It begins

While in culinary school, my classes, the labs in particular, required a journal every week. Being the ambitious and not quite sure what the instructor wants student, I did a daily journal. This turned out to be one of the best moves I could’ve done. My one Chef said our notebooks are for us to learn from and to continue to add to. I just finished my education on December 18th, and have decided to continue my journals. Only now, I’m going to post them online. I don’t know if I will be able to do it daily, but I am going to do my best.
What inspired me for my first entry was Iron Chef America on The Food Network. The challengers were Italian twins and the ingredient was lemons. It wasn’t even in to 5 minutes of the challenge, and I decided I would love to go to Italy and learn desserts from Italian chefs. I said to my husband that they have to do a lemon sorbet, and within 2 minutes, they made sorbet! I found myself intrigued by what they were doing with the lemons. I tried to guess what they were making before Alton Brown could (because he is so intelligent) but I wasn’t quick enough. As soon as he would say what it was, I could see it. I need to get better at that. The sorbet turned into an Italian drink with vodka. The Iron Chef side did mini baked alaskians with a sponge cake then lemon sherbet (which is slightly different from sorbet) then the Italian meringue on top of it. There was a lemon chip which would make a great top for a plating dessert. There was so much more on there I just couldn’t absorb it all!
This also inspired me to practice. I need to keep up with my newly learned skills. This will not only help me get a better job, but it will keep my mind challenged, my skills fresh, and my creativity active. I should pick an item and make 3 desserts from it. This will be my new schooling. I just need to decide if I should start with basic fruits (I’m more a fruit person than anything else) and go from there, or but a bunch of food in a hat and draw a food a day, or rather a week or month or something. I will have to see what happens with life and money.
So for my first entry, I have committed to several things and have basically given myself homework! I must keep up with the journal, look into learning in Italy, and having my own chef challenge. I would say I’m off to a pretty good start. I just need to keep myself motivated on this.