Driving Miss Haley.

I am officially done with Baking Techniques, and tomorrow, I head to my third bakeshop, Bakeshop 1, with Chef Schorner for Pastry Techniques. It is crazy how quickly time flies here, with classes being only three weeks. I really enjoy how the curriculum is setup at the CIA. I feel like I just started class with Chef Haymon, but I have learned so much from him in just fourteen short days. I loved Baking Tech. and cannot wait to see what is in store for me in Pastry Tech.

On Wednesday of last week, Chef Haymon gave us a project. Each team of two was paired with another group of two working across on the same station. There are five stations and each group of four had an ingredient of focus: sugar, baking soda, baking powder, control, flour, and fat. In order to see the effects of these ingredients, we took a basic sugar cookie recipe and changed the ingredients slightly, the granulated sugar to light brown sugar or tripled the baking soda, etc. The goal was to understand the science (go Food Science!) behind baking and how ingredients affect the color, height, spread, etc. of the cookie. It was fairly enlightening.
Here is a grid of all the cookies we made. You probably cannot read the writing but just look how different they look with only one ingredient change!

On Friday, we had our skills verification final. Each student was required to make two eight inch genoises, one batch of pate a choux for eclairs, and pastry cream. Thursday was a practice day for Friday, and besides making these three products, all we did in class was take our written final. I scored a 62.5 out of 70 on my written test and a 27.75 out of 30 on my skills test for an A- on my final. Our final grade is not posted yet, but I am thinking a B+!

Today is the last day of my three-day weekend. It has been a gloriously relaxing weekend. Nate and I literally drove all around the Poughkeepsie/ Hyde Park area, through back roads and main roads. It was low key but sooo fun, with me enjoying the scenery, unlike any fall scenery I have ever experienced in Georgia. Our weekend included:
*Red Lobster.
*House of Wax.
*IHop.
*Popeye's in Kingston complete with at-your-table interactive games.
*Starbucks.
*Football.
*Shutter Island.
*Glee.
*Lots of school work for Nate's next class, Cuisines of Asia.
*Shopping.
*Thai Spice... you know, with all this Asian talk we've been doing.
*Loving the beautiful fall foliage in the Hudson Valley by taking a few pictures at the Vanderbilt Mansion.
My backyard, literally. I wish you could see the colors of the trees.
At the Vanderbilt Mansion. The Hudson River. My favorite picture of the day today.
Yes, I spent a few minutes to find some fun leaves. Imagine a landscape on the Hudson River of these colors. These pictures do not fully capture how beautiful it is outside right now.

Chef Haymon asked me on Friday if I was going to be on campus today, a Monday with no class. Chef Migoya, who runs the Apple Pie Bakery Cafe, and Chef Greweling, who teaches the Chocolates and Confections class for second-year pastry students, gave demos for New York members of the Retail Baker's Association. He asked me to film these demos for him. My response was, of course, "yes, Chef." So, this morning I woke up early to film from around 9 to 11. I rather enjoyed myself, and I helped a chef, which is always a plus.
This is a chocolate they served today for the Retail Baker's Association demonstrations. Mmmm. We are cool here at the CIA, with out emblem even on our own chocolate!

Tomorrow, a new week, a new block, a new class, a new chef. I love my life.

SHOPPING CART OR BUGGY?

Hay Reh