pastry school

I got to school at 7:30 on the first day of my second week, and I felt like I'd been run over by a train. My body hadn't adjusted to the physical labor or the early hours yet, I was getting sick, and I was hungover. Awesome. I staggered in to class, seriously not ready for an hour and a half lecture on wheat.

Instead, we were told to stand up and file into the chocolate room.



My 7:30am class was a chocolate tasting.

Suffice to say my mood improved dramatically. Lecture me on cocoa mass and cocoa butter and varietals of beans any damn time you want, so long as I'm sampling the wares.

One of the best (and completely non-traditional) things about my program is that not only do we do pastry and artisan breads, but also charcuterie and cheeses. What this means on a practical level is that sometimes, when I wander into the walk-in to find oranges, I'm confronted with this:



glad I'm not a vegetarian anymore.

speaking of "not a vegetarian anymore," i ate this:



It's called head cheese. I wasn't told what it was until I was halfway through it. And by "told what it was," I mean "given a graphic and detailed description of how it was made." Oh, culinary school student lunch, how you entertain me.

this is our mascot, wilbur:



he's eight months old and becoming prosciutto.