If You Can't Take The Heat......

I think it was President Harry Truman that made this famous: If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen....well guess what? I'm STILL HERE!

Oh goodness, Newport has been so hot the past week, especially Tuesday! The temperature was 102 degrees! Oh but wait, in the kitchen, it was easily 120, maybe 125! We were all drinking water by the quart-full, asking the food runners to fill us up every 30 minutes with nice cold icey water. Sure was refreshing. But we found the best secret was to soak a towel in cold water and then store it in the refrigerated drawers where we keep our food for service, that was its nice and cold to wrap around the neck or face. You don't know hot until you are standing behind a grill in long pants and a long sleeve jacket. And then of course there is the walk-in refrigerator which is a nice cold room that can cool the body temp down for a few seconds...

Yes mom, I am drinking lots of water, thanks for asking.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE my new job!!! I am SO happy I left Bar Harbor! Working at Castle Hill is everything I imagined it to be! The people are great (and actually have training and know what they are doing) and you can tell they love their jobs. I ask questions a lot, but they love answering them. Almost all of our products are locally sourced from areas around RI, MA, and CT. I currently work as a floater, so to speak. Because I am only there for two months, it did not make much sense to train me on my own station, so I work as the hot app/pantry wingman. I am training on both stations so that when the stations are busy, I can jump in and assist with plating and expediting of the tickets. Unlike The Mooring (last summer's job), the plates have many more components, so plating takes more precision and time. I have only been working there for about four days, but I have loved every day so far and I cannot wait to see how the summer unfolds.
I have had the past two days off. I spent yesterday at the Farmer's Market (like I said I would in my last post). I bought eggs, spinach, basil, garlic scapes, whole wheat bread, and yogurt. With the spinach, I made spinach pasta (which used the fresh eggs for the dough). I chopped up mushrooms and made tortellinis! I then minced the rest of the spinach with some basil and garlic scapes that were sauteed in oil and then added more oil to the mixture to make an herby oil sauce. I tossed the tortellinis in that sauce and oh my goodness was it divine!!! Just knowing that a majority of the ingredients were local was so much fun! I live above a computer IT store owned by an elderly couple and brought some down to them and boy were they happy!!!!

I can easily say Life is Good.

Back in Newport for the summer...as of two days ago

So I was supposed to be in Bar Harbor this summer, but due to conflict of interests between me and my job, I left. Thank goodness my boss from last summer in Newport was able to give me a job this summer. Good thing I left Newport last year on good terms! So I packed up my things from Bar Harbor and headed down to Newport...homeless! I drove to Newport and began my apartment hunt via craigslist and randomly driving around looking at signs in front yards. I am a little impatient sometimes, so halfway through the day, I was starting to get nervous I would not find anything and was considering just giving up and not staying in Newport.
All of a sudden, I got a call from a guy living right in Newport who was offering me the chance to look at his place. He had one room available, furnished. I stopped by that evening and met him and the other roommate. The second I walked up the stairs to see the place, I knew it was perfect! It was clean, organized, and it just had the perfect vibe! With a very affordable price, I took it because I knew that it would be gone if I waited another day. I moved in the next day. Thankfully a friend from last year was around so I could crash at her place for the night until I could move in.
The location is perfect! While I still have to drive to work, I am walking distance from anything here in Newport! I am right down the road from my favorite Tea house where I spent a lot of time last summer too (they had bubble tea, loose tea, and free wifi!) But there is wifi here at the apt, so that will save me some money from being tempted to buy tea every day!
I am quite proud of myself for finding this place because I did it all myself and thanks to good spending habits (actually, wait, no I have horrible money managing skills, so its more like thanks to good spending habits in high school where i spent nothing....) I was able to afford it easily.
My roommates are so nice too! One is late 20's and a cook at the Marriot Hotel down the road and the other is in his 40's and works for the town as well as a part time paramedic. They both like to cook, which is great!! While I am only here for two months, it is sure going to be a great summer! Especailly since I already have friends here from last year!

I will be working at the Castle Hill Inn, a Relais and Chateau property (look it up). I start tomorrow and the menu just looks incredible!!! Most everything on the menu is local and from RI, which I am totally interested in. I love this local/sustainable/organic movement, so being right here in the center of it all is just a dream come true. There are farmers markets every Wednesday and Saturday, so next Wed, since I am not working, I will be getting food from there and cooking dinner for Peter and Kristen (roommates), which they are stoked about!

Oh gosh, what a long post: Ill write more later!

I'm A GRADUATE!!!

Yes, that's right! I graduated from culinary school!!! I have graduated with my Associates Degree and plan to continue on for my Bachelors Degree in August. Its so exciting to know that I have a degree and something to show for my education! Part one is over, though it went by way too fast! I think the best thing for me to do at this point is to go out into the workforce and apply what I have learned.
Correction: I am not a "CHEF." Graduating from culinary school does not make one a chef. A Chef is a title given to an individual that deserves that title, a job, for instance. So if I am given the job as a Sous Chef, then I am a chef. Call me chef all you want (my parents have been calling me their little chef for a while now), but I am technically not a chef. Having a degree certainly gives me a leg up on the job ladder though when compared to one without a degree, so I may reach "chefdome" quicker than the other.
As for my time off this summer until I return in late August for my Bachelors Degree, I will be working in Bar Harbor, Maine at an inn right on the water! As for the people who know I was in Newport, RI last summer, they just cant help but be a little jealous that I keep working in these touristy-summery destinations. I am excited to go to Bar Harbor because I really like being by water and Acadia National Park is practically next to it, giving me full access to endless hiking and sightseeing and outdoor activities. While Newport was pretty and outdoorsy, it was just too many cars and shopping...hopefully having Acadia nearby will pull me away from the shopping!
And as you all know, I was taking Bartending classes, so I will be trying to get a part time job as a bartender/barback to hone my skills and see if I am cut out for the job.

I am ready to go and cook my heart away!

If you are in Bar Harbor area this summer, send me a message and we will meet up!

Let's go mix some drinks!

I finished my bartending school today.

It was a 6 day class, 2 hours each day. The first day was spent going over a powerpoint presentation just with guidelines and such for bartending. The second day, we practiced free pouring. There is a count system set up with free pouring so that you know how many ounces you are pouring based on how long you hold the bottle. Starting with 1/2 oz is 2 seconds, 3 seconds is 3/4 oz, 4 seconds is 1 oz, etc etc etc. And then we started making drinks.
We just used bottles filled with water, but it was more difficult to make drinks than I thought. It is easy enough to recall what is in a drink on paper, but once I was there actually having to make it, it was a bit daunting. With practice, I was able to completely memorize a few drinks, some I am still not positive on all the time. I always forget just one ingredient. But that comes with experience. To be honest, I just cannot wait to get out to an actual bar and try making real drinks, that will be exciting!

Heads up Mom and Dad: I'll be practicing with you two when i get home from college! Cosmos for mom, Manhattans for Dad!

The Next Television Network Star????

HEY!!! So The Gourmet Society (a club I am part of on campus) teamed up with Marist College (down the street) to start a cooking show series called Classy College Cuisine. Julie Lavin is the rep of Marist who graduated last year with a degree in communications. For the past year or so, we have been recording these culinary cooking shows at the school. But for this most recent episode, we decided to make it truly college-esque by making a "Microwave" episode. I'd like to call this my brain child. I did all of the research for recipes and testing of them to make sure they worked and then we got together at Marist to film it. Enough said.

Please watch it!!!!

http://classycollegecuisin.blip.tv/

Goodbye Kitchen...Hello Graduation in 3 Weeks!!!

So today was my last day in a cooking class here at the Culinary I of A. I worked in the American Bounty restaurant at school. I say that the past three weeks was the best class I have ever had at this school. I was on the family meal station in our kitchen, which at first, I was really bitter about because I have been on family meal a few times now and pastry as well and I just wanted to cook on the line. **Family meal is basically providing lunch for the kitchen staff and servers and is often looked down upon**I was going to try to switch, but someone told me that Family meal was able to order and make whatever they wanted and that during service, we were able to cook on the line to assist when busy. And with me trying to always look on the bright side, I stuck with it.
I am so happy that I did not try to change. My partner and I worked together so well, making for a very well oiled (extra virgin olive oil) machine. We had our menus written out for all 15 days of the class so we always knew a few days in advance what we would be doing. We wanted to be as prepared as possible. We always did prep the day before so that all we had to do when we came in was heat food up and finish cooking. We came up with some pretty delicious menus. We even made our own corned beef!! Tried making sauerkraut...fail.
Anyway, chef and I got along very well. You know how you know within five minutes of meeting someone that you are going to get along with them? Well I knew that with Chef. He had a crazy amount of energy that showed he loved to teach and cook, but did not want to play games. Of course he was serious about teaching us! This was our last cooking class before we graduate! Of course we have to be on our A game!! He pushed us, in a positive way, which I think was the perfect teaching style that worked for me.
He often joked about how I asked questions a lot, calling me high maintenance, but it was all in good fun. He and I had a discussion about how one of my classmates yelled at me for being so positive all the time and always looking on the bright side and he told me to "never lose that quality, no matter how much it drives them crazy. They just don't understand how you are able to look past the bad and find the good. They are jealous." Hearing those words from chef was very motivating because people call me out on my positivity all the time. He would come up to me and ask if I was happy, just because. He often tried to make fun of me and pretended to complain I was doing something wrong just because he needed someone to take his frustration out on...who better than someone who will just laugh with him?? He once came up to me and was telling me how my partner was complaining that I was always miserable and difficult to work with and I said, "Chef...I think you're lying." and he said, "ok, fine yea, so?" and laughed and walked away (you had to be there I guess).
I gave him my business card on the last day of class and on the back I wrote, "the girl who is always happy." He smiled.


I will be working as a server for the next three weeks as my last class and then I graduate!!!