The highs and lows of the first week of school

That's right. I'm a student of Culinary Arts. I know... I'm 41 and I should be all grown up by now, but I'm just not willing to look back on my life and see it all spent behind a desk pushing paper. Just because you are good at something doesn't mean you want to do it forever.
So, this year I gave up my career in Project Management and enrolled in Culinary School. I'm not really sure yet if I want to focus on cooking vs. baking, but I have some time to decide. I'll just try it all! I took Beginning Culinary Arts (which focuses on cooking in a Professional kitchen) in the Fall and enjoyed it quite a bit. This semester I am enrolled in a lot of baking and pastry classes. Now, all of that being said, I'd just like to point out that being 41 makes me the minority in the Culinary Arts Program at Cabrillo College. This fact alone will no doubt provide some fodder for this blog.

Here's a summary of the first week of the semester:

Monday - Artisan Confections:
Some familiar faces, but no other students that I know personally.  Anne Baldzikowski is the instructor.  I've heard really good things about her and she seems very passionate about what she does.  When I originally enrolled in this class I had thought it was going to be about sugar work as it relates to cake decorating and such.  I have no idea why I thought that.  I think I had just watched an episode of "The Great Cake Off" on Food Network or something...Anyway, it's not about that at all.  This class focuses on exactly what it says... "Artisan Confections".  Unique, hand-crafted confections (candy, etc) that is made with high-quality ingredients and showcases the artists' talents (of which I have exactly none).  She showed us pictures of final projects turned in by previous students and let me just say that it was intimidating.  I instantly started doubting my creative prowess and abilities.
Anne did a demonstration of Pate de Fruit, which looks fairly simple but with nice looking results.  I think I may attempt Pate de Fruit (jelly candies) this weekend as a Valentine's gift to my family.  Raspberry, I think.

Tuesday - History of Sauces and Sauce Making:
This is a 1/2 semester class taught by Eric Carter.  Eric was my instructor last semester in the Beginning Culinary Arts Lab.  I took this class mostly because Eric was teaching it and I respect his knowledge and passion for cooking.  He's got a fun and inspiring teaching style.  There are 24 students and 12 burners so we will be paired up.  We made a Brown  and Blonde Roux and also a Bechamel Sauce.  It was crowded and hectic around the stovetops.  I was less than pleased with the results of my teams' bechamel.  It was not as thick as I would have liked.  At the end, we all got to taste each teams' results.  It's amazing to me how we started out with the exact same ingredients yet every sauce had a different look, flavor, texture.  Pretty cool.  I'm going to enjoy this class.

Wednesday - Basic Baking and Pastry:
This class is going to be AWE-SUM.  Anne is the instructor again.  It's going to be a lot of work and, as she talked about the milestone projects and showed us examples from past students, I got that sick niggling feeling in the pit of my stomach again.  I am very concerned that I won't measure up.  I keep hoping that I'll wake up one morning to find that the right side of my brain has taken over and I've been transformed into a veritable "Kitchen Picasso".  Pray for me.

Thursday - Purchasing and Food Costing:
= Math.  Blegh.  The only redeeming quality about this class is that my "boys" from last semester are in this class with me.  The two Alex's, the two Sam's, Bobby.  That alone will make it bearable.

Thursday - Chocolate:
Need I say anything more?  I don't think so.  Well, ok just this:  We made chocolate from the bean.  Very interesting.  It's been conching since 7:30 last night and I'll go by there to help Anne turn it out and sheet it this afternoon.  I cannot wait to taste the results!  Here's a great blog about making chocolate from scratch:  http://www.chocolatealchemy.com/conchingrefining.php.  I'll let you know how the chocolate turns out!

All in all, it was an exciting week.  I'm anxious to get in there next week and get my hands (and apron) dirty!