Adventures in pastry cream (Day 2)

I survived my second day at boot camp. In retrospect, today actually passed by pretty quickly, even though I almost fell asleep in class more than once. We had early lecture again, followed by pastry cream galore (or hell, if creams are not your thing) -- we filled cream puffs and eclairs, brulee-ed some creme brulees, glazed bread puddings and presented our first set of desserts. It was magnificently decadent. (I know magnificently is not a word.) Lunch was wild rice and mushroom soup, prime rib (for lunch!), and profiteroles that we didn't get to since we were stuffed with cream puffs.

In the afternoon, we had a really interesting lecture on tea and coffee by one of the professors who runs Apple Pie Bakery, the cafe on campus. We sampled 6 different coffees side by side, and then 12 (yes, a dozen) teas and tisanes side by side. It was awesome and very eye opening. Conclusions? I still love my espresso straight up. And drip coffee is still gross.

Dinner was at the St. Andrew's Cafe, which I admit made me a bit homesick since the health-conscious, Asian-influenced cuisine was very similar to what you would find in SF. I had a spinach & arugula salad to start, followed by a pan seared salmon with a soy-orange glaze, served with shitake and edamame and steamed brown rice. Yum yum yum!

On deck for tomorrow: we conquer puff pastry, buttercreams (that was tomorrow and not today), and cookie dough!