Wednesday, Day 8

It's another wonderful day in Winnipeg. It really feels like summer is finally starting. It's 24*C and it's only 9am. Too bad I'm stuck indoors all day >.<. I have a job interview next week, but I'm not sure if I should stay here at the villa or go with the new job. My career says gogogo but my heart thinks I should stay at the villa, chopping carrots and celery all day...

Since beef stew was for dinner, we had to chop up a  lot of veggies. There was also the preparations for Canada Day at the villa. (They are having a big dinner banquet) And we also had soup on the menu, more veggies were needed. SO, yesterday was basically filled with chopping veggies and peeling potatoes. 

I also made biscuits yesterday! It was a little hard to remember how to make them really. The dough gets really sticky when you add the milk, so you have to add quite a bit of flour and get your hands in there to make it a nice smooth round ball.

What really scares me is that the chef likes to add LARD to biscuits. Lard is super gross! A big white block of pig fat. Instead, I added margarine.. good ol oleic acid =).

I got to leave early, so I ended up skipping dinner there. Thank GOODNESS. The food is good but I'm seriously getting fat eating their food! I just can't say no once the food is in front of me..

Day 7 ...

Mornings really are the best when you wake up early. For me, early is 8:30am. If I got up any earlier, I'd have more time to blog. I get a ride to work in the morning, therefore, lots of time to blog!

Yesterday for dinner, the plan was to make burger and fries with coleslaw.  The Chef made the burger patty from scratch. The fries were from the food distribution company, sysco and the coleslaw lettuce was from safeway. It's nice when your boss sends you out walking somewhere on an errand. It's like a nice little treat!

We made the buns from scratch, which was fun to watch him do. He said I'd be a pro at bread making by the end of the summer. The kneading of the dough looks really tough to do to be honest. You need a lot of elbow grease....
Here are the ingredients that I remember..

• 10 cups of flour
• 2 cups of warm water
• 3 oz of yeast
• 1 cup of sugar
• 2 tbsp of salt 

That's all I can remember from yesterday.. I should have really blogged about it before I forgot. You add the flour gradually and once it is all in one ball, you knead the dough. The more you knead it, the more gluten forms. You cover the dough with plastic wrap and store it in a warm dry place and let it rice for an hour. Once risen, cut at the dough and roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Use a cutter to cut out the rolled out dough. Bake it until it is golden brown.

Today, I'm going to make scones again! A little exciting no? It's my test and he's not going to help me at all. hope I do ok!

Monday Day 6 @ Villa Cabrini

I'm sitting at starbucks sippin' some delicious iced coffee while waiting for my work to start in about half an hour.. I skipped breakfast again, and all I brought for lunch was a banana! Making time for making food and work is difficult.. 

Work events includes drinking tea with the elderly, chopping vegetables, washing dishes and watching Chef make meat loaf. Not very much.. really.  Already, I dread going to work. I think it's a sign. Thank goodness the position is only two months. The people are fun, and the work environment is very low stress, but it's just so boring. There really is nothing to do there! When I get there, I'll be sippin my tea for 45 minutes, and then chop veggies, then maybe bake something, then watch the Chef make the main dinner dish, allwhile washing the dishes. I then help serve dinner and then eat dinner.  Then I go to school. I think I'd rather spend my time studying minus the baking part. But in their defense, I didn't stay there too long yesterday. We'll see how today goes..

Yesterday was my brother's convocation, so I had a shorter work day than usual. I wasn't very much looking forward to the ceremony, but at least the refreshments were decent :)! We got there 20 minutes prior to the start of the ceremony, so we all didn't have a seat. Since all of us are busy, we didn't have time to come any earlier...thus standing and photo taking is the best mix for exhaustion.

I had a mega headache on the car ride home, and it's still sort of lingering on still. Not looking forward to today's long day!

Day 5 @ Villa Cabrini

Today was a short day at villa cabrini. I didn't bake anything. The chef asked me if I was liking the job so far and I said "yes, it's nice" and that "my favourite part is the baking and learning new things". He then said I'll be doing a lot more baking.

Here's what I did today...
a)wipe counters
b)put away dishes
c)go on a 30 minute break. talked to old people.
d)cut up veggies for soup
e)stand around
f)serve lunch
g)clean up

Day 4 - Biscuits @ Villa Cabrini

I started off the day wiping the counters..etc.. met a volunteer lady named Licia. As I cut the veggies for salad, Licia kept showing me how to cut them properly. Of course, working at Danny's forever I know how to chop veggies! Silly. But I comply to the old lady just to be nice.There's a meal schedule posted on the tack board which said mashed potatoes, so I peeled some potatoes too. 

After all that boring prep stuff he told me to make biscuits! Chef asked me, "do you remember how to make Scones?" (he pronounces it like SCONS). I said yes of course!  And he went on to say, biscuits are very similar to scones. The only thing I really was unsure of was how much milk was added to the batter. Here is the ingredient list for 40 biscuits:

• 8 cups of flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup baking powder
• 2 lbs or 16 oz of lard (ewwwwwwwwwwwww)
• 3 cups of milk

The steps are pretty much the same as making scones. The main differences are:

1. no eggs are added 
2. no butter is used, just lard
3. less 1/2 cup of sugar
4. no raisins

The rest of my time at the villa was me doing various kitchen tasks such as doing the dishes, and preparing for dinner. Hrm.

Starbucks on Osborne is really close to the Villa; this is both fortunate and unfortunate. I get to blog at starbucks, but starbucks costs lots of money! This whole week that I've been here , I've been using a gift card that I received from a friend. There's only 2 bucks left on it though. :(. Can never have enough starbucks gift cards :).

After today's 3 hour shift, I get some down time at home and then get to work at sushi servin for 7 hours. Hello money makin job!

Day 3 @ Villa

Wednesdays I work 11-4 because I have volunteering at 4:40 at the Immigrant Centre. As I started my shift the chef reminded me to wipe the counters and fill the sink with sanitizer and soap. Oops. After that I chopped up carrots, celery and onions for soup and peeled potatoes for mashed potatoes. Oddly enough, chopping onions don't make me cry. I think it's because the contacts I'm wearing are like 4 months old and stick to my eye like glue all day.

Enza , one of the residents there volunteers from 11:00-6:00 on Wednesdays. She baked cookies, buns, and kaiser-ish buns.  I sat on a stool and watched her bake, and she gave me a cookie to nibble on. The chef worked on a crossword puzzle while I sat on a nearby stool and watched her for an hour. . . . . . Super slack. The highlight of my shift was smashing up some pork with a tenderizer? so that the pork is all flattened out. There were like 35 of them 0.o. I covered it with spiced up bread crumbs.

Honestly, this job doesn't seem to be much of a learning experience for me. I mostly do minor kitchen duties and sit around with old people.  Time for a job change perhaps? The chef did say I was going to do a lot of baking, like making bread. Hopefully as time passes I'll get more cool tasks to do and learn how old folks kitchens work :)

At the end of my long days I am grumpy and tired. It is time to accept the fact that I'm going to be super busy for the next 6 weeks and not sulk about it anymore! Fighting!!

New Job! Schedule and scones.

I recently got a new job as Meal Program Assistant at the Villa (old folks home). I work in the kitchen with the head chef/cook. My course, Basic Principles of Human Nutrition (2140) started on Tuesday and runs til the 4th of August. I no longer work at Danny's during the day! Now my sister and my cousin Jo take the day time shift :)

Here is my schedule for the rest of the summer.
Monday - 11:00 - 6:30 @ Villa

Tuesday  - 10:00 - 6:00 @ Villa Cabrini
                   6:30 - 9:00 @ school for 2140

Wednesday -11:00 - 4:00 @ Villa
                     4:40 - 7:30 @ Immigrant Centre for volunteering

Thursday - 10:00 - 6:00 @ Villa
                  6:30 - 9:00 @ school for 2140

Friday - 10:00 - 1:30 @ Villa
              6:30 - 12:00pm @ sushi serving
Saturday  - 11:45 - 4:30 or 6:30-12:00 @ sushi

Sunday - 3:30 - 6:30 @ Danny's
              *sometimes 11:45 - 3:00 @ sushi

It feels like I'm really busy now! But I will have Mondays free evenings and weekends aren't so bad either. I get a ride to Villa  from my brother in the morning, and if I have time, I can stop by at starbucks, have a coffee and write in this blog and/or study!

On my first day at Villa , I watched the chef cook soup and make roasted ham. Basically, I follow him around...  I have to do the dishes too though :(. At least there is a dish washer! I also get free dinner.. but the food he makes isn't really fattening, but it is a lot of food. I see how I can get fat working here :(. I need to eat smaller lunches and breakfasts to make room for the big dinner.

Yesterday, for the first hour I drank tea. For the second hour, I read a book. As 12:00 hit, I started to making raisin scones. This was super fun and I enjoyed it a lot!!! The chef expects me to remember the recipes of the baked good I make; he even said next time I make it on my own. So to make ~40 scones you need:

• 8 cups of flour
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/2 cup of baking powder
• 1 tsp of salt 
• 1/2 cup of lard and 1/2 cup of butter OR 1 cup of butter
• 4 eggs (3 to be put into batter)
• 2 cups of milk (I think..)
• 2 cups of raisins

 Add the dry ingredients to the first bowl and mix it up. Then I add the lard/butter to the dry ingredients and mix it with your hands until the flour feels crumbly.  Whisk the milk and eggs together. Make a little dip in the middle of the flour and add the milk and eggs. Fold the dough together until all the dough sticks together. Make sure you don't work the dough to much or gluten will form and the scone will have a bread like consistency. Fold in 2 cups of raisins. Form the dough into a giant ball and cut it in half.

Flour your working area. Take one half the dough and knead it until the dough is bout 1/2- 3/4 inch thick. Use a cookie cutter to cut circles out of the dough. Do the same to the other half.

Place onto cookie sheet (no need to spray). Glaze the scones with egg (Egg wash) Bake for 10 minutes! Ta Da!

3/8 into summer 2011

This year, is the year that many of my friends are finished their undergrad. I'm very proud of them and it must feel great to finally have a bachelor degree! I look forward to the next two years in which I will be graduating!

As for me, the past 3/8ths of summer haven't been the best productivity wise. I've just been doing things as they come. I finished my last exam on the 11th of May; a bit late because the exam had been a deferred one.  I then worked on a couple of volunteer projects such as the display case at my school, and a monthly assignment for a Dietitian. Soon after that, I worked at the sushi restaurant and my parents place for awhile and then went on a trip to Minneapolis with my friends! I took the opportunity to volunteer my time for a National Food Costing project in which took up most of one of my weekends. Straight after that my parents employed me Mon-Fri, 10:30am-3:30pm everyday at their restaurant.

I have been busy, but I guess not with the right things. I'm really worried about this internship because my grades aren't great, neither is my resume and I am still unsure as to who my references will be.. time is ticking and I need to jump the gun!

Fighting!