Dates!

I guess this will be my last post before I fly home to Georgia for the weekend. Have I mentioned how excited I am about going home? I know that it has only been a month. I do love living here, but Dorothy had it right when she said "there's no place like home." Even though it is only for three days, I will take what I can get, but when I get on that plane bound for New York on Monday, I will be almost as excited to be back here as I was to leave.

Yesterday was not too eventful, other than the fact that FOOTBALL SEASON began. Go SEC! Class Nine started with knife skills. I scored a 9. Darn. Yesterday was much like the day before in that we learned one concept, cooked a meal based on that, and made additional dishes to go with the concept, which we have already learned. The main objective was sauteing. Sauteing is a form of dry heat and is French, meaning jump, referring to the splatter from the pan during cooking. Each team took six chicken breasts, evenly sized, and sauteed them in one ounce of oil, in a standard saute pan. The most important thing to consider when sauteing is to begin the cooking process with a hot pan with hot oil. The proper meat for sauteing is naturally tender, moist meat, and if this meat is placed in a cold, warm pan, then it will steam and become tough. After finishing the chicken, we deglazed the saute pan with wine to make a cream sauce with demi glace (that we made the other day) and mushrooms. The chicken with the sauce was unbelievably tasty.

Chef Klug also taught us how to make fresh pasta (one pound of flour to four eggs is the standard ratio). Each team made whole wheat pasta, rolled it out, and cut it into fettuccine or linguine. It was so fun, and making pasta is relatively easy too. Besides the pasta, the chicken with sauce, each team chose one starch and one veg to accompany these two dishes. Team Four chose rice pilaf and broccoli with red pepper flakes. Pete sauteed and made the sauce. I did the pasta. Jon was in charge of broccoli and Emily the rice. When the chef tasted our dishes, he thought the rice was a little sticky, from too much stock, and he thought the garlic and red pepper flakes were sauteed too long (instead of being golden, they were almost burnt.) After tasting, he dismissed us for dinner with our food.

Last night, I worked on homework, while I watched South Carolina kill Southern Miss. What a perfect Thursday night in September! I should have packed, but I did not. Oops.

This morning was bathroom cleaning day on my floor in Angell. The cleaning lady knocked on our day at 7:45ish to clean our bathroom. CIA, are you insane? Why do you need to clean my bathroom at that hour? I just slept as she cleaned, even though that sounds terrible. When she was finished, she quietly left and I slept for a good two to three more hours. (I did not sleep well last night for some reason. I guess the anxiety of getting everything ready today, going to class, and leaving for NYC at like 8:45pm made my stomach hurt. We will just go with the idea of butterflies in my stomach making it hurt though, in excitement for this weekend's shenanigans.)

I packed this morning and finished my homework. Now, I am in the library to print off my assignment, while finishing up this blog of course. Class starts at 1:25ish but I might head to Roth a little early to eat lunch. Today's topic is roasting. How exciting!

The plan tonight is to take a shower (wash that kitchen grossness off), finish packing, head to the train station, and meet Fallon at Harlem-125th to stay with her in her NEW apartment. Then, tomorrow morning, I will take the bus SUPER early to LGA for my flight at 7am. The last time I flew home I posted my flight information, which proved to be helpful and life-saving (for my mother) when my flight was delayed and then re-routed after three hours in the air (when this trip from NYC to ATL should only take an hour and a half.) Here you go, mother:

September 4, 2010
Delta Flight 1547
Departing LGA at 7:00am
Arriving ATL at 9:27am

September 6, 2010
Delta Flight 2242
Departing ATL at 4:15pm
Arriving NWR at 6:38pm

Happy 4th Anniversary of getting my nose pierced and breaking my mother's heart (though I am not celebrating that last one of course). What can I say? I have a thing for dates, even if they are relatively meaningless.

HAPPY LABOR DAY WEEKEND!

Hay Reh

*Happy 61st (do not kill me for writing the truth) birthday to my dad. I will see you this weekend!!!!!