had the Red Hats come today. I used to like red and purple. Not anymore. Red hats are some silly old ladies that get together to visit and have fun. They also wear Red and Purple....everything including huge crazy hats! Well this year, they decided to have their Christmas party at our restaurant. They were picky, rude and noisy. Du Jour (the restaurant) is fine dining and they turned it into a diaster. It was messy and they wouldn't leave until almost an hour after school got out. We all had to wait an extra hour to leave. It was just awful and they weren't even nice and we didn't even get good tips because of their special group rate. The next time I see old ladies in red and purple with hats on....I am running the other way I fast as I can!

the Final Countdown!

I official only have less than 3 weeks left of my academic portion of school! I am so excited! I am currently helping to run the front of the house. Today was my first time serving and I was so excited because I didn't drop any trays, food, or spill anything on anyone. I may have not been the most graceful and correct server but I don't think anyone noticed. I did my very best although my left and right handed serving may have been a bit off. I even got a 40% tip today. It was from a super sweet lady and boy she was a doll. It was a good day today even though it was a bit slow.
It always amazes me though how we can take the simplest things and make them beautiful. Today our amuse bouche (palate warmer) was a take on a shrimp quesadilla. It looked nothing like a quesadilla though and it was simple and very beautiful. It had a shrimp mousse, with a goregous pico de gallo and a avacado-truffle creme. it also came with a little fried tortilla. It was amazing and everyone seemed to love them. It is terrific to be able to take something so casual and simple and dress it up and make it elegant and high-class.

I finally feel like a chef!

The day has finally come....I finally feel like a chef! It is a great feeling! I have just been feeling like a cook and struggling some days to feel like that but now I feel like a chef! I have just three days left in the kitchen of the student-ran restaurant and I am so glad and so excited! I feel like I might just survive in the industry! I actually am starting to feel confident and that I can do it...I can succeed and for that I am so very grateful! Cooking in the restaurant has been fantastic and I am learning by leaps and bounds everyday! I really like the rush of the restaurant although it is so stressful and chaotic at times! I am very grateful for finally coming to feel like I can succeed and this restaurant has blessed me with the ability to know that. I am so grateful!
As for another news...my friend had an attempted break-in at her house last week and so I have been staying there. I have come to realize how much I hate living alone. It was nice at first but now it is awful. I am looking forward to the end of January when I can get roommates again. It will be a very nice.
Thankgiving is this week and I get to go home to UTAH!! YES!! It will be so nice to see my family and to get to show off some of my cooking skills! I am very grateful for Thanksgiving! It is a great time to be grateful and I am very grateful for all my blessings at this time of the year as well as every other time of the year!!

6 weeks in counting

I only have 6 weeks of classes left starting tomorrow! I am so excited! I am cooking in the student ran restaurant, DuJour, starting tomorrow. I am so scared and yet so happy and excited all at the same time. It should be a blast. I get to spend three weeks there and then I get to move to the front of the house and try my hand at waiting and such. I am incredibly nervous for that. I then am off just after Christmas for an exciting three month adventure. I am still not sure where my internship lies but hopefully it will truly be an adventure even it is still here in Arizona. I am currently looking at Resorts and Hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, Sheraton and other such fine companies. I am hoping to find an internship to fit my needs perfectly! I am just so excited to start in the restaurant tomorrow! I am so close to being done and it feels great!

Projects Galore

Homework is the theme of this blog. My classes are more intense than normal and they just keep loading on the projects and assignments. This week only I had assignments to write a diabetic meal plan, a resume, a cover letter, do a 24-hour food log and a project associated with that. I also have a menu project due as well as a paper on wild rice due next week. I also got take two tests this weeks and get to take three this weeks.

Tests are fabulous as well as stressful. I did amazing on my first nutrition test though. I only missed 0.25 of a point. Nutrition is one of my favorite class I have gotten to take while at school. I love everything about it...including learning how bad I eat and how much I need to improve my lifestyle and eating habits. One thing at a time though. I figure I better get out of school first.

I've also been working on this menu project. I have to creat an entire menu for a restaurant of my creation . I have to write a mission statement, design the menu and have all the recipes and cost cards necessary for that menu. It has been a lot of work and I don't even think I am half way done yet. My restaurant is all based on grains though and so it was been incredibly fun to learn so many different recipes with so many different grains. I am very focused on grains right now. There are so many different grains, with so many different tastes and textures and each provides different nutrients. My world used to consist of just long-grain rice.....now I think I have to decide between 13 or 14. Grains are good!

Not a good blogger!

Well...I don't think I am a very good blogger and yet I am still going to try. I am now done with Meat Fab luckily and it got slightly more enjoyable once I was able to do some cooking and I didn't have to spend every second with raw meat. I got an A...barely but an A nevertheless and am very hapy to be done with that class.

I have also completed Advanced Showpieces and Pastries. The class was fantastic! I learned so many cool and new things. I made cakes of all shapes and sizes, chocolate truffles and characters and pulled and blown sugar to name a few things. The class was amazing. I could have easily stayed in it for another three if not more weeks. It was amazing. I got another easy A in that class and felt very successful!

I am now in Restaurant Management, Wine Spirits and Nutrition. Restaurant Management is ok but extremely informative. Nutrition is fun and I am learning a lot. I think we all need to cut some Sodium out of our diets as well as us young folks need to take calcium! I think I also like nutrition from my background in healthcare which makes things easy for me to understand and relate to. I am really enjoying the class and I am working hard to improve my eating habits! More calcium and less sodium are in store for me! Wine Spirits is awful. As I am LDS and don't drink it is hard to sit in a class and learn about alcohol for hours. I don't understand anything while my class understands and I get angry looks if I ask stupid questions but my questions aren't stupid to me...I just don't get it! I also am sick of the tastings....I just sit and watch every other student in my class drink...at least they don't get drunk or even close to tipsy but it is just hard to sit and do nothing while there is so many more important things I could do with my time.

I am on the count down to being done with the in-house portion of school though. I have just under 8 weeks left and then I am off to an internship in an undisclosed location (in other words, I don't know yet!) School is a blast and I am loving what I am learning! Food is constantly on my mind and I don't mind!

As a PS the picture above is a picture of my blown sugar swans.

First Blog Ever.

So I decided to start blogging...why I am not sure...I live a relatively boring life down here is Scottsdale, Arizona. My life pretty much consists of school and nothing else! In fact today I spent nearly 12 hours at school. I am sure anyone who reads this will get to hear all about cooking and food more than they ever wanted to but since that is my life...you will just have to deal!
Take today for example....I just finished my first week in my Meat Fabrication and Saucier class. I was lucky enough (or unlucky enough) to get to spend my first week on the Meat Fab station...I have cut up so many chickens, pork legs and beef cuts...I don't think I will ever eat meat again! I also have done so many fish filets...I can't get rid of the smell. I wash my hands a hundred times and the fish smell remains. I didn't mind smelling like bread or whipping cream when I was in baking but fish is another story. I smell awful and keep thinking I need to wash my hands although I think I might have some of the most clean hands on the planet right now. It is just awful. It is sufficient to say that Meat Fabrication is not while I decided to go into culinary arts!
On a more positive note...I got to watch a chocolate demonstration today and I am pretty sure that I want chocolate making, sculpting and everything chocolate to be in my future job description. It was amazing to watch and to taste! Chocolate is good! If they can but combine desserts and chocolates into a job...it would be perfect! The chocolate was beautiful and I can't wait until I hit advanced pastries and showpieces as school to try my hand in chocolate! Yah for chocolate and its wonderful characteristics other than its flavor!