Days THIRTY THREE and THIRTY FOUR. Study. Pretend to Study. Work Hard. Have Fun.

Days THIRTY THREE and THIRTY FOUR. Study. Pretend to Study. Work Hard. Have Fun. I met up at Malta's house with four others on Tuesday to study, and make some practice dishes. Malta had ordered all the ingredients we needed to make all three test dishes. Her kitchen is small, so we rotated two cooking, while the other four studied/talked about studying. There is so much material to learn, and so much we dont know if we need to know it or not. We'll get it... or else we only have tell next Monday to get the written part down, recipe making is a week from today. Yikes! I made a Tarte de Citron....Lemon Tart. I made my crust, but when I blind baked it, I forgot to put in my bag of beans (to weigh down the crust, so it is evenly baked everywhere). It turned out a bit flat. I just laughed it off, it was only a practice, and this way I wont forget what not to do too. Some of the girls came into see my flat tart shell. "I failed. Oh Well." I told them. They laughed. Luckilly they all get my sense of humor. We ate mine later, it was weird sitting in a room of my peers, eating my tart, I wanted to tear it apart, but they were all nice enough not to critique it. Funny we all wanted to eat something sweet after baking and talking about desserts all day long. A few of us took a break to go to the pharmacy. I needed the equivelant to neosporin (they dont sell that here), with the help of Dehli, I was able to find something comparable to it. We went back, and practiced piping shells and rosettes. We were there until 930ish. I was so tired, and just wanted to go to bed. I came home, and prepped my notes for tomorrows class, and went to bed. Wednesday. I got up, went for a jog, came back and got ready to go back to Malta's house, for more practice. We made Pate a Choux (aka Eclairs), and studied a little bit for me. Graxiously, Dehli made us lunch. It was amazing. I tried to watch, but with baking/piping eclairs, there was alot going on. The Dal & Pulao rice were so good, a perfect blend of flavors, spices, warmth, and heat...Dehli said it was too bland for her, but the rest of us appreciated that her bland, was quite right for the rest of it (mom it would have been too hot spice wise for you). We tried covering our eclairs with the fondant, but it was a bit runny, i persisted and got 4 good ones out of it. We ran out of time for chocolate piping, so that is something I will still need to work on. After that we all headed to school for our only class of the day/week so far....it was a 630pm class to make two things, Meringue a l'Amande: Batons de Marechal (almond meringue baton shaped; backs dipped in chocolate) & Sables Hollandais (checkerboard cookies). We were with Chef Baker for the first time ever in the kitchen. Before that we only had him for our dry lecture on flour. It was my challenge for the night to make him smile. I succeded. He is always so serious, and I have to focus hard to understand him, but at one point I made him laugh, so I consider that an accompishment. He quickly went back to quiet critique man for the rest of the night. I like eating the Almond Meringues. They are light, almonds in the batter & covering the outside and then the backsides are dipped in chocolate..they are good. One I would make at home. The Sables looked cute, were a challenge to make, and would make cute checkerboard pieces before I need to eat them again. AKA bland and boring. perhaps if I dipped them in chocolate too, they would have been better. I left them both out on the kitchen counter at home tonight, hopefully my flatmates will eat them. I left some things at Malta's so I stopped by there on the way home (its on the way, three stops propr to my place). It was raining when I got out of the tube. My bag and pants were wet even under an umbrella. I got home 1045. I couldnt believe it. Time passes so quickly here. Its been hard work the past few days. Studying. Learning. Its all good. I am still having fun.