September, 2003

Progress!

Woo hoo! Look who’s connected at home!! (me!) Even if it does feel like a regression to the age of dinosaurs, dial-up is better than nothing. Here are some pictures from a recent trip to the Adirondaks with The Girls. These are probably only of interest to the people who actually went on the trip, but there they are in case you wanted to check them out. Massive influx of new photo gallery pages coming towards the end of this week (after final paper, final exams, and job hunt are over). Enjoy.

Understanding the Sourdough

WARNING: VENT TO SKIP PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO NEXT PARAGRAPH.
I just wrote a whole wonderful huge long entry with pictures and everything and the FREAKING library computer logged me out and now, it’s gone. all gone. I absolutely cannot stand this internet situation a day longer. tomorrow I am going to search until i find a solution. I will not stop at anything. ARG. SOO ANNOYING!

france.bmpSo, anyways, a FAMOUS chef–Daniel Boulud— came to school today! This was my first encounter with a really FAMOUS chef and was quite exciting. We had a book discussion in the Eco Lounge and I had the opportunity to speak with him personally for a few minutes afterward while he was signing my book. Pretty exciting stuff! I’m not convinced that he’s got any backbone supporting his notoriety, but after I finish reading his book this weekend I’ll let you know what I think. It really wouldn’t be a complete review unless I ate at his restaurants, so maybe I’ll have to take a trip to NYC and then give you a full review. Anyone want to come with?

I’ve decided once and for all that it is Imperative for me to learn French and improve my Spanish speaking skills immediately. Especially since I’m going to be heading to Europe (to study chocolate) as soon as it makes financial sense (within the next 3 years or so). I think I’ll start in Belgium then head to France, Switzerland, Germany, and Spain. After that I’ll be off to South America–maybe hit up Costa Rica and hang out with Uncle Brian for a while.

OH MY GOSH! You will not believe what we did in Baking Science today!! Go ahead, guess! We started our very own sourdough starters!! HOW EXCITING THIS IS!!! Did you know that you can start your very own sourdough starter using only flour, water, and some organic produce! HOT! Think of the endless variations!! Besides there being hundreds of fruits and vegetables out there just thriving with yeast cells, you can do any combination of these fruits with any combination of flours (and there are thousands of flours!!!). And, since starters are living things–you have to feed them and take very good care of them every day–it’s also a cheap and rewarding pet! Especially for those of us living in places that don’t allow pets or those of us who don’t want to be tied down with real-life responsabilities (you can dry your sourdough before you go out of town and then reactivate it upon your return!). Ding! I’m going to start (at leat) one at home too, so I’ll let you know how it goes. Well, I’m about to get kicked off again, so I’ll say adieu for now. Hope y’all have a great weekend!

Nudity in the kitchen

I find the recently popular combination of nudity and cooking highly engaging! The danger of the idea alone gives me goosebumps–having any part of your body naked in the kitchen is the number one no-no for the culinary professional, blender.bmpso it’s no wonder that these chefs who are baring all spark tons of interest. Besides Jamie Oliver, star of the BBC program The Naked Chef, there’s also a great new calendar out featuring a similar theme: Naked Chefs with their Blenders. One of the chefs who posed with his blender, Daniel Boulud, is visiting CIA Greystone tomorrow afternoon for a discussion and book signing. Should be interesting! I’ve browsed his cookbook, but haven’t read his book yet, maybe I’ll do that tonight.

School is still going excellently–I can’t believe we’re practically done with our first two courses already! We’ve got our final paper due Monday and two final exams Tuesday morning. Then on Tues. afternoon we start Sanitation! And after that, we’re in the kitchen for good–Woo hoo!

Chef Jorin gave a very interesting demonstration on working with sugar today. I wish I had known everything we learned today when I tried to do spun sugar last Halloween. What a disaster that was!! But now that I know how to do it right, I’m going to give it another go. Well, I’m off to do lots of reading in preparation for our big exams next week! ~Hasta la vista~

Fungus

storm.jpgIt rained a little bit this morning! That’s a major event here–the power goes out every time there is even a tiny rain shower, so you can imagine what this major lightning storm did to power here. It was beautiful lightning–still pitch black because the sun hadn’t risen yet, the lightning contrasted against the sky awesomely. It was a nice start to the day!

It turns out that this rain might actually be good for the grapes that are about to be harvested here. Usually, you don’t irrigate or water grape vines too often because if the roots are stressed, they dig deeper into the earth and bring more interesting flavors to the grapes. But apparently, when there’s a brief rain like today, late in the harvest season, a fungus called Botrytis develops on the grapes. The wind that comes with the rain spreads the fungus to other vineyards very quickly. Grapes affected with this Botrytis fungus produce exceptional dessert wines! Score! So watch for special, late harvest dessert wines (or sauternes) from the Napa Valley this season–they should be excellent! (Want to read more? Check this out).

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