week one.

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.  - Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, Pavarotti, My Own Story


Well, I  have completed my first week as a Test Kitchen Extern at the Los Angeles Times! I got a badge, that makes me feel awesome because it opens doors! I went into Week One of this externship at The Times not fully knowing what to expect. I knew I would be testing recipes, and learning them to the point where they can be understood and followed by a home chef. When I arrived at work on Monday, my immediate supervisor had called in sick. This was both fortunate and unfortunate at the same time. Unfortunate because I had never met Noelle at this point, and was eager to meet her and get everything started. Fortunate though, because since the interns were short a hand, I was able to jump right in and do recipes on my first day. It was a good day to do so too because they were testing a cookie recipe that they got from The Cravery, and I am the only Baking and Pastry student in the kitchen! Being able to explain why things are done in a certain order/way in a cookie recipe made me feel like I had proved myself early on, and earned respect – even if my boss was not there.

Tuesday and Wednesday were a more typical example of what a day in the kitchen is going to be like. We arrive in the mornings and begin the mise en place for the recipes we are going to test that day. We try to figure out ahead of time how many times we are going to test each individual recipe, so we can try and gather all the ingredients only one time. This week, Noelle was testing her own pretzel recipe, which was so much fun to watch as I have never made pretzels. We tried them in a number of solutions, as the typical one is Lye and relatively dangerous to use at home without proper knowledge of what you are doing. We also tested cinnamon roll cookies from The Cravery, and a plum cake recipe brought in from an intern. It was a great first week, as we did so much baking!

Thursday was a unique day, as I got to go off site and assist our editor Russ in a demonstration at the Los Angeles County Fair. We did most of the mise en place ahead of time in the kitchen, and I was basically there to make sure everything ran smoothly and he had help handing out samples of the products he made. It was fun to be behind the scenes however; it felt like being on a live television cooking show! All in all, it was a very interesting first week, and while I feel more comfortable in the kitchen and with the people now, I am still not sure I know what to expect next week! But I am definitely looking forward to it!

Gardens!

Before I left Napa (:( ), we decided to have another fun foodie adventure and raid a whole bunch of gardens! We ate at Farmstead, right there in St Helena. The WHOLE place was absolutely gorgeous, and fabulous.

We picked apples, this is the restaurant! 

I picked an apple!

Kylie picked a CRAZY tomato!

 Megan picked her first apple ever!

Who knew asparagus grew like this? The french laundry apparently. 

So we ventured through Farmstead's garden, then moved over to Yountville to raid the French Laundry Garden, and then we ended at Bouchon for a sweet treat. 

Sorry For The Delay

It has been my last week at school, so I have been out enjoying Napa and all of its wonders - as well as packing. I've done lots of yummy, foody things this week. This post will be about the awesome field trip my class took last week! We got to go on an exclusive tour of Guittard chocolate factory. We got to learn all about their history, how it is STILL a family company, which is a miracle in today's world. Ghirardelli hasn't been family owned in decades. Anywho, when you walk into the door of Guittard, the first thing you see is a really awesome Cocoa Tree. These only grow in equatorial regions, and need lots of warmth and humidity. Yet Guittard tried, years ago, to plant on in their office! We got really lucky because, for the first time ever, they actually have A REAL COCOA BEAN!

I'm still kind of new to blogspot, so I dont know how to rotate the picture, but there it is! It was really cool to see what we had been learning about and only seeing fake ones of. 

So after that, there was no photography allowed, and we got to go through the whole factory, from the sorting of whole beans, down to how they roast and flavor all their chocolates. We got to taste a lot, and we got to see the R&D lab. The funniest part of the trip to me was that the guide kept saying that CIA uses exclusively Guittard chocolate, which I have never even seen on our grounds. But oh well. 

 After the tour, we went over the Golden Gate Bridge, which was the first time for many members of my class. So we had to stop and be touristy for a moment.

After that we stopped at a yummy, old fashioned French bakery/cafe for lunch in Marin County called Emporio Rulli. I thought I had pictures of this place, but apparently they have temporarily been misplaced. It was really cool though, to walk into a famous bakery and know that you have made everything in their pastry case, and probably better.

Oh, how I will miss CIA for the next five months.