Exhaustion, Tim Horton's and Attack of the Sourdough Mustache

I don't think home cooks realize just how back-breaking it is to work in a professional kitchen, I feel like I just joined the marine corps!  I'm really going to have to get into better shape if I'm going to work in this kind of environment.  Of course, the argument could be made that as long as I don't pig-out like crazy during the day, and work like crazy at the bakery, that in and of itself will be a workout, but I still feel like maybe I should join a gym or at least try to be more active on my own.  Because seriously folks, I need to be a wee bit faster and to have a lot less of me to move around, lol.

I had my trial interview at the bakery in the city last night, and while it wasn't completely what I expected, I think that it went fairly well.  I showed up early for what I was expecting would be a 2-3 hour tops work trial, just to see how I'd fit in in their kitchen.  For starters, I was blown away by how amazing everything looked in their storefront.  Even though I'd arrived toward the end of their retail hours for Sunday, everything still looked delicious, there were a wide variety of breads, some with sweet or savory additions, as well as some tasty looking pastries.  Unfortunately, the person I'd been told I'd be meeting with had left for the day.  I was crestfallen at first, thinking I'd have to reschedule, but a minute later, the girl at the counter took me back to work with a couple of other guys in the bakery.

I'd never have guessed from looking at the storefront, but their warehouse/kitchen/bakery is huge!  There was this massive expanse of space in the back, as well as floor to ceiling ovens, that I still can't wrap my mind around how they all work.  Then the doorway to the bakery, which is in between the two giant sections of ovens, was flanked by these gigantic wooden peels (at least twice as long as I am tall) that stood like stationary guards keeping watch over the baking breads.

The guys I worked with were very nice, and at first I felt like, "this is going to be soooo easy!" There were only 2 other guys there, and all they had me doing at first was picking rosemary apart.  So I'm standing their happily with green finger tips thinking it's going to be a breeze, and boy was I ever wrong!  After that, the work level took a quick upswing and before I knew it I was portioning and shaping doughs, being taught how to throw wheat bran down a rack like a baseball, and lifting very heavy rubbermaid containers of dough.  All of the sudden 6 o'clock had rolled around and the guys were asking if I wanted something to eat from the storefront (they also make and sell paninis).  I joined them, but was a little confused.  After all, if they're offering to feed me, that makes it seem more like a break rather than sending me on my way.  So after I had a little something to eat, I tried to very casually ask how long the trial lasted for.  The guy I was observing called the guy I'd been told I was supposed to meet and then came back to me and said, "can you stay till 10pm?"  I had no idea that work trial meant that I'd actually be working a 6+ hour shift.  Of course I said yes, because I didn't want to seem flaky, and I really want the job, but I had to sneak upstairs to call Dave to let him know that I wouldn't be home till much later than expected.  I kind of get it, after all, what better way to see how I'll work out then by having me work a full shift.  It just would have been nice to know that up front.  Also, I have to tell you that it wasn't until about 4 hours into my shift there that another girl showed up.  After a little while she and I were chatting and she asked how long I'd worked there for.  While pleased that I looked to her like a regular employee, I admitted that I was only there on a trial, and asked her the same question - she had just started the day before.  So then she asked where I was working now and so I explained that I was about to graduate from pastry school and this would be my first full-time industry job, so again, I reciprocated and asked where she worked previously.  Jean Georges.  Freaking Jean Georges!  She's like, "oh I was a chef there, I didn't bake..."  Oh yes, that makes all the difference.  Don't mind me, I'm just going to go stand in the corner and think about the fact that you were a chef at Jean Georges!  For those who don't know, Jean Georges is one of those super-important, super-fancy-pants places that Dave and I might go to if say, we had upwards of $300 to spend on dinner.  I was stunned, I couldn't believe that there was a chance I could be starting work someplace with someone who had that kind of pedigree.  It's the kind of thing that builds you up and yet makes you feel inferior at the same time.

By the end of the night, let me tell you - I looked delightful.  I now fully understand why they have a full locker room and bathrooms with showers.  Every time I shook out my apron I was literally surrounded by a cloud of flour.  I had to beat the hat I'd borrowed from Dave out over the sink to get most of the flour off, and my jeans and sneakers were so coated, I looked like I'd been caught in the dust bowl of 1930!  No no wait...I looked like look like I trudged through a field of cocaine!  Or um...you know, flour...

I'm here all week folks.  Tip your waitress, try the veal!

By the time 10pm rolled around, I was thoroughly exhausted.  My supervisor dismissed me for the night and rewarded me with a pullman loaf of sourdough bread.  Also, since I had to take a different train that night (the train that would've gotten me closest to the bakery was running on a different track due to repairs, etc. aka: MTA hates me), I decided to treat myself with a stop at the Tim Horton's 1 block away from the train and get myself an Ice Capp.  Oh Tim Horton...I love you most of all...

My prizes, bread and a Tim Horton's Ice Capp

Dave was particularly fond of the bread and decided that it looked very nice as a mustache

I was so incredibly sore when I woke up this morning.  I honestly still don't know how I made it out of bed at all.  The good news is though, I got up the nerve to call the woman from human resources who had set the work trial up for me in the first place, to thank her and to follow up and see if she still wanted me to come in for a sit-down interview.  As it turns out, she did!  She told me that she'd gotten really positive feedback from the guys I'd worked with on Sunday, and that they'd conveyed to her that they would feel good about having me in the bakery with them. *insert squeals of excitement right about...here*  So I'm going there tomorrow at 10am.  Luckily, the Chef at my internship is so invested in me getting this job that he had no problem with me not being able to come in tomorrow morning.  Hopefully it will all go well, and I won't say anything stupid.  Thanks again for all of your support and for reading my little blog.  It always makes my day to see that other people are actually interested in what I have to say and invested in my making it in the ever so delightful world of cakes, pies and breads.

p.s. I really need to learn Spanish

p.p.s. no seriously, where is Rosetta Stone when you need it?

Internships and Interviews

The strangest thing happened to me the other day...Santiago actually complimented me!  Usually with him, no news is good news, so when he stops saying, "what are you doing?!" 15 times a day (usually I wasn't even doing anything wrong, he just wanted to mess with me...), I knew that I was doing alright, but the other day he actually took the time, to tell me he like something.  I made the chef's "oreo-style" cookies on Saturday after they'd both left for the day, and usually they're fine, but not perfect, but I guess I made them pretty well this time, yay me!   Of course, none of this matters since he doesn't like me anymore after finding out that I'm "judío" (aka: Jewish), and I'm not entirely sure whether this is a joke or not.

He always likes to tell me that he's teaching me Spanish and doing me a great service, so I was joking with him that I was going to teach him Yiddish, but he didn't really seem to get what that was.  So, I mentioned to Jolene that I was trying to teach him to say, "Oy Vey", and she said, "Oh, you speak Yiddish?" and I said a little bit, and she kind of paused like she wanted to say something but didn't know how to, and she said, "So, that means you're..." and I kind of chuckled and said "Yes, I'm Jewish." and she was like, "Oh! That's cool!" and then she told Santiago, and he just kept smiling and saying, "No...serious?" over and over again, and then he looks at me and says, "You no Jesus?" and I said, "No, me no Jesus..." and just looks at me, very puzzled and says, "why?"  I tried explaining to him that Judaism is just different, but as I'm sure you can guess by the fact that I refer to our interactions as the "Brooke and Santiago Variety Show", didn't really translate.  He seems fine with me now, but I can't really shake the feeling that I got after this happened.  It's been a long time since I've gotten this kind of reaction from another person, and I suppose that some of it has to do with our different backgrounds.  After all, I don't know the exact details, but I'm sure that Ecuador doesn't have much in the way of Jewish communities.  It's just kind of sadly funny, either people refuse to believe me when they find out that I'm Jewish, saying things like, "that's funny, you don't LOOK Jewish', or, "so how are you Jewish exactly?" Or, apparently they take offense to it.  But like I said, he hasn't mentioned it since, and as of today I only have 4 days left there, so I'm going to try and not worry about it for now.

In much happier news, I have an interview today!  My very first at a real bakery.  I'm extremely excited and terrified all at the same time.  I actually applied for a job there on the recommendation of a friend of my Mom's first, before I even saw them advertising jobs,  and when they first called me for an interview I was excited, but I guess I didn't realize what I'd stumbled into.  On Friday when I was at my internship, I casually mentioned to the chef that I had an interview lined up for today.  He asked where, and when I told him he just started laughing.  I was kind of surprised, but I know that he has very specific ideas on what makes a good bakery, so I said, "What, is that not good?" But to my surprise, he said, "No!  They're one of the very best bakeries in the city!  Do you realize how many people wish they were in your position right now?"  Needless to say, that made me a lot more nervous, but luckily he's been helping me prep since then, as he's determined that I get this job.  They're primarily a bread bakery, and they supply bread to a lot of well known places in the city, even the chef at my internship stocks some of their breads for sale in his bakery as it's one of the only things he doesn't make from scratch.  He's already joke that he's going to call me when I get the job so that he can finally learn the secret to making their foccacia, which I might add, is pretty fantastic - I had some last night, yum!

So please please please, think extremely good thoughts for me around 4 o'clock today, b/c that's when I'll be starting my working interview.  I won't say where for now so that I don't jinx it completely, but I'm excited that it's Manhattan, and also, not too far from where Dave works, so if our schedules ever coincide, we can try to catch-up with each other in the city.  I'll let you know how it goes!!

Thanks for Reading :)

Gimme Some Sugar Baby

A frequent customer at the bakery where I'm interning came through the kitchen to use the bathroom.  On his way in, he noted, "Every time I see you, you're holding chocolate!"  To which I replied, "And that is why my job is awesome."

The other day, something happened to me that was just so funny I have to share it with you.  There's a very nice girl who works behind the counter of the bakery - let's call her "Jolene".  So Jolene is still in high school and reminds me of the women in my husband's family because she could easily fit in my pocket.  She's also very handy to have around because she speaks Spanish fluently, and she will readily translate for Santiago and myself when we're having one of our "I don't understand you!" fits. 

So yes, I'm standing at the prep table when all of the sudden Jolene comes running up to me and yells, "Brooke!  I hate being a teenage girl!!"  I was a little caught off guard, so I very warily said, "Is this a Judy Blume moment? Because I didn't come prepared for that today..."  She brushed it off and pointed emphatically at her face and said, "Look!!  Look at this!  That wasn't there this morning!"  And there, near her chin were the beginnings of an only slightly noticeable pimple.  At this point I had to chuckle, meanwhile she's whining and looking awkwardly to the side, claiming that she can see it if she looks down, that's how big it is.  I sighed and told her it was barely noticeable, she didn't agree and said something along the lines of, "It's not fair - you have great skin!" So I told her, "Yeah, but I'm 29, when you're 29 I'm sure your skin will be fine too.  Having someone run up to me claiming to hate being a teenage girl was definitely my hilarious moment of the week, I can't remember anyone ever saying that to me, and I used to be a camp counselor for 20 14-15 year old girls *shudders*.

Chef Katie always used to brag about the "guns" she had when she was working at restaurants and folding, punching & molding bread doughs daily, and I definitely see what she means.  I don't have great arms like my mom or my sister, but I can definitely feel myself getting stronger with all the whisking, heaving lifting, etc.  Oh the whisking...that's one of my major issues.  I'm trying to teach myself to be ambidextrous so that my right arm doesn't get worn out (that's what she said), but whenever I try to whisk with my left arm, it just flails around, as if to say, "Seriously Brooke?  I wasn't made to work this way.  Let's dispense with any feelings to the contrary right now..."  I'm just worried that I'm going to wind up with one crazy arm and look like this:

Not that I think I'm as attractive as Bruce Campbell, but I do not fancy having a machine gun as an arm.  Or being chased by skeleton armies...I don't think it would be helpful in my chosen field.  Just a thought.

Black Holes and Frustrations

It's hard to believe that I only have 2 1/2 weeks left on my internship.  I wish that I felt confident about what I'm going to do after it's all over, but I don't.  In fact, I'm utterly terrified about what will come once August 16th rolls around. 

I like my internship, but it is kind of far away.  The Chef has made fairly definitive statements about keeping me on, but he hasn't made me an official offer and has also said that if I stayed, he could probably only keep me on part-time.  This doesn't exactly thrill me because I've been running myself ragged with the internship and the part-time job I already have as it is, and was really looking forward to having 1 full-time job.  If it's my only option, of course I'll do it, but I hope that it doesn't come to that.  Also, the office manager at the aforementioned pt job is hassling me about staying longer than I'm hoping to.  I asked if I could have 2 days off to go to my camp reunion in August, and she basically said I could only take those days off if I stayed there till at least Sept. 15th.  Then when I said I couldn't definitively say that I could be there till then, she started giving me this speech about how she, "did me a favor" by giving me a job, knowing that it wouldn't only be for a certain period of time, etc.  It took me a little while to wrap my head around her saying that, but I eventually came back and told her that I wasn't trying to give her the run around, but that I hadn't had any official job offers from bakeries - full or part-time, and that my main priority is to have a full-time income because, seriously, I'm running out of money.  I hope that she really heard me because I'm really scared about what's going to happen and how I'm going to have money coming in.

I got my self all jumped-up about going home to Buffalo after my internship, but now that almost seems laughable given the severely limited amount of income that I currently have.  Not to mention the fact that I'd have to quit my pt job, because there's no way that the office manager will give me that amount of time off now.  I keep trying to come up with ways of increasing my income, trying to sell more goods on etsy, selling things I don't use anymore on ebay, etc. but I doubt that I'd be able to turn enough of a profit to have it make a difference, plus I'm stretched so thin as it is, I don't see myself having enough time to make that much stuff.

The other thing that's got me wrapped up is that the Chef at my internship asked me what I wanted to do with my career.  I told him that I really wanted to get more experience with cakes - baking, decorating, etc. So...he told me that he could probably get me connected with another chef he knows for a position at his bakery.  A really famous chef....super well known cake person, so much so that I don't even want to mention their name.  What's wrong with this picture?  Well, the position he'd possibly be able to get me is another internship.  AKA - I will not be getting paid.  I hate to admit it, but right now I'm more than a little jealous of the other people starting out in this industry who are still living at home in with their parents.  Even the Chef at my internship said that one of the reasons he was able to get so much quality experience when he started out was because he was 19-20 years old and still living with his parents.  I just cannot continue to only make a part-time salary, but the thought of passing up this internship (if it comes through) makes me physically sick to my stomach.  Deep down I know that if I want to get to a certain level, and am willing to work hard enough to make it happen, that I'll be able to achieve it without this shot, but right now that's a little hard to accept.

Sorry for being such a downer today, I guess it can't always be sunshine and puppies.  I'll keep you all posted on what happens and what I decide to do.  I'm desperate to get home to Buffalo for a visit, hopefully I won't have to wait till my birthday in September, but if I at least get to go then, so be it. 

I'll have funnier stories for you in the next post - promise.

So, when do I get my own Spanish-language soap opera?

Ding ding ding!  We have a winner!!  Rachel S, since you were the only one to correctly guess that I referred to my new co-worker, Tarrel, as an ass hat, you have won the delicious prize of peanut brittle!  This will be presented at a prestigious prize-winning ceremony that will take place...um...whenever I see you next!  Yes, it will be very special, just you wait.

Things have been very hectic lately, lots of running around and trips to Albany two weekends in a row.  We got to see several members of Dave's family, including his grandparents, mom, aunt, uncle and cousin.  Games of clue, diving lessons and general shenanigans were enjoyed by all - Dave's mom almost blew-up a clothes dryer!!  Just kidding Sue!  Nothing but love for you here :) (p.s. no lie...as I was typing that out, I started to spell "blew-up" as "bluew-up"...I'm smart!).  Apparently the family are big fans of my blog (who knew I had that many readers?  I kid...), and are particularly fond of the stories where I injure myself.  Ahh...now it makes sense.  Not being one to deprive you of Brooke-safety stories, here we go:

I almost feel a little guilty that I don't have a better clumsiness-induced story for you, but it does involve a scene from the new Brooke & Santiago variety hour, so I'll continue.  As you already know from reading this blog, Santiago isn't, shall we say, so fluent in English.  He speaks enough to get by, and the rest of the time just enjoys saying the same things to me in Spanish over and over again, and then laughing when I tell him I don't know what he's saying.  Then he'll give me a rapid-fire quiz on random Spanish words (Bracelet?  Really?  Why do I need to know how to say bracelet in the kitchen?) and laugh at me when I can't remember any of them.  So one day I was feeling particularly frustrated with him and was going to put the salt and baking powder containers away on his side of the work table.  What I did not know was that he had put one of the dishwasher trays half-way underneath the table.  Only half-way, otherwise what happened next would never have occurred.  I start making my way around his side of the table, holding my containers and as soon as my foot hits the tray, down I go.  Seriously, it was like a tree being cut-down by a miniature lumberjack.  It happened so slowly, but amusingly enough, I didn't drop the salt or baking powder.  Now if I'd been holding an actual baked-good, it would've gone way up in the air and landed upside down on top of my head, but at least that didn't happen.  Not yet anyway.  So yes, I'm lying on the ground at Santiago's feet and he's yelling and literally trying to yank me up off the floor, all the while I'm yelling, "I'm fine!  I'm fine!  Stop pulling me!" but he doesn't understand me...Eventually I got up, but he didn't talk to me for the rest of the day, I think he was so scared I was mad at him.  In the end, I lived to fall another day - Brooke-safety be damned.

I've really been trying to focus and remember when I make a mistake so that it doesn't happen again.  Santiago's been having me make a lot of sponge cakes, and the only problem with this is that when we whip the sugar and eggs in our mixer it rises so much (by whipping air into the eggs you're creating a lot of volume), that when you have to fold in the flour, you literally have to do it by hand.  I want you to picture me should deep in a mixing bowl, because that's essentially what has to happen.  I have to take a bowl scraper in one hand, and while Santiago is adding the flour into the bowl, fold it like a crazy person, practically jumping into the bowl to make sure that it's perfectly incorporated.  The last time I made the batter, the Chef was telling me I had to be more careful next time because he found some flour chunks in the finished cake, so this time I went to town on that batter.  I defy anyone to find any clumps of flour...as a side note, none of my chef's jackets are clean anymore.  Even when I wash them I can't get everything out.   When I make the sponge cake, even though I have my sleeve folded up past my elbow, I still wind up sticking my entire right arm in the sink, drenching it with water and letting it dry while I work the rest of my shift - that's how much batter I get on myself.  Ah, to do what you love ;)

In case you haven't noticed, it's been unbearably hot lately...and I know, I'm the girl who says that anything above 75 degrees is too hot, but seriously?  Temperatures in the late 90's to low 100's day after day when you're standing in an already hot kitchen, inches away from an oven for hours on end?  Let's just say that I am quite the sight to behold at the end of a long shift.  News flash: I've discovered a new walk of shame, it's what happens when you've been sweating in a professional kitchen for 6+ hours in long sleeves and pants and you have to park two blocks away because there aren't any available spots left on your block.  I love walking by fancy people coming home from their office jobs when I look like I just climbed, fully-dressed, out of a pool.  It makes me feel so pretty.

In a related story, you know what else is funny?  Working in a kitchen and then thinking that you can go shoe-shopping afterward.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Funny, right?  I had that brilliant idea the same day that I experienced my walk of shame.  If I wasn't fit to walk down my own street, I certainly wasn't going to be able to walk into a store without being asked to leave on grounds of stinkiness.  But what's a girl to do?  I desperately needed new shoes for a wedding that we were going to (which accounts for our second trip to the magical city of Albany).  I eventually found a cute pair of red flats on the day before we had to leave.

Not bad for $7, right?  They certainly held up great while we danced the night away.  On that note, I want to send a special shout-out to Jenn & Mike.  I believe that you're still on your honeymoon, and I hope you're having a great time in San Diego.  You joked with me at your wedding that you were "stalking" my blog, what you call stalking I call, "love from a distance" - that sounds healthy, right?  Congratulations again, and send me your address when you get back so that I know where to send your chocolate/baked goods care package!

Internships and Spanglish

Internship hours completed: 52

Spanish words successfully learned: 3

Nervous Breakdowns: 1

Hi everyone!  It's hard to believe that I'm already a quarter of the way through with my internship.  For the most part I am having a good time, but I'm sure it goes without saying (though since I have this lovely blog here, I'll say it anyway) that it's never exactly what you expect it to be.

When I started (about two weeks ago), there was another intern who had already been working there for a couple of weeks, let's call her...Majorca (What - you have a better pretend name?  Just go with it...).  So Majorca had finished her class about a month before I did, which meant that she had a different teacher - the same one who I had a couple of times as a sub when Chef Katie was out.  I'd already heard (don't ask me how) that she was not doing that great and that she could be hard to deal with - sound like anyone we know?  However, I wanted to keep an open mind, plus since she'd already been there for awhile, I figured she'd be way ahead of me.  Boy was I ever wrong about that one!  She WAS awful!  She seemed a lot more concerned with asking me questions about my life plan than she was about doing anything at the bakery, so it came as no big surprise when she was let go from the placement before the end of my first week.  She couldn't even make streusel!  For those of you who don't know, streusel is a crumb topping that, in my experience, is usually made with butter, brown sugar, flour and cinnamon (sometimes with nuts, etc. added in) - it's also not particularly difficult to make.  So one of my first days at the bakery, the Chef is having me top a bunch of pies with streusel and we were running low on the batch I'd been using.  He tells me, "You're going to have to use Majorca's crappy streusel, it's in the fridge."  I say, "Okay (looking), where is it?"  He chuckles and says, "Oh you know, it's the one that looks like dough."  So I pull out a sheet pan that, lo and behold, looks like a sheet of very thick, light dough.  I try to break it apart to crumble it and it just comes apart in giant chunks - I could've beaten someone over the head with it.  So then the Chef has to leave to go on a delivery and he looks at me and says, "Okay, you make some streusel while I'm gone."  He leaves and I panic.  What if this is the one time I screw it up and he thinks we're all just a bunch of idiots?  Luckily that didn't happen.  He came back and cried out, "She can make streusel!  Thank God!"  What a relief!  I'm still in the program.

Since then my new chef and I have gotten along pretty well (don't worry CK - there's no one like you!), he even told me that he was already considering hiring me in September because he likes the way that I work (yay!).  Though, I don't want to leave you with the misconception that I'm doing everything perfectly, because that couldn't be further from the truth; I have definitely made my fair share of mistakes already.  I totally over baked some mini-cheesecakes today and was also told that my knife skills were "atrocious" and was then made to sit through a lesson on the proper way to hold a knife while the Chef pulled on it from various angles.  I'm trying to take all of these mess-ups and corrections in stride, and I'm definitely glad to still be learning, but it's really hard to sit there, listen to someone criticize you and then essentially thank them for telling you just how badly you suck.

One thing that doing this internship has made me realize (and don't laugh) is how many things I still need to get!  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not about to run out and buy anything crazy like a corn stick pan (love you Mark!), but there are other things that have started making their way onto my wish list:

#1: A real woman's chef jacket - Sorry CK, as much as you may tell me not to be jealous of your hip vents, I can't help it!  I desperately want a jacket that doesn't come down to my knees, and that I can button all the way without having to buy one 2 sizes bigger because it doesn't make allowances for, shall we say, curves?  Also, when I have to roll-up my sleeves 50 times on either arm, at the end of the day I look like one of those inflatable clowns with the slinky arms, and that is not a look I pull off well.

#2: Crocs - I know they're ugly, but I'd like to see if they make my feet feel like they want to kill me a little bit less.  After all, those are the simple things in life that we're all looking for, right?

#3: More books!!  I really want to get "About Professional Baking" by Gail Sokol, also the Chef at the bakery seemed shocked that I wasn't already subscribing to any "industry" magazines, so I should probably sign-up for "Dessert Professional" and "American Cake Decorating" (because those are the only ones I know about so far)

Other than that, things are going well, but I'm always being kept on my toes.  The Chef's "right-hand man", let's call him...Santiago, well he speaks very limited English and since I don't know any Spanish, things have gotten off to an interesting start.  For the most part we get along really well, but then again, 75% of the time we have no idea what the other one is saying which is really frustrating when he's the only one there telling me what to do b/c the Chef hasn't arrived yet.  For example, for about an hour today he was convinced that I'd called him a cow because I'd asked him if his back hurt.  Apparently cow in Spanish is "vaca" and when I said back, he thought that's what I said.  Also, on one of my first days, the Chef asked me to slice a box of peaches (I'm pretty sure the first time I'd ever sliced a peach in my life), and Santiago kept pulling the cores out of the trash and biting off the bottoms, joke-yelling at me for throwing away good food!  So, since I didn't want him to keep pulling things out of the trash, I started handing him the cores so he could eat and dispose of them as he wished, but when the Chef saw this he started laughing and yelled at me for "buying into his bullshit" and "feeding him like he's an Adonis."  Believe me when I say this, not wanting to be grossed out by someone eating out of the trash does not equal treating them like an adonis - it equals me not throwing up on the kitchen floor, and that's something none of us want.

peaches!

My forearms are now, also, covered in jump-burns, which is a word I just made-up for the mini burns you get from accidentally grazing the side of a hot pan, pot, oven, etc.  They look like bug bites and are just as annoying.  Look at me, I'm just like Stephen Colbert - inventing words and everything...maybe I'll get in the dictionary too :)

I also have some new nemesis', and two of them aren't human.  Two of them are mixers in the bakery and one is a person in the bakery, let's call him Tarrel (It's like Darrel, just with a T.  Shut up, I think it's a good name!).  So the mixers are just frustrating.  The one is much larger than any I've used before and is hard to maneuver/adjust, etc. 

Giant Mixer

Also, when I have to use it to make the sponge cake, the mixture fills it up so completely, that you have to wrap tinfoil around the top like a turtleneck so that it doesn't go spilling/flying every which way.  However, the other day when I was making it for the first time, we didn't have any tinfoil...let it never be said that I'm not resourceful:

That would be a mixer with a cone made out of parchment paper and scotch tape.  I suggested that I try knitting it a turtleneck, but something tells me that wool won't mix well with eggs and sugar.

Also, the only way to properly fold in the flour is to stick your entire hand in with a bowl scraper and fold it while someone else sprinkles the flour on top.  This is me, elbow deep in the mixing bowl - delicious!

This is my deceptive nemesis.  Sure, he looks tiny and harmless, but I'm still convinced that this mixer runs on diesel.  You can't turn it on stir (the lowest setting) without the ingredients flying everywhere b/c it's going so fast.  Eventually I asked the Chef what was going on with it, and he told me that at some point, someone had dropped it on the floor and that it hasn't worked right since.  Awesome.

Now for my human nemesis, Tarrel.  First of all, he likes to take every opportunity to make fun of Buffalo and me for being from Buffalo.  In my opinion, he's already asking for it.  In general, he's just obnoxious.  Now mind you, I don't really react to him on an overt level to begin with (eye rolling, just looking at him or ignoring him), but he keeps feeling the need to tell me to just wait till I work in a kitchen with "a bunch of Spanish guys" because then he'll seem like nothing compared to them.  Really?  I keep suggesting ways to take him down a peg, and the Chef has already approved every one (and even given me suggestions), so I'll keep you posted on which ones I wind up going with.  

And for a bit of fun, if you're one of the first people to guess which of the following names I've called Tarrel, you could win a container of homemade peanut brittle!  So send those guesses in, either through the comment section or through e-mail:

1. Son of a cracker basket

2. Ass hat

3. Jerk face

4. Schlemiel

5. Putz

I'll leave you now with one final picture of my mise en place for 2 giant batches of brownies...

Salt on the rim isn't exactly the same as a sugar-crusted pitcher containing 24 eggs...

The Final Four....Days of School

I can't believe that my last class was almost a week ago...didn't I just start school the other day?  I know that the program is only 4 months in the classroom and 2 months in internship, but it feels so much shorter.  Plus, due to scheduling and randomness, I don't start my internship until tomorrow morning so I've had a lot of downtime and a lot of time out of the kitchen which feels really weird now.  Chef was right though, once you start in this business, even if you have a couple of days off you'll still find yourself baking.  I made bread (garlic-herb and sun-dried tomato, if you're curious) twice so far this week, and I've been thinking about making some peanut brittle as well.  Also, my school toolbox is now sitting in the middle of our kitchen floor - that seems like the best place for it, right?

So, yes, I got an internship!  I'm very excited to announce that starting tomorrow morning I will be interning at the Main Street Bakery in Port Washington, NY.  I'll still be on LI, but it's technically a shorter distance than I was driving to school so we'll see how it goes.  Chef Mike (my new boss) seems pretty cool and he's got a lot of experience (Hotel Hershey - yum!) and I really feel like he not only has a lot to teach me, but that he wants to teach me.  That is definitely something worth being excited about.  I'm really going to miss being at school with all of my friends, and I'm a wee bit sad that I wasn't asked to be an intern at school to help with the next class (K & D - you're going to be awesome, I know it!), but I think that I'm going somewhere that's going to be a good fit for me, so in the end, that's what's important.

The last days of class were pretty intense in that it was 4 days of finals.  On Monday we had to hand in our individual menu projects and then do our blind practicals.  For the menus, we each had to come up with a theme and make an actual dessert menu, with at least 4 items on it that each had the following 4 elements:

1. Main Component
2. Frozen Component
3. Garnish
4. Sauce

I wound up doing a Hawaiian theme (which, apparently, was a popular choice since I know at least 2 other people who used the same theme) because I wanted something that would lend itself easily to the upcoming summer season, which I know is something that Chef Katie pays attention to.  I wish I'd scanned a picture of the actual menu that I handed in, but at least I can tell you what I put on it:

Cocoa and Kona Torte

flourless chocolate cake layered with crushed chocolate wafers

and kona coffee gelato, served with macadamia nut brittle and

raspberry coulis

Waffles and Ice Cream

mini vanilla-spiced waffles with haupia sauce,

ginger ice cream and toasted coconut

Kauai Strawberry Shortcake

guava chiffon cake layered with macerated strawberries, topped with

vanilla bean ice cream, crème chantilly and chocolate feuilletine cookies

Bananas Foster

caramelized bananas, coconut ice cream, rum sauce and

chocolate covered peanuts

Papaya and Lime

papaya sorbet in a tuille cup topped with candied ginger

and a honey-lime sauce

So what do you think?  I know Dave liked it because there were more fruit options, but I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks.  For the blind practical, you basically walk into class and get a sheet of paper with the item you're making on it and the ingredients, but no instructions.  I was stressing myself out over it so much, memorizing cake mixing methods and all sorts of craziness and didn't wind up getting any of the things I'd actually looked up!  What I did get was fudgy chocolate brownies and fruit mousse.  My mousse came out perfect, and while my brownies tasted fudgy-tastic, they wound up driving me crazy all morning.  I used the wrong size pan so they were super-thick and took a crazy long time to bake.  In the end I took them out of the oven, sliced them and stuck a couple on a plate in the fridge so that they'd be cool enough to present.  Chef Katie said that they were slightly over-mixed and slightly under-done, but I'm still happy and was glad not to be stressed out about it anymore.

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent making our team menu projects.  Julie and I had decided on making an ice cream bombe.  It had a fudgy chocolate cake base, with a thick middle layer of peanut butter cheesecake and was topped with butterfinger ice cream.  Then we garnished it with tuille cookies and strawberry sauce.  I thought it looked and tasted awesome and I'm really proud of the work we did together.  If you can believe it, the team that won fan favorite had everything possible happen to them in the lead-up to presentation.  They broke a plate in their dessert, had to run out to the store for more fruit because we ran out, got a pretty nasty burn and if I remember correctly a bloody knuckle to boot (am I hallucinating that part and just making it sound worse, or did that actually happen?).  Diana and Alex, my puffy hat comes off to you - the fact that all of that happened and you still managed to plate and present on time?  Amazing.  Here are some pictures of everyone's final desserts:

Julie's and my dessert

Mark, Terrel and Scott

Diana and Alex

NiAdah and John

Val and Michele

Mihwa and Jen

Karyn and Jamie

Regina and Linda

Mary and Jen

Pretty amazing, right?  Our last day, Thursday, was pretty laid back, but still full of craziness (which is, I'm sure, why you're still reading, eh?).  I woke up extra early so that I could beat the traffic and get some extra studying in before our written final exam.  I looked pretty funny sitting at a table by myself with all of my flashcards, like I was playing a really bizarre game of solitaire that depends on your ability to define autolyse or know where the sacher torte gets it's name from.  We all took the test, and it really wasn't as bad as I was expecting.  I got a few questions wrong, but I also got the extra credit question right, so I'm not too worried.  The weirdest part of the day came after our test when we presented Chef Katie with our end of class gift.  The whole class had decided to go in on a gift together - we all chipped in and we all signed the card and it seemed like Chef really appreciated our gift.  But that's when the weirdness started...

So she's thanking us for the gift and it's starting to get all mushy when BB (knew it was going to be her!!) hands Chef another card.  Okay, if she wants to give her a private goodbye card, that's fine.  If it was me, I probably would've done it privately, but whatever.  Then, she hands her another envelope.  What's going on here?  She got her a separate present?  It took the Chef a really long time to figure out what it was, but if you weren't looking at her but at the rest of the class you would've seen that everyone else was looking around at each other trying to figure out what the hell was going on.  I think that a lot of people, myself included, were pretty put off by the fact that she gave her own separate (and frankly weird) gift in front of the rest of the class when we'd all (she contributed to our gift as well) gone in on a class gift together.  Plus, you should have seen the look on her face - so smug!  I'll tell you one thing, I'm am feeling pretty fine about not having to see her again until graduation.  Good thing she lives in another borough - hopefully I won't even run into her or have to mention the initials BB again.

The rest of the morning was spent playing Jeopar-Katie.  We were split up into 4 groups and each group got a cowbell to ring in with.  I'll admit it, my group was a little bit competitive...okay we were a lot competitive!  And from the most unlikely source - our sweet little Mishy!  The sweet, adorable girl who keeps insisting that my friend Monica is really her friend, and who blushes like a tomato every time she speaks is apparently game crazy.  Twice during the game she blushed and said, "games aren't fun unless you win!"  Of course after she said it she made her same Mishy face and giggled so it's hard not to laugh - so funny!  Our team actually won the first 2 rounds hands down, but then came final Jeopar-Katie...oh final round, the demise of cocky teams around the world!  We lost...we lost badly.  But it all works out in the end because do you know what the prizes were for the team that won?  Chocolate thermometers!  If I had actually won, no one would've made it out of their alive - I should never be allowed near a chocolate thermometer again.  We all remember this interaction...

Brooke:  What is this red stuff all over my chocolate mold...

CK: You're bleeding!

Brooke: Oh my god!  I am?! (throws hands in front of face, expecting to have cut off a finger)

Alex: You broke your thermometer again!

Brooke: Oh crap...

Good times everybody...good times.  I'd really like to continue with this blog throughout my internship - if you're interested in still reading it, let me know!  And until we all meet again at our graduation, here is the best class (in my oh-so-humble opinion) to come out of kitchen 4: