It's been a year..... Well almost

Wow.  I'm amazed that's it's been almost a year since my last post.  And honestly enough a lot has happened in this past year.  So here's a recap......

Spring Term 2010
Latin Cuisine:
I had a great time and learned a lot.  Made some new friends too.  We studied all over Latin America, but I think my favorite region would be Caribbean Cuisine.  I love the tropical fruits and seafoods that are staples throughout caribbean cuisine.  One thing I learned is how to make about a million different varieities of ceviche.  Every country seems to have it's own version or two.  It was fun leanring and trying new things.  Chef Robinson really let us go out side the box and make our own variations on many of the recipes we were assigned.  The important part was that we understood the concept and fundamentals of each dish.

American Cuisine:
Another class I really enjoyed.  The US was broken down into 8 regions and each week was a different region.  Everything was delisious and felt very much like comfort food.  But if I had to pick a favorite it would have to be creol cuisine.

Summer Term 2010
Cost Control:
Not a production class, and by far my least favorite of all my classes taken at AiW.  It was an excel based class so I did fairly well.  We had a final project in which we had to:
Plan a Menu
Inventory
Item Spec Sheet
Standardized Recipe for each menu item
Cost out each recipe
Menu Analysis
The project wasn't hard just time consuming.

Product ID:
This was sort of a production class.  We learned about different products like spices and salts, meats, vegetables, and pretty much everything food wise that someone would encounter in a kitchen.  It was a great class.  We didn't have recipes so we could pretty much do whatever we wanted.  I had rabbit for the first time in this class, and I gotta say..... I loved it.

Gastronomy:
This history and study of food.  Such an awesome class.  I would take it again if I could.  Lots of reading, but hey it's a history class.  So far my favorite class taken.  I learned so much about the way food has influenced culture and culture has infulenced food.  It's all really facinating.

Fall Term 2010:
Food and Beverage Operation:
This was my wine tasting class.  I know so much about wine I even amazed myself.  I loved this class and I'm thinking about taking other wine related classes.

Management by Menu:
This class was all about Menu design, Restaurant Cencept and kitchen layout.  A fun class because it was with Chef Logan, but I'm not sure it really needed to be a whole 10 week course, but it was fun coming up with a restaurant concept.  I chose a Victorian era themed restaurant called Pinkertons.  It was gonna be very steampunk in nature.  I'll be sure to post the concept.

Asian Cuisine:
Not at all what I was expecting.  But still lots of fun.  I learned how to make many of my favorite Asian dishes and desserts.  I wish that we did more Japanese and Korean dishes, but I've got the book, so I can always do them at home.  The one region I wasn't expecting was India.  I've even made some Indian dishes at home, much to Tim's delight.

Winter Term 2011:
Introduction to Baking and Pastry:
I decided to take it easy this term and only take one class.  It was a lot of fun and very frustrated.  I feel that I would have been better of by myself than in a group.  I did all the work anyway.  My favorite part of this class was making all the breads.  I think I might actually take the Artisan Bread class offered in the summer.  I enjoyed making all the various sweets, but I didn't much like eating them.  All that sugar, just made me sick.

Other Cuilinary Adventures:
In September, a friend (at the time), Tim and I went to Lima, Peru for 10 days for the Gastronomy fair there called Mistura.  It was a lot of fun, but also sucked.  I made a new friend, but also lost a friend in the process.  In hindsight, I'm not sure if it was worth the trip.

I've also entered in two competitions.  The first one was the school's Tapas competition that entered in with my friend Maria.  We took 3rd place.  The other competition I've entered in is the USA Pears Competition.  It's a national recipe competition.  I'll post the recipe and picture soon.

Well I guess that's it for now.  Stay tuned.....more posts to follow.