Practicals and more wine

I got my grade from my Foundations practical: 91%. I was hoping for a little bit of a higher grade but I'm still happy with getting an A. Like I said before, I/we lost 4 points as a class for the stocks and safety and sanitation. Not much I can do about other people not putting their hair up or what have you. I suppose I could've played the sani-police but I'd rather lose a few points than to have people hate me. The other points I lost were a few for my knife cuts, which were uniform but my bias cuts were a little too long, according to the chef, and for my beure blanc sauce. Chef said my sauce was great in every aspect except that it was a little to dark in color. Oh well. We've switched instructors in World Cuisine, which I also had a practical in, so I haven't been able to find out my exact grade on that one but I'm pretty sure it was also an A and probably higher than the Foundations. We'll see.

Last night we started off with another wine tasting. The purpose of this tasting wasn't really to analyse the wine but rather to practice how we taste and to continue to develop a platform that will help us identify wines. The guest sommelier was great. He really explained everything in a way that you could see, smell, and taste what he was talking about. I'm going to keep a copy of my notes from that class in my truck so when I go out and have some wine I can refer to it and keep practicing my tasting and developing my palate. We had a Cotes du Rhones and a Bordeaux, which were both great but I prefer the Bordeaux for sure.

After the wine we went into the kitchen and made Arrancine, which is Italian. Don't ask me. We're supposed to be studying France but the chef has other more important priorities, apparently. He's a great chef and I love his classes but I don't really feel like I'm learning anything about France yet, and we only have a few more sessions to cover the country before we have a practical and move on to the next country. He keeps saying that we're really going to bust through some hardcore French stuff soon. I hope so. I really want a grasp on France the same way Chef Matthews gave us a grasp on Italy.

Anyway, here's to the weekend. I'm going to clock some hours helping out for an event at school to help pay down my tuition and do some cooking at home as well. My b-day poker tourney is tomorrow also, so it's going to be a busy weekend, but it should also be a lot of fun.