The pies are done!

Charlie likes pie too!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all have a wonderful day filled with family and friends! And lots of tasty food =)

We will be spending the evening, for dinner, in Vancouver, Wa. at our friends house, along with some friends from Wilsonville. I am just finishing up my apple and pecan pies so our apartment smells delicious! After the pies are finished I'll make some caramel sauce and creme chantilly.

Laminated doughs

This week I started a new course in laminated doughs/puff doughs, and we finally were able to move up to the 5th floor and switchs chefs. Laminated doughs can be a big pain in the butt when you first start them and they are so time consuming. Its called laminated because there is a butter (beurrage) part and a dough(detrempe) part and either you incase the beurrage in the detrempe or the detrempe in the beurrage. I prefer working with inverse dough which is detrempe incased in the beurrage, since the beurrage has flour added to it and makes for a more workable dough when pulled from the walk in. A lot of people prefer ordinary puff dough because they think it's easier, but the finished product looks nicer with inverse in my opinion. Once one is incased around the other you fold it with either tri-fold or 4-fold to get a mellifuille look or 1000 layers. After evey time you roll out and make another fold, you have to chill the paton(package) to ensure layers wont leak. After all turns are finished you roll or sheet out the dough to 3mm thick and cut out shapes to make your products and chill again... basically you chill after everytime you handle the dough, it get old real quick! We made all sorts of things this week, turnovers filled with an apple compote, fruit bands with pastry creme and fresh fruit, creme horns, jalousie, palmiers, cheese straws, chausson with apple compote, vol au vents filled with a mushroom newburd, bouchees filled with mushroom newburg, and pithiviers filled with almond creme ( this was my favorite). For our practical yesterday, in 4 hrs we had to laminate a puff dough of our choice and make one 8 inch pithivier, 4 apple turnovers, 4 bouchees filled with our choice, 4 vol au vents filled with pastry creme and topped with fruit. I wish I would have taken more pictures, especially of my products yesterday. I was the first one done with the best production, I also got the higest score of 95 and boths chefs in the class gave be wonderful comments. I was so happy! I can see such a huge improvement it everything I do, especially my work speed and efficiency, from when I started. Here is a picture of apple turnovers and chaussons from tuesday or wednesday, I really wish I would have taken pictures of yesterdays products, especially my vol au vents (they were gorgeous).

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Some friends of mine from school to me out to dinner tonight downtown at an awesome Irish pub called Kells. This place has such good food, all classic Irish dishes and way hearty. It was somewhat of an impromptu birthday gathering, but Kellen still brought me a little gift and card, and it was the cutest thing!



Last week on Halloween Kellen came over right after class to stay the night and go to fright town. As we were walking to the Chipotle for lunch, just a few blocks from school, we passed this place called Russian Glass. I've seen this place before but from afar on the MAX, but walking I noticed more detail as to what the store had inside. Right by the window was all sorts of hand blown glass animal and flowers. I thought the animals were all so cute and kept "oooh-ing". Well tongiht Kellen pulled out this little box and said Happy Birthday, so I read the card and opened the gift. Inside was a little glass cow, whish is super special for 2 reasons. 1 she not only remembered how cute I thought the silly glass figurines were but she also remembered her and I both have an FFA and agriculture background and both raised cattle, which is why she chose the cow. To me thats super special! Here a picture of "Kell's" the cow :)

Dessert Buffet Final

The final in my basic pastry class was to create a petit four dessert buffet platter. It had to include 5 catagories. The whole project was worth about 500 points and about 40%of our final grade. I ended up getting a 95% on the project and was really please how everything turned out. I wished I could have used brighter colors but in the fall its hard to get frest fruits to brightent things up.

From left to right; Petit for Glace product- chocolate glazed gingerbread cakes, sponge product- pistashio financiers, baked meringue product- meringue mushrooms, dough product- coconut pecan caramel cookies, and finally petit four sec product- langues de chat (cats tongue)

We were encouraged to make things we have yet to make in class and to try formulas from other books other then the ones we use for class, so all of them except the mushrooms came from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, a book I recieved from Nicole as a going away present :)



Meringue mushroom on top a slice of kiwi on top a mint leaf... I love this photo

Squirrels part 2

Well it has come to a whole new level of obsession! All day Charlie goes back and fourth from the back sliding glass door to the living room staring out the window at squirrels in the trees. When we go on walks he has to sniff and jump on every single tree, and while we are in between trees he is pulling me like a sled dog. Now to top it all off the dog park has now become the squirrel park. All charlie wants to do is stalk the trees for squirrels, running from tree to tree, jumping as high as he can hoping to leap on to a branch. I think he has issues, its time to call in Cesar... The Dog Whisperer!



I really hope squirrels are only around in the fall, and as soon as winter rolls around I will get the old Charlie back, and if so, by next fall he will be over the whole squirrel thing.

Charlie all pooped out, yet still has his eyes high up in the trees, huning squirrels!

Awhile back I had wrote about how Charlie is obsessed with squirrels, remember?

Everyone's moving!

I found out today that an old friend of mine, Curtis, might be moving to Portland. He actually might be moving as soon as Monday if all goes as planned. He used to be a supervisor of mine back when I worked at Cost Plus 3+ years ago. It'll be nice to see him, hang out and add more fun to Portland!

Ya'll should join in on the trend and make the move too :)

PDX Zombie Walk

Last Saturday evening Vince, Steve T., Drea, and I dressed up like zombies and joined in on the annual Portland zombie walk. I was seriously the coolest thing we have done so far in Portland! There were 600+ people at the walk, everyone from little kids with parents to old couples. It began in Pioneer Square and we walked through out downtown Portland on a pre-detemined route. Here is the link to the PDX Zombie Walk flickr page http://www.flickr.com/groups/60784064@N00/pool/



And here are a couple pictures of me! Isn't the bow a cute added touch, lol?!

For November the random event is said to be a Spaceman vs. Viking event in downtown but has yet to be determined. December 8th is the annual Santacon!!! I am so looking forward to joining in on the 500+ santas! ( find out is there's a santacon near you... www.santarchy.com)