The South.

I cannot think of anything I would rather be doing right now then sitting in my room being lazy. No seriously. It is storming outside; it reminds me of a Southern thunderstorm. (Do those even exist? I would like to think that they do and that I hear about snow in this area and storms/flooding in the South. So, we will go with it.)

Speaking of the South, I can hardly understand when professors and chefs say my name. Hey-Lee. How hard is that to pronounce? Instead, I get the Hal-Lee. I do not know if I have mentioned this yet, but attendance at the CIA is mandatory. With most classes being only three weeks, missing one day is missing a lot. Even if you are sick, with a fever, and diarrhea, you still should come to class for then to witness you being sick, only for them to send you home AND take points off of your final grade. Most students here graduate with a perfect attendance seal on their diploma. It would be helpful, people, if I could understand that you are saying my name when you call roll in each class.

Yesterday, before class, I went to the Bookstore to buy some postcards and to see if they had CIA note cards, to write Dr. Ryan a thank-you note. (Suck up? Of course not.) The CIA thinks highly of a lot of things, including their postcards apparently. In Europe, I can buy five for a dollar. I say all of this to say that if you get a postcard from me, consider yourself truly lucky. After spending moolah on my postcards made of gold, I went to Farq Hall to get a salad before class. A spinach with garbanzo beans, green peppers, cauliflower, mushrooms, and vinaigrette salad was perfect before PK, where we learned about lettuce, salad greens, and cooking greens (yes, there are differences).

In Product Knowledge, we spent half the class talking about product specifications. It is important in the industry to ensure you receive the best, in quality and type, most reasonably priced, and seasonable products and ingredients as possible. When you order tomatoes, for example, the type needs to be specified, the degree of ripeness, appropriate post-harvest conditions, etc. Your restaurant and reputation are the end results of these products and ingredients. We have an assignment to write a sample product specification. Hal-Lee's product is tangerines. I will let you know the appropriate specs for tangerines.

I checked my mail after PK and then I napped. PRAISE THE LORD for naps. I did not sleep for long, because I had some work to finish. I had to study a little for my math quiz. I needed to work on my Gastro. project. I read a little. I love being a college student. Not. I came to culinary school to work in the kitchen, not to spend time in the classroom.

Dinner last night was a little different than usual. In the Garde Manger kitchen class, they learn fancy plating techniques for unique dishes. Our appetizers were already on the table when we sat down, and each person at the table had a different dish. My dish was foie gras, goose (or duck) liver, produced and cooked in a specific way, a delicacy in most places. I have tried fois gras, and I will never try it again. No thank you. Gross. Inhuman. Disgusting. A waste of A LOT of money. No gracias. (Side note, going on the Southern title of this post: I tend to order "sweet tea" at dinner. They bring me "iced tea" with simple syrup. Conform, North, please!) For our entree, we had chicken with spinach, mushrooms, and a twice-baked potato (with pancetta, Gruyere, and other specialty cheeses). Finally for dessert, we were served an orange pastry cream, slightly toasted on top to look like marshmallows, in a single-serving chocolate pie shell with a fruit sauce.

Immediately following dinner, I have Culinary Math, where we learn about conversions and recipe scaling. We took a quiz, or a test really, that is worth 20% of my total grade. If I did not score a 100, I might quit culinary school. Okay, I will not quit, but it was relatively easy. I am hoping to start out my first block at the Culinary with a decent GPA.

Last night, Melissa (TX/DC), Danielle, and I went to Crossroads Pizza and Pub. We ordered garlic knots, upon Danielle's roommate's suggestion, ate them, and ordered a second garlic knots. Seriously, they are similar to Mellow Mushroom's pretzels but maybe a little better. Mark, a local guy who works at Price Choppers (where I am Advantage member, remember?), asked us to play pool while he waited for his girlfriend. He agreed to be my partner, which was unfortunate for him, as I am awful at pool, if you can imagine. His girlfriend arrived and relieved me of my need to play to make the teams equal. I would rather sit, drink, and eat garlic knots anyway.

Today was a crazy day. This morning I woke up to "run" a 5K. Three laps around the entire campus with free pizza after crossing the finish line. That seems counterproductive, I know, but the pizza had wheat crust. After pizza, Danielle and I freshened up and went to the mall. The mall in Poughkeepsie is decent, actually, minus the fact that it does not have a Great American Cookie Company (or, obviously, a Chickfila), and I was craving a blue raspberry icee and slice of cookie cake. I guess I will survive. Danielle's phone was stolen from the H&M dressing room. Seriously? We drove to a corporate Verizon location to file her insurance and get her a new phone. Thank you, Jimmy, local Verizon guy, for being helpful in a crappy situation. We were starving by the time we figured everything out. Chili's. Yummy.

USA-1, England-1. The World Cup is no Olympics, but it is fun to follow anyway.

Lots of school work to do tomorrow. Product Knowledge quiz Monday. Must. Study.

And the winning sign-off, thanks to Fallon Conger (aka Fizzy), is EAT MY WORDS.

Haley

*Congratulations to Teena Nass and Jacob Bain on their recent engagement. I am so excited for the two of you, and I cannot wait for the Big Day.

*I must make a special shout-out to my Mom, for being so great in helping me move to New York, by sending me packages of things I need that would/could not fit in my suitcase flying here. Love and miss you, Mizzom.