Culinary School Chronicles: Part 4

Very long post ahead, y’all. With close to 900 pictures too. This was the final stretch of culinary school!! It only took me all summer to get around to telling you about it.

This was hands-down the craziest/most intense semester I’ve had yet. My classes included short order culinary, food purchasing, catering, ice carving, accounting, sauces and stocks, and the biggest class of them all…gourmet.

Gourmet class was the most time-consuming, labor-intensive culinary class I’ve ever taken. It’s kind of like a semester-long final. Each student in my class had to take their turn being executive chef for a week and at the end of each week they would hold a gourmet luncheon which was basically like running the line of a fancy restaurant.

The menu was created by the executive chef of the week and then all the other students were assigned courses to prepare for the upcoming meal. Each student also got to make their own ice carving for decorating the dining room!

Ready to see mine? This meal was literally my baby for about 3 months, guys. So much meticulous planning went into it and I spent every free moment organizing it.

Menu! I designed the entire menu myself and wrote all the recipes for each course.

Ice carving! Yes, those are FULL wine bottles.

Appetizer.

Soup.

Salad.

Intermezzo (sorbet)

Entree.

Dessert.

And even after all that food, Jason claimed he still wasn’t full. ??

My entire family turned out for my meal to take up two entire tables and to support me and that honestly meant so much.

 

Other things I was up to this semester. Besides up to my elbows in food…

That beurre blanc sauce you see down there was try #1 for me and my chefs must have thought it was an A+ since it was almost immediately snatched off my stove and paraded around the kitchen for the other students to see. ??

The annual Midwest Food Expo in Milwaukee this spring was ?? as usual.

PS, if you’re ever in Milwaukee, The Sanford Restaurant was one of the best dining experiences I’ve ever had. >>

Short order fish fry final….

Gourmet final…those are GOOSE legs, y’all.

And…oh yeah, graduation ceremony. >>> yay, I didn’t trip!!

…and a few weeks later my handsome dude had his turn. ♥

What’s next now that culinary school is behind me? Well…

I made the decision early on last fall that I wanted to continue school after achieving my associates degree in culinary arts. This fall I will be moving an hour down the road from home and attending UW Whitewater to pursue a bachelors degree in business.

Since culinary and business knowledge go hand-in-hand together this experience is going to be extremely valuable later down the road. Working my butt off a little bit at time to reach my goals!

And in case you were wondering…NO my blog is not going anywhere! I still plan to cook my butt off throughout the school year developing recipes for you guys from my charming little apartment kitchen.

As always, THANK YOU for the amazing support, guys. I’m very excited to see where this new journey takes me and I will keep you updated!

Pssssst…new around here? Catch up on Parts 1, 2, and 3!