I have arrived...

After six weeks of indelible quality time with family and great friends, I have now arrived at culinary school. The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY is where I have decided to reside for the next two years while I explore the wonders of the foodservice industry. Today is only day one so I do not have a great deal to tell. BUT, the people in my class come from a wide range of cultural backgrounds and all seem to be involved in a lifelong love affair with food.

Since I arrived this afternoon, I have moved in to my dorm room that I will share for the next seven months with two young ladies from the Philippines and South Korea. When I first walked in the room and saw that there are three sets of dorm furniture in a tiny room made for perhaps two people at most, I began to rethink my decision to live on campus. After taking a few deep breaths and thinking about commuting from an off-campus location, I felt much better about sharing my personal space with these two unknown young ladies. Plus, a few benefits to living in a residence hall are that we have a bathroom in the room, the hall has COINLESS washers and dryers, we have WI-FI access throughout campus, free on-campus parking, and for the first seven months of my time here, I will most likely be in class at 7am so anything more than a 5 minute commute would be horrendous. These perks alone make living on campus in a small room with two other women much more advantageous than I remembered when first I set eyes on my new tiny piece of room.

For the next two days, we will have an orientation that entails picking up uniforms, the famous toque, aka Chef Boyarde hat, knife and baking kits, registering my car, etc etc etc. Wednesday, I think, we actually enter the classrooms and get down to business! YAY! I'm very excited. I will post pictures as soon as I have some mouth watering images to share! Mil gracias again to my family and friends for the quality time we shared during my January and February mini-sabbatical! With your love and support, I'm not ready to become an IRON CHEF!