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.