Life. Thoughts.

 Last weekend my sister and her husbands famlily were out here visiting, and they had mentioned that i have taken on the hippy mentality. That comment got me pondering about how much my thinking has changed. 
-I no longer just eat whatever (although a few of classmates will disagree with this! )
-I cant see a dessert or any kind of treat without thinking about what techniques they used
-I can justify spending more money on better quality food or tools 
-I actually drank a glass of wine and enjoyed it
Sure these are little things, but isnt it the little things that make the big picture. 
I am changing. I am growing. I am maturing. 

 Being here has been a fairy tale for me in a way. I had always wanted to go to pastry school. Also dreamt and talked about moving to vancouver. So having both of those come true was so awesome. 

 Im also learning about life in general. Dealing with people you like and dont like. How to be the person i want to be. 

Everyone has their days, But im hoping that i can learn to stay postive, and dont stress over those things that you cant control. 

Life is life. C'est La Vie.

 

And in the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths. Be thankful for the difficult times. During those times you 
grow. We have to deal with pain to find happiness. We have to deal with pain to find us. We become stronger with each bad day, bad relationship, bad past, just everything bad. We can make it all better in the end just by learning from it all. Challenges are what makes us who we are
 

<3 Amz

i have a long post for you guys! i should prob have updated a few times this week but i have been slacking :P

So one day of school was a bakery/pastry tour!  We started off looking at a few places in the granville island market, then went to Edible Flours, Thierry, Thomas Haas, and Cadeux, and then ended at the Public Library and watched Kings Of Pastry.

This is at Edible Flours, You can see in this picture how much space he has in the back to make all of his products !  They had pastries that were gluten free, Dairy Free, and nut free!  I loved thier Banana Bread!

This is at Thomas Haas, and their wide selection of truffles !

Thierry Macarons! Are gorgeous! and taste wonderful!

 We were special and got our own little room!

 This is the loot we had at the end from all the places !









Then on the weekend my class went on a walking tour of the city with Chef Tim and then ended at the Vancouver Convention Center for a food expo.

In the walking tour we learnt about the city, about certain buildings, a little bit of vancouvers heritage, and also just looked at the food service that was available.

This building entrance is beautifully crafted, and on the side of the building has a bunch of different boats, all depicting the story of vancouvers harbour. 

A law in vancouver is that when you want to build for the city to give you permission you also have to create an art peice. So this is a representation of the elevators in the buidling, and the blocks move in correspondance.

The Vancouver Public Library, built like the colosseum, interesting fact about this place is that some tiles are still not set. 

Grafitti :)








The food expo was very interesting, there was booths set up from people selling water, dishes, take out containers, equipment, uniforms, food, pretty much anything that you would use in a food & beverage industry was there represented by at least one booth! Also got to watch a competition that 4 students from my school had entered.

The school is participating in Dine Out Vancouver, So for dessert we have 3 categories, Chocolate Trio, Nuts and Brittle, and Deep Freeze

I was on Chocolate trio first, And well this day was kinda a disaster lol. nothing was working for me. I made tart shells but then they werent coming out without breaking, and then i tried a differnt way and it was still not working, but with Chef Tanya's help i did get a dessert to serve!






Chocolate Shortbread base, with a white chocolate mousse, and milk chocolate sorbet on the side

The other choc trio dessert i made was a chocolate torte that had a chocolate almond base and then white chocolate ice cream.








Then i was supposed to have 2 days off of plated desserts but someone in our class was sick so i got to do an extra day of plated dessert! So i did the nuts and caramel one this time.

So i did a caramel Swirl cheesecake with a walnut/pecan base, some brittle, and a gooey caramel truffle as the garnish :)
















This is just showing that my truffle was a liquid inside :P










Then when it was my turn on plated desserts i was assigned deep freeze.

So my first day i did a modern Banana Split.


I made tuille cups, and filled them with chocolate ice cream, strawberry granita and coconut ice cream, and then i saute bananas and grilled some coconut

My second day i did PB & J

It was a chocolate peanut butter semi-freddo, strawberry granita, and i made a suger nest for the garnish.












Other things i have done in school this week..




I made mini apple pies for Chef Tims wine clsss! and well i dont like making pies, i suck at it. lol. but these ones turned out beautifully!

There was a cupcake competition!
I entered with a Tiramisu Cupcake.
The winner from my class was an Olive Oil Cupcake, so she will be competiting in the middle of february!

I also did my Major Final Assignment, which is a 15 min presentation. Mine was on Peter Reinhart, so i made Struan :)












Well i believe that is all for now, hope everyone is doing well!
<3 Amz