Pastry on the brain

First of all, fantastic news -- passed my first test at school, waa-hey!! Got 84%, so feeling pretty chuffed about that.

Also have to mention last weekend, had a fun night on the town for Eve's hen party (evidence below). After a few weeks of being sweaty in hot kitchens and cycling to and from school, it felt great to be able to get my hair done and put on a party frock. Thanks again for organising that one, Kay.


Bad news is that I had another pastry nightmare today. ARGH! Managed somehow to get a large, u-shaped crack in it at the very last stage, and my attempts to patch it wouldn't hold. Tomorrow, I'll make a morning sacrifice to the pastry gods in a last ditch attempt get a brainwave on how to fix it. Honestly, it's frustrating for all of us in class, because it's so hard to the pastry thing nailed down. Basically, it's difficult to know how much water to add after rubbing the flour into the butter-- each batch of flour and butter will 'take' a different amount of liquid. The last one I did turned out fairly well, but this one is dire, and for the life of me I cannot figure out what I did differently.

As you can imagine, with all this frustration over pastry and with everyone trying to improve their multi-tasking, tempers in the class are starting to fray. And not just because of pastries.

One particular person in the class is really managing to annoy me, and a few others who she's been grouped with. To be frank, she's a bit of a 'shwombo' (She Who Must Be Obeyed). You know the type, always giving instructions to other people what they need to be doing, emphasizing to you all the time that she's only trying to be helpful, and managing to whine if every little teeny, tiny thing isn't done her way.

But I am determined to stay strong and keep focused on my own learning.

Am off to Paris this weekend. Think a couple of days downtime from the kitchen will do me some good, and reenergize me for next week. I shall be concentrating not on cooking (as our cooker was damaged by the leakage), but on eating. Mmmmm.