We are FINISHED!!! Well, at least with classes. After this post is published I will only have a few assisting hours at the school and my externship hours to officially get my professional chef certificate. It doesn’t feel real, even upon finishing up with our Final Event and Graduation. It feels like I will be heading home for the holidays and coming right back to school in January. Maybe by then my brain will have caught up.
In the meantime, let me tell you about our Final Event at the Natural Epicurean, Rustic Roots.
First and foremost, the invite designed by yours truly with PLENTY of help from Mr. Plate:
And now that you feel like you were invited (if you weren’t it’s because you live very far from Texas and/or I don’t know you 😉 I’ll let you in on some of the behind-the-scenes preparations.
We have been meeting in a class called RPD.
The above link has no meaning in this context. Interesting though!
At the Natural Epicurean RPD stands for Recipe and Product Development. I could tell you so much about it but I’ll keep it simple. We basically have been working off and on the last three months to develop a menu that includes 2 items representing each of the different modalities we have learned at the school: Vegetarian, Vegan, Ayurvedic, Raw & Living Foods, and Macrobiotic.
Next we were each designed a few of the items we decided on as a class. We had to standardize, upscale, recipe-test, cost, and write requisitions for our assigned recipes. Each process was exactly that, a PROCESS!
And this brings me to my self-inflicted Donut Disaster. One of my recipes was to make health-supportive Donuts & Cider. Cute right? Especially for a December event. I was pretty excited. I made those cute donuts in baking class so I was excited to go at it again. Of course they needed to be mini and I originally planned on making them with the same gluten free recipe I used in class.
Details (reading this paragraph is optional) Uh-oh, the first time I tested them the garbanzo bean flour was so beany. . . it just wasn’t very good. In class that wasn’t a problem but I wanted to be more sure of my result. Try try again. . . I used the rice flour based Bob’s Redmill 1:1 gluten free mix. So so so chewy. . . good but a really weird texture. Okay, so maybe I different GF recipe that is meant for Bob’s 1:1 mix. . still not quite satisfactory. Let’s try an amazing looking oat flour all whole foods recipe from the blog Big Man’s World, a blog which I have seen before and enjoy. Well I recipe tested this one on a RPD work day and they turned out pretty tasty. The majority of the gals really liked them. Bingo! I did all the necessary costing/paperwork/ the whole list from above. I felt pretty good about it until I decided Wednesday night to try them one more time. That’s when the disaster struck. This was about test batch 7. They were awful. The almond butter in them was drying our mouths and they crumbled everywhere. I’ll show you how we plated them and you’ll see why crumbling could not be in the cards. I was seriously sick to my stomach. I was so excited to have found a gluten free and such intriguing recipe that would work. I had tried a spelt version of the Apple Cider donut recipe from My Darling Vegan and so I re-prepared all the paperwork frantically and switched my recipe up a few days before the event. Cross your fingers hope to die the new recipe will be okay!
Now here’s my theory on why I turned into a CRAZY OBSSESIVE donut baker and why Mr. Plate had to eat half batch after half batch of experimental mini-donuts. I have been so stressed for so long now. The stress of culinary school (stemming mainly from the pressure I put on myself to always do better) compounded on the lack of sleep from having a young adorable child added to all the other stresses and trials from the last couple of months got funneled into those Darling little Donuts. They were my scapegoat. They became the one thing I wanted to control. My poor classmates and Chef Instructors were really supportive during my short donut mania. Thank you all!
I was in charge of all the Media for the event as well as Co-Decorator with Francesca. It was fun to help in planning the layout of the room and being on the Front of House team. Mr. Plate and I got to design a menu to print out as a giant 24″X 36″ poster.
We wanted our event to have a nature-y vibe combined with a cozy holiday feel. We worked so hard and pinched every penny and I think we did a really good job transforming the classrooms. It turned out beautiful. I don’t have any of the official photos that the schools photographer took and the ones I took don’t really do it justice but here are a few shots. And like any great event, we were prepping up to the last minute.
Yes! The Donuts were fine. . .
Crazy Eyes. . .Little Plate wanted her mama!
That would be millet cashew cream cheese up her nose 😉
We were so grateful to have such fantastic assistants from the Fall Track. A big shout-out to Lance and his stepmother whom he credits his decorating skills to. He was with us every day and took the brunt of listening to and carrying out our orders. And to Wes as well who helped us prepped so much food.
After a week of outlining, paperwork-ing, shopping, and prepping the event was a success! It was exciting to exchange our white uniforms for black and our silly white hats for bandanas. It was fun to see all of our hard work come together. We felt really good about the result and we hope our supporters and loved ones enjoyed the event. Mr. Plate said all the food was fantastic. Little Plate especially loved the pizza and chocolate cheesecake. Oh, and going outside to barefoot run in the grass. That’s her latest favorite hobby.
Congrats Graduates!
My Support Crew
I have so much gratitude for the opportunity and experiences I’ve had the last 6 months. It’s been a wild ride, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. I found some wonderful friends in my classmates and chef instructors. I admire them and am thankful for what they’ve taught me. It was a huge challenge every day to leave Little Plate and head off to school but I couldn’t have left her with a better person. Mr. Plate is such a great daddy and the best support I could have asked for.
I want to write more about my overall experience at the Natural Epicurean. Thank you for following my little journey. I feel like this is just the beginning. Much love and Merry Christmas! I will be back!
Loves,
Ash