Hello Momma!

While I am starting to get used to city life I do still get home sick a lot too, although I do try to go home when I can it's hard with my hectic schedule between studying for class and interning. So I was overjoyed when My mother and Grandmother decided to come see me for a weekend to help pass the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Their visit came with perfect timing. They got to come and dine at our afternoon of desserts at school. As a class we had prepared for this day all week Mise en Place-ing our desserts and then when the orders came in from our families we fired them and sent them out. I even got to be in charge of calling out orders and making sure that they got to the table timely, ( they should have known better than to give me permission to yell!)

After a quick tour of school we settled into our hotel room. The next day we went exploring some and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I all ready can't wait to go back again. Everything was just simply beautiful and completely inspiring.

Before they left on Sunday we went to L'Ecole for brunch. It was good I got Steak tartar with a raw quail egg. I think better than eating it was watching the look on my mom and grandma's faces when I spilled the egg on to the raw meat and dug in!

My Favorite Toy

Settling into our new spacious kitchen was very nice. But the fact that we were now to work on more chocolate worried some. I have to admit even I was a little worried, I still hadn't quite mastered this tempering thing just yet. Although thanks to my manager at Jacques Torres who insisted that I try tempering chocolate with out a thermometer. You want me to do what!? The thought of not using a thermometer made no sense to me in my head I knew that there were very specific numbers that we had to hit as we heated and cooled the chocolate how could I possibly do that with no thermometer? But as Melissa explained that it was all about learning

the look and feel of chocolate when its tempered I thought OK, maybe I can do this. So when Chef Jurgen said that we were to be doing out final Chocolate showpiece the next day I decided to put my thermometer back in my tool kit and see if I could do this relying only on my senses. And to my excitement batch after batch came out perfectly tempered with no sign of a thermometer in sight. And by class end I was very happy with my Chocolate show piece.

I was nervous yet excited to bring my chocolate showpiece into Jacques Torres chocolate to show everyone, yet their opinion and knowledge of chocolate was greatly respected. Melissa was overjoyed that I didn't use a thermometer like she suggested. I think she was even more amused by how excited I was about it. An then there was Chef Torres himself. Part of me didn't want to show him the showpiece, after all he is the master. Chef was very impressed and said it was beautiful and he couldn't do better. He even asked me how I made some elements of it! Hearing that from him meant so much to me, truly a proud moment.

sugar one

After all that plating I was definitely excited to get back into some show piece work. Our First level of sugar was one I had been pretty excited for. First we got to work with marzipan and we made several different fruits and vegetables along with a nougatine basket. I've always enjoyed sculpting so this was a lot of fun, plus I got to use an airbrush again which I am all ready pretty confident with.

Next we moved on to working with pastillage, a stiff sugar dough that drys like porcelain and is very fragile. This medium proved to be frustrating for all of us. The goal was to make a 12in tall cake stand that could support a 6 inch round cake with both design and air flow. I chose to do a Japanese dressing screen type design. And after much frustration of pieces breaking and not adhering as planned I finally got it together and it held the weight!

Now it was time for what I had been most excited to learn, sugar paste flowers with Ron Ben Israel!!! At home I can often be found at the table all night working on sugar paste flowers so it was no surprise that I would be excited for this lesson. We watched videos and eagerly asked all the questions we could think of in our short time with Ron Ben and in the end we came out with some very beautiful flowers. Even on the plane ride home for Thanksgiving had them sitting on my lap and the man sitting next to me asked to take a picture of them. I couldn't help but laugh.

At the end of our last day of sugar one Chef Jurgen came into our class room and gave us his "tomorrow you will be mine!" speech. And with that we were all reminded that this was our last day of level 2 and that tomorrow we would be in level 3, our last level before graduation.

Pretty Plates

Now its time to see what we really do know. The first level of plated desserts showed us all the ways we can can twist and evolve our recipes any way we please. This section worked a little differently than those in the past. At the beginning of each class we are all assigned different elements of the final desserts to make such as doughs, sauces, and ice creams. Then at the end of the day we put it all together and made some very nice plating's. This unit was nice because it showed us in may ways how real restaurants work. Hardly ever will we see everything start to finish in the work force. It's all about being a team and working together to get the job done. It was great to see that we all ready knew how to make all the different flavors and components. I hadn't realized how much I've learned all ready.

tempering tantrums

Oh Chocolate how I love and hate you! Despite Chocolate being one of my favorite things to eat it in many ways can also be one of the most difficult things to work with. Between it being extremely easy to burn and only being able to work with it in a 4-degree temperature window without having to start over you can see why I stress. Chocolate is not something that you can "wing" or just throw together and hope for the best it take a lot of deliberate precision. You melt, you cool, you stir, you reheat, then you mold and pray. Because even if you swear up and down that you did everything right sometimes its still not in temper. And that means that your chocolate won't dry and it will turn into a grainy cloudy hot mess.
But have no worries we had a lot of practice and managed to make not only a chocolate box filled with unctuous Gran Marnier truffles, But also a structurally sound chocolate candy stand. I do have to say after the written chocolate test was complete I think my whole class shared in a sigh of relief that we were finally done with chocolate.... at least for now.

NYC Chocolate Show

One of the great things about being in college in New York city is that in many ways it is one of the food capitals of the world. Because of this many great events are held here, one such event that I had the pleasure of going to was the Chocolate Show. Now this place was a wonderland for anyone that has a soft spot for chocolate. With over 52 exhibitors all offering several chocolate samples you can see why I was in a sugar high dream. After walking around and stuffing my face with as many varieties of chocolate that I could I decided it was time to sit down and watch a few demos in the viking sponsored theater.
Many people don't realize that cacao can be used in both sweet and savory preparations. And I got to enjoy some of the best examples of this from shrimp in chipotle vanilla sauce served with cacao over fresh corn polenta to a 4-start dirt cup. This day was quickly becoming too good to be true. I even got to talk to Johnny iuzzini, the James Beard award wining pastry chef from Jean Georges. I even got him to sign his new book for me.
This show made me realize how much I do in fact love chocolate and even got me thinking about going into business selling it on the side with the dove company. Hey you never know when an opportunity will come knocking.

Cakes from level two

As I'm sure everyone knows I love to play with cake. So I was more than happy when I found out that we were once again returning to my favorite subject. It seems like for everything I thought I knew about cake decorating I have learned two more great tips here at FCI, I love it! We got to use lots of new mediums that I haven't gotten to use much before now such as Marzipan. Which is a very yummy cake covering alternative to fondant. I also learned a new fondant recipe And a few tips and tricks for making cheesecakes. One thing that I have been anxiously awaiting making was the buche de noel, the traditional french Christmas yule log cake. The one cake that chef says we are allowed to over decorate and throw a bunch of little decorations on. Cake level two has made me even more excited for the wedding cake we will get to make once we get to level three.