Baguettes! Boules!

We made bread today...For something that is only 4 ingredients, there are endless amounts of possibilities for how it can turn out. Phew! It was a stressful day to say the least. I've never made this type of bread before, and we had a shortened class today. So that meant having every step of the process completely planned out. Not to mention, my group had to coordinate with the other two to get our breads in at the oven at the same time. Have you ever heard of a deck oven? Well it's just about the most intimidating thing in the whole bakery. Here, google it....
Crazy huh!? That bread loader is something else. Especially when you're under 6 feet and female... :)

Salt Lake City Film Festival

I thought it a good time to post this and let everyone know about what's going on this summer. My Matt and a good friend of ours are starting the Salt Lake City Film Festival. Isn't weird that nobody thought of that before? I mean, we have Sundance and all, but it's nice to have a summer option for those of us who aren't big Hollywood producers or have big budgets. It's definitely a work in progress, but the deadline for submissions is June 30th, and the festival is marked for August 14 and 15. It even has a high school submission option. Check out this link to an article that was written about it: Daily Utah Chronicle

Day 2: Chocolate, Pecans, and chocolate

So day 2 in the kitchen was really great. I didn't have a chance to even breathe yesterday, let alone get my thoughts together enough to bring home some samples of what we made. Today, however, was much better. I'm not sure if there will be the option of taking some of the days' goods back with me everyday, but I will definitely do my best so I can take pics and share :) Today's menu:
Seven Layer Bars
Fudge Brownies
Pecan Diamonds

Fruit Carving

One of the many benefits of attending this culinary school is the huge amount of side opportunities to learn. They have several different clubs or classes you can get involved in almost on a weekly basis. One of the classes I just took on Saturday afternoon was fruit and vegetable carving. There is a student on the hot side (the culinary/savory side of the kitchen)that is outstanding at this. He's been doing it for a couple of years and he's mostly self taught. A small group of us spent 4 hours with him so we could get some of the basics down. It was so fun! You'd be amazed at the amount of things you can do with some root vegetables and a small detailing knife. I was feeling really comfortable until we tried to carve roses into watermelons... That one is going to take some time.



*sorry for the poor lighting quality of the pictures!

Woodhouse Chocolate

Ok so there are some really cute little stores here in St. Helena along the Main Street. It's your typical Main Street-complete with trees lining the street, 25 mph speed limits, and people walking out in front of your car. And while there is only one fast food restaurant in the whole town (KFC/A&W), there are a lot of specialty restaurants and stores. One of these stores is the specialty chocolate shop called Woodhouse Chocolates. They are a small family owned business so they do things differently. I went in the other day and was so happy to see all of the different flavors they have. Things like Thai Ginger, Cinnamon Toast, and Passion Fruit. It probably sounds crazy to most people, but it sounds awesome to me. I like weird things. I ended up buying a few (and at $1.85 a piece, I could only get a few...) and I still have only eaten 1 of them. It was the honey flavor, which has milk chocolate honey butter mousse enclosed in a dark chocolate shell dusted with gold. Oh my...

Greetings from Napa Valley

If you're not jealous you probably should be. I almost feel a little guilty myself for living St. Helena (pronounced, Saint Hel-EEna btw) because IT'S THAT BEAUTIFUL. There's a lot of wealth here-let's put it that way. Almost like the prerequisite has to be an annual income of a million. Ok so maybe not all people here are like that, but seriously, on an average weekend there will be more Mercedes, BMW's, and limousine services than there are the average Toyota or Honda. Wine tastings are obviously very big here so people come up from the bay area for the weekend and go to the different estates and taste to their heart's content. As for Napa, it's a great town, but I've only been in 2 or 3 times so far. It's about 20 minutes south of where I am. However, they do have a Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and Target all in the same complex so I can basically be happy for the rest of my time here. As for St. Helena, well it's just cute. Very quaint. Some stats:

Population: around 6000

Number of stoplights: 3

Ladies that wear lots of perfume and sun hats: 5999

Number of famous people: 1 (so far). Michael Chiarello, who has a show on the Food Network and a restaurant here in town, apparently lives across the street from the other student housing place about a mile away.

I've discovered the Silverado Trail, which is an alternative to driving the 29 highway into Napa and Yountville (home of the French Laundry, which is an nationally recognized restaurant that has dinner starting around at least $100-$150/person) and it is by far one of the prettiest drives I've ever made. There will definitely be more pics and stories from there...

As for school, I pretty much love it so far. We aren't in the kitchen yet because we are doing a bunch of math and science. boo. However, aside from there being a lot of homework and reading, I still love that side of it. It's incredibly interesting.

I finally had some time to take some pictures of the building and the property. This building was built in the 1880's, and it was, you guessed it, an old winery. It's really very pretty. There's a lot of history, so I tried to capture that as well. Oh and if you were wondering, yes, they feed us like we are starving men that have been working in the fields all day. I have never seen such gourmet lunches and dinners before. As for dessert, don't even get me started. If I don't watch myself I will have to be brought home on the back of a semi.

Enjoy the pics.



The front of the building



The front doors and the detailing outside the building. If you look closely, the specks on that first picture are actually stars. It used to be a means of earthquake prevention. I'm not quite sure how they utilized them because they are all over the inside too, but it's quite interesting.



The second picture is my view from the front of my housing building.



The first picture is the view from the front of the main building and the little citrus grove. The second is the entrance to the Teaching Kitchens, aka where I will be spending most of my time for the program. Yay!



The rest are just parts of the beautiful grounds around the campus. That first picture of the vineyards is the property across the street. The one thing that is so amazing about the estates around here is how perfectly they line up those grapevines!

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