Wow.

So...Computer wasn't playing nice for a while. I have to mess around with some network/computer issues, but I assure you I will have three days summed up for you on Friday. Thanks for your patience. Oh, and I'll have pictures.

Pastry day 2

Finished the tarts today. They looked pretty, but I still feel like we aren't finishing fast enough. Is it the demos? Is it the fact that we're watching the entire process and then doing the entire process? I just don't know, but I still don't feel good about how it went. I don't feel like it was a complete disaster, but...the whole day felt a little off.

Menu

Finish tarts

Puff pastry (we're finishing up with them tomorrow)

Pate a choux (it's what eclairs and cream puffs are made out of) that we are also finishing tomorrow

Pastry day 1

The above picture is of Chef Adrienne's tartlets. I feel really unproductive today. While doing pastry is somewhat relaxing, it just seems like we didn't really get anything done.

Menu
Pate brisee (a flaky pastry crust)
Pate sucree (kinda like a sugar cookie in the form of a pie crust)
Pastry cream (a stirred custard)
Lemon curd (lemony stirred custard)

They all turned out okay, but we didn't even assemble them today. The components are resting and we're fixing it up tomorrow. We were supposed to have a test this morning, but we postponed until the afternoon since pastry keeps us in the classroom for a while longer. I wanted to take it early, cuz I studied for it, but I was okay with a little postpone. Then we took too long on the pastry stuff, so the chefs put it to a vote: finish pastry and clean within the next hour (might've been a little less or a little more), or finish what we were working on, do one of the components tomorrow so we could take our test. Three voted for taking it, six against. Gah! I studied ALL WEEKEND to take this test today, and suddenly my study schedule is thrown off for the rest of the week because of this! Ironically, we'd likely have gotten out earlier if we'd just taken the stupid thing...