Last Thursday was Grand Buffet here at the CIA. Grand Buffet comes around every three weeks on the day before graduation, and it is an enormous buffet created by many different classes showing off some of their fanciest dishes. My class, Pastry Techniques, is largely responsible for setting up and serving at the baking and pastry end of the buffet. There is a breads t... Read More

I had my Baking Techniques practical on Friday, and I’m not sure how I should feel about it. We had to make 2 eight inch sponge cakes, 24 eclair shells, and a batch of pastry cream (which we were to pipe into 12 of the eclair shells). I did alright, but nothing came out stellar. I even lost a point and a half under “Organization” with no explanation ... Read More

Today was a rather exciting day for me in the bakeshop, because we got to assemble something. By which I mean that we didn’t just pour the batter in a pan or pipe it on a sheet tray, pop it in the oven and take it out with a flourish when it was done. Instead, we got to make three things and put them together into one of my least favorite pastries: eclairs.

After three weeks off I’m finally back at school and starting my second semester here at the CIA. From noon to four p.m. every day (a much more leisurely schedule than we usually have here) I am in the Baking Techniques bakeshop with half of my group. The other half has the bakeshop all to themselves from five to nine p.m. We overlap for an hour of lecture betwe... Read More

It’s my three-week-long summer break from school, and I’m eating my way through St. Louis, where my parents have lived for the past year. A few nights ago, they took me to Pi, an environmentally-friendly restaurant that serves what Barack Obama considered the best pizza he ate during the course of his... Read More

Yesterday in Hearth Breads and Rolls, each team baked sourdough bread using sour starters that we had been cultivating over the past week. By cultivating I mean feeding them with flour and water every day, almost as if they were pets. My team’s sour was named Mildred (others around the room included King Henry VIII, Elroy, and Gus), and one of my teammates even ... Read More

Tuesday night I went to a meeting of the CIA’s Gourmet Society even though I had just emerged from my 6 hour long Hearth Breads and Rolls class and was exhausted. I went because I wanted to see Certified Master Chef Thomas Griffiths demo his “Contemporary Approach to Creating Healthier Cuisine.” I won’t try to hide the fact that, as a baking an... Read More