My Scrapbook Challenge!

I have been procrastinating long enough and I have a small box of photos (these do not include several albums I have) that I would love to scrapbook. I would love to scrap these photos and incorporate several journaling pages (my diaries/journals)that I have kept over the years in one easy to follow story of my life. I am not writing a book, so it won't be overwhelming. This will be a compilation of my fondest memories, correlating with my fondest photos. I want to save these memories for my family and future children and their children, and so on. So...Here is my challenge to myself...

1 Box of photos from my childhood and early adulthood - approx 228 photos (maybe more)
+
1 Lifetime of Memories & experiences

8 months and 19 days (263 days) to scrap it

I am giving myself just until the end of this year because I know that starting in January I will be 1 busy gal. I will have my culinary externship to do - hopefully OUT of the country, plus I will be 5 months away from my wedding...and other things "ahem". ;)
So, I can't waste any more time! I will use scrapbook challenges when I can (so I have a chance to win goodies to replenish my stash!) I have a few favorites lined up:
Practical Scrappers
Scrapbook Challenges
The Scrap Room
Sketchy Thursdays

If anyone knows of other good scrapbook page challenges, please let me know! Maybe you can join along with me if you want to! I can't wait to get started, but I know that hard part will be staying focused.

I have sauce practicals (tests) tomorrow on Bechamel, Veloute, Espagnole and Hollandaise. Wish me luck!! :)

Scrap Room Lookout! I'm Baaaack!

I am back in the saddle, so to speak! Along with Culinary school I am going to be buckling down and doing some major scrappin this year. I know that with my wedding coming up next May and other things we have planned, I will need to catch up on my scrapping by the END of this year! I am making a challenge for myself and I'll post it up tomorrow. I am still figuring out the details, but it would be cool if you would like to follow along! I know it's great inspiration for me when I get some friends involved. :)
For my page today I used one of the last sketches from Triple the Sketch, and I used The Scrap Room Blog challenge Week #14 challenge which was to cut AROUND some of the fun patterns in your patterned papers. I also used the Practical Scrappers challenge which was to use glitter and bling! (love it!)
I used American Crafts paper, some half pearls and a pearl swirl, rhinestones, and a cute transperancy from Hambly Screen Prints(that I won from Studio Calico). I don't use transperancies much because I never know what to do with them, but I loved this one! It was much easier than I thought! I only did a little bit of distressing with some charcoal ink to add a little somin somin. :) I can't wait to start my challenge tomorrow!!!

2nd Term Culinary School - Foundations II

So today was my first day back to school, our 2nd term. Our chef is Chef Bruno...he's from Peru and has quite the heavy accent. So, in between his thick accent and talking pretty fast I will strain to keep up. Today we made brown stock and tomorrow we'll drop it (strain it out). When we were almost done with the stock, everyone combined all their ingredients into 2 stock pots. We cleaned up and he announced we had a pop quiz from our 1st term, YIKES! I hoped I remembered everything...
We came back from break and took the test. I felt like I might have missed 5 or 6 out of 20. I hope I didn't miss more than that. Then I suddenly remembered we didn't put in the sachet (or bouquet garni) of herbs into the stock. (He didn't mention it to us) I asked him about it. He said "Do you have it ready?" I said, "no". So he said "oh well, don't worry about it". LOL! Hope our stock will still taste superb anyway! :)
Like Chef Dellar said last term, "It's ON!".

Spring Break!!!

So I'm on Spring Break and visiting my parent's in the mountains for a couple days. I thought it would be nice to relax for a bit after some stressful finals at school. I did very well, thankfully, getting a 98/100 on the final knife skills test. Also got a 70/75 on my written final. My mayo and hollandaise sauces came out pretty good too. It was a pretty good first 6 weeks of school!

Now I'm diving into planning the wedding! I never thought I would be looking at dresses again but I am. There are sooo many lovely ones. I went to David's Bridal with one of my bridesmaids, Aleanea, yesterday. Just from that store I had about 5 favorites! I'm definately going with white, at least I know that for sure! hahaha

Colors...I still haven't decided on colors. It's tough choosing. This is my 3rd wedding so I'm trying to be original. I am really leaning towards Mostly Moss and Perfect Plum from Stampin Up. The other colors I'm looking at are Night of Navy and Bordering Blue. Also Melon Mambo and Bermuda Bay. So do I go with a "contrast" in colors or colors from the same family?? What do you think? :) Maybe I can do a poll....

Knife Skills

Ok...knife skills. To say the least, it was a stressful. We only had 30 minutes to do 10 cuts. I don't think I even breathed for those 30 minutes. We had to produce specific amounts and pieces of each item. I did 8 of them. I need to practice!!! 30 minutes does not seem like enough time.
On a lighter note, we watched our Chef instructor make Tomato Sauce today. It was just basic tomato sauce with only an herb sachet, and garlic to flavor it. After it was pureed, it was delish! I want to make some this weekend. We'll see if I have time, I'm going snowboarding! Then headed to my niece's 1st birthday party, then practicing my knife skills. The test is next Wednesday! :O
Oh, I made the potato soup but it had too much chicken bouillon I think. I would share the recipe, but I don't think it is worthy enough. I'll think of something else to share with you all that you'll really enjoy. :)

2nd Week of Culinary School & Some Thoughts

So this week we have been busy! We are still practicing our knife cuts, julienne, brunoise, baton, small dice, chiffonade, minced. We have a practice test tomorrow! OMG, tomorrow?! Our Chef instructor gave us his grade sheet so we can see how he will judge. I am nervous. I mean, chopping, how hard can it be? But julienne, baton, brunoise?? These are precise cuts people. We're talking 1/4" and 1/8" slices that have to be SQUARE or you will not get a perfect square brunoise or small dice! I better practice. Good thing I am making Baked Potato Soup tonight. :) I will be practicing on my potatoes! I'll let you know how that goes...
We also dropped a beef stock. No we didn't drop it on the floor LOL...but we poured it out from the stock pot into a china cap (sieve). Then we skimmed it, brought it to 70 degrees F in an ice bath and then refrigerated it. I did not realize that there were so many steps to stock making!
Today we watched our Chef instructor make Brown Sauce or Espagnole, White Sauce and Veloute. We only tasted, but he said in our next 6 weeks it will be on! We'll be stock making on the first day of school! I can't wait! There are so many sauces that are made from the "mother" sauces. I hope that I'll be able to learn them all and be able to make them!
So right now I'm wondering what I will do with my training and knowledge from culinary school. I pretty much have no idea. But I do know that I've wanted to do it for so long and it's fun. I'm enjoying it immensely. I will post pictures soon, and maybe a recipe for the Baked Potato Soup!

Off to practice knife cuts!!

The first week of Culinary School...

So, I made it through the first week of culinary school. We had our first test today. It wasn't too bad, I think I missed maybe 4. It was multiple choice and some T/F.

Today I felt the pure happiness of living a dream. I realized I am so blessed to be attending school full time and not having to work. Not only that, it's culinary school. Something I've dreamed about for probably the last 7 years.

I'm loving it so far. Today we got our knife kits. They are very complete with several tools I can't wait to use like my microplane/zester, my whisk, and my sheet pan rubber thingy (although I don't think that is the name of it)...lol...I'll get the hang of all this name stuff. I'm learning that a saucier makes sauces, hot hor'dourves, stews and sautées foods to order and that Boulanger first starting serving soups he called "restaurants" or "restoratives" in 1765 in Paris.

We practiced some knife cuts today, julienne and brunoise. These cuts are very small, only 1/8". They are pretty difficult, but I know with practice it will get easier.
I'm not sure what my plans will be after culinary school...maybe a food writer, or working in a kitchen somewhere...there are so many possibilities.

I'll have to take some pictures of all the fun I'm having and share them. No actual food is being made yet. Well except for my own cooking at home. :)