i've decided that i'm not fit for the professional kitchen. i can't get comfortable with the stainless steal, high heat and impersonal banged up pots and pans. i just don't fit in. i am looking forward to seeing where i fit in outside of the commercial kitchen once i'm done with school. in the meantime i need to try harder to thrive and learn and cook well in a the kendall college kitchens.

i'm half way through my methods of cooking class, where we're learning to sear (not "boil") meats, poach fish, braise more meats, and sautee, among other things. we made pasta last week and now i'm on a kick - i can't stop thinking about rolling out dough and making crazy ravioli. last weekend we had some friends over for dinner and i finally followed through with my threat to duplicate Schwa restaurant's famous quail egg ravioli. the results were fantastic.

schwa on the left, me on the right (test ravioli with a chicken yolk, but you get the idea). not exactly identical, but still worth the effort. the secret is the truffle oil ricotta - a little ring of it keeps the yolk in place as you make the ravioli.

last night in class we braised. lamb, veal, beef. braising is one of my all time favorite cooking methods (is it totally nerdy that i have a favorite cooking method?) but the braising i do at home - rustic, loose, le creuset dutch oven - and the braising we do in class - exact, uniform, shitty bent pans - are worlds apart. it's hard to learn to do something differently when you already feel like you have it down.

i have a few big projects coming up, i have to come up with a business concept, name, logo and tagline for my foodservice business planning class and i'm having trouble with it. i know it's just an assignment and i can do absolutely anything, but i can't help attaching meaning to it, approaching it as if it were my final say in what i am going to do with this adventure. and that is still a big fat unknown.

in other totally unrelated news, two new babies came into my life this week - little tyler was born on sunday night to a good friend from college and yesterday, my stepsister made me an aunt again with little lizzie. i can't wait to meet them.

today craig and i celebrate our six year wedding anniversary. six years. it feels like it has been so much longer, yet the time has just flown by. six years ago today we used the words "forever and always" to promise our hearts to each other for eternity. and i wore a dress that was every so slightly too big with 4" heels and he had a soul patch on his chin. we were two 23 year olds who didn't know any better than that we loved each other and always would. we had no idea that it would only get better as time went on.

last year we celebrated five years with a trip to chile and had an amazing experience. five years is big. five years is a milestone. five years is worth celebrating. six - six years is just six years. but it's one more year than five, so i guess it's a big celebratory milestone plus one. the traditional six year wedding anniversary gifts are candy or iron and the modern gift is wood. so we're finally buying a proper wood bedframe. it seems appropriate.

there are millions of reasons i love my husband, but here are six that strike me as special at this moment:

1. he has never, ever, refused to eat something i have cooked. even the sticky massive tasteless rice noodle disaster of 2003. he is also an incredibly adventurous eater - sometimes more than me. (hoof tacos? craig tried them.)

2. he never fails to give me at least one compliment a day. he can tell when i want someone to tell me i look cute.

3. he always looks great. he's a very handsome man. and he lets me cut his hair the way i like it.

4. he let me help my mother move half way across the country to be closer to us. he hasn't complained once.

5. he keeps doing things that make me proud of him and excited for his (our) future.

6. everything is meaningful to him. even the little things. i love that.

my second quarter of culinary school started this week. i am taking three classes - foodservice business planning for ten weeks, and methods of cooking for 5 weeks, followed by intro to garde manger for the second 5 weeks of the quarter. so far we've cooked vegetables (why do the french boil everything?) and starches - rice, risotto, potatoes and pasta.

i had to be a smart ass and hand cut my pasta instead of using the cutter attachment for the pasta roller. i keep forgetting how easy pasta is to make - i'm definitely going to reincorporate it into my rotating dinner menu.

it feels great to be back in class- i really missed my classmates and the experiences we share in the kitchen. it also feels like time is slipping away too fast. i've already technically completed 1/4 of my studies - and although i have learned a lot, i'm not sure i've absorbed as much as i had wanted to. i'm also feeling overwhelmed, like i don't have enough time to myself anymore. i'm working on ways to deal with that, and hopefully i'll come up with a solution soon...

i'm getting the spring itch - i keep wearing clothes and shoes that probably aren't quite ready to

i don't know if i've mentioned this before, but my company has been amazingly supportive of my cooking school venture, and has given me a budget to cook for the office about twice a month. i've been cooking soups exclusively so far - chicken noodle, split pea, minestrone, tortilla, lentil, chicken and rice, cream of chicken, and today: matzoh ball. one of my jewish coworkers brought in her grandmother's incredibly vague matzoh ball recipe ("omi's matzoh balls") for us to decipher, and although i had never even tasted matzoh ball soup before, i think we figured out the quantities allright and made a damned tasty soup.

so here is the recipe - my interpretation of Omi's matzoh balls soup.
serves 15-20.

ingredients:
for the matzoh balls:
1 box matzoh, broken into smallish pieces
1 large onion, small dice
2 oz butter
6 eggs
1 tbsp garlic salt
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup matzoh meal

for the soup:
1 pound of carrots, sliced
2 large onions, small dice
2 oz butter
8 quarts of chicken broth
1 small bunch parsley, finely chopped

• to start the matzoh balls: soak matzoh in warm water for about 5 minutes until soft. drain and squeeze out excess water.
• sautee onion in butter over medium heat until translucent. add drained matzoh and cook, stirring to break up the matzoh, for about 5 minutes. turn off heat and cover. let sit for 10 minutes or so to steam.
• spread matzoh and onion mixture on a baking sheet or platter to cool, stirring every few minutes.
• for the soup, while the matzoh mixture is cooling heat butter over medium heat and sautee onions and carrots until onion is translucent. add chicken broth and bring to a simmer.
  
• to finish the balls: combine eggs, garlic salt, pepper, salt and nutmeg. get yourself a bowl with some cold water to dip your hands in - this will prevent the matzoh ball mixture from sticking too much. when matzoh mixture is about room temperature, add eggs and use your fingers to combine. add matzoh meal.
• roll balls with the palms of your hands to about ping pong ball size, dipping your hands in the water occasionally to keep the sticky mixture from sticking to your hands. your mixture should make about 75 balls.
• add balls to simmering broth and simmer for just under 5 minutes. when they're done they will float to the top.
• serve 3-4 matzoh balls per person and sprinkle with a bit of finely chopped parsley.

i am currently on spring break, which feels odd, like i should be woo-ing and drinking and sleeping late. or traveling. i'm doing half of those - i'm going to VA to see a large portion of my family and one of my friends this weekend. and i've been celebrating with friends quite a bit in the past week. tonight i'm looking forward to going home and relaxing. take a bubble bath. maybe start packing for my 4 day weekend trip to the east coast.

i'm in a lull, feeling slightly out of place and trying to figure out where i'm going. i can't really describe how i'm feeling right now, except that i'm slighly lost. i need to gain some clarity before i move forward on this new path of mine, establish some rules and deadlines and plans and redefine my dreams. they're a little fuzzy right now, for a number of reasons. i feel scrambled.

but everything is good. i'm having some exciting encounters, meeting some amazing people, overreacting to some crazy half baked ideas. i keep expecting something to fall in my lap, bite me on the ass, shine down on me from the heavens. it may have already done it, but i've been too caught up in everything else to notice.

if i could take a month sabbatical i would. in a heartbeat. how come month long sabbaticals aren't standard in american business? time off to redirect, regroup, reload. the past three months have been harder on me than i thought.

to change the subject, we are in the process of refinancing our mortgage, which feels oddly more permanent than buying our home in the first place. maybe it's the returning to zero on our 30 year mortgage, perhaps its the knowledge that we need to definitely stay another 3 years to make it worth it. but we are pretty sure our place has appreciated, which is a good thing right now.

i'm sleepy today. neighbors with habits of blaring tvs at 5 am are not my favorite people.

i passed my sanitation exam with flying colors - i got a 91%, well above the 75% required for certification. i am a sanitation expert, people! now go wash your hands.

i have my final on monday for my kitchen course - we reviewed the material this week in class and i'm a little nervous of all of the memorization i have to do, french terms and ingredients i have to remember (does a choron sauce have tomato, or lobster? what is the mother sauce again?) (interestingly, when you google "choron sauce" the first link that comes up is for obscure.org. that pretty much sums up a lot of what i'm learning.)

i have almost three weeks off before i come back to an increased class schedule for the spring quarter. i'm taking food service business planning (sounds thrilling, right?) and i will continue my kitchen courses with the same classmates and instructor for intro to garde manger (the "cold" kitchen - salad, platters, etc) and methods of cooking. i'm anxious about having class three nights a week instead of just two, so bear with me if i don't see you for a while between april and june.

i am considering taking the summer off to have some time to relax and enjoy chicago when it's warm out, and practice cooking. maybe think about where i'm going with this thing. i'm still young, i have plenty of time to figure it out. that's one of the great things about cooking - you can teach yourself quite a bit just by practicing. doing it right just means it tastes good. that's an easy qualifier. there are so many ways to build your skills.

my evenings and weekends seem to be double booking quite often - tonight i have two drink dates, one after another. saturday and sunday i have both brunch and dinner plans. i'm cooking so much less now that i'm in school. i might need some time off to remedy that.

the past two weeks have been a whirlwind for me, without much time to think. the combination of full time work, part time school, and obligations to friends and family is finally getting to me. it hit me when i realized i haven't seen three couples that we used to be quite close to in roughly 3 months - and they all live in our neighborhood.

craig and i took a weekend trip to san francisco two weeks ago. it was our second visit to the west coast town, and definitely won't be our last. we ate a ton of fabulous food and after an eye opening weekend i finally admitted out loud that i could live there someday. we spent weeks planning and researching, and armed with a list of about 30 restaurants to pick from for the 7 meals we were to eat there, we ended up eating at two. we didn't make it to luna park, slow club or bakery tartine, but we did eat and drink at a number of fantastic establishments, including canteen (this is the restaurant i would own someday), bar tartine (brunch = heaven), beretta (lardo and sopressata and mortadella. oh my.), and bourbon and branch (the password is books.)

we spent time at the farmers market at the ferry building where i had an oyster for the first time in 10 years - when i decided i wasn't a fan - but this time i loved it. adored it. wanted to stay there and eat them all day.

i could so get used to living with a farmers market like this. we would, of course, need someone to give craig an incredibly well paying job so i could spend my time shopping and eating and cooking, but we can figure that out later.

aside from eating and drooling over produce and jarred goods i couldn't bring back home with me we spent some time shopping, gazing at artwork, and reuniting with friends. i came home with a new orla kiely wallet, a full belly and a heart that has made room for my new favorite city. (after chicago, of course.)

then i came back to real life. for school i had a two day sanitation class last weekend, to clock the required 16 hours necessary for certification with the state. i'm surprised i survived it - the instructor was one of these hyper intense people - full of so much energy and enthusiasm about sanitation and food borne illness that he talked about a mile a minute, making it difficult to understand him at points. after 13 chapters, a myriad of stories about bacteria and rats and people dying and foods rotting, we took the exam. i'll find out in a few days if i passed. honestly, i was so exhausted and overwhelmed i'm not confident how well i did. but, i did walk away with a few business cards - new friends and contacts - and some information that may prevent me from ever purchasing ground beef, fish, or deli meat from a grocery store ever again.

in class we're learning the nuances of mother sauces and their derivatives, the biggest challenge for me being memorizing the french names. i feel like we're slowing down a bit - but really, i think we're just all getting better and moving faster.

tonight i'm practicing some original recipes - i'm starting a portfolio of foods, a database that will someday help me begin my new career. wish me luck.

recently i've been blown away at how lucky i am. to have the opportunity to be pursuing something i am so passionate about, to have family and friends who support me so wholeheartedly, and to have a husband who buys me kitchen appliances for gift giving occasions. i've received a meat grinder, multiple knives and a kitchenaid mixer from my fabulous husband, and for valentine's day he surprised me with a beautiful 14 cup cuisinart. i am a lucky lucky girl.

last week i had a terrible time with roux in class - i rushed and screwed it up and it threw me off for the entire evening. so i left class for the week feeling slightly defeated, questioning my purpose and ability. i spent the weekend without cooking much, which simultaneously relaxed me and wound me up, and i showed up at class this monday tired, weak, and praying the night would fly by.

last night in the kitchen we each made a beef consomme from beef and duck stock we made last week. consomme is a broth that is clarified by egg white and ground meat, flavored by additional vegetables and herbs. i have to admit that i'm not entirely convinced that consomme is worth the effort and is any better than a really good quality stock, but i understand the reasoning and uses. chef tasted mine and my neighbors and praised us heavily. i cleaned up my station feeling much better than last tuesday after the roux disaster.

after our consommes were tasted and critiqued, chef called everyone to his demo table, explaining that we would now make crepes. i have never attempted to make crepes, being afraid of the thin delicate batter and seemingly difficult execution required for quality crepe making. we watched chef effortlessly swirl and flip and stack, and then he sent us on our way, saying, "you have the recipe but you will not measure, just make it good." oh, ok.

( i've come to adore chef's little sayings, looking forward to them after each demo, and he keeps sharing new ones with us every week. "you can have a good time now" when sending us off to practice the technique just demonstrated to us, and "just make it good" when someone asks how much salt to add to the consomme, and "it is cooked when i say that it is cooked" in response to a question of how you know when the roux is ready.)

so we went to our stations and i cracked my eggs and added a few heaping spoonfulls of flour, then a few more, until the thick ribbony consistency of chef pierre's batter was achieved. then in with butter, salt, sugar, then the milk, whisking and analyzing until it looked thin and silky like his. i poured a 2 ounce ladel of my batter into my little buttered skillet, swirled and smiled. it looked beautiful. "pear-fect, em-ay-lee!" i heard as chef approched the stack of crepes on my cutting board. "every one, em-ay-lee made pear-fect crepes! come here and look at em-ay-lee's crepes!" as i was turning red i was also grinning, i was reassured of how pear-fect this new career is going to be for me, and reminded of how lucky i am to be experiencing this right now.

i came down with a bout of food poisoning related sickness last week. again. it was either guacamole at frontera, tom yum soup at a thai place near my work, chicken from a catered work lunch, or snacks at nacional 27. i am eating out too much. i don't know what it is about my stomach, but it's becoming rather sensitive. i'm generally a healthy eater, but for some reason my body is reacting rather violently every couple of months. maybe i'm just lucky.

i went to the doctor's office monday morning and when they weighed me the nurse said, "wow, you've lost a lot of weight since your last visit!" well, i've had food poisoning twice. that's one way to do it.

i'm back to normal this week, in time to taste some duck leg confit and duck rillettes in class. tasting continues to be my favorite part of this education.

we made roux on tuesday night, and for the first time i failed miserably. i've made roux and sauces plenty of times at home, but i guess i was having a terribly off night. overcooked, overfloured, and underthickened sauce. gross. hopefully i'll have my game back by next week.

last night was my first culinary school exam. we completed our introduction to professional cookery course, culminating in a half written and half practical exam. as chef was grading my dice, battonet, and tournet, he looked up and raised his eyebrows. "zees are pretty good, em-ay-lee," he said as he turned the tournets around in his hands. he checked the length of my battonet, fingered through my onion dice, giving me the maximum points for each. he then spent about 30 seconds scrutinizing my medium dice of potato. "i have to find somesing here. nobody is perfect. not even me." as he scribbled a 19/20 next to the medium dice on my grading sheet. 20/20 for professionalism and i walked away with a 99%. that coupled with missing one question on the written exam means i walk away with an A. so that's that.

after 5 weeks of classes i've realized that this program is not exactly the most intense program i could be enrolled in - chef pierre is not very hard on us. i expected to be cutting mounds and mounds of potatoes, having chef tell me to try again because they weren't PERFECTLY square, but that hasn't been the case. he's content if we can just understand and implement the gist of the technique or concept. i go back and forth between wishing he was more of a hard ass on us and being thankful that i don't have to spend hours upon hours studying and worrying that i'm not memorizing the acidity levels of different grapes and practicing my knife skills until i have blisters.

the good news: i'm learning a lot. the bad news: i'm realizing i will never learn it all, but i'm coming to terms with that. it's probably ok. even the best chefs don't have their brains wrapped around EVERYTHING. they specialize in one thing or another, they spend their time trying to learn everything they need to make one cuisine or technique perfect. i need to do some culinary soul searching about what my concentration will be. i've dabbled around and have become decent at a wide range of techniques and cuisines, but not great at one. i have this rennaisance man complex, i need to be able to at least make one item from every category, and i need to maybe let some of them go. this is going to take more practice.

part 1. fini.

next monday is the final in my first culinary school class, intro to professional cooking. we'll be tested on our basic knowledge (how many ounces in a pint, what is a straight sided sauce pan called, how many ounces of clarified butter does a pound of whole butter yield, etc), and then chef pierre's boss, will test us on our knife skills. he will watch us make a medium dice, battonet, and the dreaded tourne (little football shapes). we practiced our potato tourne-ing skills both days this week, and frankly, i'm bored with it. i can do a pretty decent tourne, but it doesn't excite me like the other things we've been learning do, like fileting fish. or deboning a chicken. or clarifying butter! or making a garlic anchovy butter for escargot that we get to eat! in class!

this is, without a doubt, the most satisfying learning experience i have ever pursued. i hope it keeps up. i'm having a blast, even with the damned tourne of potato.

top chef.

so i've now lost count of the number of times people have asked me when i'm going to be on top chef. i appreciate your enthusiasm and belief in my skills, but it's probably not going to happen.

or is it?

last week we did a little quick fire style challenge with our bass filets - chef pierre told us to save a section of one of our stiped bass filets for something he would explain later. so we iced it and went on to our flatfish and another demo and some cleaning up - and forgot about the filets.

then, out of nowhere he tells us to cook them. quickly. with a sauce and a garnish GO! all hell broke loose as people were searching the cooler, the spice rack, the freezers for ANYTHING that would make their dish remarkable. as my classmates were rushing around grabbing milk, capers, spring onion, rice, mushrooms, and tomato, i blanked. i had no idea where to start with my fish. i am a planner, i like to evaluate and take my time. i am not a quick thinker, but there i was, with time clicking away and people already starting to plate. so i grabbed a shallot, butter, a lemon. some parsley. found the white wine. discovered some flour. i did a simple dredge, pan fried the fish, and started on a lemon butter wine sauce.

as everyone was congregating at the tasting table, i sampled my sauce and to my horror discovered that it was terrible. awful. i added more butter and some pepper and let it simmer vigorously as i started to panic. the wine needed to cook off - it was way too pungent. chef pierre was beginning to his tasting and commenting going around the table to each person's plate and i was still cooking my sauce. at the last possible minute i poured the sauce, dropped the fish on top, garnished with some lemon slices and pushed my way towards the table to put my plate down, which drew all eyes my way. chef reached out with his spoon to taste it as i hid behind a classmate and cringed. "this one is simple. but good." really? he went on, praised some, criticized some, and then we were left to taste for ourselves. i went to mine first - and it wasn't half bad.

simple. but good.

last week we butchered chickens, ducks, poussin (baby chickens), striped bass, and sole. i'm finding taking apart animals comes naturally to me...once you have a vague understanding of the anatomy of an animal, taking the meat off its bones is pretty easy. i'm learning a lot about my fellow classmates as we're going through these exercises as well. there are a few squeamish people, a few who don't think they need to learn how to disassemble a tiny bird from the inside out (and stuff it with a mushroom rice stuffing and wrap it in bacon and eat it! yum!), and a few who are also quite good at taking the bones out of things. i actually find it calming. like methodically taking apart a puzzle. last weekend i bought three chickens just so i could take them apart at home - my freezer is full of beautifully butchered airline breasts and quarts of chicken stock. i also made the stuffed boneless deal, but with a full grown chicken's boneless thigh and leg quarter. here's what it looked like:

it tasted divine. if you're nice, i'll make one for you sometime.

i'm starting to feel a bit restless in class - i want to do more, bigger, harder things. i want to debone a turkey from the inside out and stuff it with a duck, stuffed with a chicken. seriously, i am feeling the urge to flex my crazy inside out deboning knowledge and make a turducken.

chef pierre praised my poussin deboning, saying "SOMEBODY did a good job, em-ay-lee!" that is my favorite thing to hear so far.

*i realized i didn't link to my friend's culinary school adventure blog, so here it is. enjoy comparing out stories.

i make perfect chicken stock, and my chicken butchering skills are perfect. it's true. i'm not being cocky. chef brian told me so.

class tuesday went well, obviously. we started learning about proteins, and learned to turn a perfectly good whole chicken into 8 little pieces. i have to admit, i have never butchered a raw chicken. i have disassembled plenty of roasted chickens, but have never done anything to a whole chicken but season and throw it in a roasting pan or dutch oven. guess what? it's EASY! you just follow the curve of the bones and lines of fat and the connections of the joints and then you have boneless skinless chicken breasts and deboned thighs and a carcass ready to make chicken stock!

speaking of stock...after we were all done butchering our chickens and ducks (we're making confit out of the drumsticks next week! i can't wait!), we threw all of the bones into the gigantic stock pot in the corner of the kitchen. i was asking chef brian (the assistant chef instructor to chef pierre) about my homemade stock, how i felt like it was a little bit too gelatinous after it cooled, and he tells me "that is a sign that the stock is very well made. it means you got everything out of the bones. you make very good stock." well ok, then! that is what i like to hear. craig, however, reinterprets my story as follows:

me: "hey, chef? i have a question. when i make perfect delicious well made stock, is that a problem? i mean, when my stock is finished, it is just absolutely ideal in every way, shape, and form. is that ok?"

chef: "yes. that is ok."

every single one of my classmates: (rolling eyes) "bitch."

so, my spirits continue to be high, and my uniform continues to be too big, and my knife skills are improving. i bought three chickens yesterday. guess what we're having for dinner all weekend?

i'll be posting some photos soon - i let a classmate use my iphone during class this week to document for HER blog, which has given me the idea to start taking photos myself. i did take one: chef pierre showing us an fancy pants (and economical!) chicken dish. i'm totally making this next time we have dinner guests.

we finally cooked this week! tomato a la portuguese. simple enough. we also got to taste some food prepared by the mediterranean class next door - lamb with a vegetable relish of some sort, and a chick pea, shrimp, black olive dish with harissa. it was nice to finally be able to eat something between the hours of 6 and 11. my stationmates and i also ate about half a raw rutabega - which was quite tasty - as we practiced our dice.

i also finally ate in the cafeteria for the first time this week - i get one meal a day included in my tuition and i haven't made it to school in time to take advantage of it until this week. it is a good time to chat with my classmates, and a good opportunity to see what the students in the full time programs are making (and see some of our fancy cut potatos and rutabegas and carrots in there), but i'll give it a few more dinners before i start analyzing the food options here.

i had a nightmare this morning that i used to have in undergrad - that graduation day comes around and i realize i had skipped an entire quarter of one crucial class so i can't graduate. i think i'm having some anxiety around what i'm going to do with my life when i'm done here, am i really going to be able to make a living off of my culinary skills? not to mention pay back the loans i'm about to take out to pay for it all? only time will tell, i guess. and in the meantime i'll just keep eating rutabaga scraps and having fun learning more about my hobby.

so i spent all weekend reading about 6 chapters in my textbook, including a 30 page chapter on flavorings - from basil to tawny port. it still feels unreal reading about things that 1) i already know a good bit about, and 2) that i actually enjoy learning. i will likely get over this sooner than later, but i'm still feeling oddly guilty.

hubb and i stayed in almost all weekend, watching movies and studying and napping. we finally watched ratatouille and now i wish i was going to be home tonight to cook something tomatoey and warm. we also manged to fit in a bacon tasting brunch (5 types of bacon - my house still smells like pork), and i made a yummy hard cider braised chicken with parsnips and brussel sprouts with heavy cream. it was a saucy dinner and it was delicious. (thanks, erielle for the brussel sprout tip!) (and for feeding us tagliatelle and letting me play with your wonderful baby.)

i keep meaning to photograph my uniform and i keep forgetting. maybe one of these days i'll remember to put it on and pose in front of a mirror for an unflattering self portrait. chefs uniforms are not meant for 5 foot tall curvy people. i purchased the smallest sizes available and i still feel like i'm swimming in my jacket, not to mention the 4" thick elastic wasteband of my pants coming nearly to my armpits. but i'm not in culinary school to be sexy, or to meet a boyfriend. i'm there to learn, to cook. and at least my pants won't fall down while i'm doing it.

i'm a week late, but better late than never. i'm taking a different approach to my resolutions this year, they are more high level than usual, leaning more towards me being happy than participating in activities or having some new experience. since last year's resolutions i've started doing yoga, am planning for a half-marathon, have sold paintings, started culinary school and been to south america. looking back at last year's resolutions, i feel pretty good. except for the photos thing. my camera is still getting dusty.

i'm turning 30 this year, which means so many different things to me, none of which i'll go into right now, except that i am looking forward to it. it's making me think about what i'm doing, where i'm going, and how i deal with it. so, here it is.

1. be sure of myself. i question my actions, words and emotions way too often, and it shows. i need to be more confident.

2. follow through more. i tend to overcommit myself, make grand plans that i never fully complete. i need to be more reliable, if only to myself.

3. be more flexible. i get stuck on the rules, the agenda, the "way" and i can't keep getting all out of sorts when things don't go the way i expect them to. i need to let things happen. they'll happen anyway sooner or later, good or bad, and i need to accept it.

4. enjoy life more. this one encompases the other three, really. don't get me wrong, i have a great life and i'm grateful for it. i have a good job, a wonderful husband, loving and supportive friends and family, and the opportunity to pursue my dreams. i let all kinds of other things get in the way of enjoying it, though. i need to learn to relax and have more fun.

i'm already feeling good about where this is taking me.

by special request i'll be blogging my way through my experience in culinary school, documenting, commenting, and analyzing my experiences for those of you who are interested. culinary school confidential. secrets of a culinary student. culinary student rant. whatever you want to call it.

i'm just taking one class this quarter to kick everything off - intro to professional cookery. i have class two days a week for 5 hours each, consisting of a short lecture followed by 3-4 hours of kitchen time. i'll have this basic techniques class for 5 weeks, then we'll switch to the soups, stocks and sauces class with the same instructor for the next 5 weeks.

so, week one. my program is geared towards working professionals, and my fellow students consist of about 23 people from all different backgrounds who are all there for very different reasons. we have people like me who just love to cook and want to make a career out of it, retirees, a flavor scientist, dog hotel owner, hair salon owner, lots of finance people, a journalist, personal trainer and a slew of others. most of this week consisted of introductions, getting acquainted with the facilities and equipment we'll be working with, culinary history, and basic knife cuts. we've done julienne, brunoise, battonet, small and medium dice, rondelles, pommes frites, and tourne, to celery, onion, leeks, potato and carrots. i am learning knife skills that i will likely never duplicate in real life (a tourne is the most useless thing you can do to a potato, in my opinion, not to mention there are machines that produce a much more consistent cut than i ever could), but i'm glad i'm learning them. and i've proven to be pretty consistent with my knife, producing "beautiful" dices and rondelles, according to our assistant chef. and although i've gotten the knife motion down, the tourne needs some practice. anyone want to come over for a potato dinner anytime soon?

my french chef instructor, chef pierre, has started off a little easy on us, but i'm sure he's going to become more of a hard ass as the quarter moves on. he's got a great sense of humor and really seems passionate about our education. he is also passionate about recycling and being environmentally conscious, having us recycle every peel of potato for compost, every imperfect cut of vegetable for stock, and all of the more consistent cuts for use in the cafeteria. i am pleased to know that none of our practice is going to waste.

so i have survived my first week of class. i was anxious about how i would fit in, if wondered if i would know immediately if i was doing the right thing or not. well, i do fit in, and after one week i know i'm doing exactly the right thing for me. i already have the rudimentary skills, passion, determination and discipline, and i am eager and excited about everything, no matter now basic it seems, that i am learning. my right shoulder hurts and i've only cut myself once, sliding my knife into my kit. but everthing is perfect.

so, i've been busy, neglecting things like photography, communicating with friends and family, and blogging. there are lots of reasons for this - craft fairs, commissions, work, and most recently, finalizing details to start culinary school next month. !! i'm going to culinary school! everything is aligning right now to give me the opportunity to pursue a dream, something i have always thought about but never considered as a real option in my life. i'm taking the risk. i'm going to be attending kendall college under a part time culinary certificate program, and hopefully in less than two years i'll graduate as chef emily, available for all of your personal chef and in home catering needs. in the meantime, please be patient with me since i probably won't be seeing much of you, either online or in person, for the next 18 months or so.

in other news, i can't believe it's already winter - currently 17 degrees and falling - and christmas is only two weeks away. i still have tons of shopping/crafting/cooking to do, and we still haven't designed let alone mailed our holiday cards. i have vivid memories of being a kid and telling my parents i was bored. where did those times go? i haven't been bored in decades.

in case i flake (which is likely) and don't log on again in the next two weeks - i wish you all a very happy and healthy holiday season, full of good company, good food, and good times.

i've rewritten this a few times now, and i'm having trouble putting my emotions into words. proud, excited, hopeful, elated, calm....emotional. we went to the obama election night rally in grant park last night, with 1,000,000 or so other people. the peaceful excitement that swept grant park was unbelievable, everyone was in such high spirits, laughing, smiling, crying....incredible. the sheer magnitude of the crowd was enough to make my eyes water, but hearing the cheering and the yelling and the chanting made my heart melt. i am so grateful to have been part of such a momentous night in the history of our country. i've never been so proud of america, to be an american. we're not half bad. it was an absolutely incredible experience i will remember forever.

top moments (which greatly outweighed the lows):
1. the moment i realized this would be an expeirence i would tell my children and my grand children about.
2. saying the pledge of allegiance with a million other people. crying while doing so.
3. seeing the throngs of obama supporters smiling and laughing as we crowded the streets leaving grant park. without the cheerful excitement, the scene would have been straight out of an armageddon film, littered pavement and cars unable to move through the crowds overtaking the streets. but everyone was elated. the cops were even smiling.
4. watching virginia turning into a blue state. sorry, dad.
5. buying the "chicago's in the house" t-shirt from a guy on the street. the white house with a chicago flag. awesome.
6. having a near painless commute home. thanks, CTA!
7. seeing a metal detecting security guard stop wanding someone in order to clap for obama getting ohio.
8. realizing that i am still considered a member of the "youth vote".

low moments:
1. hearing the wrong words sung during the national anthem. didn't anyone give the lady a lyrics sheet? that was bad.
2. annoying obama fan shouting "yes, sir!" and "we're behind you!" after EVERY SINGLE SENTENCE our president elect said in his victory speech.
3. porta potties. unavoidable.

my friend trevor took some much better photos.

i voted this morning. i was expecting hours of waiting, annoying ignorant poll volunteers, and grumpy fellow voters. instead i was greeted with the most streamlined voting experience i've ever had in my neighborhood. speedy and intelligent volunteers, cheerful and peppy neighbors waiting in line with me, and only 22 minutes of my time spent on the whole experience. i bounced off to work with a great feeling, the beautiful sunny almost 60 degree day brightening my spirits even more.

and tonight, we will be attending the Obama election night rally in grant park! (special thanks to our friends who are taking us as their guests.) i'm still sort of in a fog about all of this, and as a friend put it, "it will be historic no matter WHERE you are!", but i'm really looking forward to being present during one of the key moments of probably the most amazing election in history.

in other news, i turned 29 a few days ago. it has hit me a little harder than i thought it would...i know i'm still young and still have time to do everything i want to do in my lifetime, but it feels like a turning point. i'm expecting this year to be pretty awesome, and i'm really looking forward to 30, but i can't help feeling like i've forgotten something, left something behind with my 20s. i've got less than a year to figure out what that might be.

happy election day!