FINALLY

Well, that took longer than expected.

Apologies for the complete lack of posts in May! On the bright side, May wasn't a fantastically exciting month.

Recap:

Field hockey is going well - the coach is pleased with how well I'm doing considering I've never played any kind of stick sport before, and the team is...well, the team is still the team. I only managed to go to a couple of games in May, because we had a bye one weekend and the other I had work. We didn't have a game this past weekend either, because it's a holiday weekend - Monday is the Queen's birthday, apparently, and so everything shuts down.

Speaking of work, I am now unemployed. Hooray! I gave my two weeks notice early May, after giving it a lot of thought and deciding that would probably be for the best. So far, so good! I'm not too keen on the idea of being unemployed for a long time, though, so I'm starting to look around a bit. In the next week I'll probably hit up every bakery in the nearby area (thanks, phone book!) and see if they have any positions open. Volunteering hasn't panned out so well either, but I'm still working on that.

As far as school goes, I got to re-sit an in-kitchen assessment I missed due to a mild case of food poisoning (Fun? No!) and that went smoothly. We had our third assessment as well, in which I managed to mess up a few things, but it's not too worrisome because they're rather minor and I have plenty of time to re-do them. Note to self: let meat rest before putting a sauce on it (I was worried about time restrictions and forgot about that...). We had our last in-kitchen class last Wednesday, and for the next three weeks we'll be doing productions in the actual restaurant, so people will be paying for the food we make, unfortunately for them. In the first week I'll be doing front of house stuff during lunch, the second week I'll be in the kitchen for lunch, and the third week I'll be in the kitchen for dinner - they have us split into three groups, and we rotate so other people are doing those things in a different order.

And now for the part that involves pictures!

Yesterday they had the "Midlands Hawke's Bay Charity Wine Auction" at a local (well, "local" - 20km away from us) winery called Elephant Hill, where I had never been before. Since dinner was accompanying the auction, the chefs at Elephant Hill had asked our program for help with it, and I signed up for the day of the event (they had others coming in on Thursday and Friday, but due to a problem with finding a ride, that didn't work out for me). Along comes Saturday, and my ride is nowhere to be found which is unfortunate because he was supposed to go as well. So I get a bit irritated and go about my business, when I get news from one of the heads of the course at EIT that someone else is driving over a bit late and I can get a ride with her, which I do!

(thanks, Mignon!)

It turned out to be a lot of fun - I was expecting it to be kind of blah, since catering isn't too thrilling on the actual day because no real cooking is actually done, mainly just finishing things and reheating them. The chefs there were really awesome, though, and the whole atmosphere was great. It turns out that there were only eight of us from EIT there, when at least 14 or 15 signed up, so I may get some brownie points for showing up (even if it was late...not my fault!). I'll be calling them in the next week or so to see if I could drop by once or twice a week to learn/help out - kind of like what I was thinking of doing with the Old Church once I left (oh, yeah, I was thinking of seeing if I could go back to the Old Church a couple of times a week to learn and help out - unpaid, that is), except that the chefs at Elephant Hill seem more experienced and the menu is a bit more interesting.

No offense, Old Church! They have their quota of fledgling chefs filled, though, I think. The food is still good and they're still nice people, I promise.

So anyways, pictures!

First, the menu:


(click to get it bigger so you can actually read it)

Second, the entrees:

(that's only half of them! There were around 300 people there - not sure how it tasted though, I didn't give it a try)

Closer shot of the food - sorry about it being sideways:

(this is before the pea and wasabi foam was added - just imagine light green foam on top of the herbs down the middle of the salmon)

Then, the main course:

(I don't really like lamb, but these were fantastic)

And finally, the dessert:

(also fantastic)

Oh, we also got to eat a lot of things because there were a few leftovers.

Yay!

So, I think that's pretty much it as far as big news goes. I've been making bread again and will actually have some loaves done in a few hours - we'll see how that goes. I'm having a bit of trouble actually getting big-ish holes in the bread (it's supposed to be rustic bread) - I'm thinking it's because the dough has been too dry, which I probably did unintentionally because I don't have a mixer to mix the dough. Having a mixer would make working with wet doughs a lot easier, but mixers cost money, which is what I'm trying to save at the moment.

Yay unemployment?

If it turns out well, I'll give you a peek!

If not, I'll just say it was mediocre.

Adieu!