a state of panic?

I'm not sure I've reached it yet... I definitely have insomnia now though...

I graduate from my Pastry & Baking program on Monday. Can you believe it went that fast? No? Me neither! On Friday we had the written part of our final exam, 1 hour... on Monday we have the practical part of our final exam - making molded chocolates... I'm not so concerned about that. I love chocolate. Chocolate and I have a deep spiritual connection and I've been trying to hone that connection while working with chocolate over the last week and a half making chocolates. I love tempering chocolate (what makes a beautifully made chocolate shiny and have that lovely crack when you bite into it). You send the love out to the product and it returns it by behaving. I had the same feeling with puff pastry, which in fact I just made a "quick version" of in a recreational class on Friday night. It is incredibly relaxing when you have that feeling with something you are making!

But what I am concerned about is completing my chocolate showpiece... every person in class will complete a showpiece that must be at least 50% chocolate to display at our graduation reception and be a variation on the theme "Saturday afternoon." I've chosen to spend my afternoon at the premiere modern art museum in NYC - MoMA. Unfortunately we aren't permitted to work on any part of the showpiece outside of class, so that has forced me to plan as well as possible. But honestly, the time in class flies by so quickly... and on Monday we have even less of it than usual, after completeing our practical, hopefully we will have at least 2 hours to finish up... wish me luck... I will post pics of my piece as soon as I can next week.

And also my business plan for Culinary Management is also a severe cause for concern... lots of work so do on this thing... in fact, I need to finish this post so I can maybe (but probably not) do a little work before I close my eyes for the evening...

oh barf... cake!

So last Friday I was up until 1am making gum paste cherry blossom flowers for my two tier cake that was to be completed by 5pm that day. I had been stressing about this stupid cake since I wrote last Thursday. Starting Sunday I was up until about 1:30am every night thinking about this or that, not to mention I had a paper and presentation about hot chocolate due for my Culinary Management class. That was delicious, but still stressful!

Anyway... finally, I finish these flowers and all the other little parts to go along with my cake's motif - cherry blossoms. Less than 4 hours after I put my head on my pillow I was up puking my brains out. 24 hour flu, food poisoning, some other mystery virus "that has been going around"... whatever... I threw up once an hour between 5am and 10am. It sucked. I still got up at 10am and dragged myself downstairs to package up my flowers and I had so lovingly crafted a few hours later. But there was no denying it... I felt horrible. I was queasy, chilly and shaky, not to mention green complexioned. After trying to fight it as best I could, at about the time I needed to get into the shower, I knew there was no way I was getting into the city, into class to finish this cake. I climbed back into bed, set my alarm for 15 minutes before I was supposed to show up at class so I could call my chef and closed my eyes, disappointed I would miss the one day were 8 days of work culminated in a beautiful piece of cake decorating! And I'd miss 13 of my classmates hard work!

By Saturday I was feeling much better, but was upset that technically students aren't allowed to make up missed days. Plus, this cake counted for a quiz grade, which meant not only did I have one more absence, but I had an F too! On Monday I talked it over with my Chef and she said I could bring all the pieces of my puzzle home, work on them and bring the completed cake back to class for her to grade. Okay... if I had to lug 12 pounds of cake and sugar round trip from NYC to NJ to get a better grade than an F, I would do it!

And so after 4 hours of work at home, this is what I came up with... my cherry blossom cake... I got an A-... she docked me points for missing class, even though I was very sick... fair??? I guess I can live with it!