Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Iron Cupcake Competition! Yummeeee!

I participated in my first Iron Cupcake SF competition and it was awesome fun. The theme was "nuts" so I entered with a spiked eggnog with nutmeg cupcake. It was a yellow cake with a rum glaze and butter cream frosting with a sprinkle of nutmeg. It really tasted like eggnog! I served it with eggnog, too....  Sooooooo YUM!



I didn't win but it was a super fun experience anyway. I actually can't remember all the winners because they didn't really stand out for me. We each had to taste 22 different cupcakes and by the end of it I was a little...well...cupcaked out. So was my mom.






I am definitely doing it again! Next competition is in December and I have to do my "signature cupcake." I think I'm going to do bacon and cheddar. Yum!

Friday, November 19, 2010

And suddenly life happens....

I feel guilty about my lack of blogging presence. I did just get a new laptop so, once I get it online, I should be more attendant.

Life has been a whirlwind. I am in my Foundations 3 class, which basically consists of a day of lecture and food preps, and a day of mastering 2 dishes which are then graded. It's super busy and super tiring, but it's the nitty gritty of what school is about.

I recently participated in the Almost Famous Chef on-campus competition. I was chosen as a finalist, as usual, based on my personally written recipe and essay. The 5 finalists competed in a cooking and personality competition to see which 2 would represent the school in a regional competition in LA. I unfortunately lost, thankfully not due to my lack of personality, mostly due to my crappy food preparation. I have no problem following directions in class. But a recipe of my own creation tends to go bad.... One of my chefs put it like this, "If you were a jazz musician you would have to learn the basics of music before going into improvisation of jazz licks and being any good at it, right?" Right. So, I guess I'm not a pro chef yet. Oh well....the journey continues.

Monday is a cupcake contest that I'm super excited about. And a week after that is the gingerbread competition. Life just gets more and more exciting....

Meanwhile, I have until Dec 1st to get as many votes for my recipe as possible so that I can win the Tonnino Tuna scholarship. So post this link on your Facebook and get your friends to go here and vote for me!

http://www.tonnino.com/challenge/tannos-tonnino-tuna-treasure

You're the best fans ever!

Monday, November 8, 2010

The Ups and Downs of Wine Class...

So last week I finished my wine and writing classes. I got an A in each of them, despite my typical finals freak out.

I really feel like my freak out on the wine final was totally valid. He was really, really tough. I had trouble paying attention in class because of his lecture style (which I will not mock here, as you never know...). And there is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much random information about wine, you would not believe it!

Despite my qualms, I managed to perfectly translate an Italian wine label including what region of Italy the wine came from, what year it was harvested, the official quality level, what grape it was made out of, the body and taste of the wine and what to pair it with. Not an easy task. It surprised me how much information had seeped in over time.

One thing I can say I definitely got out of this class is an appreciation for wine. Jason (the new beau) and I went wine tasting and it was a lot of fun!

I'd go into more detail, but I guess I get scared no one will understand it. 6 weeks ago, it was Latin to me...

I Changed My Facebook Status....

Okay, I did it. No atom bombs blew up. But so far we've been hanging out for six straight weekends and it's been awesome! It's like meeting one of those people who you can just be completely comfortable with. I can't say anything that's embarassing because he just laughs everything off and makes it so much fun. We definitely have different tastes in a lot of things, but I almost enjoy listening to his annoying complaints about food, and he doesn't seem to mind my obsession with Justin Bieber....so sweet.