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I Graduated this week

We had  our graduation ceremony this week at School. It was held in our Restaurant at School and we were all in our chefs uniforms and the hospitality and hospitality business management students were in Grad gowns

We were all given numbers and had to enter and exit the restaurant in numerical order I was number 34, It was quite emotional for me ….. coming to the end of this chapter of all my hard work over the past year. As we walked in to the Restaurant, everybody was standing, all the staff, family and freinds, VIPS which included the Mayor and they were clapping us in, that made me just want to cry.

We had speeches  and a power point display was shown about the school which also made me bubble up a wee bit. There was a picture of our class in the display, then a picture of a freind of mine competing in a competition and then there on the screen was a great shot of myself with my medal and a blurb about winning big at the competitions.

We then proceeded out the way we came  in and through another entrance to receive our certificates, and Justin the announcer was just calling out each persons name, when it came to me  he made a little speech about me, saying i was one of the celebrities of the school and a great student etc, which just took my breath away and made my very big grin on my face even bigger.

When all the formal stuff was done we had some great entertainment, with  one of the students and her freind playing the most beautiful music on a piano and a cello  and one of our tutors dressing up in all different kinds of things which were very funny.

We finished off with a wonderful lunch prepared by all the cooking tutors  and plenty of wine which was just lovely

Bruce snapped lots of pictures  which I just have to download and will post very soon

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General Stuff

Finally In to the pastry section

ohhhhh my word working with pastry is so much fun. We made full puff , rough puff, short paste and sweet short paste this week at school

I made a selection of different things , mince savouries, sausage rolls, apple turnovers, sweet tart shells with chocolate mousse and berries and lemon meringue pie. My tutor was very happy , she said that my pastries looked and tasted like they were made with lots of love and passion. I had a bit of drama with my rough paste which I made apple turnovers with, as somebody stole my batch out of the class fridge , the ******** *********(leave that to your imagination:o) ) and so i had to remake and didnt think it would be so great , as it wouldnt have had enough resting , folding time but managed to get another couple of folds in by getting in to class early the next day .But everything worked out great, it came out light and nicely puffed and crisp

You can have a look at the pictures by scrolling down on the “Food I have made” column and clicking on the School link (im adding all my school pics in to one album

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General Stuff

Wow new beginnings

I have gone back to school and am studying to be a Pastry Chef , Im so excited about it . Course started in the beginning of October 2007 and will go for 1 year then i hope to go on to a higher level and do another years worth of study.

I have been very slack in posting so hope to rectify that over the school holidays.

I have so much to write about , so much to catch up on so bear with me as it will all steadily be updated.

I am in a very international college , the students are mainly from china but also from afew other countries as well . In my class I was the granny of the class:O)

we did a restaurant project where in groups we had to design a restaurant from the ground up, which was a lot of hard work but it was really challenging , I will be talking about that in depth further down the track.

Next semester our practical classes start which Im really looking forward to doing , I will be changing classes to the mornings from the afternoons and will have to get to know a whole new class

http://www.nsia.ac.nz