End of Quarter

Well, this quarter is finished!! I'm sad to see it end in one respect, my baking instructor, my Garde Manger and Pastry instructor (the same man for both) is a totally different story. Otherwise, I am SO relieved that it is over. These are pictures of the final plating in my pastry class. The single dessert is "fried" ice cream (the ice cream was too soft so we couldn't actually fry it, so we just left it covered with cookie crumbs) with caramel sauce (personally I would have preferred to use raspberry sauce for color, but it was a table project and I was sort of out numbered).
This next plate was a "tasting" plate of three different desserts. From the left to right: blueberry-banana sorbet in a tuile (fortune cookie) cup, raspberry mousse in a chocolate cone and a chocolate covered raspberry, and an almond brownie.
I loved doing this plate. It really was a lot of fun. The final grades from this quarter are as follows:

Introduction to Pastry.........................A
Introduction to Baking.........................A
Garde Manger.......................................B

The "B" in Garde Manger is upsetting, but his written final was too. He had things on that test that we didn't even cover in class and most didn't even make sense. Like I said, I am SO glad to see his classes come to an end for me. Although, I think I will still have him for some lecture classes, but I am glad that I am done with his lab classes. Next quarter I will be working with chocolate, learning European cakes, and then I have nutrition and English composition, of which I am SO excited to take......NOT!!! Nutrition I won't mind because I am always looking for ways to make things a little more nutritious.

Not necessarily related to the end of the quarter, but Avary is doing SO well in her swimming classes. She has had only 3 lessons EVER so far, as of this last Saturday, and she is floating on her back by herself and even doing the backstroke (SO not kidding). I think we have a natural born swimmer on our hands.

Today I was able to watch CJ in her ballet class, just about the cutest thing I have ever seen and of course I didn't take my camera. The kids were bumping into each other and off sync. I can't wait for her recital.

Ice Carving

Today was ice carving at school. The Chef that I will have from now until I graduate has his own ice carving business here in Denver. It was so amazing to watch him carve ice, he made it look so easy. This is him doing the basic outline of his demo piece with a chainsaw:

This is a picture of his finished piece: (it only took him about 30-45 min to do this whole piece)

We worked in pairs and I flat out refused to use the chainsaw, although I later on tried it when I started to feel a little more comfortable around the chainsaw, hated it. Anyway, my partner and I decided to do a basket, a nice basket with a handle and everything. This is what we got:

I HATE ice carving!

Happy Birthdays!!!

Well, I apologize in advance that this is a long post, but we have been so busy this last week and having so much fun, that it wasn't in the cards to post until now.

Let's start with Friday the 12th. It was my birthday, I turned the big 3-0! It sounds strange when I am in my "thirties" and Spencer is still in his "twenties". Anyway, the day started off really good. I was graded on scones in my baking class and got 100 on them. They were SO good, cranberry-orange with orange icing, YUM!! The Chef even called them the perfect scone and that he would actually pay me money to eat them. Anyway, before leaving class that day, the Chef instructor had the entire class sing "Happy Birthday" to me, which embarrassed me, COMPLETELY! That night the whole household went out to dinner to Old Chicago, a pizza place that we all love. It was really fun. The whole restaurant then proceeded to sing "Happy Birthday" to me which embarrassed me yet again (and when I say the whole restaurant, I mean the WHOLE restaurant). The girls gave me some cute presents that they made. They made some characters out of rocks.

They say that they are crickets. Who would have thought? Rachel, Spencer's cousin, made me a delicious birthday cake. It was a Brazilian Carrot Cake.

It was nice to finally have a birthday cake after so long, I don't make my own cake.

The next day, Avary started swimming lessons. She was so excited, that was the first thing she mentioned when she got up that morning. (This was the best picture we could get.)

She didn't want to leave. When she got out of the pool, she told Spencer that she wanted to go swimming again. That same day, my mom and I decided to have a girls day out and we went and got manicures and pedicures. It was so nice. After that, we went to lunch where we were surprised by Rachel and then to a movie where we were surprised by our new friend, Ana. We went and saw "The Women". It was so funny and there wasn't one guy in that film, not even in the background. It was really fun and nice to relax for a day. Thank you Spencer!!

Monday, the 15th was my mom's birthday. She wanted a nice steak dinner for her birthday so I grilled up some T-bones. MAN!! Those things were bigger than our heads, but oh so juicy!! I then made her a fresh pear and blueberry crumble thingy for her cake.

It turned out SO good!!! It was a fun day.

At school this last week, in Garde Manger, I learned how to carve fruit. That was AWESOME!

I couldn't believe how easy it was and SO relaxing. I want some tools for Christmas because I enjoyed it so much. It was really fun.

Now, today. Today was Avary's 3rd birthday!! We can't believe she is 3, and yet she seems older. I asked her a couple days ago how old she was going to be and she said, "21". She is starting to seem so grown up to us that it is hard to believe she is only 3. She had a really good birthday though. Rachel and her family and Ana and her family all came over for cake and ice cream. We first opened presents. Here are a couple of pictures showing how much fun she had opening gifts: this was when she opened the glitter glue Spencer and I gave her, she was really excited!


This one was when she opened the gift Rachel and her family gave to her,
she is saying "OOOO". I wish I could show you how she reacted when she opened Ana and her family's present, but it was more of a sound than anything else. She was really excited about all her gifts.

After opening presents, we dug into the cake,

but not fast enough for Avary.

It was really yummy. I did a chocolate cake with whipped cream and fresh strawberries for the layers and then a chocolate buttercream icing that tastes just like fudge. She loved it. She wanted a flower cake with chocolate and sprinkles and this is what she got:

I asked her what she thought and she looked at it and said, "Hmm, interesting! It is so beautiful!". She is so cute. It turned out really nice thanks to Spencer and the hair dryer, long story. Anyway, Avary loved it. She ate all her frosting and then I think she was done.

It was a busy, but fun week. Can't wait for next year!!