I think spring is finally here! (well, here in Hyde Park) – and it’s almost the end of April – I suppose better later than never 🙂 had a gorgeous weekend here, almost upper 70s, bright blue skies – everything is starting to bloom. Campus is looking beautiful. I even got brave enough to put away winter coats, etc. Now I’m just hoping it’s not going to snow again any time soon.
School
Good news – I’m done with Fish ID & Fabrication Class (I was done about 2 weeks ago when I first attempted to write this)- I no longer smell like fish and don’t have fish scales on my shoes, my chef jacket, or in my hair.
Bad news – I started Skills I class in which one of our daily assignments is to prepare a knife tray – cut 4 onions, 3 shallots, 4 cloves of garlic, tomato concasse, parsley chiffonade and potato – we are graded on size/uniformity of the cuts, speed, cleanliness, etc. So basically now I smell like garlic and onions instead of fish.
Class is going well – we progressed from beef/chicken stock to broth, consomme and have been making soups for the last 5 days or so. My refrigerator is stacked with sealed bags of beef/vegetable, French onion, Cream of Broccoli and Fish Chowder soups. Liquid diet weekend (actually most of the soups have a pretty high ratio of butter and/or cream!).
We’re moving to Sauces next week. So getting ready to be all sauced up 🙂
House Stuff, etc.
I’m getting used to sharing a room – but still miss my own apartment.
Ani is cool, we get along pretty well.
Slowly but surely trying to discover places around school. Over the weekend went to a small town next to Hyde Park – Rhineback – quite quaint. Had a glass of wine in a bar/restaurant and listened to a local live band. Will have to come back during the day and discover more of it.
New York, New York
Treated myself to a birthday weekend in the city. Fun times – Olga took a train from DC and we hung out with old friends in the city and some new friends from the school. As usual, lots of eating out, some shopping, sightseeing. It was fun. Looking forward to a next visit – my Dallas peeps who are in NY now – will give you a call so we can hang out 🙂
Summer Plans
Starting to plan my summer vacation – I have 3 weeks off in July. Will be in DC and Seattle, and might squeeze in a few days in Dallas. Stay put for further updates 🙂
