Lesson 91: Pastry Plating II

I seriously debated taking the day off today and relaxing by the beach. I had an early doctor's appointment and was tempted to just head to my beach house right after. Instead, I was a responsible adult and made my usual 10:22 train to NY. After all, today was technically our last day of pastry!

Today's production list was less intimidating than the past couple of days. Nora and I started off by making upside down pineapple cakes while the other Allison and Vadim unmolded the mascarpone cheesecakes from yesterday. Here are our cakes next to another group's raspberry cakes:
We continued prepping other components for plating, including more sauces, whipped creams, and these caramel decorations:
Just like yesterday, we set up stations with desserts, pastry creams, sauces, ice creams/sorbets, and garnishes for plating.

My first plate that I made was the least impressive. I think that the line of sauce was not necessary (should have just left the few dots) and the sugared mint leaves should be more visible. I was excited to incorporate this fork-shaped cookie as a garnish!
(Pineapple upside-down cake, passion-fruit sorbet, mango sauce, candied mint, and fork-shaped tuille)

My second plate was my favorite! Chef loved it and told me to get a picture for my blog (duhhhh I already did!)

(Mascarpone cheesecake, fresh raspberries, fresh mint, raspberry sauce, chocolate tuille cookie, caramel decoration, and a light sprinkle of confectioner's sugar)

This was my final plate. I don't even think I showed chef this one because the ice cream was melting to quickly and the liquid from the berries was spreading...

(Milk chocolate panna cotta, mascerated raspberries and blueberries, chocolate and raspberry sauces, vanilla icecream, chocolate tuille cookie, and a small caramel decoration)

Tomorrow is our written and practical exam! I'm actually not nervous at all! Chef really prepared us for what we have to do tomorrow and clearly explained what he expects of us. Here's what we have to do for our practical:
-Pipe "Happy Birthday, name!" onto 3 10-inch circle cardboards
-Prepare 5 cornets
-Roll out pate sacree in a 12-inch cirlce and mold it into a 10-inch tart pan
-Prepare creme anglaise

Wish me luck!

Lessons 88 & 89: Production Days

These past two days at school there hasn't been much to report about. I think I took a total of 2 pictures (and then left my camera at school..). We have been working to produce a variety of desserts and dessert components/decorations for our final plating designs (that we will be completing tomorrow & Thursday).

Yesterday I made a white peach sorbet and a strawberry sauce. We also made batter for "tulips", which are thin cookies that we baked off today in different designs.

We are working in groups of 4 and are competing for the best production and plating designs. Today our group made pate sablee for some cookies and small tart shells. We also made a HUGE batch of chocolate mousse (mmmmm!). Along with that, we managed to produce the tulip cookies, crepes, poached pears, and espresso caramel sauce. It was definitely a busy day!

Tomorrow I'm "chef in charge" of my group.. We will be producing more desserts and finally putting together all of the components from the past several days to design some dessert plates.

OH.. and we were told who our chef instructor is for Module 5........ Chef Chris! I'm really excited because he is an amazing chef! He's tough, but I'm so eager to learn from him (and hopefully toughen up a bit).

Happy Easter!

Easter at the Zick house is all about good food and wine! Today was no exception. I loved taking charge and providing most of the amazing dishes we had today. I spent the day in the kitchen wearing a cute apron over my sundress and of course sporting my pearls and making sure I had a glass of red wine in my hand at all times!

The first thing we dug in to was the meat pie that I made on Friday. Here's a picture of the inside of the pie:

I was surprised at how much it reminded me of the pie we usually get at the Italian bakery. Some people commented that there was a little bit too much meat and I'd have to agree. I didn't measure how much I put into the pie because I didn't want any of the meat my mom bought to go to waste (so I just added it all). Next time I'll be sure to add less meat so it doesn't overpower the rest of the cheesy, creamy filling.

My favorite side-dish that we have every Easter are dumplings. This is my great-grandmother's recipe and is a very special addition to our Easter spread.

I started out by taking 3/4's of a package of King's white bread (the really cheap white bread) and cutting off the crusts. I diced the crusts into 1/2 inch pieces. I mixed the bread crusts with 3 cups flour, 1 heaping tsp baking powder, and 2 tsp salt. I incorporated 1 egg and then started adding milk until the mixture came together. I separated the dough into 4 large dumplings:

Next, I boiled the dumplings (2 at a time) for about 20 minutes (flipping them halfway through).

I sliced them up and laid them in a large baking dish. I poured on some melted butter and baked them in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes. We served them with gravy, but they are also so buttery and delicious on their own!

I had some bread in the freezer from culinary school, so I pulled out a nice spread of brioche, bread twists, and croissants to serve with dinner:
Earlier this morning I started marinating the leg of lamb. We had a semi-boneless leg that I marinated with white wine, dijon mustard, thyme, salt, and pepper.

It roasted in the oven for about 2 hours total (starting out at 425 degrees and cooking the rest of the way at 350). I let the lamb rest while I made the gravy.

For the gravy, I used the reserved marinade, pan juices, and some dry sherry. I adjusted the seasonings a lot while I was cooking it and thickened the gravy with my emergency thickening agent: beurre manie (kneaded butter and flour).

My mom sliced the lamb and it was cooked perfectly!

Here's our dining room table with the whole Easter dinner spread. The blazing sun made for a not so nice picture..

To accompany the stars of the meal (the lamb and dumplings) we also had some roasted asparagus, roasted corn with basil, mashed turnips, plain ol' noodles with butta, and a fresh salad with raspberry vinaigrette.

After this extravagant meal, we all digested outside in the beautiful weather. Then, it was time for DESSERT.

I froze the lemon-scented cake from school and de-frosted it yesterday to make this lemon-strawberry layer cake. I split the cake and spread on a layer of vanilla flavored buttercream and sliced strawberries. I let my mom take over for the rest of the cake decorating ;) I forgot to take a picture of it before everyone dug in. It was a huge hit! The lemon was not too overpowering and the cake was very moist. Not to mention buttercream frosting is amazing.


We also had a brownie pie with hot fudge sauce (I can seriously bathe in this hot fudge sauce.. it's incredible). Okay okay, I'll give you the recipe.

Best hot fudge sauce ever:
1. In a small saucepan mix 3/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 1/3 cup light corn syrup, and 5 oz condensed milk. Bring the mixture to a boil and continue to boil for another minute.
2. Stir in 1/3 cup butter and 1 tsp. vanilla extract.

My mom also made some chocolate covered strawberries. These were also a hit and I didn't get a picture until there were only 3 left!

Now I'm stuffed, but happy that today was such a success. Not to mention, I got to spend time with the cutest little girl in the world:

Happy Easter!

Lesson 87: Profiteroles & Ice Cream

Today I got to play with fire (torching yesterday's creme brulee) and make ice cream!!! Such a fun day!

Since there was only 1 ice cream machine, each group had to take turns churning their ice cream. In the mean time, we worked in teams to make pate a choux. This is the pastry shell for profiteroles, or as most of you know them, CREAM PUFFS! Yum were these good! The pate a choux was a bit of a tricky process since we had to cook the dough until it was dry, yet didn't scorch the pan. Then we had to beat in as many eggs as possible to make the dough shiny, but not too liquidy. We were all successful and continued to pipe and bake the pate a choux.

Once they were golden and puffed up, we took them out of the oven and filled them with flavored pastry creams. Allison H. and I made a delicious chocolate sauce to glaze the tops (made with dark chocolate, butter, and corn syrup). We had fun using different techniques that Chef showed us to fill and decorate our pastrys. He even showed us how to make a profiterole SWAN (even though he begged me not to mention it on the blog... sorry, chef!) Hahaha.. he actually only made it for us because we asked him to. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it, but he threw it in his mouth immediately to destroy the evidence!

Anyways, back to the fun part.. ICE CREAM! It was finally my group's turn to churn ice cream in this industrial ice cream machine:

Allison and I wanted a picture while making our ice cream and chef told us to stop acting like we were on vacation! But, he got in the picture with us anyways :)

Our ginger-flavored ice cream turned out AMAZING. I have never enjoyed ice cream so much..not to mention it was soft-serve (my favorite!). The ginger flavor was not too overpowering, but added a nice kick to the ice cream.

Towards the end of class we took out our creme brulees that we made yesterday and froze. We coated the tops of the custards with sugar and torched them. The heat from the torch de-frosted them and formed a nice crusty glaze on top.

I had fun playing with fire!

Here's one of my finished creme brulees. We had to throw out a ridiculous amount of creme brulee, which totally broke my heart because it's so delicious. We made so much of it and weren't allowed to bring them home in the ramekins ..boo.

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend. I'll be sharing some more Easter recipes this weekend (Lemon cake with fresh strawberries and vanilla buttercream, Easter meat pie, my great-grandmother's dumplings, leg of lamb, etc)

Lesson 86: Custards

This week feels really weird. Only 2 days of classes and then it's the weekend again?! Today was a bit of a reality check as we realized we were already in lesson 86! Next week we will be completing module 4 and getting ready to move into our final module in culinary school!

Since our practical exam is next Friday, we began today's class with some skill drills. I got a little better at writing "Happy Birthday Allie!" I still need more practice before the exam though. I'm becoming a pro at making cornets. I practiced making some yesterday at home, so I breezed through making them today.

After we cleaned up all of our melted chocolate scribbles, we got started on today's recipes. All of our recipes were focused on custards, both stirred and baked variations.

I worked with the other Allison to start our creme brulees. These started out with a mixture of cream, sugar, egg yolks, and a split vanilla bean. We had to simmer the cream, sugar, and vanilla and then temper in the yolks. We filled up ramekins to the brim and baked them in a water bath until they were set, but had no color. (2 of ours in the back of the oven did get some color..)

Once these were done, we wrapped them with plastic and put them in the freezer for tomorrow. We will be TORCHING them and EATING them in tomorrow's class!

Next, we completed our bread pudding. We had the choice of making individual ramekins or one large casserole. Allison and I decided to make the individual versions. Desserts are always cuter and somehow less sinful when you get your own small serving :)

The custard in this baked dessert was very similar to the creme brulee (with the addition of some whole eggs). We added a touch of rum to the custard at the end (but not too much.. I hate boozy desserts!) For some of the ramekins, we used cubed French baguette. I brought in some of my mom's homemade Easter bread for the class to try and there were a few slices leftover. I decided to cube those up and use it for some of the puddings. It turned out great--really soaked up all of the flavors of the custard!

I never was a fan of bread pudding, but I LOVED these puddings! I brought some home for my parents to try and my mom went crazy over it (and she isn't a huge dessert person). She said it was the best dessert she ever had and now wants me to make some for Easter!

Later on in class we made creme anglaise, which is a slightly thick cream sauce for desserts. We served our bread puddings with it and a sprinkle of powdered sugar...... amazing.

We also made a batch of ice cream in each group (that we will complete tomorrow). The custard for the icecream was much like the other custards except it was cooked a bit longer to cook out the eggs (because it's not baked). We were able to choose a flavoring for our icecream. I'm really excited about the one we chose: Ginger! We made the flavoring sauce by simmering water with some grated fresh ginger, vanilla, cinnamon stick, and lemon zest. After straining the liquid, we added it right to the ice cream custard. I loved the slight kick the ginger brought to the ice cream. I'm so excited to try the final product tomorrow! Here's Allison trying some of our un-finished ice cream:

The Judge's Table

Today was such a fun day! It was chocolate day, so honestly how can that not be fun?! I ate a ridiculous amount of chocolate today by the way...

Our task today was to finish our petit fours from yesterday by tempering chocolate for dipping. We were encouraged to use our creativity with our decorations and to put together a final plate with our group for the final judging of our petit fours competition!

My group started out by making a truffle ganache for our champagne truffles. Once the ganache was prepared, we had to cool it so that it reached a thick enough consistency to pipe. After piping and cooling the ganache, we rolled each peice and coated it in the tempered chocolate and our choice of topping (cocoa powder, chopped nuts, or cocoa nibs).

We all worked really hard today trying to get as creative as possible and beautifying all of our small treats. The adrenaline was flowing as we worked on a time limit to present our dishes to Chef at exactly 4:30. The final presentations on the "judge's table" is shown above. Every group did such an amazing job! Each group even had a story for the plates, explaining what kind of party or situation the the plate was served in. Here is my group's plate:

Our story: The plate was designed for a large family party. There are a lot of different selections on the plate so that we can hand it off to the wait staff and they can pass around the petit fours to all of the guests. We made sure to really fill the plate because Grandma was coming to the party and she likes to stuff some extra cookies in her purse ;)

Unfortunately, we didn't win.. the plate in the lower left corner won! Chef decided to give us all extra points on our exam because he was really impressed with all of our plates.

I left class with an insane sugar rush and a huge smile on my face. I've really enjoyed class the past couple of week.. I'm loving pastry A LOT more than I expected to!

Just set my alarm for 5:30 am (eek!) ..better get to bed NOW!

Intro to Petit Fours

Today's class was all about little desserts that can be eaten in one or two bits (aka petit fours). We were put into new teams today to complete a full menu of 5 different desserts. The class was turned a little competitive today, since we were told that there would be a winning group who will get extra points on their practical. We had fun with it and accused other groups of "sabatoging" our desserts.

Matt, Henri, Mi, and I got started right away mis en placing our recipes for biscotti, marshmallows, macaroons, spritz cookies, and buttercrunch. I got to work on the buttercrunch by melting 1/2 pound of butter. I added in some sugar, water, and light corn syrup and brought the mixture up to a temperature of 300 degrees. I added in some toasted almonds and spread the mixture out on a sheet pan to cool and harden. Tomorrow we will be coating this candy mixture with tempered chocolate and more toasted almonds. Then, we'll break it apart into small peices like "candy bark".

After that was done I helped Matt pipe the spritz cookies onto sheet pans. These baked in the oven for a brief amount of time, until they hardened but had little-no color.

We're putting the finishing touches on all of our petit fours tomorrow and will be preparing a final presentation for judging time!

On another note, I brought a Kombucha beverage with me to class today and coincidentally Chef Chad told me about the Kombucha that he is currently making. Kombucha is a powerful probiotic that is made out of a colony of bacteria and yeast, along with fermented tea and sugar. He showed me his Kombucha and it looked a bit funky, but I'm soo curioius to try it! (I like weird healthy things!) The kombucha will be ready to drink tomorrow so he's going to let me try a bit :)

We ended the class with some skill drills, which involved making more cornets and piping "Happy Birthday, name" with melted chocolate. Here's my practice sheet.. I definitely need some practice!
I got home from school and guess what I had to eat? Leftover PIZZA from yesterday! Yup, 4th day in a row that I had pizza... not sick of it yet..

Lesson 77: A sunny day for puff pastry

I cannot tell you how happy I was to see sun peeking through my window this morning! My brother was even extra joyful this morning and came into the kitchen singing "It's a beautiful morning!"

I was excited for class today so that we could bake and taste the puff pastry we made yesterday (my forearms were sore from yesterday's labor-intensive class!).. Chef Chad was also back today despite still feeling a little under the weather. Almost everyone was feeling unmotivated with pastry after yesterday's class, but we were back in the game today with Chef back to get us excited about what we were doing.

We started out by taking a portion of our large batch of puff pastry to make apple puff pastry strips. Here is the one I made. It's not perfect because some of the walnut frangipane went over the sides, but it was still tasty! :
Next, we made palmiers (or what us Jersey folks call "elephant ears"). My batch actually started unrolling halfway through, but Chef helped me salvage the pastrys and they came out perfect! Lots o'sugar in these babies!

One of my favorite puff pastry creations today were these paillettes. They were just strips of puff pastry rolled with parmesan and paprika.

Once we finished making these traditional pastries, chef assigned each table to make a large batch of a different savory pastry. My table made a very large batch of mozzarella and prosciutto turnovers. These were AMAZING. We formed disks of the puff pastry and made a filling with fresh mozz, parsley, and fresh prosciutto. After adding a small dollop of filling to each disk, we folded the dough over like a mini calzone and sealed them closed with a fork. Yum yum yum!

I got to bring home a lot of puff pastry treats to my family. Despite most of them being on a diet or being allergic to everything, they couldn't resist the buttery, flaky creations!

Tomorrow we're making bagels and pretzels! Maybe we can make green bagels for St. Patrick's day.. That was always a tradition when I was younger on St. Patrick's day--to go to the bagel shop and get a green bagel. Sooo I may have to bring green food coloring to class tomorrow and do a little convincing ;)

Lesson 75: Fruit Tarts & Wine Essentials Day 4

Wow what a day yesterday was! I wasn't feeling good yesterday morning and was up at 3 in the morning with stomach pains. I didn't know how I was going to make it through class and then wine class later on. While I was on the train to NY, I challenged myself to work hard in class to hopefully distract myself from the pain I was in and then make the decision after class whether I should skip wine class or keep on going.

I am sure glad I didn't miss yesterday's pastry class because Chef Chad told us if you don't know how to make pastry cream, then you're a punk! I definitely don't want to be a punk!!!!! So, I got to work right away mis en place'ing a medium batch of pastry cream that I made with Allison H. This pastry cream reminded me of the custard my mom makes for my grandpa's special Italian cake. She always saves a bowl of it for me to eat plain. It took all of my power to not grab a spoon and dig in! We spread the cream on a sheet pan and covered it with plastic wrap so it could cool before we use it later for our fruit tarts.

After Chef demonstrated how to roll out the doughs for our tarts, we all worked individually to make 3 mini fruit tarts and one regular tart. I rolled out the pate brisee (from yesterday) and pressed it into the mini tart shells. We blind baked these mini tarts (without any filling) before filling them. When it was time to fill the tarts, we first brushed the bottoms with reduced apricot jelly, then added in some pastry cream (that we brightened up with some raspberry liquor and fresh whipped cream). We assembled some fresh fruit on top and dotted the fruit with more apricot jelly for shine.

I couldn't help myself from digging into one on my train ride home :)

While the mini tarts were blind baking, we got to work on our larger tart. We had a lot more flexibility with these tarts, since we had a variety of frangipanes and poached fruits to choose from. We started out by rolling out pate sucree (from yesterday) and fitting it into the larger tart pan. I decided to use the pistachio frangipane that Allison and I made yesterday. The pistachio flavor is not overpowering in this filling and I thought the color would look really nice in the tart. I also used the caramel poached pears that I made on Wednesday and some poached figs that another group made.

When my tart came out of the oven, I glazed the top with more apricot jelly and added some toasted crushed almonds and powdered sugar around the edge (to frame the tart):

Isn't it pretty???

It was fun to see everyone's tarts because they were all so different! Here is Aaron's tart.. looks like he used red wine poached pears and maybe a walnut frangipane?

Even the mini fruit tarts were assembled in all different ways. Here are Asli's beautiful tarts:

After class I made the decision to stick it through the rest of the day and stay for wine class. I was feeling a lot better and I didn't want to have to make up another wine class (I still have to make up day 2 bc of the snow storm!)

Today's wines were from warm weather climate areas (Spain, France, Australia). It was interesting to try these wines because I am so used to Italian or California wines. We started out by sipping on a dry sherry. I was surprised that I didn't mind the extra dry finish on this wine, but it was very different from the sherry that we ended with. But, before I get to that, let me tell you about the wines!

First up, we tried 4 white wines. I didn't LOVE any of them, but they weren't bad. The first one reminded me of a nice wine to sip on a hot summer night. It was very light and refreshing:
Rias Baixas, Albarino, Legado del Conde 2008. This bottle retails at $18 a bottle.

My favorites of the white was the Rioja, Vina Tondonia Blanco Reserva, R. Lopez de Heredia 1990. This was an aged wine that tasted a bit more oaky than the others. It had a rich, ripe apple flavor. This bottle retails at $40.

Next, we tried a rose that I thought was very refreshing. It had a light strawberry flavor. This bottle is from South France: Les Baux de Provence, Rose, Mas de La Dame 2008. Retailing at $15.

We tried four reds after the rose. One of them was from Australia! Sipping it brought back memories of my 4 months studying abroad in Perth. It had a very deep fruity flavor (blackberries and dark plums). Barossa Valley, Shiraz. 'Entity', J. Duval Wines 2006. This bottle retails at $40.

My favorite wine of the night was the Ribera del Duero, Pesquera 2006, which retails at $50 (it was the most expensive of the night.. why do I always like the most expensive wines???!)
This wine also had a very intense fruity flavor. It was one of the heavier wines of the night.

We ended the night with another sherry..this time a very sweet sherry! Everybody in the class looked at the color of this wine and thought "ugh" because it was brown and, well, ugly. However, as soon as I smelled it I knew it would be dessert in a glass. I smelled caramel, coffee, and a rich, dark syrup. It was the perfect ending to the spread of wines.

Well, I made it through the day despite the rocky start and I'm so glad I did! Thankfully, I am feeling A LOT better today, especially after a good night's sleep. Have a wonderful weekend!! Coming up on Monday: Puff Pastry!!

Lesson 73: Pastry day 1

Today was our first day of Module 4: Pastry with Chef Chad. I was very pleased with the first lesson of the mod and I am confident that I'm going to love pastry! It helps to have a great chef instructor who seems passionate and enthusiastic about food and baking. Chef told us that he would probably convert at least 4 of us to pastry by the end of the module... I might be one of those 4..

We worked in teams of 3 today to complete several classic fruit preparations. I worked in a group with Allison H and Al... just to make things extra confusing with the 3 "Al's" working together.

I started by making poached pears in caramel. I love watching the transition of sugar to caramel as the sugar slowly forms into a clear liquid and then into a thick, bronze syrup. After the caramel was sufficiently browned, I added acidulated water, a vanilla bean, pear halves, and some more sugar! The pears poached in the liquid until they were softened. We stored them in containers to save for another lesson.
We also candied orange peels and dried apple slices (also to be used as garnish for another lesson). I grilled some pineapple that I coated in sugar and spices. I love grilled pineapple!

We macerated strawberries by coating them in sugar and then drizzling on balsamic vinegar. The sugar draws out the moisture from the berries, but also increases the sweetness. The balsamic vinegar helps balance out the amount of sweetness. Kim and I were perfect examples of why cooks can't bake... we don't like to measure or follow recipes. Instead of following the recipe and adding just 1/2 tsp of balsamic vinegar, we made the executive decision to "just add a bit more". We told Chef we added more than the recipe called for and he told us we were "typical culinarians" for not following the recipe! This whole precise measurement thing is going to really throw me off this module. I'm like Rachael Ray in a sense that I "eyeball" everything and just do what I want!

The baked and roasted fruits were my favorite! Some teams baked apples:

My team roasted pears and dried figs with a mixture of rum, vanilla extract, sugar, ground ginger, and fresh ginger:


After class I met up with a friend and took a trip to the top of the Empire State Building! So fun!

Lesson 57: Cuisine of Midi, France

Um did it really snow again?!!!!!!!!!   All I have to say is it better not snow any more this winter or else I'm moving to California.

I got to class and we immediately began planning who was going to cook what and started prepping ingredients.  Aaron and I chose to work on the "Poulet a la Basquaise", which is just chicken with tomatoes, peppers, and prosciutto.  Aaron prepped the ingredients while I cooked.  

After the chicken was fabricated, I browned the pieces in duck fat: 

Next, I made the sauce by sauteing pancetta, onion, and garlic.  I de-glazed the pan with brandy.  Then I added red pepper, prosciutto, tomato concasse, sugar, piment d'espelette (an expensive French spice), white wine, and chicken stock.  I added the chicken back into the mixture and let it simmer:

Here was the final product.  It had a wonderful flavor and the chicken was really tender:

We each had to make the potato dish, "Pommes a la Sarladaise".  This is exactly like the Pommes Anna that we made last week except we added sliced truffles in between the layers..mmm.

And after the flip:We also used our duck confit that we prepared last week for a Salad of Duck Confit with Red Cabbage, Chestnuts, and Watercress ("Salade Cevenole").  I loved the chestnuts and walnuts that we coated in sugar and caramelized in the oven.

The final dish of the day was "Cassoulet", which is a slow-cooked bean and meat stew.  Since this stew is best if you cook it for a very long time, we started the cooking process and will continue cooking it tomorrow for optimal flavor.  This stew has a mixture of lamb, pork medallions, garlic sausage, duck confit, and navy beans.  The casserole is topped with breadcrumbs and more duck fat (if needed--ours was plenty moist).

I can't wait to try it tomorrow when it is done cooking!

Chef decided to show us another French dessert today.  She made a sweet apple mixture in a cast iron pan and topped it with puff pastry.  It finished baking in the oven and came out like this:

Then we flipped it on a plate.  How glorious does this look?

It was SOOO good!   We had some extra puff pastry and duck confit so Dana made some duck confit turnovers.  Asli also made a creamy mushroom soup that was excellent!   

After class I grabbed a drink with some of my classmates for Mardi Gras!  Now I can barely keep my eyes open and must get my rest for another day of cooking tomorrow!