Just Starting Out

Hey there!  Wow, a new blog.  So much room, so much potential... *pauses to marvel, continues with evil laughter*

Okay, okay, just kidding.  Sort of.  This blog has a great deal of promise and potential for me.  I've dreamed of owning my own bakery for so many years now, I can practically taste it.  No, no wait. That's the chocolate chip cookie I just ate.  And let me tell you, it tastes soooo much better than plaster dust and paint!  Where was I?  Oh right.  Dreams and such.

It hasn't been feasible for me to open a bakery.  I don't have a formal education.  What I do have is drive, desire, and a few professional text books.  Every now and then I decide to open one and make something out of it.  It turns out great, I bask in the pride of a job well done, and start thinking about how I want to serve it in my imaginary (also known as someday in the future I will have it) bakery.  Then I realize that it was just one item out of how many I'll need to know to succeed?  I can't possibly teach myself everything, can I?  What I need to do is go to school.

This leads to a search of culinary programs in and around my area.  There are many, but none of them have a robust baking and pastry arts program.  On top of that, only one has a mediocre program, and it costs far more than I'm willing to pay for the level of education I'd be getting.  There is a program I want to go through.  It's a year long program at L'Academie de Cuisine in Maryland, but it's a fantastic program, and the school is ranked in the top ten of the Nation.  I have a way to pay for it, but this current moment in my life isn't conducive to my attending. 

So I made a decision.  Well, my fiance made a fantastic suggestion and has been wonderful about helping me stick to it.  We picked one day out of the week (for now it's Saturdays, but in the future the date will change as my work schedule changes), and I pick a recipe from one of my text books.  The guidelines are it has to be something I have never made before so that I am learning something new.  In theory we're starting at the beginning and working our way through to the end.  In reality, I'll be mostly working from front to back, and jumping around a bit in the middle.

We figure, after a few years of working and saving money plus diligently teaching me to bake through semi-professional guides, I just might be able to give a mouse a cookie... oh yeah, and open a successful bakery.