my struggle

There is one particular sin that is probably at the deepest root of my heart-- one that oftentimes drives my actions, thoughts, and even personality. . . It's no secret to anyone who knows me, and it's definitely something that I have been trying to battle against all throughout my life.

Pride.

When pride hits, there's a dual action going on, one being that I view myself pretty highly, and two being that I view others pretty lowly. It's a very disgusting and ugly truth to realize about myself, and when I see it come out, I just feel dirty all over.

My journey through undergrad at Stern was definitely an interesting time that God humbled me and my naive dreams of becoming the next hot-shot corporate CEO -- He humbled me through grades, career choices, classmate/friends, and even through a simple disinterest in all things finance. I think that God really helped shield me from pride because I didn't really envy my banker friends or feel a need to compare myself to them -- I knew I wasn't meant for that track.

But now, in culinary school, I'm facing this challenge of pride in a much stronger way. Baking is something that I actually enjoy and am good at. It's hard not to place a certain identity or confidence and satisfaction in the work that I do, especially because I feel like this is one of those "things" that make me, me.

In my class of 22 students, I am usually the first person to finish all of the tasks, and 4 of my classmates have also told me "wow, you're really fast!" When I see my other classmates' products, I can't help but feel that I am more talented, better at multi-tasking, and a faster worker than they are. When I give my products to friends to eat, their exclamation of "wow, this is really good!" only heightens my regard of myself.

Throughout this entire past week, I think 75% of my conversations with people (not close close friends, but just people I see maybe once a week @ sg/fellowship) have revolved around culinary school, food, etc. And this, too, also feeds into my pride. When all I do every day and all I talk about every day is baking and culinary school, it becomes really easy to love and to feed on this feeling of self-exaltation.

Yesterday, at small group, we were talking about sin, and though the topic wasn't pertaining to pride specifically, I think God was really challenging me to examine where my heart had been. In Luke 14:11, He says that "for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." I had been exalting myself and letting others exalt me too, and though it was satisfying in the moment, minutes later I would feel sooooo dirty. Aggghhhh even as I write this now, my pride disgusts me sooo much I don't even want to write out the full offences that I've committed against God.

I don't want to have everyone look at me in this "ooooh, ahhhh" kind of way. I don't want to look at my classmates in a "I'm so much better than you" way. And most of all, I don't want to forget that God is the giver of all good gifts, and just as He so easily gives, He can just as easily take away. Baking and food and my talent should never become my god. I want to be able to use my baking as a means through which I can help share the love of God with others, but if my pride is going to become the god that people worship, then I've failed. Mikey once (or several times...) said that "there is no place for God in the kitchen." It's sooo true, and I'm realizing it more every day. If I am going to walk around class exalting myself, where is the Gospel in that?

So until I feel like I will not be tempted to let myself or my food become my god (or your god), I will not be posting anything about culinary school or baking. I'm taking the "#3 step of addressing sin" (from Bible study yesterday) and separating myself from it. Also, if you see me and want to talk to me about classes and stuff, please help keep me accountable to how I talk about culinary school. Thanksssss.

Tarts tarts tarts galore!

It's amazing how much material and many recipes we cover each day! The start of this week has been pretty good, as we've had many lectures on sanitation (I can't look at ground beef the same ever again), rolled many tarts shells, and made lots of fun fillings.

This is a banana cream tart (tarte aux bananas et creme). The tart shell is a pate sucree (sweet tart dough), filled with creme legere (which is a mixture of pastry cream (creme patissiere), heavy whipping cream, and some rum for good fun) folded with some bananas. We piped some rosettes out of creme chantilly on top.

My chef said that my rosettes looked more like soft-serve swirls -_- (that's not a good thing).

Tarte aux fruits frais -- Fresh Fruit Tart

In all honesty, I think this has got to be one the yummiest fruit tarts I've ever tasted (and yummiest things I've ever made). Technically I'm not allowed to say "yummy" anymore because we are sophisticated chefs who should comment on the look, texture, flavor, smell, etc... But seriously guys, it's YUMMALICIOUS. This is a pate sucree shell blind-baked with some creme d'amande (almond cream, which is a mixture of almond paste, butter, eggs, etc), then spread with a layer of creme patissiere on top. We had more practice with knife skills, making orange supremes, cutting strawberries, kiwis, etc... I think my favorite part of this tart is eating the bite with the orange -- the slightly acidic orange complements the creamy almond cream REALLY well.

This is the Pear and Almond Tart, Bourdaloue Style (Tarte Bourdaloue). We poached the pears in a syrup made out of wine, sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla beans. We rolled out a flaky pate brisee (but I rolled mine too thin, so I had to use a traditional sweet cookie-like pate sucree instead), then baked it with almond cream and the fanned-out poached pears on top, sprinkled with some slivered almonds. Also super yum.

We also baked some gingersnap cookies (pictured bottom left corner) (but only got to keep 5...the school gives away the rest to customers at L'Ecole -- another reason to eat a meal there). The girl across from me didn't want to take her tart home, so I asked her if i could take it.... She willingly obliged and I happily packed it away into my tupperware! YAY. Hahahaha....So I came home with 2.75 tarts, 5 cookies, and 2 large bags under my eyes (as you can see in the picture.......)

Much, much more to come in the next few days.....

My first week of school!

Can you believe it?! I'm actually in culinary school o_O I never expected my life to take this turn that it has, but now that I'm here, I'm loving every minute of it! (pix from my iphone..)

Here's my school!! The fabulous and fantastic French Culinary Institute, located at 462 Broadway, New York, NY. As you can see, we have our own fancy shmancy restaurant downstairs called L'ecole where the students cook everything and charge $$$$$ for it. It's mighty tasty (see this post) for a taste of what you can eat!

Just some of the study material that we got at Orientation -- one giant binder for our first units, JUST on tarts&cookies. Can you imagine how many recipes and stuff I'll have for cakes, chocolates, etc etc etc?! yikes.

A proper student uniform has a double-breasted white coat (with my name engraved), hat which should cover all of your hair (I'm a rebel), neckerchief (not shown), apron, side towels, black&white checkered pants, leather shoes (with really good support), and clean fingernails & good hygiene. Hahaha...

My pastry toolkit that we get to keep!! EEKS it's soooooo great.

The Pastry1 classroom. My classmates (19 girls, 3 guys) are enjoying our lunch.

Chef-instructor Mike answering some questions about our apple tart.

The Culinary 4 students cook our family meal (lunch) every day. I had some salad, potatoes, coleslaw, pasta, garlic bread, rice pudding, and some hazelnut mousse that the pastry students made. Yumzzzzzz. I'm totally gonna gain weight if I eat this much every day for lunch.

This is our very first finished product!! An apple tart! We made the dough, rolled it out, made the apple compote filling, sliced the apples, arranged them, and baked them! My chef was actually "very impressed" with my product =P This classic french apple tart has 3 of the key french flavors: lemon, vanilla, and butter...Here it is before baking...

...and the end result (minus the glaze, which we ran out of time to do...). It tastes like vanilla applesauce in a tart.

This upcoming week, we're gonna make a banana cream tart, some gingersnap cookies, fruit tart, and lots of other fun stuff.

Yay!

wise words from Tom Colicchio

"Humility is essential in order to learn and improve. Remember that it is far more valuable in the long run to quietly watch and listen than to worry about showing off your skills to fellow chefs. Even after all these years, I'm still learning new things from my colleagues.

Lest all this sound too discouraging, rest assured that a career in the culinary arts offers more than enough rewards to make up for the challenges.

Being a chef allows you the opportunity to be an artist, an entrepreneur, an innovator, and a leader. As you progress in your career as a culinary professional, you will enjoy a creative outlet that is unrivaled by most anything else.

...

Lastly, and most importantly: if food is what you love, then working in this industry will be its own reward."

From the foreward of Love What You Do: Building a Career in the Culinary Industry by the Dorothy Hamilton, the founder of FCI

I'm gonna get fat

Going to pastry school means:

1) making a lot of pastries

2) taking home a lot of pastries

My friend (and old childhood neighbor) just started evening pastry classes a few weeks ago, and she's already made and taken home a TON of yummy-looking stuff! Check out her blog:

http://eening7.wordpress.com/

So...........if anyone wants to take some food off my hands, by all means let me know.