Starting School

It began as so many 'first days' of my life, with my heart both excited and nervous, my stomach full of butterflies and nausea.  Or at least that is how I remember 1st grade, my date with David Soul and starting graduate school.  To say  nothing of my wedding day.  But I digress.

Today, I began my life as a baker of bread.  A real baker.  A professional bread baker who, if I wanted to, could sell the bread I bake to you and your family.  That's why I am here...I want to know how to do it right and feel confident when the panel of the Farmer's Market stares at me and asks whether I know what I am doing, I don't look too sketchy.  And, I'd like to look legit without wearing this ridiculous baker outfit I had to wear all day. Lets talk just briefly about that uniform.

What I know so far is that the uniform i am being asked to wear meakes me feel less professional than I have ever felt.  In fact, it makes me feel like I have regressed into a world of such bad fashion taste, that my mother would have curled her lips and said, trying to be positive, "Well, let's just hope that your classmates look as bad."

But I am excited.  I have chosen this particular school becuase it is in New York City, tightly associated with many Food TV chefs, and has a program that is solely devoted to bread...no pastry, no cookies or cakes, nothing that does not have yeast!  I know myself well enough to know that I don't have the parience or eye/hand coordination to create wedding cakes or roll fondant to that perfect and perfectly even height.  I do think I have an instinct for flavor, a curiosity for why the bread I made at home tastes like leaden hockey pucks and am eager for a new intellectual adventure.

So, join me...its eight weeks, five days a week, seven hours a day.  I will be as honest as i can.  Let's see if i can learn how to bakemeacareer.  And, lets see if I can be amusing at the same time!

sending love