"Bread"

Whew!  Tonight was  C R A Z Y busy!  But still fun.  :)  We again had a short lecture on mixing methods and just going over homework.  We got our "to do" list for class and on for my group was 1. proofing breads from yesterday, then baking them for the restaurant tonight 2. mix and bake biscuits and corn muffins for the restaurant tonight 3. in pairs make a batch of brownies and 4. each of us make a full batch of coconut macaroons, a half batch of peanut butter cookies, and a half batch of oatmeal raisin cookies.  We got a demo of all the cookies and another demo of the brownies and off we went!  

I got out our butter braid from yesterday to proof (rise) before I bake it.  The baguettes were also taken out to proof and the extra baguette dough from yesterday was turned into cheesy herb breadsticks (the yummiest!).  The sourdough was also taken out to proof as well.  On we went to making the rest of the bread for tonight.  Natalie started on the corn muffins and Hannah on the biscuits, while Michelle made the breadsticks.  I got the task of folding napkins for the bread baskets (they have to look pretty for the diners!) and then started scaling out the ingredients for the brownies - attempting to get a jump start on the night's projects.  

Once the corn muffins were in the oven, Natalie and I knocked out the brownies super fast and were soon on our way to scaling out ingredients for the cookies.  BUT we then had to stop to top the butter braid with an egg wash and sesame seeds, check the inner temps of the breads, check our brownies, check the muffins, check the biscuits, AND about and hour before the dinner hour starts, we found out that the sourdough hadn't even been put in to bake yet!  It wasn't our dough so I hadn't been watching it, but now I know we're going to have to watch all the breads together, whether it is ours or not, or it gets done too late for the diners (which isn't all bad because we get to take it home, but still).  So between all of that, my measurements for my coconut macaroons were out and waiting to be made, but I didn't get to them for another 45 minutes because we then had to cut all the breads and make up at least 20-23 baskets, and place them all out for service tonight.  Once that time hit, it was non-stop going til the baskets went out, but at least they were full even without the sourdough loaves.  

So once the bread it out and we'd cleaned up all the bread crumbs, I thought it would be all good and I could get all three of my cookies done since they weren't all that time consuming types of cookies, buuuuuut no - that didn't happen.  I got the macaroons all mixed up and choose to let them sit the hour instead of babysitting them on the stove.  I thought it was the good choice, because while they were sitting and doing their coconut-y thing, I could start on one of the other cookie doughs, so I started scaling out the ingredients for the PB cookies.  I looked at the time and only had like a half hour, so I mixed up the PB dough and started scaling out the ingredients for the oatmeal raisin cookies for tomorrow.  I thought I was doing good and would at least get one batch done, but I forgot to put the fork marks into the PB cookies and they had already baked too long to do it, soooo I will have to redo those tomorrow.  ::sigh::  Oh well, it is okay.  I am going to go into class early and try to get all three cookies done before my class starts at 3pm, which should be do-able since none of the cookies have to bake all that long.  

So today I came home with a half a loaf of sourdough breads for my lunch sandwiches, a dozen yummy PB cookies (minus the fork marks), and a third of a gallon ziploc full of odds and ends from our breads today, so a little bit of baguette, a little butter braid, and a couple of corn muffins!  They'll go good with soup and stuff and I couldn't let it go to waste!

Well I have figured out that I definitely need one (if not two!) more chef jackets, because I am already washing my uniforms and I barely have any clothes to wash in general!  The pants are doing okay, but the jackets after being in the Special and Bread groups are just not staying clean.  I will have to find out from Chef tomorrow who to talk to about extra uniforms, because I just can't stand spending money to wash one load that is not completely full since I don't have clothes to fill it.  I was hoping to wear my uniforms at least twice before needing to wash, but an extra coat will just give me the extra day of wear before having to wash, which would be nice.  I have been using a Tide-to-go pen successfully so far to help me pre-treat some stains while at school or even to tend to my jacket if it is only one little stain, but I think I will just make up some good oxy-clean solution and use it with the pen once it runs out and hope that works since the pens are expensive and not refillable.  

I am off to switch my laundry and then hopefully get to sleep in an hour!

"Special"

So today we had a short lecture (yay!) and got straight to demo-ing cookies, yummy!!!  :)  So straight after the demos we got started in our groups and I was in the "Special" group today.  We got to make two chocolate dream tortes again (same as yesterday) because we are trying to stock the freezer with them since they are one of the desserts served at both lunch and dinner.  I was really wanting to try my hand at glazing it (you have to pour it all on in one try and smooth it out with two swipes, so it sounds hard but I want to try!), but we just made two more cakes instead, so that was okay too.  We also had to make the sourdough bread, the baguettes, and the butter braid for tomorrow (when we are in the bread group), so Natalie and I made the two tortes and Hannah started on the sourdough and Michelle started on the baguettes.  Once we had the tortes in the oven, Natalie and I started on the butter braid.  Room temp butter is best for us to work with, but sometimes we don't have a chance to let it warm up on its own, so we nuked our butter in the microwave and accidentally nuked it a tad too much, so we had to mix it a lot longer than normal to get all the butter incorporated.  We fiiiiinally got the dough made and let it rest for 90 minutes.  

We took the resting time to start on our cookies since we were supposed to make 3 kinds by the end of the night to get them checked off.  We started on our shortbread cookies since they had to chill in the fridge before they could be cut.  I made shortbread cookies with cranberries in them.  I need to work a little on rolling them into a slightly better circle (we roll them using a sheet pan to push them in the circle inside of parchment paper - hard to explain without seeing it), but otherwise it was okay.  So I put those in the fridge and the butter braid was still resting, so I started on my biscotti.  I made almond biscotti (the other choice was hazelnut), because I love the smell of toasted almonds!  That was actually easier to make than I had thought.  So I got started on scaling out the ingredients for the biscotti and had to stop to start rolling out the dough to braid.  

Well, Natalie and I decided to make a 5 strand braid (we have diagrams and instructions for 2, 4, 5, 6, and a star shaped braid), which was what Chef Hall had demoed in class last week, buuuuut the instructions on it are a little confusing to follow (even Chef Hall had trouble when he did the demo) and so Natalie and I got a little frustrated trying to braid it.  Chef Hammer gave us the okay to just braid it as we wanted to as long as it braided together and so Natalie and I tried to half follow the instructions and made the rest up as we went along.  You could tell we got the hang of it to the end, because one side of our braid looks... weird, while the other has a nice weave going on.   :)  We'll work on it for the next time!  So we just has to braid the bread and then wrap it for us to bake off tomorrow, so we jumped back into making our biscotti.  

Biscotti means twice baked, so I got my biscotti "log" into the oven with a light egg wash on top of it and started on my toll house cookies.  Yes, they are actually called toll house and are named after the inn where the recipe originated from, the Toll House Inn that is in Whitman, Massachusetts for anyone wondering.  See, I learn all kinds of things in my schooling, not just baking!  So the toll house cookies are as you are probably think, just chocolate chip cookies, and they were the last one for me to mix.  I only had a short time before I had to start cleaning, but I got it mixed, in the oven, and onto the cooling rack just as we started cleaning, so it was perfect.  I still needed to cut and bake the second time my biscotti and cut and bake my shortbread, but I was just going to stay after class for 10 mins and finish it up, because we all have to stop and clean as a class so we all can try to get out at the same time each night.  

Unfortunately, as cleaning was going on, my tray of toll house cookies got knocked on the ground before I got them checked off by Chef Hall, but it was okay.  Since I was already going to stay after, I had extra batter (we only had to bake off 12 of them from a half batch, which made 2.5 dozen) and just baked another dozen.  I also got my biscotti baked for the second round, and my short bread cookies baked as well and got all 3 items checked off, so yay!  I didn't want to wait til tomorrow to finish them, because we will have to make all the breads for the restaurant, make up the baskets for them, AND make 3 more new cookies, so I just wanted to get todays cookies out of the way!  Plus I still need to get checked off on my whipped cream rosettes and my numbers and initials with chocolate filigree (no time to do either today), so I have plenty to work on still this week!  

Well, it is late, I didn't get home until 10pm today since I stayed later, so I am off to bed!  And tomorrow my excess cookies go to the ladies at the gym and front desk.  I promise to make more to send to others who've asked for my "mistakes".  :)  Luckily I haven't had any horrible mistakes yet.  Oh, and I think I got a picture of the cookies on my camera - it has a little battery juice left it in, so I will try to get the pizza and cookie shots up soon!

"Service"

So after we went through the rest of the long ingredients lecture (cause there are a lot of them!), we also got a demonstration on how to properly sharpen our knives, and a demo on how far is just right when whipping cream.  From there we went to our specific groups and today I was part of the "Service" group which means we had to prep some desserts for tomorrow night and then go plate the actual desserts for the diners in the restaurant tonight.  First off we made a double batch of the chocolate dream torte, which is a flour-less chocolate cake.  We mixed it up and while it was baking we got to work on our chocolate filigree (which is basically drawing with chocolate).  The chocolate filigree is actually harder than it looks trying to make the same design look exactly the same (eg. lines are the same thickness, same size overall, no random extra drops of chocolate) and so it took me doing the same design at least 25 times before I got a check off for having done 3 similarly.  Making all the designs look exactly alike is kind of frustrating, but I really like the chocolate filigree work.  It's creative and fun to mess around with trying to draw with chocolate, though the chocolate kind of does its own thing sometimes too!  Depending on how hot the chocolate is depends on how easy it is to work with - too hot and it just flows anywhere it wants to, but too cool and it doesn't want to pipe out at all.  So I got one design checked off, but I have two more to do before the whole thing is checked off.  I did get my dozen cornets checked off - yay for having played with henna so much the last few years, I had the cone rolling down pat!  We also had to work on piping whipped cream rosettes, which I did some, but haven't quuuuuuite gotten it down yet, so I'll work on it some more tomorrow when I am not plating desserts and have more time to practice.  

So just after our dream torte came out of the oven to cool, we had a dinner of a veggie nacho type thing (rice, beans, veggies, guac, etc), which was yummy again (so far I like most all of Chef Hammer's dinners!).  My group had about 10 minutes to eat dinner before we had to be over in the T3 kitchen for dessert plating, so we quickly ate and gathered up the necessary items to take with us, mainly cornets for piping, the carmel nut tarts, and the torch.  We got to the kitchen and immediately had to start working on the 4 different desserts, starting with making whipped cream because all of the desserts have at least a little whipped cream on them.  We whip the cream by hand, and gosh my wrists are sure going to be strong after all the whipping we'll do!  We could do it with a mixer, but it comes out better if we do it by hand, but we make so much it seemed to take forever!  But we started that and took turns mixing while we prepped the rest of our plates.  

Each in our group took one dessert to prep - Michelle prepped the apple strudel, Hannah prepped the brownie sundae, Natalie prepped the chocolate dream torte, and I prepped the caramel nut tart.  For my dish, I started with cutting and caramelizing bananas.  The first batch I did didn't have enough sugar on them, so the sugar was absorbed into the banana and I pretty much char-grilled the bananas with only like 2 of them actually caramelizing.  Chef Hammer showed me how much sugar to coat them with and I cut some more for try #2.  The second try worked out and the bananas caramelized perfectly!  I had started prepping enough plates for 5 caramel nut tart desserts, but in the end only 3 were ordered so we ended up eating the rest of the bananas ourselves - though I don't think I did eat the caramelized one, but I did eat the other half of the regular banana cause I was still hungry!  :)  So I finished up my plates by putting a mango and a raspberry sauce together to form 3 fancy stars (a big dollop of mango sauce with a small dollop of raspberry in the middle and a star drawn out of the middle if you can picture that) and I put the caramelized bananas on top of the caramel nut tart and my dessert was ready to be served!  All of the desserts except for the brownie sundae can pretty much be made ahead of time, but the sundae has to be made right before it goes out or the ice cream melts.  

So we got most of the desserts plated ahead of time and then practiced some more whipped cream rosettes and other chocolate filigrees while we waited for our desserts to be called up by the servers.  In the end, we helped to serve the desserts (which I don't think we normally do) since one table had 18 people at it.  I wish I had pictures of the desserts, but I don't know when I would take the pictures.  The kitchen kept going from busy to a short down time then busy again then small down time again then busy again.  I guess you all will just have to come up here and have dinner at the restaurant and see them all for yourselves!  :)  Then I can make your dessert for you, yay!  Working in service was fun though.  I liked the plating. While we have to plate the same way each time, there is a little bit of fun to be had with each of them, a chance to be creative, so it was fun.  Tomorrow I think I will be in the "Special" group, which I think preps more desserts for the next nights and just gets to work on other regular class work to be checked off.  And so I am off to read my next chapter and then go to bed!  Nite!

The end of week 1

So yesterday, we had a lecture on ingredients and it was loooooong.  We learned about ALL the different kinds of flour (there are a crazy amount!) and how they are all made.  We learned ALL about sugars, leavening products, starches, what makes different kinds of gluten, substitutions, and much much MUCH more.  It was a lot of info, but good info for us to know, but still a looooong lecture.  

We then had a demo on how to make cornets (essentially piping bags) out of parchment paper because we will have to make 12 of these with perfect points as one thing on our check off sheet.  Also how to make a good caramel sauce and chocolate sauce for making designs on plates during plating.  We saw the proper way to cut a cheese cake and the chocolate torte for the restaurant.  After that we learned out to use the ice cream machine.  Next we saw our four desserts (caramel nut tart, fruit strudel, chocolate torte, and brownie sundae) being plated properly, and that was the end of the night!  Mainly it was a lot of watching last night, but we actually start making all the stuff and plating it for the restaurant on Monday, so I took lots of notes because now they'll just critique us mostly and not re-show us again unless absolutely necessary.  

And yet again, we had a yummy dinner (of mac and cheese) thanks to Chef Hammer, though I think these dinners are ending now and hopefully the culinary students will start sharing with us soon instead!  :)  So now it is back to my homework!

Day 3

This will just be a short recap as I just finished my homework and am tired and ready for bed!  :)  But today was a pretty fun day of class.  We had our usual lecture, which was actually mainly just going over homework.  The rest of the lecture was utensil identification and so we went into the kitchen and saw all the tools we will get to use and learned where they belong to be put back.  Not much of a lecture this time, but that is okay!  We then got a demo from Chef Wilke who is OCI's Executive Chef and Director of Education.  I think this is Chef Wilke's first or second term not teaching, but he seems like he would've been a fun instructor to have though he was a culinary instructor and admits to not being the best baker.  But Chef Wilke demonstrated proper usage and safety for knife work since we do have three knives in our kit.  He demonstrated how to properly hold food while cutting, which way to cut, how to properly cut an onion (which is NOT the way they tell us in our book, which I find funny!), and how to sharpen the knives.  He even showed us "knife scars" and told us we'd probably each have a few by the end of school, which doesn't make me happy, but we'll see if I can keep mine to a minimum.  

After the knife demo, Chef Hall did his demo and we made 6 things tonight!  We first helped to make tart shells and those became caramel nut tarts (with freshly made caramel!), then we made some brownies, then we started on some pizza dough, but we had to let it sit for a bit before using it.  We then made a huuuge strudel filled with apples, raisins, and spices that smelled really good!  Next was a chocolate flourless cake (I've had this and it is super yummy!) that is a regular staple at the restaurant.  After that we made some ice cream that is vanilla flavored for the moment I believe.  We actually just made the base for the ice cream and we'll churn it in the ice cream machine tomorrow.  The brownies and the ice cream (which is going to be a coffee flavor) will be made into sundaes in tomorrows class.  

The finale tonight was that we got to make our own pizzas with the pizza dough.  Tessa and I decided to share one, though in the end most people were trying each other's pizzas.  We had a bunch of toppings to choose from, but we made a pizza with zucchini, mushrooms, garlic, tomatoes, cheese and a red sauce and it was super yummy!  We took turns stretching our ball of dough into a pizza shape and used more the tossing between your hands method than the in the air one, though I did toss ours into the air a couple of times and did manage to catch it each time, so I was proud of that!  I do admit, I didn't toss it high since we would've been very disappointed to not have a pizza at that point since we were all hungry.  :)  Ours came out less rounded than most others.  We like to say it was either a Christmas tree shape (with the toppings as ornaments) or just a big slice like from Chuck E. Cheese!  No matter what shape it was, we got it in the oven (and got to use one of those big wooden oven paddle type things called an oven peel) without it falling apart and ate half of it but still took big pieces home for lunch tomorrow.  I also got to take home another girl's pizza too since she had made a big one, so I might have lunch to get me through the weekend!  I will try to remember to take a picture of my pizza tomorrow before I eat it, though it might be one of the last few pictures I post up for a bit.  I can't seem to find my camera's power cord, so I must have left it in MT and will have to get another one.  So until then, enjoy the pizza picture tomorrow and I'll try to get another one soon or see how many pictures I can quickly take and quickly download before my battery dies.

This is an oven peel - the paddle thing the pizza is on.

Second day of class

Well I packed up all my things and trekked off to class only to be greeted when I got there by this one guy who is in the evening Culinary class.  He is from NC and seems very nice, really he does, but he just thinks he is funny and really he comes across more annoying to me.  Our student lounge is just outside of where his classroom is and they tend to go on break when we do (whether on purpose or not I am not sure since they are a smaller class), and everytime he comes out there, he makes some comment about the guys in our pastry group - there are only two - being "lucky to be surrounded by all these pretty girls in the pastry class" or saying that he should change to the baking class to "be near all these pretty girls", and really, yes in a way it is flattering to all of us, but this the second day of 2-3 breaks each day that i have to listen to it.  Today I had to leave and go use the bathroom in hopes that when I came back he'd be back in his classroom (he wasn't) because I just couldn't take it.  If he feels that way, then change class and get it over with - but please don't really because then I'd have to listen to it e v e r y day, aaagh!  :)

We lost our first classmate today.  An older woman from CA I guess decided to drop out for some reason.  She seemed really excited about it, but that drops our count to 15 students in the class now.  One girl commented "What?!? But she took the best notes in the class, I was going to ask to borrow hers if I got sick!" which was true, because I think I take quite a bit of notes, but she REALLY did!  So now we wait to see how many of us will be left tomorrow or next week.

So today we got a little more into the groove of things, though I think by next Monday we'll be much more actually into the regular routine for sure since Chef Hall said that by next week we'd actually be making the bread for the restaurant.  That means we'll probably be starting to prep and plate desserts as well.  We learned to fold napkins for the bread baskets and little ramekin dishes though, so that is the start of prep stuff.  But that was just something to learn while our bread was baking.  And it was sooooo yummy!  We had formed dough and let it ferment and proof overnight, so we took those out to finish proofing in the warm air today.  We also mixed up the biscuit dough, corn muffin mix, and baguette dough.  The kitchen smelled so yummy because besides our breads Chef Hammer made us dinner again and we had some yummy chili and got to taste test our medley of breads with it - we had biscuits, corn muffins, baguettes, butter braid bread (a white bread), whole wheat dinner rolls, sourdough bread, and yummy herb and cheese twisted breadsticks (these were the BEST!).  So yet again, I had dinner at school and tomorrow we are making pizza!  We broke into our groups and this time I was with Hannah, Natalie, and Michelle and we will now officially be group 3.  I guess we stay with the same 4 members for the term and then next term we'll change groups to work with everyone in the class.  Today we were the bread group, but each day we'll be a different group (eg. bread, prep, service, or specialty).  We were scaling things out for 2 batches of pizza dough, a chocolate sauce, and a carmel sauce.  I also got to "feed" the sourdough.  That pretty much means I take the sourdough starter and split it off into a smaller batch, add some water and flour and mix again.  We are supposed to feed it every day whether we use it or not because we do usually use it and if we don't feed it every day it will eventually die (and therefore not make sourdough bread and such).  We also had our usual lecture and the demo today was the biscuits and corn muffins.  Showing us the ovens and different folding, rolling, mixing techniques.  That was pretty much my day.  And now it is late and I am off to bed so I can make it up in the morning to go to the gym.  Nite!

Ladybugs understood.

Oh, I also found out what is up with the ladybugs.  So I guess every year the Rose Gardens here (which are big) let loose thousands (or more) ladybugs to eat the aphids and other bugs in the garden.  They do this every year for the roses but as all ladybugs do, they don't all stay where they are wanted.  I guess every year around October/November they all fly this-a-way and cling to all the buildings and climb in any opening they can find, like my apartment windows.  My manager said that when they are really all out, she has seen whole sides of buildings looking dirty but are really just covered in ladybugs.  Now that is too much ladybug for me.  Luckily I missed that part and just have the tail end of the problem.  I haven't seen one since Sunday, so let's cross our fingers that that is the end of them for me!

First day of class

So yesterday was my first day of class and it was pretty great!  It started with us getting more stuff - like an early Christmas haha!  We got 4 aprons, 8 towels, a calculator, and our "kit".  This is the kit below, it has spatulas, knives, a sharpening tool, shears, measuring spoons, measuring cups, and it all fits together in a little bag to carry!

 

Well, let me back up a bit.  To start off, I got in my uniform and as you can see, the arms are a bit long as are the legs.  Okay, not just a bit, they are flat out long!  I will probably end up hemming up the pants over the holidays because after one day of classes, I am already tired of folding them up to walk to and from class.  The daily uniform pretty much consists of the hat (so I don't have to wear a hairnet), the jacket, the pants, shoes that can withstand 400 degree oil being poured on them (a quote from the head of the department!), no jewelry except for a watch, an apron, a towel, and my kit.  

The hat.

The logo on my jacket.

The "uniform".

Ta da!

So back to the first day of class.  So after we got all our "stuff" we got a tour of the stock room, the big freezer, the kitchens, and the restaurant.  Then we went back to the classroom for our lecture.  We got our syllabus, a big recipe packet, and a check off sheet of what we should be able to "do" by the end of this term.  We heard about some of our big projects coming up: a menu project, a wedding cake, make our own flavor of ice cream (so if anyone has a flavor they always thought would be tasty, let me know and ill try making it for you!), and a big chocolate piece to name a few.  We will pretty much be split into four groups every day - the bread group (who starts making breads for the dinner hour at the restaurant), the prep group (who starts prepping desserts for the restaurant), the service group (who helps the restaurant finish getting the desserts and bread baskets out to be served), and the special group (who I think will just be working on whatever task we were shown during the demo that day).  Then we kind of reviewed half of our homework chapter on bakeshop math and today we'll finish the review on food sanitation.  After our break, we went into our kitchen and broke up into groups of four and started prepping the breads for today's baking.  My group was a girl named Tessa, a girl named Natalie, and a girl named Hannah and we were scaling out mix for biscuits and corn muffins.  

After that was all done, we watched Chef Hall demo making some of the yeast breads for today as well.  He made dough for a butter braid, wheat dinner rolls, and sourdough bread.  While Chef Hall was telling us the differences in breads and the ways it mixes together, our other instructor Chef Hammericksen (called Chef Hammer) came in and told us she made us veggie lasagna, so she started warming that up for us.  Chef Hall then continued on with the discussions of breads and while he was talking a girl in the class passed out.  She was standing across the circle from me and just seemed to lean back on the table (which has wheels on it) and it rolled out behind her and she fell to the ground, hitting her head.  I think it was more than a fainting spell, but she woke up real quick and declined an ambulance though if it was me I would have taken it.  It was pretty scary seeing her just go down like that, but she said she was okay and continued with the rest of the class.  She joked that it was sure a way to get noticed the first day of class.

We then got a break while the girl was checked out and when we came back we got to eat the lasagna which was delicious and right at the perfect time for dinner.  I heard something about maybe having chili or pizza later this week too, yummy!  After eating, we learned how to roll dinner rolls to make them perfectly smooth on top for a good presentation.  We all got to practice making the rolls for today's dinner and then moved on to the sourdough bread.  We learned the correct technique to load it into the loaf pans for it to proof overnight.  After that, Chef Hall showed us how to make a 2 strand and 5 strand braid.  He had given us a sheet with a diagram on it for a few different strand braids and the 2 strand is fairly simple.  The 5 strand is a little more complicated and it was pretty funny when even Chef Hall messed up on it (it wasn't all braided together in the end).  We then did the last of the dishes and got out a bit early since the restaurant wasn't open so we didn't have to finish getting desserts ready to go out late. 

The walk back was okay.  I yet again had a much fuller backpack then planned, but I think that was the last of all our "stuff" that we have to be given.  Oh except for a thermometer and I think I can handle that.  The amount of stuff isn't really that big of a deal, but the walk up the hills (why did I choose to live so high up in this hilly city???) is killing my calves.  I worked out the last two days at Curves and that was okay, I will get on the smart equipment this saturday, but I skipped my workout this morning because my calves were just killing me when I woke up.  I hope the more I make the walk the better it'll be though.

And so I am off to my second day of class - we'll see what fun happens today!

Oh how cute I'll be looking!

So I tried on my uniform and - wow - it is definitely a one size fits all!  The arms are down to my fingers and the pants, while I remember them being more MC Hammer-ish (perhaps it was when I tried on a bigger size) they are not quite so Hammer-style as much as they have some weird tapering going on at the ankle-ish area.  Usually I can fold the pant legs at the bottom and get an idea of how they'd lay if I hemmed them up, but these pants are... interesting.  They bunch up kinda funny from my knees down, and when I fold the pants up as if they were hemmed... the bunching doesn't go away.  I dunno, we'll see what happens.  I'll take a picture tomorrow of me in the fantabulous outfit for all see, woo!

Orientation

So I just got back from orientation at OCI and it was pretty normal.  Just a half hour of "Hi, we're your teachers, these are your books, and oh - here is your first homework assignment!" as orientations usually tend to go.  :)  Yay, homework on the day BEFORE the first day of classes!  Haha, but it isn't due til Wednesday so I'll probably try to do it tonight while I have the extra time.  Orientation was pretty nice though.  We got to meet all the instructors for both the morning and the evening classes.  Chef Hall is the main instructor for my baking and pastry classes with another chef helping as needed.  We also got a map of the school, which from the outside doesn't look all that big (and didn't seem too huge in my visit of the school in May), but little did I know there are 3 classrooms and 3 kitchens in the building -  not counting the kitchen in the restaurant!  I was pretty impressed!  I'll mostly be in kitchen 2 and classroom 2 though for my classes.  From what I heard tonight, my daily schedule will be something like lecture, break, demo, break, and then hands-on stuff.  And they said in the beginning we should bring snacks or a quick dinner so we aren't starving when we get out of class, but after the classes really start producing food, then our baking classes will trade with the evening culinary classes and then we can all taste test while in school - yummy!!!  :)

The trek from school back up the hills was definitely a bit harder tonight than when Kristen and I walked back from dinner.  Perhaps it was the backpack full of two uniforms and my books that made the difference... perhaps.  But I don't have to bring my books and back and forth from class everyday, so that'll be nice!  More room to bring cookies home in my backpack, right!?!  I mean... healthy baked goods, yes, yes, that is what I meant.

Well, there isn't much else to tell so I am off to ::sigh:: go do my homework and made some dinner.  I'll let you know how the first day of classes goes tomorrow!