A State of the Tart Education

First things first, I just wanted to give a shout out to one of my favorite professors from my time at UNI. Thanks to social media, we are still connected and he is the one who encouraged me to start a blog! And guess what! He also has a blog that you can check out. My favorite post so far is about 30 things he has learned in his first 30 years, which you can check out here!

Second of all..
Today is a snow day.

[This is me creeping on my neighbor at 7:30 in the morning. Super glad I'm not him...although I will be when I go to work in a few hours.]


Now I know this is what you're all thinking:

But in reality, snow days have always been god-given catch up days for me.

...With the exception of the Blizzard of '09. That was a day full of venturing to the dining center through waist-high drifts, making our dorm room a winter wonderland, Friend-Christmas, and overall a day full of shenanigans.

THAT was a good day.


But today, I received a class cancellation text at 5:32am and immediately started making lists of things I need to get done, rendering me unable to fall back asleep. Hopefully I will find time to snow-shoe my way to the grocery store and back because, naturally, I am out of the basic necessities. Also, a deep clean of my apartment is in order because with the constant coming and going, class uniforms/work uniforms/bags/backpacks/shoes/dishes etc. have piled up and my apartment is starting to resemble gollum's cave and soon enough I'll be like:

So trust me, in order to keep the friends I still have after posting that picture, cleaning needs to be a priority.

Enough of my first world problems.. you probably want to hear how classes are going!

Scene: Enter Kirkwood Hospitality Arts Building

For those who don't know, the Hospitality program (Culinary Arts/Baking & Pastry Arts/Hotel Management/Restaurant Management) is housed in a building separate from the main campus. Kirkwood has its own hotel, which is a member of Summit Hotels and Resorts  . This is a fancy way of saying there is a number of select hotels world wide that are super luxurious and super expensive and they are members of groups like this (Trump Towers are also a part of this group!)

The Hotel is the key factor that makes this program SO great. The large building houses the Hospitality program, the Hotel, and the Conference Center. This provides a learning laboratory where students get hands-on, real-life experience throughout their education. They are never more than a few steps away from a living, breathing example of their profession and resources that are meant to help them.

Here is where I geek out a little bit:

-For those from back home: Through a little research, I found that Design Engineers who engineered this building also did the new Davenport Police Facility in Downtown Davenport.

-For ISU fans: They also designed one of your state-of-the-art dining centers!

-For all of my Interior Design friends and anyone interested in really cool spaces, This is what The Hotel at Kirkwood looks like! Click the top right tab (PHOTO TOUR).

-The Class Act Hotel is the hotel restaurant where Culinary/Bakery students will eventually do their clinicals. What great experience, right?! This restaurant is also a drool-worthy space to look at so here you go! Take the photo tour of The Class Act Restaurant ! Click the top right tab (PHOTO TOUR).

As a UNI student, I was pampered with amazing facilities campus-wide. I can say the same in this building!

This is the lounge where students hang out between classes. The entire building has an art initiative going on which you can see some of it displayed on the walls in here! Behind each piece of wall art are the Men's and Womens's locker rooms. The two double-door entrances in between is a computer lab. Opposite this wall is a small kitchen and vending machine enclosure which isn't pictured.

This is the large exhibit kitchen / auditorium. I've only been in this room for the business side of school (Program Conference/Registration/Orientation.)

This is one of the state-of-the-art culinary labs. If I remember right, there are two or three of these and then a separate Bakery lab where I hang out! They look similar, my lab just has three large butcher-block tables where we work and different equipment such as $35,000 ovens....but we'll save that for later.

The rest of the Hospitality center is made of up of offices and pretty standard class rooms, which you don't really need or want to see. ;)

Scene: Enter First Day of Classes

All uniformed up, it's time to finally begin!

The program's belief is that in these specific fields, students learn better on a block schedule. This means I attend the same classes everyday for a certain period of time instead of alternating days throughout a 18 week semester, like I did at UNI.

At first, I was taking only two classes, but as of yesterday I am taking three.

The classes I'm currently taking are as follows:

Bakery Essentials//M-F (50 Minutes). This class runs from January 22nd - February 15th. It is basically just an introduction to the workplace. We are in the Bakery Lab and the first week of class was a grand tour of the facility and where equipment and uniforms are located. The white jackets in the photo are stored in the basement because they are LAUNDERED (chickayeah!) through the hotel laundry.

 Please, everyone, take a moment and celebrate with me how nice it is to not have to clean those suckers myself every day.


Okay, moving on.

This week, we started knifing skills! This includes our brand-spankin' new knives we bought (exhibit A. on the left in photo) 50 pounds of potatoes, and a lot of newbie knife users! This is really fun to practice but also really hard for perfectionists. We have a few cutting techniques we have practiced so far including the two you see in the picture which are:

A. Brunoise; 1/8 inch x 1/8 inch x 1/8 inch (those tiny cubes)
B. Julienne; 1/8 inch x 1/8 inch x 2 inches (those longer straws aka McDonald's French Fries)

 Cool, huh? Because I love you all so much, I'm going to include a video our professor provided for us. A quick little blurb by a knowledgeable dude on how to use a knife and use it well!

Once I got past his accent, I learned a LOT in this short little video and think you could, too!

Hospitality Math// M-Th (90 Minutes). The second class I'm taking, which I just added yesterday, is Hospitality Math. This class runs from January 22nd - March 15th. Now, you're probably thinking, "But didn't you cover any math requirements you needed at UNI?"

Yes, yes I did. But as my advisor so kindly pointed out, this course is geared solely around math used in hospitality. So, yeah, it may be super-duper-easy-peasey math but I think I should probably master how many quarts are in a gallon/tablespoons in three cups/etc. Could I Google it? Of course..but how much smarter will I sound to you when I can just rattle it off? ;) In the business spectrum of things this class should also help when it comes to pricing products, cost control,  payrolls, etc. Important? Definitely.

 Safety and Sanitation// M-Th (50 Minutes). This class runs from January 22nd - March 15th. This class is exactly what it sounds like; learning the ins and outs of safety and sanitation in food handling. The thing is, I think this is a class anyone, anywhere should be taking! Yeah, I'm never hungry after class..FOR A GOOD REASON.

Ex. Just because you can see someone making your food, doesn't mean you saw them washing their hands beforehand. Here's the kicker: It goes both ways! You decided not to wash your hands after you went to the bathroom, you come back and touch your plate/silverware/glass? Those dishes come back to the kitchen and whoever had to clean up after you could get sick from YOU.

 A little more detail you, say? Hepatitis A: transferred via fecal-oral route. Yep, that means the poop on your hands was transferred to your dishware which some innocent bus-person cleaned up and then they touched their mouth. Big mistake on their part, but it happens!

Also, did you know the onset times for food-borne illness symptoms is anywhere from 30 minutes to 6 weeks?! This means the sushi you ate back in December could just be showing signs now and poor you thinks it was the burrito you had last night! :)

These are only a few of the very interesting things I've learned so far. If you want to know more, feel free to ask me questions! At the end of the course, I not only have a final exam, but also a ServeSafe Exam administered by the National Restaurant Assocation that certifies me for 5 years. Both tests require passing grades in order to pass the class.

This is me trying to stay awake while studying at 1:00AM for our quiz that was suppose to be today. Thankfully, Snow Day comes to the rescue so I can continue memorizing facts about Clostridium botulinum, Bacillius cereus, campylobacter jejuni, and other fun topics!

This isn't a good class for the paranoid, but it's sure good at scaring. Take a little extra time today to really think about how well you wash up and all of the things you touch throughout the day. Stay healthy, everyone!
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So, to put it simply, two of my classes are half a semester long- they end right before spring break. The class that ends mid-February will be replaced by a 4 hour lab class called Bakery Basics which will end right before spring break also. The real fun begins after spring break!

My courses for Mid-march through mid-May include International Breads, Science of Baking, International Pastries, and Basic Cake Decorating! These course are bound to provide some great photos for you to feast your eyes on!

Apologies for the novel; blog posts from now on are bound to be much shorter!
I would tell you what to stay tuned for but if we're being honest, I'm going to get off track anyway so we'll just keep it a surprise!

Have a great hump-day and an even better Thursday-Friday-Weekend!

-BB

You Ain't Seen Muffin Yet

Let's rewind to what got me into this whole mess.

I wish I had some heartfelt story about childhood memories in the kitchen, covered in flour and dough that sparked my lifelong interest in baking.. but let's get real. I was probably outside somewhere covered in dirt and being a freak.

Scene: Enter Summer 2009.

I had moved back home for the summer after my first year away at college. Naturally, I learned a lot about myself and really grew as an individual.This included being proactive about doing things I really wanted to do. By this time in my life I had been introduced to the idea of a "Bucket List" and had started thinking about making it happen! I couldn't tell you now what made me want to do this then, but one thing I had really wanted to do was take a cake decorating class that I had seen advertised at the craft store in town. I looked into it a little more and found out it was once a week for a month and it was at night so I could attend after my summer day time job. Now, I know this might sound silly now, especially looking back at everything I have accomplished on my own since... but I was SCARED to sign up for this class by MYSELF (gasps), especially doing something I had never done before. Anyway... I took the class, loved it, and have invested quite a few more dollars into equipment and resources since.

-FAST FORWARD-

Scene: Enter Summer 2011

Since the Summer of 2009 I had practiced my cake decorating skills on a lot of my friends and family (not in the literal sense, although that sounds interesting and weird..) and started focusing more attention on different recipes, flavors, and mediums besides decorated cake. I started trying out flavored cupcakes, muffins, cookies, and bars throughout the 11'-12' school year. I graduated in May of 2012 from UNI with a B.A. in Interior Design.

I think that might help explain why I fell in love with cake decorating in the first place. I like to be artistic and creative and if you haven't realized it quite yet, FOOD is an amazing medium that can be used to express your creativity! It's like a science project and a work of art...that you can EAT. Other than the artsy-fartsy side of it, I loved how happy it made other people. It's like when a kitty gets the rare gift of catnip..

..except every time someone eats/sees a pretty cupcake or treat.

Scene: Enter Mid-Summer 2012 

During my internship I had to complete over the summer, I mulled over a lot of questions about my life. What would I do after my internship? Where would I work? Where would I live? Why isn't my life laid out in an exact plan like everyone expects it to be? Why isn't my career/personal life/future laid out to be perfect like many of my fellow graduates? Am I failing already?


...I'm willing to admit that this is when I also started 'using' coffee heavily so my mind (and heart beat) traveled at a slightly faster speed than the average thinker.

**Spoiler Alert! A lot of those questions still aren't answered, or the answers to them change periodically.**

If you know me, you know I am not patient which goes hand in hand with a slight case of impulsiveness. The silver lining in this is that it also provides me with a deep sense of motivation to GET. IT. DONE. If my mind or heart is set on something, I want it and I want it now. One of those fleeting thoughts fueled by a hot cup of java was to go back to school for baking. So, naturally, I spent an afternoon of my internship (shh, don't tell..) feverishly researching culinary/baking schools.

Yep, pretty much.

So of course I was getting all inspired and travel-y and I thought, "Let's go to a big city!" "Colorado!" "Yeah!"

And then it was all like "The Art Institute of Colorado!" "$24,000 a year!" "No."

So, eventually, I looked for schools that were a lot less expensive that still had good programs and I decided on Kirkwood Community College in central Iowa because it not only has a great culinary program, but also has a specific program JUST FOR ME! It was called the Baking and Pastry Arts Diploma and it's a one year program focusing solely on Baking and Pastry Arts (Who would've thought?) So I went through the (surprisingly) MANY steps it took to finally get where I am now (apply, visit, transfer transcripts, attend a program conference, attend registration, attend orientation, order uniforms and tools, find a place to live, look for jobs, etc.)

Scene: Enter late January, 2013

Here I am, a doe-eyed, nearly 23 year old (..or 17-18 year old, depending who you ask)  young woman working towards a goal and here to tell/ show you ALL about it!

STAY TUNED for my next post: First week of classes and what's coming up next this semester!

-BB