Something fun...really fun.

At school right now I'm on the evening rotation I go to school from 2:00 till 9:00. Just until Christmas my class runs the evening service. We have 16 people to do a 5 person job. There is lots and lots of spare time. Chef Andrew will let us do anything in that spare time, in fact he encourages us. Any ingredient and any piece of equipment. And my class takes full advantage. There has been a smoked duck, a scallop terrine, popsicles made on the anti-griddle (a griddle that freezes instead of cooks), cucumber sorbet with ice wine, salmon cured in beet juice, oh the list goes on.Yesterday Chef Andrew asked if I wanted to make a fat sculpture and of course I said yes, even though I've never made a sculpture let alone a fat one. He had been making them for years and showed us a few he had done with a student last year. They look so cool.

So, I'm going to show you the process but I'm not going to tell you what it's of. It's going to take a few days but hopefully by the end of it you'll be able to tell what it is. One clue: It is Christmas-y. Of course!!

Here the block of shortening before I stick my hands in it...

And this is what the sculpture will be built on....
After 2 hours this is what it looked like...

Can you guess what it is? Just kidding, don't guess yet. It's missing vital parts.

It is so fun and relaxing. Who knew that you could do this with fat! I love it! I'm going back in today to work on it some more...I'll keep you posted.

It snowed!

Just a little. But I was excited!

It's gone now though. And this morning I woke up to pouring rain. At least I have my Christmas songs!

Anyone have snow that's staying?

I'm back!

My computer is finally fixed! Thanks to my handy dandy computer man and Canada Post my laptop is safely back in my arms. And I am so happy...I've sure missed writing to you guys!

Guess what happened this week?

The tree went up!

And we had two special visitors that helped decorate, Tracy's husband and grandson!

Brody did most of the decorating...at least for the bottom of the tree.It was a very serious job....

But I think he was pretty happy with the results!
It was so much fun hanging out with Brody. Definitely got my toddler fix. Even though I got the "Go Away, Tanna" a couple of times. Ha! He is far too cute for his own good!
It is starting to feel a little like Christmas here, with the tree, the Christmas presents stacking up, and the chilly weather. All we're missing is some snow!

Oh, and in other exciting news...I'll be home in 16 days!!

Bad news, Folks...

My computer is out of service. I am very close to chucking out a window. This means there will be a lack of posts for a while. I'm not sure how long but hopefully it will be up and running soon!
Just think of all the things we'll have to catch up on!

More Michigan!

I made it on to a blog! My school has their own blog and an article was written up about Michigan and posted today. If you'd like to take a look you can find it here.

I'll be posting something soon! I promise!

Birthdays, birthdays, birthdays!

It just seems to have worked that this weekend is the busiest birthday weekend of the year. Somehow a bunch of people that I love decided to be born in a big clump in the month of November!
Join me in saying a big "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" to...
Stacey. Lovely, lovely, Stacey. Chantelle. My soul sister and the most freckled person I know.
My Gramps. Old bugger.
And Sarah. She is the cutest cow I have ever seen. Happy Birthday to you all! I love you lots!

A good day...

This week at school we've been finishing up a rotation so there has been lots of free time and short classes. Today we had our last Human Resource Management class and to my surprise after jokingly saying 'lets have the class outside' our instructor agreed.

So there we were 9 culinary arts students in uniform sitting at a picnic table by the ocean having an HR class...it made me so happy. It was such a gorgeous day, the sun was warm, the breeze was fresh, and for once not a single person fell asleep.