Blast from the semi-distant past

With all the news about wheat prices going through the roof, and small bakeries feeling the financial pinch, it made me awfully glad that the idea J and I had of opening our own bakery/cafe got delayed for the indeterminate future two years ago when we decided to buy our house in Seattle.

At about this time three years ago, I was getting ready to enter baking and pastry school. Quite by chance, as I was browsing my digital photo files for a pix to use in the previous post, I came across the photos I took of the lovely cakes I made in my advanced cakes class during my third term of school. Let's take a peek, shall we?

The first lovely pink, silver and white concoction was my first teeth-gnashing experience with fondant icing. Painting the stripes on was fun, though.

The next example (right) was my Round 2 with fondant. Went much better as I recall, in spite of the fact that the layers on this "crazy" cake came with sharp angles to smoothly fit the fondant over. FYI, in case you think any of these cakes look tasty, think again. These things were nasty. Nasty, nasty, nasty. These cakes were all about the decorating, so we baked our cake layers, used them, scraped off the icing and used them again, and again. Did I mention nasty? The crazy cake was the THIRD incarnation of those cake layers. Once this sucker was graded, I could not wait to get rid of it.

Fortunately, I got to start fresh for this lovely buttercream number (left). (Did I mention we scraped and reused a lot of buttercream frosting, too. Nope, didn't think I had. Again, not tasty. It's all about appearances, people.)

But wait! Ms. Square Cake Layers got tired of her outfit. She needed a makeover...a Chocolate Ganache makeover! What can I say about ganache? How about, "tastes great, is a bitch to pour." Those truffles on tier 1 and 3 were old, recycled ganache, which didn't stop students from another class from eating half of them in the several days the cake sat unattended between classes. Nice!

Ms. Square had one more grading party to go to, and this time she wanted to wear fondant (left). Sigh. But she really did look pretty, didn't she? Too bad that, like her circular forbearer, she was destined for the Dumpster.

Although I wouldn't stick one bite of any of these cakes in my mouth for a million dollars (well, maybe if that million dollars came with a course of antibiotics), I can assure you that some of my work that term was both beautiful and infinitely edible.

Behold...bread!

Locker room parity

In a near-panic, I ran down to school early this week to claim a locker, knowing full well that if I waited until my first day of class (today), I would either be stuck with a locker that sticks, or with one of the puny lockers that won't hold more than a set of street clothes.

And the thought of lugging my heavy tool box full of baking paraphanalia to and from class three days a week did NOT make me happy, let me tell you.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I rush to the culinary floor shortly before 8 a.m. (which meant I was certainly not going to make it to work by that very hour, but sacrifices must be made), and discover that the men's and women's locker rooms had been swapped.

I swipe my key card, enter, and am awash in awestruck wonder by the very vastness of this room. The selection of available lockers was so plentiful, that I wasn't sure how to choose. But choose I did...a fine, non-sticking locker in a prime location. Yippee skippy.

Still humming with joy over this happy development, when I arrived at work I e-mailed one of my classmates about it. She thanked me for the news, and asked me if I was "surprised" by my grades from last quarter.

"Not really," I replied. I got an 'A' in my chocolate class, and an 'A-' in each of my two cakes classes. Because this classmate was on my team, which means we made the same cakes, I assumed that she would have recieved the same grades.

And what happens when you assume, boys and girls? That's right, you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me.' Oh, no. She did not get the same grades I did for cakes. She got a 'B+' and a 'B-." and the other person on our team got an 'A-' and a 'B-.'

I was flabbergasted. I expressed as much, mentioning that perhaps the grade on our final project (we had to develop a cake menu along with a brochure, cost sheets, etc.) was the determining factor.

I haven't heard from her since. And this was two days ago. Class begins tonight. Our overcrowded artisan breads class. And tomorrow we have advanced cakes from the same chef who gave such mysterious grades.

I haven't paid my tuition yet. Maybe I should just drop out before I get a knife in my back.

No, not really. But I am truly not looking forward to this term as much as I once was. (Sigh.)

Ups and downs

As tired as I was, I came home from baking class riding high on the fact that I successfully made chocolates. Yes, chocolates. Three kinds actually: white chocolate with a white chocolate-lemon ganache filling (delicious in spite of the fact that I usually consider white chocolate to be a sham), semi-sweet chocolate with an espresso-chocolate ganache filling and semi-sweet chocolate with a raspberry ganache filling. They are all delish, if I do say so (just don't look at the undersides, which are a bit on the amature side...but on top they look great!).

I have to take something to my community garden's potluck tomorrow, so I decided on the harvest squash loaf from my Macrina Bakery cookbook, mostly because it was the first thing that occured to me that I had all the ingredients for. I've been a bad planner! So, to bolster my resolve to measure out the ingredients for it, so I could bake it tomorrow morning without much effort, I asked He Who Puts Up With Me (who, incidentally, is still boycotting my blog because I allegedly insulted him in it, but really he is being a Big Baby) to "buy a girl a drink." So he made me a Silk Stalking, which involves tequila, creme de cacao, cream, and amaretto in place of the grenadine that we didn't have.

I drank one while I measured out sugar, flour and spice and toasted walnuts, pecans and pumpkin seeds. Then I had a second while we started to watch Nightline. Big mistake. Ted Koppel was interviewing congressmen and other people talking about how little was being done to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and how white people were getting preferential treatment. I started to cry like a baby, because I don't doubt it's true.

Just tonight, in my baking class, someone said "I bet if it was LA that was flooded, and all the beautiful people were out of their homes, all kinds of people would be rushing to help. But have poor black people be the victims, and no one cares."

I have to do something to help the victims, but I'm not sure what would be the best thing to do. I want to send them food and clothes, but that's clearly not practical. But at this moment I'm too tipsy (no, I'm not kidding...damn Silk Stalkings...I might add that it is a testament to my training and experience as a writer that I am typing coherently at the moment. Is it wrong to blog while under the influence?)

Anyhoo...I have to do something, because stupid how-could-he-have-been-reelected-I-mean-honestly? President Bush is too busy sending resources to fight a clearly unwinnable war to actually help his own people as we go sliding into a recession (no, I'm not bitter or anything!!), the rest of us must do something. Damn it!

Clearly I am in no state to form a plan now. Maybe tomorrow. I really want to organize a bellydance benefit, but I have no time! Damn it again! OK, no more drunk blogging. Jeez, I'm a lightweight! And I will not delete this post tommorrow...