Somewhere, here hidden, is a birthday song.

So as most of you know, my birthday is the most important day of the year for EVERYONE. That's not true, I just really like to celebrate birthdays, and mine especially. I feel like I spend so much time every day trying to make my friends and family happy that I should get just one day (or three months...) to celebrate myself. I want people to try to make me happy too!

Anyway, to touch upon the level of awesomeness of my new friends in Hyde Park, I had the best birthday of my entire life this past weekend. My girls and I went dancing on Saturday, then on Sunday both the culinary and baking students combined forces to cook an amazing dinner. Someone even purchased party hats and a really sweet cupcake centerpiece for the table. I also received two of my birthday cakes that evening. After everyone sang happy birthday to me, I realized something: I fit in here. I actually, finally, feel like I belong somewhere. Everyone I have met up here (with a scant few exceptions...) is so genuine, giving, caring, loving, good natured....just really awesome individuals. We all come from such diverse backgrounds, but we have all allowed ourselves to be guided by a passion for food; and maybe even deeper than that, a passion for making others happy. It's so obvious to me that I've chosen the right path for my life after bonding so quickly with the people in this group. I have made life-long friends, and I know that now.

Anyway, yesterday was equally awesome! We did a huge family picnic and played in the sun for a few hours, then all of the baking kids got together and went to dinner at a restaurant called Crew in Hyde Park. My friend Kelsey surprised me and bought my dinner and wine, then a few of us returned to my room to watch Harry Potter and look at stupid pictures on the internet. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday weekend.

So now as I return to real life, I'm back to piping loops and rosettes, and trying to form Chef Shorner-quality marzipan roses. I couldn't be happier. I love everything about this experience, and I want everyone that is here with me to know that I love you. I really really do. I couldn't ask for a better group of people to share this adventure with. To all of you back home: thanks so much for your continued support and love! It's really pushing me to be the best I can be!

Busy, busy bee.

So I've come to the point of busyness in my life that I have to pencil in time to post in this blog. Who would've thought?

For the past week I've been working on homework, strengthening friendships, baking batches of delicious cookies, meeting new professors/chefs, and trying to figure out how to balance school with everything else I have going on. I started four new classes: Food Safety, Culinary Math, Freshman Seminar, and Baking Ingredients & Equipment. All of the instructors I have for these classes seem stern, but entirely willing to help out the new students. Their helpfulness did not, however, deter them from assigning copious amounts of homework for us to have completed by the next class.

For those of you who know me, you know that I'm "allergic to math" (my professor's words). I was deathly afraid to take the culinary math class, and I'm still a little bit nervous, but all of my classmates who understand the material have been more than helpful to those of us who are even the slightest bit behind. I've completed homework (CORRECTLY!!) assignments and anticipate my continued success in this course.

All I'm going to say about my BIET (Baking Ingredients & Equipment) teacher is that she's very intimidating. She will be the professor that yells at our class for even a hint of laziness. I have a feeling we're going to butt heads, but we'll just see how that goes.

I believe that I talked to a few about how much I was DREADING taking the Freshman seminar class, on account of being nearly 23 and having graduated from a 4-year University before my arrival to the CIA. I'm not going to say that after sitting through the first class that any of the material will be riveting, but something awesome did happen. We're required to document an "Exploratory Interview", which obviously means we will need to interview someone who inspires us, or that we just think is interesting. My motto for life (typically) is "Go big or go home", so in true me-fashion, I raised my hand and asked the professor if he knew of any way that I could get in touch with Anthony Bourdain to interview him for the assignment. Instead of the response I expected him to give, ("No, shut up, sit down, idiot.) he said that he had never been asked about that before, and that he would make some calls. WHAT IF I GET TO INTERVIEW TONY-FREAKING-BOURDAIN?! WHAT IF?!??! I may die. At least I'll be happy when I go though.

Yesterday, in order to get away from all of the stress of school, a few of my friends and I decided to go to NYC for a day. We caught the 8:40 AM train out of Poughkeepsie, and arrived to the city a little before 11. We spent most of the day visiting epic food locations and enjoying moderately-priced NYC cuisines. My favorite place of the day was Katz's Delicatessen, by far. I have never had meat that was THAT good. The pastrami that I sampled literally melted on my tongue. It was perfection. So obviously I ordered a pastrami on rye, and split that and noblewurst on rye sandwich with my friend Mary. They were the best sandwiches I have ever ingested. 

Today has been extremely successful as well. I woke up early, went to breakfast at the Eveready diner (look it up on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives), and then drove to Rhinebeck for the farmers market. Since my return to campus I have done laundry, hemmed two pairs of pants, repaired a friend's chef coat, cleaned up the room, and organized all of my clothes into their designated drawers. Makin' progress, for real. 

I will try to post more frequently so that all of my posts don't end up being this long and drawn out. I miss all of my friends in Knoxville terribly, but I am having the best time of my life being up here. I really wish some of you were here to experience this with me. I at least hope that all of you get out and do something epic with your lives. Please don't slump into complacency! There are awesome experiences for you to have, and I am the poster child for that right now! 

Love all of you!

Oh the Woes of Culinary School

WELL. Never have I ever spent so much time strategically placing bobby pins in my hair. Never have I ever wanted to bake SO badly. Never have I ever had to walk almost a mile every day just to drive 2 minutes up the road. Never have I ever been prohibited from playing Never Have I Ever.

This is my first week at The Culinary Institute of America (will later be addressed exclusively as the CIA), and I am OVER the orientation process. We've been sitting in classrooms, so frustratingly close to our beloved Kitchen Aid and Hobart mixers, the messy flours, the sugar, the chocolate chips...and all of us are getting a litte stir crazy. The number of bouncing legs has increased from just mine (driven primarily by anxiety) to about 75% of the class who just cannot wait to feel that lovely dough in between their fingers; or to laugh about the amount of chocolate covering our coats; or to taste the sweet rewards of our labor, whatever they may be. WE ALL JUST WANT TO BAKE SOMETHING.

Besides the increasing anxiety of my classmates (and myself), we have all been having a fabulous time. It's apparent that all of us are at least slightly shell shocked about the caliber of the chefs that we will be working under for the next two years. I mean, most of our instructors have also written the books for the classes that they are leading. That's insane. They have also owned, founded, or at least played a a major role in the day-to-day operations of a great number of the most world-renowned restaurants EVER. WOAH. We're all beyond stoked to meet all of these prestigious chefs.

Also, I need to get on a gym schedule. For real. It will start tomorrow, as I have nothing to do and no classes. That's a lie. I have TONS of things to do. I just don't have any classes. Must make the gym a priority...must make the gym a priority...ugh.

Will post soon!
(Well, as soon as the chefs give me a few minutes to myself...)