Well, you’ll all be happy to know that I’ve secured a job with the Special Events department of the Greystone restaurant. Woo hoo! I’m an on-call prep cook basically, so when there are special events, which is just about all the time, they’ll call and see if I can come in and work, and then I go work! Ding! The only problem is that you never know when you’re going to be working, and the hours vary a lot. But, it’s a start anyways. And I heard from a little bird that there may be open opportunities to work as a Banquet server at Roux! Thanks to some impromptu networking I did after class the other day, I got the scoop on this little dealie-o. Will know for sure tomorrow, but I would rather work there because it’s more of a regular job, I’ll get more experience in the real restaurant setting, it pays about 3 dollars an hour more, there are more hours and it’s about a 1.5 minute walk from my house! Ding! We’ll see if they actually are hiring…

This week has been quite exhausting I must say! Three finals, a four page paper and a quiz in five days: yowzahs! It’s a great pace, but I don’t think I’ve quite adjusted to this whole getting-up-at-five-in-the-morning thing yet.

Jen and I hiked at Robert Louis Stevenson state park yesterday. We were supposed to do the ten miles up Mt. St. Helena, but we took the wrong path (and got lost for an hour on the way there…), so ended up at Table Rock trail instead. It was actually perfect! We met some very interesting people, who we’re hoping to run into again, and still got in a four mile hike. So it was all good.

The harvest has officially started! Rutherford, the town about 10 miles away, smells like wine! This picture of grapes I took last week by the library. They’re sooo delicious! I’m planning on making a new sourdough starter with these grapes tomorrow.

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!

So, 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!

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, so 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~

My housemate Guillaume is a winemaker from the Burgandy region of France. He’s working at Clos Pegase in the next town over. The other night we were having a spontaneous late-dinner at the counter in the kitchen (well, I was eating ice cream and he was having an original potatoe stew creation) and we remembered that the once-in-a-lifetime-Mars-sighting was going on (this was on Wednesday). Clos Pegase was hosting a special Mars event with tons of telescopes and celestial gurus that night–so we decided to go check it out! SO HOT! We got to see the ICE CAP on MARS through this one telescope!! The woman working the scope would adjust the lens and then you had about a 45 second time window during which you could see the cap. It was very interesting and educational! Plus Guillaume (whose name I hope I’m spelling right…) gave me a private tour of the wine cellars, bottling department and caves. And as special guests we got a free tasting of the 2000 Cabernet and the 2002 Port that they released for the first time that night (in celebration of the Mars spectactular). Sidenote: I found it interesting that they served miniature macadamia nut cookies as palate refreshers. Usually you just see a plain cracker, this was a nice change, but I think left you with an overly powerful flavor on your tongue that interfered with the tasting. I was so exhausted yesterday as a result of staying up late, but it was very fun and refreshing night.

Clos Pegase (ring any bells Latin Scholars??) is a beautiful winery–they have some very nice modern art pieces displayed about the grounds, and the building itself is gorgeous when all lit up at night. We learned that it takes 45 minutes to get your night vision! Que interesante. 🙂

This getting up at 5:15AM everyday is quite an experience! I’m looking forward to the long weekend–ding! Going out with girls from school tonight (lookout Downtown St. Helena!!), homework, studying and paper writing tommorrow, hiking Mount St. Helena and having picnic breakfast at the top on Sunday morning, then hitting up some outlet malls. And on Monday heading to the vineyards for some local tastings! Action-packed weekend. Happy Labor Day everyone!