Mise en Place

Books -- check. Chef coats, pants, aprons and hats -- check. Knife and baking kit -- check. Excitement for my first lab classes that start on Monday -- CHECK, CHECK, CHECK!! WAHOO!!

Even though I officially started culinary school in January, it truly isn't real until you get your whites. I am excited, nervous, open-minded and thrilled to be starting my lab classes. This is where the fun begins!

Monday and Wednesday from 4:30 to 8:30 will be my Intro to Baking class. Chef Lucy is my instructor that I had last semester for Menu Planning. I didn't want to take night classes, but I wanted to take Chef Lucy's class. Sometimes you just have to sacrifice a little to get what you want. Just flipping through the text book gets me excited, and somewhat hungry, of course. Looks like there are a lot of breads, danishes, muffins, cookies, cakes, icings, (must I go on? ...ok I will), ganache, tarts, brownies, pies, ice cream, mousse, and petits fours I will need to make. Oh darn. Hee hee.

Professional Cookery is going to be on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8 am to 2pm - I am so happy to have this as a day class! Pro Cook, as it is called on campus, will teach the basics of working in a professional kitchen from equipment to recipe writing to proper technique to plate presentation. I could go on for hours about what is in our text for this class, but I will tell you I am mostly excited about learning how to properly prep and cook meat, poultry and fish. This is one thing I wish I would have learned at the restaurant this summer -- things just got too busy for us for Lady Chef to teach me. But hey, that's what I am going to culinary school for!

Friday is my "boring but important" class - Safety and Sanitation. I took a mini test at work, so I am pretty familiar with it -- the class will just be more of the same. Since I am a clean freak, I think I will not have a problem with this class!

Can't wait!!!!