On Monday we are moving into the new pastry kitchen across campus, two doors down from the new restaurant. Since they closed cookery at the Adelaide City campus, there will be two restaurants running at Regency. One is the Graduates restaurant, which is pretty fancy, and then there’s a new one Tiros that opens in a few weeks.

I have this renewed sense of accomplishment and learning now that we are about to start cakes so here’s hoping we all do well. I’m sure it will be awesome. I’m also looking forward to feeling normal after kitchen work and not covered in layers of olive oil after frying. ;)

Cake work commence!

And then I got kicked out of the kitchen this morning.

Before we can commence pastry and cake work, we go through a fundamentals module. It runs for the first month of the course and then it’s straight into all the goods. This week is an assessment week, and we have set menus for each day we must present for inspection. Thursday is our actual test day, but we have to present Workflow Plans as part of our menu organisation for Monday-Wednesday’s menus as well as the test. I forgot to do that.

From the moment I left on Friday I was on the go. I went straight to pick up the candy bar glassware, and then rushed home to help with preparations for Sunday’s High Tea. Baking, labels, printing, you name it. I got little sleep and then last night once the High Tea was over and I finally got home after picking up my sister I didn’t really feel like focusing on anything in particular. In fact, I was amazed I even got my uniform washed and dried for this morning!

So I forgot about the workflow plan right up until I was 200m out of the campus. I thought, I’ll be alright. I have done these menu dishes before, surely it will be fine. Apparently not. I was told to go and do it and come back when I was done, but I knew before I got there that if I got told off about anything today, or forgetting anything, I’d be pretty angry because they definitely didn’t understand my weekend and what I had just achieved. I had just catered a High Tea for 70 people!

I went out of the class to write my workflow plan and found myself getting angrier about it. It’s not exactly a two minute job, I was so clouded with emotions I couldn’t actually concentrate on what I actually had to include, and once I had written it I would be starting very very late. We’re on a strict time frame for these three days and I knew I would be told off again or something of the sort and could not handle it. I grabbed all my stuff and left.

Monday’s we have a different chef in the kitchen that stresses us a little more than any one else we’ve had to supervise us. I know that different chefs have different expectations but we’re not undertaking a Commercial Cookery course, this is Patisserie. It’s amazing how much I learn from our regular chef compared to the Monday guy (who also takes our theory classes). Intimidation in a position of authority and being picky about trivial things don’t earn you respect or win your points. It just makes you nervous. The way you can be the best for your staff (or students) is just to be friendly and relaxed, while letting them know of the boundaries – and in turn they will respect you back freely.

I better go and write my Workflow Plans, eh?

This blog isn't officially linked to anything to do with the apprentice, but as people are ultra keen to know what's going on, I thought I'd give you a bit of an update! It all seems so hush hush! I want everyone to know. :)

We've been through two workshops out of four, the Event and Brand Management ones. I think I got more out of the Event Management rather than the Brand one. The Event one was fantastic - I was reminded of the wide scope of things to remember to include in planning, not just the food and venue. The Brand workshop was still great and was fantastic to see the point of view from a brand trying to protect itself by being responsible. Much respect!

The challenge at the end of the Brand workshop was trickier than the first one, as I'm in a team by myself and have no one to bounce ideas to, but I think I still did alright. With more than one person, you can quickly develop an idea, but I was down to the last minutes of our allocated 15 to come up with a plan and had only just thought of how I would present it. The Event challenge was interesting and I think I overdid my planning of the scenario event, but by the end I was wishing it was a real thing.

The photos from Monday (Brand) aren't very flattering.... Well, does anyone like themselves in photos?! I especially don't because I would desperately like some new glasses frames to match the times ;) I was sick for six days, so that would explain why I hate the photos more than the previous weeks shots. Here’s two shots of me, one from each workshop with the photographer credits. Also, click the photo to see the album from the workshops!

Photo by Sarah Poppy
The Highway Apprentice Workshop #1

Photo by Andrew Specterman
The Highway Apprentice Workshop #2

There’s the third workshop on tonight about Social Media, hosted by Kelly Noble from GLAM Adelaide (so excited to meet her finally!) and I’m really looking forward to it.

We also have a interview and photo shoot next Wednesday and then I think the event planning is on! I am kind of hoping I am the last event, because if I get into TAFE as I predict, the next six weeks are going to be quite overwhelming. Here goes! :)

My video entry was chosen as one of the four finalist teams! The winner with the most points after the four workshops and their event wins a trip for two to LA and $5000!

If you don’t already know me, my name is Monique (I prefer to be called by my nickname Monnie) and I’m 22 years old. Since my early teens I have organised birthdays, movie nights and gatherings with friends. A couple of years ago I stepped in at the last minute and helped to organise final details of a wedding (and rushed around between houses on the day itself). I have been co-organising Adelaide Twitter Meets for over a year. In 2009 I organised BarCamp Adelaide, and then Cupcake Camp Adelaide later in November.

BarCamp Adelaide is an open-source IT conference (best way to describe it) that encourages anyone and everyone to make a presentation about something in technology, computing, gadgets or programming that they are passionate about.
Cupcake Camp Adelaide, on the other hand, spawns from the *camp franchise, however it was about sharing cupcakes in an open environment, instead of computing information. I decided to turn it into a charity event, and we sold 400 cupcakes in under three hours. We raised $1040 for Camp Quality and I am constantly asked when the next one is being held (it’s coming in the next few months)!

When I first saw this competition I thought I would give it a go. I love to organise events but I didn’t really consider myself as an event promoter or socialite, but the fact that I would get $2500 to organise my own event was the real motivator. I am passionate about fancy food and cupcakes, so I will be holding a traditional high tea with a modern decor twist to raise money for charity. I can’t wait to get started on the details like room design and table presentation, but also the feature of the event, the dessert bar.

Like I said in my video, Amy Atlas Events is a HUGE inspiration. She inspires me, and countless others around the world to create beautiful masterpieces like hers. I want to be able to make something just as good, and maybe I could even get featured on her blog as a guest piece. :)

There’s no event specifics yet. I don’t know when I’ll be holding my event, and I don’t know any other details (ticket pricing, the charity, target audiences etc). But I will be keeping everyone posted. It will be in July/August and I will try and give you as much notice as I can!

Recording yourself and playing it back multiple times can be the most embarassing experience (seriously, who doesn’t cringe at themselves even once?) but I have learnt to laugh at it and the awesome cheesy transitions and music, so I like it more now than before.

Big big thanks to everyone who has sent me messages of support, love and encouragement – I am SO excited to be able to put this on and I hope everyone can come along! Will be keeping you all posted with updates!

I’ve been working pretty hard, lots of shifts at the bookshop, and a lot of cupcake work. Friday night I made my second stall appearance (ever) at a retail therapy night to raise money for the music students to go overseas.

It was great fun! I had the debut of my new packaging and also set up a PowerPoint slideshow to display my photos. We also sold out of the stock at the stall, which was probably the most satisfying part of the whole thing!

I’m now waiting to hear from TAFE if I’m going to do Patisserie next semester, and I also entered the HWY Apprentice competition, so lots of waiting and lots of potential life events and changes ahead!

My final summary:

It’s a fantastic phone. Quick to respond, removable battery makes up for the average battery life (about the same as iPhone 3G). Definitely not for smartphone beginners though, there are way too many user interface setbacks. The hidden menus and things that should be obvious make this a phone for people who are well versed with gadgetry. It’s converted me from my iPhone, but I’m not sure if it’s permanent – the next gen iPhone could swing things back.

I still plan to post some videos and more photos taken with the phone up on this blog as some collective posts in the coming days/week. There’s also a list of the apps I’ve had a trial with that I want to recommend – I have had a chaotic week with real life work which has delayed a lot of the work I wanted to do.

Taken May 29, 2010 with the HTC Desire

Many thanks to Telstra for offering this fabulous opportunity to review a very good phone (and wow, I get to keep it). I am not sure that it will be permanent as I will see what the iPhone 4G has in store, but it will definitely get a lot of use, and I’m still seriously considering a network switch.

The HTC Desire
As you may or may not know, the HTC Desire has been nicknamed “The iPhone Killer”, but hasn’t every smartphone with a hint of promise? It isn’t really smart to say anything is a *insert thing here* killer, because there’s always going to be people who prefer one or the other. As an example, look at Microsoft vs Apple – Need I say more?

Here’s some key points and interesting things about the phone so far:

• It is super quick, as I expected it to be. My iPhone is slow, and the button response time (when you press the home/power to see the lockscreen) can be up to four seconds sometimes. The Desire responds immediately. It’s obvious that installing “vista on a 486″ is basically what they did with the iPhone and the hardware’s no longer supporting the software. 2.0 was a good run. At least this phone is superman fast.
• The keyboard is giving me the …shirts. The spacebar is too small, and as I’m right handed I keep hitting the full stop (I covered this in a previous post)
• It is a lot easier to set a ringtone, in fact, select your mp3 in your music bit and hit “menu”. It opens up a separate part where you can trim the song to be your ringtone. To do this on an iPhone you have to either open garage band, or download bad quality junk off a free site to put into iTunes.
• Speaking of easier, SD card goodness! I simply drag and drop music into the mp3 folder and wow, it appears! No more iTunes sync (yay!)
• Removable battery – back in the Nokia days, I used to carry a spare battery with me to school on long days or when I was on holidays, and it was a really handy feature. I’m so glad that I can take this phone apart and actually remove the memory and the battery.
  I know too that because everything is saved on the SD card that if anything happened to the phone it’s likely the data will survive. I’ve washed a camera by accident before (yes, through the machine) and the data survives. Miracles!
• Finally, (and I’m not sure if this is a just me thing or if it happens to everyone else) the always on data switch that I recently discovered. I’ll have to double check on this with my Optus SIM in the HTC Desire to test the response time, but I am confident this makes all the difference to the slow delay on the iPhone.

I can handle the way it does predictive text, but when I type fast with every other device it is really frustrating to come back down to earth, so to speak. The keyboard of the HTC Desire looks like this:

Now granted this is the landscape view, but any iPhone users will see what I hate straight away: the full stop on the right hand side of the keyboard.

I’m right handed, so I use my right hand to space when I am typing. I am FOREVER hitting the full stop, and it’s making me look like an idiot in any emails or text messages. I can go back and fix them but it takes a lot of time. I’ve since started stretching my thumb over to hit the space bar more in the middle, or using my left hand for the space, but it’s hard to get into when you use your right hand to space everywhere else.

The second thing that annoys me, as funnily enough I was thinking of yesterday, is the Messages widget. Mark Pesce actually wrote about this and has the same problem with it I do. I’ve actually been scouring the Market to see if there is another way, but all the message widgets are … crap. The Mail and the Calendar widgets are amazing and I wish they’d made the SMS one exactly the same.

Even though the keyboard annoyance is a large part of the phones functionality, I still love this phone. It’s definitely replacing my iPhone, I have barely touched it. It responds super fast. I was considering a change in networks but yesterday I actually discovered a handy little feature right in the guts of the settings (Settings > Wireless & Networks > Mobile Networks) called “Enable always-on mobile data”.

Oh, of course!

So is this the big difference that I’ve noticed then? With my iPhone it takes minutes for it to clear its throat and start to receive my mail.. so keeping the connection always on, is that the answer? I am super keen to switch my SIM in now to test this out for myself, because that is a really big deal that other phone manufacturers could take a hint from and even just have that option available for impatient geeky types that need my Twitter and email fix.

Friday: Two orders. One is for 48 minis and the other for 40 regulars. Both have to be delivered by 3pm.
Saturday: A huge order. 50 regulars plus a giant cupcake for a 21st. This has to be delivered to the other side of the city by 7pm.

I’m really excited, because I haven’t done any promotion on the business as of late except sometimes hand around a business card or two. I think it’s an indication that the events that I have catered for did really well and word is getting around. I thought that I also would be a bit anxious about all of this but turns out I’m coping quite well.

Because of the seemingly busy expansion I’ve decided to make some business-y changes, starting with organising the business card changeover to 2.0 (for when I run out) and getting a whole bunch of flyers and other stuff sorted out. I want the business cards and flyers to all match with the website, as I think that consistency throughout the business is also quite important.

I don’t know anything about my TAFE course status for at least another month, so here’s still hoping I get in!