Missing Home

This past weekend was an especially hard one to be stuck in Queens, when so many of the people that I love were on the other side of the state.  My incredibly bright sister-in-law graduated this past Saturday with a masters degree in mental health counseling, so my hubby dropped me off at school on Friday and then drove the 6 or so hours to Rochester so that he could be there for the ceremony, as well as Mother's Day.  I hated not being able to be there, but I would've had to miss my last day of breads before our practical began on Monday, and I would've had to miss two days of work.  Sadly, since Saturdays are the one day a week where I get the bulk of my hours from, it makes it both financially and responsibly unreasonable of me to try and take that day off from work.  My mom and my own sister also had some fun this weekend, taking the day on Saturday to drive to Toronto for an afternoon of shopping (I heard some nice vodka was purchased at the duty-free shop...haha) and a matinee of the show Mama Mia, which my mom is particularly fond of.  It seems so long since I had a real day off aside from Sundays (the one day a week where I don't work or go to school).  Sometimes I worry that I'm spreading myself too thin, but it is a means to an end.  To think...at one point I actually made a case for continuing to work full-time while going to school either all day on the weekends or at night during the week!  Now, just thinking about that makes me want to faint.

So, yes...breads are coming to a close.  Dave and I actually considered having me stay home from class on Friday so that a. he wouldn't have to worry about getting stuck in crazy LIE traffic on his way to Rochester after dropping me off and b. so that I wouldn't have to worry about getting to work late after finding another way home that afternoon.  However, as soon as I told him that we were supposed to make pumpernickel, rye and sourdough breads on Friday, he immediately told me that not only did I have to go to class, but that as soon as I got home I had to wrap the breads at once in saran wrap and aluminum foil and stick them in the freezer so that they would be there when he got back on Sunday night.  Word to the wise - never try to come between Dave and his rye bread.  By the way, did you know that the translation for pumpernickel is "devil's fart"?  No, seriously...it comes from the German word "pumpen", meaning flatulence, and "nickel" was a common term for demon at it's time of inception.  Also, when it was first being made, it was incredibly hard to digest, probably causing a lot of gassy grief.  Plus, it's dark color undoubtedly made the demon association all to easy to conjure up.  I just find it hilarious - devil's fart, devil's fart, devil's fart!  No need to tell me, I already know I'm like a 5 year old...

Last week we made boules of 7 grain bread, but I'm still having trouble rounding them so that they don't mushroom while baking.  I had to take a picture of this one though, because it looks so much like a butt...plus, to determine when a bread is done baking, you have to take it's temperature...I think the picture says it all:

On Friday we picked out of a cup the items we would have to make for our practical - 2 breads and 1 laminated dough.  I wound up with the fougasse, corn muffins and fruit swirl danishes.  We also found out that there would be a "surprise" bread that we wouldn't find out we had to make until Tuesday morning, the second day of our practical.  Nothing sends 19 pastry students into a panic quite like finding out that you're going to have to make something on the spot that you'll be graded on that day.  I refused to let myself freak out too much though, and luckily had taken a good amount of notes on the two breads that I had to make on Monday.  I made myself little recipe cards with all the info I need on them so that I could carry them around with me without having to look at my books and set to work.  On practical days, the general rule is that you can start presenting your products to the Chef at 11:30 and that you have to have presented by no later than 12:30 or you'll risk losing points.  Imagine my surprise when I actually wound up being the first to present that morning!  I had slight trepidation about it because do you really want to be the very first one to go?  What if the curve goes up after you've already shown?  There are a lot of ifs involved, but I'd already finished and cooled my two breads and finished 2 of the fold and turns on my danish dough, so it was time to just get it over with.  It turns out, I had nothing to worry about.  Chef Katie said that both of my breads were perfect and that my danish dough looked very good.  What a relief!  I'm loving this bread practical!  I finished folding and turning my danish dough and was ready to start moving right away at 8:30 this morning.  The day before, Chef Katie had mentioned that the surprise bread would be more difficult, but that since we'd already made our laminated doughs that we'd have plenty of time.  At that point I guessed that we were either going to have to make babka or stollen (which both come from the same dough base) and I was right, we had to make babka.  This wasn't so bad, and was actually kind of convenient since I just made 3 babkas last week for family members who like to complain that they never get enough baked goods to eat (that's right, I'm looking at you! ;) )  I started the babka, finished my danish and then eventually finished the babka...man, does it take a long time to bake!!  The Chef said that my danish were perfect (hooray!) and that if she had to say anything bad about it, that she couldn't think of anything to say!  That's my best compliment from her yet.  She said that my babka was very good, but that if anything, I could've put more filling (cinnamon/sugar, streusel & chocolate) in.  All in all though, I think it was a pretty successful practical.  I was actually one of the last people to present to her today because she wound up leaving class early (with some of the other teacher's pitching in to grade any leftover products) because her Dad is in the hospital.  If you're someone who likes to pray, or just keep people in your thoughts, please think of them over the next couple of days.  We could all use a little more positive energy in our lives.

 raspberry danishes

singular danish

Mihwa doing the big reveal with some of Julie's danish

On a more upbeat note, I busted out the personalize notebook and pen set that my friend Monica had made for me that say my name followed by, "Dessert Extraordinaire."  I was showing them off to some of my classmates, who were extremely jealous.  One even tried to steal it claiming that "her" friend Monica made it for her and who was "I" to steal it!  To which I retorted, "Oh yeah?  If she's your friend Monica, then what happened to her after eating Mighty Taco on a trip to Canada?!"  Unfortunately that story is a little too obvious and she guessed it on the first try, so then I said, "Okay, so what's her nickname?"  That's a much harder one to guess, so I triumphed.  The best part though, was when I revealed the nickname and one of the guys from the culinary class was standing behind me at the time - catching them off guard is especially amusing. 

I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but the longer I spend in the kitchen at school, the more I find myself using diner nicknames to refer to the rest of my classmates.  You know the type - sweetie, honey, sweetheart, sweetpea, darling, etc.  I always catch myself after the fact and always think it's a little strange, but no one else seems to mind, and in fact it's kind of catching - a lot of people are using these kind of silly terms of endearment towards each other.  Hey, as long as they're not calling each other terrible names, all the while beating each other with rolling pins - it's fine by me.

If you remember my post from May 6th, you'll remember that it was a somewhat arduous day concerning a certain pair from my class.  I tried to post these pictures then, but for some reason blogger wouldn't let me (but now will, go figure...).  So just in case you were wondering, this is what it looks like when bakers need to blow off steam.  Goodnight everyone!