Block 9: Week 1

Block 9 - time is passing so fast. Less than three months left of school to go. Crazy.

Block 9 is an interesting block. We are back in the kitchen, which is nice. And it's a bit like Block 1 all over again, but with better ingredients. We are learning about a la carte food, so we are cooking a lot fancier food as well as working on plating and presentation. Also, there is no service in this Block, so we get to work on palette development each day too, ie eating.

Our chef is a little bit crazy. I was dreading this block because of this chef. We had her in Block 4 for a week and it was a stressful week. She has really good intentions and really wants us to learn, but she likes things done her way and only her way and she also tends to ramble. A lot. This week wasn't quite as bad as I had expected, I guess because I am getting used to her more each day, but she's still definitely not my favourite.

We cook something different each day, and work with different people each day, like Block 1, so I like the format a lot. This week, we made pates, terrines, galantines, cold appetizers (my group made oysters on the half shell), hot appetizers (crab stuffed prawns in wonton wrappers with K and F), and canapes (I made roast lamb and wilted spinach on a polenta base).

It was a fun week outside of school too. We went to Caprice on Monday and crashed a UBC "white party" when I wasn't wearing white, had a crazy night at the Cambie on Wednesday and met F's friends Jenna and Jeremy (which made volunteering to make sushi at school the next morning pretty painful), saw Blue Valentine on Thursday which is my new favourite movie even though it was so sad, and had a few drinks at Rogue with a friend who already graduated school on Friday with a stop at Subway and the art gallery steps on the way home.