Block 11: Week 4 - Vegetables

I'm done school! The year flew by in a flash. I still can't really believe it's over.

It took me a while to post because I was incredibly sad the past few days. Who knew I could get so attached to people in just 11 months? Embarrassingly, I even cried at the bar on Friday night when people started leaving.

Thinking back on the year, I really had an amazing time. There were definitely ups and downs, but overall, I am really happy that I had the opportunity to go to culinary school - I learned a lot about both cooking and myself and I made some wonderful friends.

It was a fun week of school. I was on the vegetable station, so each day we had to prepare three different vegetables, as well as rice and a potato dish. We had a different chef for the last week, so on Monday, I had to stay back and help the incoming dessert group. But desserts is pretty easy, so I spent the day making chocolate peanut butter macaroons, though they didn't really turn out. This week, chef let us all eat dinner in JJ's one night, and I was pretty irritated when the group who ate that night decided to send back their desserts because they weren't plated properly.

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty regular - prepping veg and then cooking on the line. The line is probably the most intense for the veg group because you have to time things perfectly with the meat station and you don't want overcooked or undercooked veg, and of course, each dish has totally different veg on it.

Thursday was probably my favourite day, though I almost missed it. Chef wanted me to make macaroons again, for the buffet, so I made raspberry macaroons with pink peppercorn buttercream. They turned out really well. And it was my turn to eat dinner at JJ's, and I got to go with a great group of people. Saying goodbye to our IA chef Vanessa was pretty hilarious. It was 80's night at our usual hangout, which made for a great night out.

But it also made for a rough Friday morning, when I had to write the ITA level 2 test. It went surprisingly ok though. Hung out with a couple of classmates until school, counting the cut jar money with her insane cat, and eating a delicious sandwich at Meat and Bread.

The last day of school was a relatively easy day. It was a buffet day and we had done most of the prep the day before. There were supposedly ninety reservations in the books, but it actually seemed less busy than the previous buffet. I was a runner again, which was just fine for me - super easy. We cleaned up really fast again (everyone was pretty anxious to get out of there), and then we took a quick class photo before some celebratory champagne and then we were done! The whole class came out to the bar, which was awesome.

It was quite a year, and I am sad it's over. But I have some wonderful memories and some great friends to take with me. One chapter over. And now, onto new challenges. I'm excited to see what the next year will bring.