Lunch Menus for a Week of Pastry Class

Last week, I was asked to assist in the Be a Pastry Chef for a Week class at Tante Marie's, which was enormously fun. Ironically, as a new graduate of the pastry program, I spent the first half of each day preparing lunch for the group of 14+. (I found it strange to leave the school with my hands smelling of garlic, rather than butter and sugar.) It was hard work, but I was most surprised by the amount of time it took to put together such large meals. Everything, from boiling water to washing lettuce, takes much longer than for two, four, even six diners. I should have known that, but I guess I've never really single-handedly cooked a meal for that many people before. But, it was wonderful to come in and for a few hours focus solely on making food. It also gave me some great meal planning ideas for home -- and everything I made, luckily, is scalable. I'm going to list all of the ingredients in each main dish so that a.) you can try to recreate them if you like and b.) I can try to remember them.

P.S. I ordered a pair of shoes and they arrived today looking even more gorgeous in person. So in honor of my new heeled friends and their Art Deco-inspired design, I'm going to use the Riesling font for my menu. It seems fitting.

Menu for a Pre-Midnight Snack

I don't usually like to eat right before bedtime, but I'm currently enrolled in a pastry class that meets two nights a week from 6 to 10pm. At the end of each class, we do a tasting of the day's work, which is essentially like injecting a pound of sugar directly into my brain. By the time I get home (sugar high nearly walked off), I'm craving salty, wondrous things like pickles and soft boiled eggs. This must be what it's like to be pregnant, methinks. I was just too hungry to sleep the other night, so I whipped up a quick second dinner--warm, comforting, and distinctly not dessert--ate it in on the couch front of an episode of Top Chef, and smiled to myself like a chubby little Italian bambina.

I was inspired by Lollipop's creative use of text on that lobster bag from Tuesdsay's post, so I had fun playing around with the Type on a Path tool for this one: