Pressing Onward

Today, I picked up my Intent to Graduate form. It seems on odd thing, in that I imagine that any degree-seeking student is intent on graduating. Nonetheless, it is in my possession and needs to be completed and signed by 237 people, or so it seems, by next Monday. After this semester, I will have an internship, and two computer courses left if my petition to waive the Speech 101 requirement is successful.

This semester my coursework is mostly culinary. I have International Cuisine, Garde Manger, Table Service and Beverage Management and, the exception to the culinary classes, Principles of Accounting I. Admittedly, I did not head into the semester overjoyed about the prospect of accounting in any shape or form, but I do see its use, especially in relating to running my own business.

We have two fairly extensive projects this semester, a buffet for garde manger that centers on a theme and a menu and small seminar on a country for International. My group for garde manger decided on Denmark as our country. I think it will be a challenge, which is good. Thankfully we are looking at a great deal of potatoes and fish, not so difficult to track down in Nashville. For garde manger, my group isn’t firm on a theme but seems to be leaning toward a 1970s cocktail party. I wanted to do an English afternoon tea sort of thing and got turned down. The downside to being the only girl and the whole English tea thing smacking of doilies. Oh, well. The 1970s will be fun to revisit and relatively easy to decorate for, I just don’t want it to be too velveeta laden. No chefs in bell-bottoms kind of thing.

Despite my fears last semester that I had fallen into a culinary Grease Pit of Despair and was singularly screwing up, I managed to pull it out and kept my 4.0. I was completely floored by that and hopeful that another successful semester, a bang up internship and August graduation will make me employable. The day job will be pretty important if J. and I are going to get this business running toward what we really want to be doing–cookbooks and travel. This is where I could go off on a complete tangent about culinary tours of Slovenia and places off the foodies’ beaten track. I’ll save that for another day.

On another note, we here at Ars Culinaria, we being me, are still interested in doing the Ask Foodieporn segments so please send your inquiries regarding all things culinary, tangental is okay too, to Victoria at foodieporn with the .com thingy at the end, all lowercase, no spaces (must. keep. the. bots. at. bay.).