Right now, I'm in my second block of my second year, here at the CIA. On Monday, I started a class I'd been looking forward to for the entire duration of the time I'm here. It's Baking and Pastry Skills Development for Culinarians; my Baker friends call it the "outing class for cooks" because it's the class where all the cooks realize they should have been bakers. Thus far, I can see the point of their argument; it's been a lot of fun.

(pictured is streudel dough stretched paper-thin over the table with toppings being laid-out; click picture for more)

It's nice to be back into a kitchen after six weeks of classroom work, and it's even more nice to be back in a Skills class. You basically only have three Skill Development classes that are laid-back and more about gaining knowledge while in culinary school here. The first two are basic techniques for cooking; meaning stock making, sauces, protein cookery, and others. After those two classes, the rest of your kitchen classes, while a learning experience, are more hectic and pressured because your class is serving other students.

So it's nice to be back in a more easy-going class like this one, and it's even more beneficial for people like me that had a non-standard extern experience. "Hi Regan, this is a knife, I don't know if you remember it." So far, I've braided challah (a life goal), made puff pastry dough, locked in the butter plate for above mentioned puff-pastry, made awesome streudel, and decorated tuiles and tarts.