|
|
e
|
 |
On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
|
|
|
Hi Lenny. Sorry I didn't sent the email yesterday. I decided to post here for everyone to see.
I know the cooking school stories have been rare lately. I can't remember the last one I posted but I think it had sonething to do with cakes. That was a while ago. Since then we've done custards, ice cream, sorbet, a plated desserts with really fancy sauces. For our dessert project they gave us a "mystery box." Actually it was a list of three ingredients and we had to include them as featured ingredients in our dessert. My ingredients were strawberries, vanilla, and ginger. I made a tower out of finely diced strawberries, vanilla flavored pastry cream, and ginger-sesame wafers. I finished it with a balsamic-honey gastrique (vinegar and sugar reduction sauce)and a vanilla-ginger sauce. mmm-mmm good.
Last week was sugar and chocolate week. We did sugar centerpieces and chocolate truffles. I had two partners for the centerpiece. We made a gingerbread house with a poured sugar crescent moon in the background. The moon kept cracking and breaking, but we finally got it to work. The coolest centerpiece in the class was the "huka-smoking caterpillar" from Alice in Wonderland. That team did a really good job with it. Another group did Moby Dick rising up out of the water getting ready to swallow two gingerbread seamen. It looked like a third grade art project, but was still quite eye-catching.
My daughter's birthday was Wednesday. We decided to have a small dinner for her and a birthday cake last night. It was nearly a disaster. My wife and I were supposed to go get our income taxes done in the morning, but ended up staying all day. We left after 7 hours of waiting. The tax lady was late getting to her office. We arrived at 9 am and they told us she wouldn't get there until about 12:30. She didn't arrive til almost 2. She doesn't take appointments so it's first come first served, or so we thought. We were the second people in line. What we didn't know was that the lady in front of us had put her entire family on the list in front of us, five different people needing their taxes done. Finally we decided to leave at 4pm because I had promised my daughter dinner and a cake and we still had our shopping to do.
Anyhow, dinner consisted of fillet mignon and shrimp. I made garlic smashed potatoes, put a bacon-wrpped fillet on top, then a little sauteed spinach, topped with 2 huge shrimptails staning on end. Three asparagus spears were leaned up against the whole thing in a sort of teepee shape and it was finished with a port wine reduction and butter sauce. The cake was a three layer devil's food with whiped cream icing and stuffed with blackberries and blackberry jam filling. We forgot to buy birthday candles because we were in a hurry, but my daughter enjoyed it anyways.
My granddaughter (almost 2 1/2) is "cooking" now, too. My wife took her to the store and she saw a toy microwave oven and she wouldn't leave without it. She began screaming for her to buy it saying she wanted to "cook like papa (that's what she calls me)." We now have a constant supply of plastic pizza which she tells us is "hot" when she takes it out and blows on it.
((HUGS}}
Think good thoughts,
e
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
saben
|
|
On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
|
|
|
I was just skim reading the post and came across "swallow two gingerbread seamen" and couldn't help but chuckle.
You sound like an excellent cook, though e, my mouth is watering at the thought of it. The best I can do if Spaghetti Bolognaise, Fried Rice or Fried Noodles.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It's good you posted it here instead of emailing it, everybody deserves to get to read it, not just me. 
Your strawberry/vanilla/ginger tower seems to add about two and a half pounds of bodyweight just by looking at it, hehe, but I'm sure it was delicious. Such advanced desserts! Jeez, I'm happy with just a plateful of fresh strawberries and maybe some ice-cream! 
Taxes sound like hell. Tax lady? What function does she fill, do you turn in your taxes to her, or do you go there for advice or what? Over here, most of us (those that pay taxes that is, which requires having an income ::-) ) get an envelope with a computer print-out form on it, if your numbers are correct you just sign the form and stick it in the included return envelope and pop it in a mailbox. It can even be done via the internet these days I believe.
If you have your own company or such there is a much more complicated four-page form that has to be filled out, hehe, but that doesn't apply to me.
I giggled regarding the microwave oven btw. The powers of the imagination can surely do so much more than just heat plastic pizza slices. Just you wait until she discovers MAKEUP! ;-D
Really tight {{{hugs}}} for you. Thank you so much for the wonderful report, that was a great read.
-L
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
e
|
|
On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
|
|
|
::-)
Think good thoughts,
e
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
e
|
|
On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
|
|
|
The tax lady would actually be our tax advisor. In the US our taxes are taken out of our paychecks and given directly to the government. Then each year we are required to file a tax return. Supposedly it's called a "return" because the government wants us to overpay, then "returns" our money at the end of the year. It's like giving the government a no interest loan. The tax lady, is like an advisor. She prepares our return and sends it to the government. Then the government sends us our refund, unless we've not been good and find out that we've underpaid. Then we have to pay the government. This lady was a person we were going to hire, but she treated us so poorly that we will end up going somewhere else. The problem is finding another day when my wife an I can both go.
The tower was that big. It was only about two inched in diameter and maybe five or six inches tall. But it was fattening with all that pastry cream and sugar. Looked good too, though it was all that fancy compared to everyone else's. We have some real artists in our class. But I'm not one of them. I'm more autistic than I am artistic. I just try to keep it simple.
{{HUGS}}
Think good thoughts,
e
|
|
|
|
|
Goto Forum:
|
] 
A Place of Safety
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
Cooking Stories and other bits 
