New Stories and Ridiculous Classmates

Hi everyone!

School has been going well, even though I’ve only had 4 classes so far – people downstate really don’t know how to deal with snow! Last Wednesday and Thursday my classes got canceled because of the snow storm here, and then Monday was President’s day, so we’re running a little far behind to start off with.

I’m a little surprised at how much reading there is – I always assumed that it would be an all hands-on learning experience, but they really want to make sure that you have a good grasp on the history and basics of baking before you’re even allowed to set foot in a kitchen.

My teacher is hilarious though – she has a story for everything. She told us about how when she was working at one of the first bakeries/restaurants she worked for after school, that she walked in on one of her co-workers taking a bath in one of the giant stand-up mixers that they make bread in! He was using one of those handled scrub brushes and everything and didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed when she found him. She later told the manager who just said, “Oh, it must be Monday…” and she promptly turned in her resignation. How gross is that? I want to know the name of the place just so that I can avoid it.

It’s funny, even though we’ve only had 4 classes, there are a couple of people who are missing classes – which is pretty obvious when you’re in a class of only 20 people. This one guy has already missed 2, including the first class and b/c he was actually there today, I found out that he isn’t exactly the brightest person in the bunch. We were talking about the basic main ingredients used in a bakeshop – flour, sugar, fats, etc and were starting to discuss chocolate. Our teacher brought up that chocolate must always include chocolate liquor and cocoa butter, and so she asked the class, “What is cocoa butter?” He piped up immediately saying, “Something to help heal wounds.” Now yes, it’s true that cocoa butter is sometimes sold as a cream that helps with stretch marks, but come on…if we’re at a culinary school, talking about cocoa butter in regards to chocolate and it’s use in pastry, what is the real likelihood that the answer she’s looking for has to do with a skin treatment? I definitely chuckled a bit to myself.

I also learned that white chocolate isn’t actually chocolate…madness!! It doesn’t have any chocolate liquor, but because it’s 30-35% cocoa butter, it still gets called chocolate, but only here – not in Europe (they’re very precise & snotty like that).

Oh well…we’re going over baker’s math tomorrow which is no fun, but we might be getting our tool-kits afterward which would be super fun! Pictures to follow ☺