week 1, Day 2

Baking started off the day well this morning, as we took our first pastry class. There is a lot of science, and a lot more behind a loaf of bread than you could probably imagine unless you have looked into it.  However, it seems like this will be a fun class to look forward to every week, not to mention I'll never have to buy a loaf of bread while I'm here in Stratford, as between my two housemates and I, we brought home 7 loaves of bread in the past two days. This class then lead to our lunch, where I got to try one of the amazing sandwiches at the york street kitchen, a catfish, tartar sandwich. It was absolutely amazing, and definitely the best sandwich I have ever eaten, which is saying a lot because I do not like tartar at all normally. Gastronomy class followed lunch, which is basically the way that food has developed in history, not the recipes, but how people eat, how cultures and food are combined, and how food is associated with these cultures. It looks to be an interesting class, but a fairly high workload seems to be included with it. Already a group assignment, but the group I'm in isn't presenting for a few weeks.  After gastronomy class, we had communication class, which will basically be a series of public speaking lessons. The workload is very tiny relative to the other classes, so that will be a nice break in between these other classes that have been just hammering on work for the past couple days. After communication, our practical cookery class ended the day, where I learned to make a mushroom risotto. Conveniently, this recipe is also the recipe on our SPEC assignment, so I have learned a lot from it, and hopefully this knowledge will give me somewhat of an advantage to writing the dreaded spec. Now, I'm here writing, quite exhausted as I have been up since 6:45 this morning, classes didn't finish until 8:00 which was actually a half hour early than scheduled, and I have been studying with my housemates over our practical cookery recipes for tomorrow morning, in hopes that we will be able to understand them well enough not to have to ask the chef too many 'stupid' questions. The internet has been an excellent source of knowledge however, especially videos on how to perform certain chopping techniques, so I am feeling at least a little more confident each day. I now need to get some clean towels packed for tomorrow, and pack my uniform, and switch all the binders in my backpack for tomorrow's lessons, so I'll have to leave it at that for today. Tomorrow looks pretty good as I only have 3 classes; Practical cookery, followed by nutrition, and then culinary management.

Week 1, Day 1

After countless awakenings last night, from being to warm, to the thunderstorm that no one else heard, I finally got up to go to our first practical cookery class. I learned that I don't know how to dice vegetables properly, but on a more positive note I am fairly good at forming fresh pasta into farfalle noodles. I need to brush up on my knife skills, however it was an exciting morning, followed by tastings of some amazing dishes. Two times the work tomorrow in this class, as we will be creating a risotto , and vegetable soup, as well as learning paysanne knife drills.  After our practical class, I had a class on food costing, which turned out to be more of an introduction, and simple homework on reading a few pages before next week's lesson. The most eye opening class however, was my final class of this evening which began focusing on the writing methods that we will use within this course. Although simple it may sound, this was followed by our lesson on the infamous spec, or recipe specification assignment. In order to not give away all the details of this,... (or really because I'm freaking out about it at this current moment, and have no time to describe in detail what it entails,) it is simply an ABSOLUTE %$&!TON OF WORK! and this statement pretty much sums it up. So, these will be due every monday morning on the week's lesson, this week being boiling. 1 minute late, and it is a zero, and as you can all imagine it is worth a large amount of our final grade. I should begin working on this now, as I can't afford to procrastinate, and so my blogs may become shorter and shorter as the weeks progress towards monday mornings. Anyhow, good start to the week, please wish me luck, and hope to hear some comments, and to see what anyone thinks of my posts. Thank you.

Terroir Luncheon

Another early morning, and then lots of sitting at Rundles restaurant waiting to leave for the farm. The day started off slow, and the group I'm in, (b group) is given the task of unloading all of the picnic tables up the muddy hill into the barn. The hill wasn't too high so it wasn't too bad, and A  group assisted us with the tables.  After all the table settings were perfect, and the decorations placed, we waited, freezing, in the barn just outside of Stratford.  A local beer brewery brought in 2 kegs of beer, and so we began drinking a bit, ok, maybe more than a bit for some of us, but enjoying it as we met our class mates for the first time really. we had sausages and this amazing bread, along with many local organic vegetables that were picked that day by A group. An amazing puff pastry dessert followed, and then we headed back home. Only half of one keg had been drunk by then, so the school gave the rest of it, including the 2nd keg to one of the second years. Needless to say, we all went to his house and enjoyed it for the evening as we talked and met with our classmates. After a long walk back to the Allen Abbey house, (where I'm staying) my housemates and I talked about what we thought of everyone, and how we foresee getting along with everyone. We went through our manual and schedule, and went through the exam processes that we will be going through in 4 weeks, and tried our best to determine what to expect. Now I'm sitting here, typing this up, nervous about tomorrow as our first practical cookery class begins at 8:15 tomorrow morning. A minute late, and the doors will be locked, or so we are all told. I am not going to test this theory, as I would be very frustrated, and it just might ruin the rest of my day if this were to happen. I will post tomorrow evening how everything goes, as long as I have the time, providing I don't have 5 hours of homework after classes are over.

Orientation

After a very early morning relative to the past few days, my housemates and I joined the rest of the students for the Stratford Chefs School. We met at Rundles Restaurant and sat, nervous, with our new name tags just beginning to meet each other for the first time. Kimberly Paine, the schools executive director met with us, and introduced us with a few certificates for money off at the local markets and restaurants. We began the day with a video conference call with a blogger, and food writer in Paris over the internet. She is going to be teaching us and giving us advice in a few weeks on our food writing project, so hopefully I can learn a lot, as we have to get at least a 70% average in order to move on to level 2 at the end of the year. The more help, and suggestions we can take, the better we'll learn.  I signed up for a wine tour that will be occurring in November. We that signed up will be touring two wineries in the Niagara region, and then eating at the wineries restaurant. A lot to take in for the day, as we got our schedules for classes, dinner services for which we will be assisting the level 2 students with, wine tour options, and OSAP and EI signups, so now it's time to relax as I unpack the massive amount of manuals I got, as well as my 6 complimentary wine tasting glasses for which I will have to keep polished for our wine tasting course. A lot is still in store for us, so one day at a time for now I will do my best to keep up. Tomorrow is the terroir luncheon at a farm. I must get to my unpacking now or this place will become an unorganized dump in the next day or two, and then I'll have to worry about losing things and keeping my room organized on top of everything.

day 4

Never made it to the pork butcher yesterday, but it was still a good day. stayed up way too late again, so I'll need to get some sleep tonight so I can be at Rundles restaurant tomorrow for 8:15. Orientation,... hopefully it will go by relatively fast, at least the OSAP and EI portion of the day. Nothing exciting from today,  woke up really late this morning... afternoon... not going to say anymore about that. but it's been a relaxing day so far. not too many of these days left I imagine. Insanity begins in 16 hours, exciting insanity but still craziness that will last these next 4 months.

Day 3 in Stratford

Things are settling down now, I'm finally unpacked, and just getting settled in here at the Allen Abbey house in Stratford. My room here is pretty amazing and the people I'm staying with are awesome too. Scott, the house  owner is amazing, always there to help out, and my 2 house mates so far are awesome. Stayed up until four in the morning talking with them last night, enjoying our last few days of settling in before school starts on Monday. During our tour of Stratford yesterday, I found a scottish traditional cookbook, which is pretty amazing, I'm very excited to try some of the recipes in it. We also ate at Pazzo's restaurant downtown. The pizzas there are unbelievably good, surprisingly my favourite being the one covered in greenery, and goat cheese. Today, we're off to the pork butcher downtown to check it out. Should be a good day. One day left until orientation, so not much else to write here, but I'll post about the butcher tomorrow, and about whatever comes of the rest of the day.

Off to school

after a few months of laziness, and a lack of blogging, I'm finally off to school. I'll be posting daily now, as everything is new, and there will actually be something to blog about every day in between the hours upon hours of homework and studying that I am beginning to expect. Knives are sharpened, and my bags are packed...  somewhat...  leaving in an hour and a half. I guess we'll see what Stratford has in store for me my first week. I have orientation at the end of the week, and then my first day of classes will begin next Monday. Until then, I'll be moving in and running around trying to get unemployment and OSAP as organized as I can before meeting with the representatives at orientation to finalize everything. Oh, and eating excellent food of course! with our terroir luncheon on the 22nd,.. (I can't pronounce that... comes out more like..  terr... or... ir.. urr.  lunch,  that's it) I see now that I'll be learning a lot in the next few months lol.  Off to finish packing now, and I'll post again tomorrow once I've moved in to my awesome place across the bridge in Stratford.