Joie's Appetite: LAG STREAM 5...IN THE KITCHEN

AIRBRUSHING AND PASTILLAGE
Two weeks since my last post on anything school related. And it's been an interesting two weeks.
We've worked on airbrushing, putting together the components of our pastillage, cake baking, stacking of cakes, and working with buttercreams.
The week we did our airbrushing, was...by far, the hardest one for me yet. So many issues, that I will not go into because, quite frankly...it's BORING. Especially since most of you won't know what I'm talking about. Unless your a classmate or work with airbrush guns consistently...anyway...talking about it would bore you. Let's just leave it at that.
I don't think I had ever been more frustrated with decorating components....but I remained as calm as I could be....which was great because at one point I just wanted to smash my sugar dome and stomp around like a 3 yr old with a bad temper tantrum. I was pretty sure the airbrush and pastillage gods were being so UNKIND to me!! Grrrr..... Stressful week.
I hate to say (but I will anyway).... I ended up gluing my small off set spatula to my pastillage flower at some point, due to a minor freak out....I believe this point in time coincides with wanting to like a child......yup. Then. THAT POINT. SOOOO embarrassing. Thank goodness Chef Scott was there to torch it off for me, and of course to remind me NOT TO FREAK OUT! Yes, noted....for future reference. No freaking out! I don't need to be a poster child of what NOT to do in the kitchen! hehe

SPONGES AND BUTTERCREAMS
Now, this past week was probably one of the BEST so far. The vibe in the kitchen this week was great! For many reasons. The main one being....it was LESS STRESSFUL. We were all cheery and relaxed. I think it had to do with the fact that we finally got to EAT. Scraps of sponge cake and buttercream...DELICIOUS!
Maybe it had to do with all of us finally starting to work better as a team, and accepting each other's differences and respecting them. Or maybe it had something to do with Chef Josh's teaching style. Not that there is anything wrong with how our other chef instructors teach.... I think we all just needed a week where we didn't feel pressured to have the end result be entirely perfect, and we're constantly told that things won't BE perfect...still...we worry and feel the need. Chef Josh was great at getting the point across that we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves and he made us feel relaxed. He also encouraged us to try and test out different theories...if we failed...at least we learned something. And isn't that what school is supposed to be about?! We were less hard on ourselves...even though perfecting smooth buttercream cakes can be a pain in the you know what!
What ever the reason....it was LESS STRESSFUL. And I'll speak for most of us here and say that we were loving it!
Anyway...shots of us in kitchen...from the past 2 weeks...