The New Normal

Hi friends and family! One week of pastry school has come and gone and week two has begun. I thought I would pass along a quick update and some insight into my daily routine for those who have asked. So here we go.... I am slowly but surely getting used to my early wake up call. I am on the bus by 5:40, on the train by 6:00 and in the locker room of the Pastry School by 6:20 to put on my lovely uniform. (I haven't decided yet if I will share a picture of this look just yet :-) I'll keep you posted). 

By 6:45am my class is in the kitchen and we are scaling our ingredients for the day.  (Interesting note, we don't use cups and tablespoons to measure, we use the metric system and weigh everything on a scale...hence scaling) Once scaling is completed, next we gather around our chef for that week and watch a demo of each thing we will complete that day. Then it is off to our tables to make all the yummy goodies and prep items for future use.

So far we have made a traditional British Fruit Cake (don't knock it or laugh...it smells delicious!  It will soak for the next few weeks and be ready around Thanksgiving. I'll let you know how it turns out), Shortbread Cookies and Sugar Cookies (we will be decorating these next week), 2 kinds of Royal Icing (gotta practice our piping skills), Chocolate Sable Dough (to be made into a cake next week), Gum paste for making sugar flowers, and Pressed Sugar figurines. I may have missed something but you get the idea...we stay busy!

Once we get through the day's assignments we then tackle the cleaning of the kitchen. This work isn't for the faint of heart. All dishes, work surfaces, equipment and floors must be washed and sanitized. My 14 member class does a great job of getting everything done efficiently and quickly each day. They are a great group of people!

By 12:45 class is over and we head down to the locker room to change back into our street clothes. Then I begin the journey home via train and bus. Did I mention that my school is next to the Sears Tower (I guess I should say the Willis Tower since that is its legal name, but nobody here calls it that :-)) It is definitely a unique and wonderful experience to go to school next to such an iconic building. The view never gets old! 

We have the great opportunity every couple of weeks to have a new chef in the kitchen with us. Each chef specializes in something different and they share their wealth of knowledge with us. These chefs are world renowned and I am soaking up as much as I can from them. One of our chefs even made a cake for Princess Diana!

Part of our program also includes students getting their Sanitation Certification. We started reading the book last Monday and we take the official test this Friday. Please pray for me to pass! It has been a while since I had to study for anything :-) And let me just say that eating out at restaurants has forever changed for me. I see violations everywhere! Our chef warned us of this when we got started.  I have a new respect for folks in the food industry. Keeping things up to code and perfectly clean and sanitized is hard work!

I leave you with a fun story from the train. As you can imagine, there are some characters on the train. My rides are never boring.  I think my favorite thus far was a gentleman who kept addressing our particular car every couple of minutes. Each little speech was filled with random topics but my favorite was when he mentioned that Taylor Swift had called him last night and asked him to fly out to hang out with her. Then he proceeded to serenade us with Shake it Off :-)  It definitely woke me up that morning! 

So, that is about it for now. I'll try to post more updates and pictures of completed projects as I have them. Thanks to the many of you who are praying for me and supporting me throughout this journey. I am truly thankful for it and hope to do the program justice. Practice makes perfect...or as close to it as possible :-)  Love to you all!