Promotions, Finals, and Feeling at home

Well, I finished another term/semester/mod at school and am happy to say that I still have an A. The last few weeks of school have been a real test. I had to work with a partner that I cannot stand and have come to the realization that I am an absolute control freak. It's not a very flattering quality so I'm going to work on it. I had my final on Sunday and for the final we had a written portion and then we had to decorate a cake. We made the lemon-scented cake again, but this time we got to choose the flavors and determine how we wanted to decorate it. I chose to do raspberry jam with a framboise (raspberry liquer) flavored buttercream. We practiced our piping skills on Saturday and by Sunday my rosettes looked a lot better. When we finished our cakes we had to sit down with the chef one-on-one and discuss our thoughts on what our grade should be. I kind of hate having to self evaluate and tell someone what grade I think I deserve. I had a class in college where the professor didn't believe in grades, so we each had to meet with him and tell him what grade to give us. I was having flashbacks to that when I went to sit down with the chef. I finished my cake first and volunteered to go get graded first. There were different criteria like how the sides of the cake looked, the top of the cake, finishing details, the layers on the inside, etc. The sides of my cake looked kind of crappy because I had a little trouble with them, so he asked me what I thought I deserved out of 18. I said 13 because I was not very happy with the work and knew I could have done better. He told me that I am too hard on myself and gave me a 16. I ended up with an A (although a low A like a 93) so I was pretty satisfied. Plus the chef said some really nice things to me, which made me feel pretty good. Next weekend begins the chocolate mod along with more cake decorating. So stay tuned. (Oh - side note, I tried my cake before I got rid of it and it was delicious!)

On another front, I got promoted to shift supervisor at Starbucks today. I'll be making about two dollars more an hour which is really nice. I've come to the realization that I love it here. I've made some really great friends and I get to live in quite possibly the craziest place on the planet. I still am surprised sometimes to think that I actually did this; that I actually moved out here on my own without knowing anyone. I feel really proud of myself to be honest, hopefully I can say that without sounding boastful. On a side note: I'm re-reading "The Great Gatsby" and was reminded by one particular passage as to why I loved F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing. So, I'll leave you with that. Hope everyone has a good week. I'll see you soon!

"He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself." 

Ribbon cakes, cookies, parfaits and being good at balancing...

I have to wear my hair in a bun at school so that I can avoid wearing a hairnet; so at the end of the day when I take the bun down, my hair has dried in a weird direction and gets all twisted and looks pretty funny. I should have started this off by saying that I'm coming home in April. I'll be home from April 5-9, so hopefully I'll see you while I'm there. School has been moving along swiftly and I cannot believe I only have a couple more months of classes. I've been having a good time this semester and really enjoy my instructor. Getting a compliment from someone who is fairly critical feels a lot better than from someone who compliments everything. We've been making a bunch of stuff and I keep surprising myself by doing really well on it and being told so by my teacher as well. Enough bragging about myself though. I have some pictures!

insert clever title here...

I've sat down to write a new post like three times over the course of the last two weeks and each time have found myself with nothing to say. So, if this feels slightly forced or maybe not entirely interesting you have my apologies. I guess another excuse is that the weather has been amazing here (minus today as it's been raining all day - but hey it's not snow right?) Here's a semi boring description of my commuting plans: (this has a point I swear) I live uptown on the west-side and my job is on the east-side. So, in the afternoon when I get out of work I typically take a crosstown bus so that I can just take the train right home, instead of having to transfer trains and such. However, as I mentioned, the weather has been so nice lately that I decided to start walking across town instead of taking the bus. This means that I get to walk through Central Park on my way home everyday. (The above picture is of the big lake in Central Park that I get to walk past.) I didn't have school last weekend so I got to sleep in and go out with some friends which was fun.
School has been good, I really like my new instructor. He taught us some new piping techniques and once again complimented me on my work. We've also made some more cakes, but I think that I only have a picture of one, here it is:

We made Genoise cakes which is just a type of sponge cake, although if you say Genoise instead of sponge you sound much more pretentious (just make sure to use a very French pronunciation.) We made a chocolate one and also a plain one. I don't remember which one this is because I finished them similarly, but the plain one had raspberry jam and lemon curd. I've got to be honest and say that I would probably eat anything thing that has lemon curd on it, because it's pretty much the most delicious thing ever. My chocolate one was layered with raspberry jam, whipped cream and fresh raspberries. By the way I whipped the cream by hand, take that Kitchenaid... That was pretty much all we did at school, it was a pretty laid back weekend which was nice. Tomorrow we have an exam so I'm hoping I do alright.

I decided this year to participate in Lent, mostly because I have never done so, and partly because I wanted to kind of challenge myself. So, for Lent I decided that the only beverages I would drink would be water and tea (unsweetened). So, no soda, no juice, and worst of all - no coffee. So far so good though. Have any of you given up anything for Lent? Also, on a slightly more embarrassing note I have been marathoning episodes of Felicity on Netflix. I never saw it when it aired on tv, but I kind of love it. I've been getting a lot of flack at work about it hahaha. On that note, I am going to go study for my test.Talk to you soon.
Kayla

Let's all pretend that it hasn't been two weeks since my last post...

Alright, where to begin... Well a couple of weeks ago I went back home to Michigan to see my family and friends. I had a very busy but fun trip and got to see almost everyone that I was hoping to. I made it back to New York by myself and realized that it now feels like home here. Mostly because I have a routine that I was anxious to get back into. After I got back I went back to work and had a dinner out with my coworkers. Afterwards we went to a karaoke bar and somehow I ended up getting onstage with a couple of co-workers and singing a terrible (but secretly awesome) R&B song from the early 2000's in front of a room full of people. Somewhere a video of this exists but I am trying my best to never let it see the light of day hahaha. Now onto school:

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This is just a placeholder to let you all know that I am alive and well, and I will have a new blog post tomorrow. Bear with me, I haven't gotten to sleep any later than 430 am for the last two weeks so I'm a little tired.
Until tomorrow,
Kayla

Part two because I'm terrible at blogging,..

OK, so I had to split this into two parts because I could not get the pictures to go where I wanted them to, so before I threw my computer at the wall I thought I would just create a new post...

Oh that? That's just two pounds of butter that I got to beat flat with a rolling pin... no big deal

Apple tart with puff pastry

OK, That's it for school. In other news, I'm coming home in about a week and am beyond excited! I seriously cannot wait to see all of you! Alright that's all for now! See you soon! 

Kayla

Sorry that I've neglected this...

I’m sorry!!!!! For real, it’s been forever since I last posted and I feel terrible about it. However, I started back at school this week and I actually have stuff to post about other than weird Starbucks customers and homeless people. (Although I have had plenty of encounters with both - trust me.) Anyhow since I last posted Christmas happened, my friend Charlotte came to town, I got sick, and most importantly I booked a plane ticket home! I’ll start with Charlotte’s visit first.

Delicious Falafel!

Char came to visit on the 28th and I managed to take the bus to the airport and pick her up without getting lost! I was quite proud of myself for that. I ended up staying with her at a hotel in Flushing and we took the train to and from Manhattan. By the way if you come to visit, don’t stay in Flushing. The only cool part about Flushing is that you can see where the US Open is played. (This might not be anything exciting for people who are not tennis fans…) I don’t remember exactly what we did but I will try to recap anyhow. On the first day that she was here we went to the Upper East Side to visit the MET (which by the way was amazing as always), we grabbed lunch at a local diner, and then walked through Central Park afterwards. I think that day we also went and saw “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” but I can’t be sure, we also went to a tapas bar (Spanish food which is fun to tell people about because they ALWAYS think you said topless :-\ ). After the tapas bar we went to see Times Square and the Christmas tree while they were lit up at night. The next day we went into Manhattan, first to 59th street to visit Dylan’s Candy Bar, where I found these shirts that Lauren needs to own immediately:

After the candy bar we went into the Times Square area to do some shopping. I warned Charlotte that it would be packed (after all this was only a couple of days before New Years) but we went anyway and were astounded to see just how crazy it was. After braving a couple of stores we walked over to Bryant Park, where there happens to be a branch of the library. I pretty much fell in love right away. The building is enormous and beautiful and it’s filled with books and history. Can it really get better than that? The answer is no. After some more walking around we went to Brooklyn to get some pizza. I should point out that after being quite warm it had gotten very cold this day. It was somewhere around 27 degrees when we got to the pizza place, which had a line half a block long. Charlotte questioned whether this pizza would be worth the hour long wait, but after I assured her that it was, she agreed to wait. And after an hour in the cold and not being able to feel our toes, we got inside and had the most delicious pizza in the world. (I would say it’s an exaggeration, but I truly believe this.) After pizza we walked down to the water to see the awesome view of the city skyline at night and then trekked back into Manhattan to go see a comedy show at the Upright Citizens Brigade. If you are ever in the city I really recommend going to the UCB. It’s only five bucks and it’s always funny, no matter what show you’re seeing.  On Charlotte’s last day in the city we ventured into Chelsea (an area in Manhattan) to see my school and the Flatiron building. We then walked around to find a place to eat lunch and stumbled upon a Mediterranean restaurant that had a falafel pita on the menu, so we of course went in. The restaurant was kind of fancy but super reasonable. It was about 12 bucks for the falafel and fries; and it was delicious! (I just had to google it, but it’s called Barbounia.) After lunch we walked a block down to Crumbs Bake Shop and got a cupcake for later. I got a peppermint hot chocolate one and it was pretty good. After a quick visit to my favorite Barnes and Noble (aka a four story one), I rode the train with Charlotte back into Queens so that she could catch her flight back home. I had a great time having a friend visit, but I have to admit that being a tourist is exhausting. I was glad to get back to my normal routine.

Peppermint hot chocolate cupcake

The Library!

Alright, onto school. This weekend we made puff pastry. I’ve kind of been dreading it because it’s a laminated dough, like the croissants, so it involves a lot of rolling the dough out and doing “double turns” and other fun things. I was worried that I would end up messing it up like I did my croissants. Well guess what? Turns out I’m pretty good at laminating dough / making puff pastry! I was pretty excited when I had no trouble rolling out the dough to the length of the table. We also got to use a “sheeter” on Sunday which was pretty neat since it rolls out the dough for you. I don’t remember what else we did, but here are some pictures. Wait! We also made stroudel! It was crazy, we had to stretch this little amount of dough into a huge sheet. OK, now here are the pictures: