I'm an odd soul...

Eff this city.

Seriously. At 530 this morning, I was obscuring any exposed flesh on my face with all manner of woollen things. *And may I preface this by saying that it's not really that cold here. Yesterday it was -13 here with the wind chill. In my feeble whining my sister slapped me up the acclimatized back of my head when it was -39 where she is. Jesus takes a snow day when it's that cold.*
But this morning, when I'm disgruntled and tired in the wee hours at the end of my week, when I'm stressed about my first test, when I do not want a repeat of the frozen finger misery of the day before but I'm impressed that I got my shit together and was walking out the door by 615, I was basing my preparation for the day on the information that I had available to me. Namely, the assumption that yesterdays winter weather would be todays winter weather. But you know what they say about people that assume things. THEY BECOME HARSH AND RESENTFUL HUMAN BEINGS. I walk out of school, with all of my woollens -my ABSORBENT woollens may I remind -all of my school laundry, my heavy ass textbook and my baked goods into SLEET. Sleet is a four letter word in my world (even though it's a five letter word). I let the expletives fly the whole fifteen minute walk home, wherein my boots came untied (frantic pom pom action) and became completely drenched, my toque fell over my eyes and due to my heavy-laden-ness, I couldn't even fix it. I came home, swore at my boots, put on some sweatpants and made myself some tea. Now I feel better. Good grief Bankybear.

And now it's Friday. On the weekend I tend to eat three square meals a day and get enough rest. This is why we have a weekend. At school right now, we eat wonderful meals prepared by the culinary students and that is easily the best (and sometimes only) meal I eat all day. I don't' eat in the morning and then when I get home, I'm tired enough that sometimes I manage myself a smoothie but then that's it for the rest of the day. Sometimes I don't even manage that. It kind of sounds like my life is harsh but to be honest, my walk home today was the first moment in the past three weeks that I haven't thought "My life is bliss". Life is wonderful right now. When I make it home, I am TIRED. But my mind is still active. (That makes me sound like I'm decrepit or something. I'm 22. I sure hope my mind is still active.) All I need is a good forty five minutes where I sit in our comfy chair and don't move. I get to blog and hunt down recipes. My mind doesn't stop when it comes to school related things pretty much until I fall into bed.

I've been posting quite a bit on The Oven Wall which has been fun. I've posted a lot of Moozh's stuff too which always looks so pretty. He made a puff pastry yesterday that looked so tasty! I've learned croissants (which I'm determined to try out again this weekend) and we just started our cookie unit after breads, quick breads, and viennoiserie which is breads like brioche and hot cross buns. I'm trying to make a list of things that I want to try out once I get to advanced kitchen. We'll have an opportunity to do a little bit more and have a bit more fun. Red wine bread, banana bread with sourdough are among them. If anyone could issue a challenge, I would love the inspiration.

I hope to get some good picture of croissants over the weekend. In the meantime, this is what I'm going to deal with:

 And you can't see the bag of danishes that has migrated westward or the loaf of carrot cake that is still on the counter. This is all from this week!

His Old Man and the Sea

As promise, y'all. Moozh's tat in progress, two sessions in. Some of the blackwork remains to be done and then from there the rest is water-colour with filigree and some negative space. Look at the tension in the fisherman! And the marlin! And the bubbles!

I can't wait for it to be finished! I loved Moozh's initial thought for the tattoo and then with Zara's artistic touch, it exploded.
Again, check out Zara's site to see more and if you like what you see, 'like' Fly the Cage Tattoos on Facebook.

It's 2011 -wait 2012…..yeah 2012.

Hey Y'all.

I think I did maybe head to Cowtown for the holidays (which flashed by like a peep show) with the intention of blogging sometime along the way. And then I snapped out of the daydream where I am that person who takes time out of a busy day to blog. I do not have the mental organization to have those skills. I get too caught up in the moment. *I shouldn't phrase that like it's a bad thing. But immortalization of said moments is rarely initiated by me.

The holidays got dressed and left rather indecently. Moozh and I landed the day before New Year's Eve and that evening I sat in my chair and sighed, "I can't wait for Christmaaaaa…..how did this happen." The whole season was a blur. It feels like Starbucks came out with their red mugs what seemed like way too early and the next thing I knew, I turned around and I was hung over on New Year's Day. Our midsections, bank account and general belongings inventory are all showing the signs of a holiday season. But instead of pupils right now, I have the blasted Apple rainbow wheel. "Thinking, thinking, thinking…oh yeah you did do all that. You drank too much. But you really enjoyed your time. Save changes?"

It really was fun though. Cowtown was shockingly milder than Bankybear the whole time we were there. Which made me stoooooooked that I packed my huge wool jacket when I ended up wearing my leather jacket everywhere. It was a good cure for homesickness though. Making the trip home, I was able to make it to my younger sister's musical theatre performance and take my other sister out for dinner. I was able to just chill on the couch with my bro and listen to him tell me about what he's interested in. Eat gruyere and drink beautiful red wine with my dad. Gab with my mom over pedicures and makeup. Went out for ChaiNogs with my sister-in-law and laughed and cried in the middle of a Starbucks until nearly four hours disappeared. Bake with my Mama. Moozh and I cooked for everyone. He made stew and I made bread and we were able to kind of express what we're wanting to do with our lives that way.

On either end of our trip to Cowtown, we spent time in Victoria, getting our tattoos started and, in my case, nearly finished. My aunt truly is one of the most talented people I've ever met and I am truly blessed have her ink permanently on me. When Rik and Zara (my aunt and uncle) moved to Victoria last summer after their year of travelling and a year living up island, Zara opened up her own tattoo shop. She has a loyal following of clients from the shop that she worked at in Winnipeg for years and then built a further international client base the year they were travelling. If you have any desire to have some ink, especially if you want something original, check out Zara's site, Fly the Cage Tattoo. My tattoo really just has some minor outlining and then some water-colour bubbles in the background and then I'm set for life. Moozh's sleeve is still in progress but it gets exponentially more amazing with each session.

ISN'T IT BEAUTIFUL!!!!???

The craziness didn't stop once we got home from Christmas. After New Year's Eve, where I thoroughly embarrassed myself (story for another time), we had New Year's Day to recover and then we both started our programs January 2nd! We're a week and a half into
Moozh has been learned the obsessive and compulsive tenets to Fine French cuisine (The entire first week is just knife skills) and I have learned over a dozen different bread recipes and the science behind flour, gluten formation and composing an original recipe. I come home from school with on average about four loaves of bread. We start croissants on Friday!

My latest

To track our progress in school, I've started up another blog called The Oven Wall. The name derives from the origins of bread, where the Egyptians would bake their flatbread on the hearth of the oven but also on the walls of the oven, like naan is traditionally made today. We have pictures of our spoils and some run down of each of our days. We'll be taking pictures as we experiment at home as well. We've recruited everyone we know as a recipient of our learning curve, regardless of their knowledge or not. My Chef is amazing. Aside from being flamboyantly Italian and hilariously crass, even at 630 in the morning, he teaches the food science and biology behind food. And this coming Tuesday, he leaves for Italy to represent Canada in an International Gelato and Ice Cream competition. I am truly blessed, and entertained, by his tutelage. Moozh's chef is just a bad ass French dude. He doesn't say much and he pretty much represents the last of the French Old Guard, as far as cooking goes. Our school is very fun. It's very small and so you get to know everyone pretty quickly. Our instructor from our wine class that we took in October still remembers us!

In contrast to my time at the Yoob, I have so much excess mental creativity at the end of the day, I find blogging so incredibly cathartic. At the Yoob, I was always mentally exhausted by the time I got home. Through this process, I will hack out some semblance of a balance for myself. My return to creative writing will probably be a slow one but I have prepared myself for that wait. In the meantime, there's some pretty tasty food to be had. We make stollen in week 3, which makes up for my intention to make it during the holidays. We make chocolate and cakes. I'm especially excited for ice cream, given who I am learning under. I'm off to study laminated dough because 'laminated dough is challenge.' Viamo!