Interesting enough... when I was working in the Virgin Islands, a new sushi restaurant opened up. It's the only sushi restaurant on the whole island. Needless to say, it did extremely well. And the owners are former students of this school. And when I worked in the Tetons, I went to Jackson Hole at least once a week. There I tried out a sushi restaurant and come to find out those too are former students. Small world, eh?
By the way, my new clipboard gadget works wonders!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
1st day of school
Amazingly enough today's commute to school only took 45 minutes and the return trip was only 15. It was definatly a good commute even if I did forget my iPod at the house. That's alot of singing to myself for entertainment. It's a good thing I didn't have any passengers!
So... today was the first day of school. Not bad at all. There are a total of 6 of us... and one other female besides me. I'm the only one with kitchen experience and 5 of us want to open our own restaurant. Three of the guys are buddies and are nail technicians. They want to get a few years sushi experience before they open a sushi restaurant locally. The fourth guy is the one that wants to be a sushi chef and travel around. The other female works at a health food store, wants sushi experience so she can help out in the health food store kitchen and implement her own ideas.
Me? Well, I'm hoping to open my own restaurant one day but still have to decide which kind... a sushi restaurant or a bakery. These past few years I've been working as a pastry chef/ baker and I've been wanting to return to the food side versus staying in desserts. I enjoy both but ever since I was little I wanted to open a sushi restaurant. It wasn't until I attended culinary school that I got interested in baking. Perhaps because the pastry instructor made the class really fun. Or because you got to punch the bread dough and vent out frustrations or because it came naturally or maybe just a combination of all three. I think the only reason I would not start a bakery is that most of the famous bakers are women. When you see a famous female chef her skills are all in the baking or pastry world. You rarely see a good female chef cooking. Even while attending culinary school - there was only one female chef instructor and the rest were pastry/ baking instructors. It's just assumed that if you are a woman, you go to the dessert side. I kinda don't like that. Course, you don't see very many women sushi chefs either. So that's where I want to focus on right now.
Anyway, today was easy. We were assigned our text books, signed waivers in case we chop off our fingers or die from some sort of negligence, recieved our uniforms, knife kits and showed the chef our cutting skills. We chopped up some cucumbers and pototatoes. Course, since those are the only things we cut - those were the only things prepared for lunch. It was interesting for sure. But as the class progresses, whatever we make is what's for lunch.
I wasn't able to use my new toy clipboard since my notes were all taken in the kitchen during our cutting demonstration. I'll get to use it tomorrow. The setup is an hour of lecture, 3 hours of hands-on and one hour of eating lunch/ cleaning up. 5 hours total per day.
I think my other classmates might have an easier time learning since they do not have any restaurant experience. I learned French techniques in cooking and that's what I've been untilizing everywhere I've gone for the past several years. So to learn the Japanese style, I have to pretend to forget how to cook and re-learn how to cut vegetables and so on. It's a bit different and takes some getting used to. When I really concentrate, I do well in the Japanese style of cutting but then again that was just cucumbers and potatoes today.
So... today was the first day of school. Not bad at all. There are a total of 6 of us... and one other female besides me. I'm the only one with kitchen experience and 5 of us want to open our own restaurant. Three of the guys are buddies and are nail technicians. They want to get a few years sushi experience before they open a sushi restaurant locally. The fourth guy is the one that wants to be a sushi chef and travel around. The other female works at a health food store, wants sushi experience so she can help out in the health food store kitchen and implement her own ideas.
Me? Well, I'm hoping to open my own restaurant one day but still have to decide which kind... a sushi restaurant or a bakery. These past few years I've been working as a pastry chef/ baker and I've been wanting to return to the food side versus staying in desserts. I enjoy both but ever since I was little I wanted to open a sushi restaurant. It wasn't until I attended culinary school that I got interested in baking. Perhaps because the pastry instructor made the class really fun. Or because you got to punch the bread dough and vent out frustrations or because it came naturally or maybe just a combination of all three. I think the only reason I would not start a bakery is that most of the famous bakers are women. When you see a famous female chef her skills are all in the baking or pastry world. You rarely see a good female chef cooking. Even while attending culinary school - there was only one female chef instructor and the rest were pastry/ baking instructors. It's just assumed that if you are a woman, you go to the dessert side. I kinda don't like that. Course, you don't see very many women sushi chefs either. So that's where I want to focus on right now.
Anyway, today was easy. We were assigned our text books, signed waivers in case we chop off our fingers or die from some sort of negligence, recieved our uniforms, knife kits and showed the chef our cutting skills. We chopped up some cucumbers and pototatoes. Course, since those are the only things we cut - those were the only things prepared for lunch. It was interesting for sure. But as the class progresses, whatever we make is what's for lunch.
I wasn't able to use my new toy clipboard since my notes were all taken in the kitchen during our cutting demonstration. I'll get to use it tomorrow. The setup is an hour of lecture, 3 hours of hands-on and one hour of eating lunch/ cleaning up. 5 hours total per day.
I think my other classmates might have an easier time learning since they do not have any restaurant experience. I learned French techniques in cooking and that's what I've been untilizing everywhere I've gone for the past several years. So to learn the Japanese style, I have to pretend to forget how to cook and re-learn how to cut vegetables and so on. It's a bit different and takes some getting used to. When I really concentrate, I do well in the Japanese style of cutting but then again that was just cucumbers and potatoes today.
I went to the grocer and got more potatoes and cucumbers for the house. What better way to perfect cutting than by practicing at home? I just wish my roommates ate potatoes! They are on the Atkins diet and don't eat rice, potatoes, bread and very little sugar. I think my influence is rubbing off though (aren't I evil?)... I see them eyeballing my rice at dinner.
Friday, August 24, 2007
LA
Started out my roadtrip to Los Angeles. This time I just went straight on through since there was a time crunch. I left Monday and arrived Wednesday afternoon after spending some time with some relatives and friends.
Blalock Canyon in Oregon - as with my recent road trips... it rained from the time I left Washington to the time I crossed the border into California.
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Mt. Shasta, Oregon
Well, I made it to LA. Whew the traffic is awful! And I thought the beginnings of Austin traffic
was horrid. So I thought I hit rush hour traffic and was talking to some people about it. They laughed at me... said I must be new around here since there isn't any rush hour traffic - that it's always that bad which ever time to go for a drive.
I drove my route to school. It took me an hour (for 27 miles) and one of the instructors told me an hour is a good day... wait until it rains or there's an accident then the commute will take about 2-3 hours. Great... what a way to wake up in the morning! At least I have some good tunes in the car!
Blalock Canyon in Oregon - as with my recent road trips... it rained from the time I left Washington to the time I crossed the border into California.
.JPG)
Mt. Shasta, Oregon
front yard harvest
While at home, it was the perfect timing to pick some fruits. The parents and I went out and picked most of the plums and asian pears. Some of the Bartlett and Bosc pears were ready as well. The apples will be ready near the end of next month. All the melons have been ready - I sent dad some melon seeds last summer. I think a couple of them were called Santa Claus melon, Christmas melon and I don't even remember the rest but he planted all including cantelope, honeydew and watermelon... what a feast!
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dad with his grapes
dad and a praying mantis
picking plums in the front yard
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the pickings - pears, asian pears and plums
.JPG)
dad with his grapes
dad and a praying mantis
picking plums in the front yard
.JPG)
the pickings - pears, asian pears and plums
update from Washington
Aug 16, 2007
Sorry I haven't written on my blog in a while. Sometimes, I didn't have access to the internet and most of the time, the internet access was dial up which was really killing my patience. I had to wait until I got to a location with high speed access.
Things at work are going ok. Just a few more days left before I move on to California. When I first got into town I was working from 830am-11pm… then my schedule changed to 3-10pm… then it changed to split shift 1130-130 and 4-10… then it changed from 1130-1 and 430-10pm. It’s a good thing that is my only job! But working split shift kind of ruins your whole day since you can’t sleep in and you really can’t do much in between. I think I’d rather work 16 hours straight than work a split but that’s just me.
A friend of the family comes in almost everyday either for lunch or dinner. She’s a massage therapist. We had set up an appointment for me to go in. I really didn’t want to since my only day off is Sundays but we had scheduled it for this morning. She’d been wanting both my dad and I to stop by her store but we seem to never have the time. Anyway, wow! I didn’t realize I had that many sore spots until she was rubbing on my back! I was ready for a nap after that but I had to get going to work.
Aug 17, 2007
Oi! I’m such a nerd! I just got this notebook gadget. It’s way cool and I can’t wait for school to begin so I can take notes and play with my new toy! This clipboard holds normal paper but you use a special ink pen to take your notes. Then when you are finished with your notes, you hook the clipboard up to the computer and it transfers all the notes, graphics, and etc straight into a Microsoft Word document. You can also edit it to change the font and colors. Isn’t that awesome?
I saw this contraption a few years ago while attending culinary school but didn’t think much of it since I was a “good” student (hahaha!) and transferred my written notes to the computer everyday. But after awhile of course, I stopped transferring the notes because it took too long and I couldn’t get my graphs and hand drawn pictures to turn out. So pretty much the first couple of months I have really good type written notes and the rest of my notes are still in notebooks and now I don’t even remember what half of that stuff means since I can’t decipher most of my handwriting. Huge bummer! Then by the time I really thought about getting it, school was over and there wasn’t a need for it.
This will be such a time saver! It’s user friendly too – at least so far.
I’m really looking forward to school! My last day of work is tomorrow. Then I’ll be packing all day Sunday and leave out early Monday morning. I’ll take a few days to see my grandmother in northern California and some friends. I should be in Los Angeles by Wednesday and school begins the following Monday. How exciting!
I only wish I could take my bike with me. I have some friends in LA that also ride and wouldn’t that be great - to have fellow Harley riders to ride with all over southern California? But the bike is returning to the dreaded storage and I’ll be driving supposedly more safely in a 4 wheeled vehicle. At least the mother will be happy and not worry as much.
Plans after school are still unknown. Oh! So for those that didn’t know… I’ve chosen to specialize in sushi. It was a huge toss up between pastry school but I think I’m going to focus on this for awhile since I’ve been working the past few years in the pastry/ baking field. It’s a change of pace and the school I’ll be attending teaches pretty much everything you need to know about traditional sushi. It’s a 2 month course so I’ll be finished with schooling in October.
It’s amazing to think that I’ve grown up with sushi and have been making it on occasion throughout the years and am actually going to school to re-learn how to make it. Even with working in restaurants making sushi, I really don’t know the names of the ingredients… or at least the English translation and it kind of flusters me when people ask what some of the food items are and I just tell them the Japanese name. Then they still ask what it is and I have to reply, I have no idea. Take for instance inari… been making it for years and really like it. But I didn’t know it was fried tofu. (As far as personal consumption, when you purchase it at the grocer, there isn’t a label on it. You just look at it and know it’s inari. I guess for bulk restaurant purchases they have to put the label on the package.) I wonder if that’s personal complacency. Or perhaps ignorance? Hmmm. Makes me kinda have to think.
Sorry I haven't written on my blog in a while. Sometimes, I didn't have access to the internet and most of the time, the internet access was dial up which was really killing my patience. I had to wait until I got to a location with high speed access.
Things at work are going ok. Just a few more days left before I move on to California. When I first got into town I was working from 830am-11pm… then my schedule changed to 3-10pm… then it changed to split shift 1130-130 and 4-10… then it changed from 1130-1 and 430-10pm. It’s a good thing that is my only job! But working split shift kind of ruins your whole day since you can’t sleep in and you really can’t do much in between. I think I’d rather work 16 hours straight than work a split but that’s just me.
A friend of the family comes in almost everyday either for lunch or dinner. She’s a massage therapist. We had set up an appointment for me to go in. I really didn’t want to since my only day off is Sundays but we had scheduled it for this morning. She’d been wanting both my dad and I to stop by her store but we seem to never have the time. Anyway, wow! I didn’t realize I had that many sore spots until she was rubbing on my back! I was ready for a nap after that but I had to get going to work.
Aug 17, 2007
Oi! I’m such a nerd! I just got this notebook gadget. It’s way cool and I can’t wait for school to begin so I can take notes and play with my new toy! This clipboard holds normal paper but you use a special ink pen to take your notes. Then when you are finished with your notes, you hook the clipboard up to the computer and it transfers all the notes, graphics, and etc straight into a Microsoft Word document. You can also edit it to change the font and colors. Isn’t that awesome?
I saw this contraption a few years ago while attending culinary school but didn’t think much of it since I was a “good” student (hahaha!) and transferred my written notes to the computer everyday. But after awhile of course, I stopped transferring the notes because it took too long and I couldn’t get my graphs and hand drawn pictures to turn out. So pretty much the first couple of months I have really good type written notes and the rest of my notes are still in notebooks and now I don’t even remember what half of that stuff means since I can’t decipher most of my handwriting. Huge bummer! Then by the time I really thought about getting it, school was over and there wasn’t a need for it.
This will be such a time saver! It’s user friendly too – at least so far.
I’m really looking forward to school! My last day of work is tomorrow. Then I’ll be packing all day Sunday and leave out early Monday morning. I’ll take a few days to see my grandmother in northern California and some friends. I should be in Los Angeles by Wednesday and school begins the following Monday. How exciting!
I only wish I could take my bike with me. I have some friends in LA that also ride and wouldn’t that be great - to have fellow Harley riders to ride with all over southern California? But the bike is returning to the dreaded storage and I’ll be driving supposedly more safely in a 4 wheeled vehicle. At least the mother will be happy and not worry as much.
Plans after school are still unknown. Oh! So for those that didn’t know… I’ve chosen to specialize in sushi. It was a huge toss up between pastry school but I think I’m going to focus on this for awhile since I’ve been working the past few years in the pastry/ baking field. It’s a change of pace and the school I’ll be attending teaches pretty much everything you need to know about traditional sushi. It’s a 2 month course so I’ll be finished with schooling in October.
It’s amazing to think that I’ve grown up with sushi and have been making it on occasion throughout the years and am actually going to school to re-learn how to make it. Even with working in restaurants making sushi, I really don’t know the names of the ingredients… or at least the English translation and it kind of flusters me when people ask what some of the food items are and I just tell them the Japanese name. Then they still ask what it is and I have to reply, I have no idea. Take for instance inari… been making it for years and really like it. But I didn’t know it was fried tofu. (As far as personal consumption, when you purchase it at the grocer, there isn’t a label on it. You just look at it and know it’s inari. I guess for bulk restaurant purchases they have to put the label on the package.) I wonder if that’s personal complacency. Or perhaps ignorance? Hmmm. Makes me kinda have to think.
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