01/29/2001

Lately I've been thinking a lot about where I want to end up in the culinary world. I'm finding the more I work with pastries the more I want to do nothing else. It is truly amazing what can be done with 4 ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, eggs). I have

Lately I've been thinking a lot about where I want to end up in the culinary world. I'm finding the more I work with pastries the more I want to do nothing else. It is truly amazing what can be done with 4 ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, eggs). I have been told that at my age (31) going the Pastry Chef route isn't a bad idea because of the shorter distance to making decent money. I can become a Pastry Chef in 3-5 years versus 7-10 years for a Chef. Since I have found a great pastry mentor at my current restaurant I'm going to take advantage of that and see if pastries is really what I want to do. I'll be focusing on pastries, and not the hotline, for the rest of my staging. Also, I have made a decision not to make any decisions. I am not going to decide which direction I will go (Chef vs. Pastry Chef) until I get through J&W. With all the new things I'll be experiencing in school it wouldn't make sense to decide without all the information. And I'm starting to drive myself (and my wife) crazy with all my talking about it. I sure am glad she's patient. My second pastry location has been arranged and I'll be starting there the week of 2/12. 2/1/01 -Got in at 6:00pm and found out the Pastry Chef went home sick at 4:00pm. There wasn't a ton of stuff for me to help out with but I was there so I put in a few hours and made a couple new things. The first thing I made was a Bonet (chocolate and Amaretto base for a crème caramel). After the Bonet, I made cranberry compote, which was the best cranberry anything I have ever tasted (if I do say so myself). Also cut a large sheet of fudge into 1"x1" squares. That wasn't very exciting, but the "trimmings" sure were good. 2/04/01 - Catfish can be blackened, Redfish can be blackened, apple galettes cannot be blackened. Burnt them so badly I felt sorry for them. A quick word of advice, timers are fantastic and very easy to operate, use them. Because of the torching I had a running nightmare Saturday night that I kept burning everything I threw in the oven. I'd wake up in a panic after pulling a burnt something out of the oven. Went back to sleep, burnt the next item, woke up in a panic again. So, other than burning the galettes, I made pate a choux, fig tarts, apple tarts, zabaglione and my new item was a coconut milk pastry. For whatever reason I felt "off" today. Had less to make, but finished later than usual. Not sure why, but everyone is allowed an off day every once in a while. Burnt a finger as well. Burning seemed to be the theme for the day. -Logan

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