I am exhausted!!! Well, it was quite the busy weekend.... This weekend was The International Houby Festival! For those of you, like myself, who don't know what that is... It is a festival to celebrate Czech culture. Houby is the Czechoslovakian word for "mushroom" Ew.
Anyways, it ran Sat and Sun w/ a street fair going on both days and a parade today. For the street fair, we cored pineapples, used the fruit for the fruit cups we made and then used the cored pineapples as cups for the virgin pina coladas we were selling.
After lunch, Manny and I had to get an order of gourmet apples ready. The customer wanted 105 white chocolate covered apples. Half pink w/ white lines and half white w/ pink lines. What a mess. First, gravity decided it would pull the chocolate down as it dried, so the first few looked like they were dipped all the way and then half dipped again after they were dry.... So finally Richard figured out a way to get them mostly even, so I finished those while Manny dropped off the van to get new brakes. I then took the white chocolate and added food dye to make it a bright pink. I piped/squirted lines on them to make designs and cover up the mistakes and cracked chocolate! Let me tell you, this stuff cracks like mad on apples! I've done strawberries before with no cracking whatsoever, but these apples, they cracked like mad. I definitely recommend putting some sort of decoration on them to hide the cracking. If someone has a better way of doing it, please let me know!
Anyways, it ran Sat and Sun w/ a street fair going on both days and a parade today. For the street fair, we cored pineapples, used the fruit for the fruit cups we made and then used the cored pineapples as cups for the virgin pina coladas we were selling.
After lunch, Manny and I had to get an order of gourmet apples ready. The customer wanted 105 white chocolate covered apples. Half pink w/ white lines and half white w/ pink lines. What a mess. First, gravity decided it would pull the chocolate down as it dried, so the first few looked like they were dipped all the way and then half dipped again after they were dry.... So finally Richard figured out a way to get them mostly even, so I finished those while Manny dropped off the van to get new brakes. I then took the white chocolate and added food dye to make it a bright pink. I piped/squirted lines on them to make designs and cover up the mistakes and cracked chocolate! Let me tell you, this stuff cracks like mad on apples! I've done strawberries before with no cracking whatsoever, but these apples, they cracked like mad. I definitely recommend putting some sort of decoration on them to hide the cracking. If someone has a better way of doing it, please let me know!
In the end, they all looked great. I took pictures of the white w/ pink lines b/c those were done first and I didn't want to forget to take some pics.....
Today, was a bit hectic. Pierre's was in the parade at noon, but Manny only had one van and he wanted two. So we drove up to the location at 2700 N Milwaukee to get the other one, but the trans was going. So we came back and worked on the stand for the fest, making sure everything was fresh and stocked. Then Manny and I made some butter cookies. I have made butter cookies before, but not this way. One, he used margarine. Manny said that since the price of butter has gone up so much, they've been substituting margarine instead. Also, he made such a HUGE batch of it, I thought it would dry out before we got it all baked off. And he piped the cookies into little stars. Now, I am not the best at piping. But I am learning. He did a whole sheet pan in, no joke, like 45 seconds. I did the next pan..... It took me like 7 minutes..... Not cool. And he showed me, but I couldn't figure out how he didn't get the little point in the middle. Well, he actually guided me through it while I was doing it, which was cool. I've had a teacher or two in the past who didn't do that and instead either did it themselves or used technical terms I didn't get.... But whatever. It worked and my cookies were beautiful!
We ate a few..... Yummmm.....
Today, was a bit hectic. Pierre's was in the parade at noon, but Manny only had one van and he wanted two. So we drove up to the location at 2700 N Milwaukee to get the other one, but the trans was going. So we came back and worked on the stand for the fest, making sure everything was fresh and stocked. Then Manny and I made some butter cookies. I have made butter cookies before, but not this way. One, he used margarine. Manny said that since the price of butter has gone up so much, they've been substituting margarine instead. Also, he made such a HUGE batch of it, I thought it would dry out before we got it all baked off. And he piped the cookies into little stars. Now, I am not the best at piping. But I am learning. He did a whole sheet pan in, no joke, like 45 seconds. I did the next pan..... It took me like 7 minutes..... Not cool. And he showed me, but I couldn't figure out how he didn't get the little point in the middle. Well, he actually guided me through it while I was doing it, which was cool. I've had a teacher or two in the past who didn't do that and instead either did it themselves or used technical terms I didn't get.... But whatever. It worked and my cookies were beautiful!
We ate a few..... Yummmm.....
The ones with the non-pareils were my favorite. I love those things....
1 comment:
your blog is so neat and crisp looking and I like how you added in recipes and so many wonderful pics
Post a Comment