Resume Dismay

G’Morning!
Last night’s class focuses, once again, on Pate Choux. I’m not complaining- cream puffs, éclairs and profiteroles are fun to pipe fill and eat. I’m just a tad disappointed, you see, because I thought we were all going to make a croquembouche. Croquembouche is a tower of small pastry cream filled pate choux stuck together with caramel. A cone of caramel colored wonder. But with all of the other things we had to do in class, we ran out of time. Instead Chef demo-ed making a small version of one, just to let us see how it’s done. Chef, I watch a lot of food TV. I’ve already seen a trained professional make one- I wanted to do it! Granted, now that I know how to make all of the elements and have seen it done from a foot away, it will be easier for me, but the disappointment lingers. And I don’t even like croquembouche (I find that the individual pastries get soggy and break when you try to remove them from the “tree”).
I think Chef believes that I have an unhealthy obsession with croquembouches. I was the only one who watched the entire demo (after all, it is pretty repetitive. You glue one cream puff with sugar to another. Repeat endlessly. It is mesmerizing). I also chatted with him throughout our four hours together about how best to serve it, how to prevent sogginess, possibilities of gluing them with chocolate and not caramel. Chef might right about the obsession.
Now that I have told you what we didn’t make last night, I will take you through what we did bake. Little cream puff shells, profiteroles (larger shells, filled with ice cream and covered in a chocolate sauce- the rich man’s ice cream sandwich), cream puffs (filled with whipped cream/Chantilly cream), more éclairs that we topped with fondant. Fondant is boiled sugar and water, folded onto itself as it cools over and over again, making it white and shiny and hardened. It is just plain sweet, though you can add colors and flavors to it. It is often rolled out and used to decorate cakes due to its pliable and transformable nature. We heated it a bit and thinned it out with simple syrup so that dipping would be easier.
Chef got all of us nervous for our practical by going through the procedure on Tuesday. I’m not sure why, but he can make even the simplest things seem so complicated. He truly has a knack for it. I had obviously gotten some information mixed up- this isn’t entirely my fault. I was fasting when it was announced and so clearly NOT paying attention (though this doesn’t explain why I regularly get details mixed up). Moving on, the day practical and written exam are to be on the same day. Exam fest is on Tuesday and tonight is internship awareness night. We need to bring a culinary resume and a list of well researched possible internship sites. As of 1 pm. I have neither (and my lunch break is quickly slipping away). If I could only do one, should it be a list of sites or a resume?
You should note that while I have a regular resume at hand, I have NO culinary experience to put on a new one …unless I could count soufflé night.
-Sarah Baer, Power Puff Girl (remember them?)