Chef Todd's Final Project

Friday was Chef Todd's final project at Seattle Culinary Academy. He made a four-course fine dining meal for 12 family members & friends, and 4 of his professors. It was delicious! Friday also happened to be Todd's birthday, so it was an extra special day for him. Todd and another classmate were the first to present their final projects--our two parties were in a private dining room, next to one of the two restaurants at the school. It was really neat to see the student chefs working in the kitchen, practicing their fine dining skills for paying customers from the public.

Here we are in the dining room. In attendance for Todd's event were: myself, Chelsea, his parents, his roomie Laura, our boss Brenda, Todd's two aunties and one cousin, his cousin's wife, and this third quarter chef instructor.

In addition to the planning and executing the menu, they also have to title the meal and add table decor to match the theme. Todd's was titled "The Washingtonian", so fittingly he displayed a beautiful bowl of apples surrounded by green and white mums.

The first course of broiled oysters, presented on rock salt.

Next up is a grilled pear & beet salad

Very impressive display, Todd!

Cider braised pork belly with butternut squash puree and pickled root slaw

Dessert, the favorite course of all! It was a delicious apple cobbler with salted caramel ice cream and caramel drizzled over it. YUM!

Chels and I sat near Todd's third quarter instructor, she was very nice. It was great to have an expert opinion--she knew how everything was supposed to be prepared, so her compliments were especially highly regarded. The rest of us thought everything was great because we love Todd and are so proud of him!

At the end of the meal, Chef Todd came out to greet us with his sous chefs, other classmates of his.

Hip hip hooray for Todd! Great job!

Chef Todd seems relieved that the project is successfully accomplished

Afterward, we were able to go on a tour of the kitchens at the school and see where he has been working. In each kitchen, the students would stop and cheer for Todd and his classmate whom had just finished their final projects. It was great! Way to go Chef Todd!

Snowy Wonderland & Teaser Pics of Our New House!

Well, it's true: today our governor declared a state of emergency for Washington, due to the weather. Yikes! It's been an interesting week. I've had half days at work yesterday and today, and Chels' work closed Tuesday and hasn't yet re-opened. My bus, which I refer to as "the snowmobile" has been running uninterrupted this whole time so I haven't had an excuse to miss work this week. However, on the ride home this afternoon, I saw two other buses on my route jack-knifed and abandoned while trying to get up the hill, so we'll see what tomorrow brings...

Here's a picture of our street. Luckily we have a garage, so our car doesn't look like these!

Here's a snowy picture of our townhouse--I promise I'll try and take better pictures once the snowflakes aren't flying in my eyes!

The backyard actually has a little snowdrift! Kind of funny, I hadn't seen a snow drift in Seattle yet before this...

Here's Kitten enjoying herself in front of the gas fireplace in the living room

Here's the living room. The windows and balcony face out over the backyard.

Check out the snow! It's a pretty good amount for Seattle. I went to Ace Hardware to buy a shovel and some salt on Sunday morning and the guys there were all trying to talk me into a different shovel. I ended up going with my first choice, even though one guy said he thought the snow would make the shovel too heavy for me--guess I should have told him I'm a farm girl from Minnesota, and I've seen the likes of snow & shoveling many times before!

Here's a shot of the dining room and kitchen.

A close-up of the kitchen. That's all you get for now because we are still unpacking. Some of you have been so patient (ah-hem, Ashley), you'll just have to wait a little longer to see the rest! We really are loving our new house, it's nice to have a place of our own to call home.

Home for the Holidays

Well, it's true: Chels and I are getting a new home for the holidays! After about a year of searching, we've found the perfect place for us. It's a three bedroom, two 1/2 bathroom townhouse in Seattle. It's cute and will be perfect for us! The house is about 4 years old and is in great shape. It's pretty much move-in ready, with a few little things to do here and there, so we've been focusing on packing. Moving in December is for crazy people, I do not recommend it! If you weren't crazy before, you'll definitely be after. Ha ha, well, maybe just me... I guess working in retail where you are surrounded by Christmas 24-7 might make the holidays seem more hectic than they really are. Hectic or not, we are both very excited for our new place! We'll be moving sometime in the next week, woo-hoo!!! We'll keep you all posted, and put up pictures as soon as we're in the new place. Cross your fingers for us that the move goes smoothly, and that we don't get snow in Seattle over Christmas to hinder our move. Merry Christmas!

Goodbye, Black Beauty, It's Been Fun!

Well, it's time for us to say goodbye to our dear, trusty, faithful car Black Beauty. Chelsea got the car in 2006 for graduation and we've loved it ever since! Unfortunately, about a month ago Chels was in a car accident and she's fine, but the car did not fare so well... Actually, the car did really well and has been completely driveable and fine, with the exception of the rear passenger's side door (we haven't attempted to open it because who knows what will happen then? Will it close? Better not to know...). But, technically the cost to fix the damage would be more than the insurance company says it's worth (priceless to us!), so: time for a new car.

The good side, still pretty.

Uh-oh, the not so pretty passenger's side. I was in Canada for work when the accident happened, and Chels made the wise decision to wait to tell me until I came home (I'm a worrier!), so I first saw the damage when she pulled up to the airport to pick me up. She said the look on my face was priceless, I'm sure it was!

So after a month of Chelsea and Barry's grueling search for a new car for us, they found this gem only about 45 minutes outside of Seattle. Whew!

We love Subarus and wanted to find another comparable to our car, which proved to be quite difficult! Either they were too expensive, or the mileage was too high, or they sold before we even got a chance to have a look. We felt lucky to find this one, and thought it might be nice to have a hatchback with a little more room. Chels told me how convenient they are for dogs, too. Hmm...

We met with the person selling it last week. Turns out to be a nice family from Colorado who bought it new, but had to sell and get a minivan after having kids. It's funny because Chels and I talk about minivans and how I will never want to drive one, but they are so convenient for families--when the seller made a sad face at having to trade this in for a minivan, we knew we were kindred spirits and had met the right person to buy from!

Red has never personally been my favorite color for a car, but this is so cute, it's growing on me. We're considering naming this one Red Velvet, what do you think?

Bonnie & Candace's Edmonton Adventure!

After working for a week in Edmonton, I decided to stay the weekend for vacation to explore the city a little. Bonnie was able to come up to meet me, our first sister's vacation, yay! Edmonton seems like a smaller city, parts of it (maybe the architecture?) reminded us of Europe, but then other parts (like driving into the city from the middle of fields) reminded us of Fargo. Fall was happening full-fledged there and it was very beautiful!

We walked around an area near the University of Alberta the first day Bonnie arrived. We did some shopping and ate some good food. Here we are in a little shop with the neat hats we discovered.

At first we thought the hats were just for little kids...

But then we discovered the adult sizes! They also have mittens to match!

Hilarious! At this point, we were both laughing pretty hard and I might have been crying, it was so funny!

I tried to convince Bon to get this one, but she said if she did, she'd probably forget she was wearing it and wonder why people were staring at her :)

Here's a picture of the river that runs through the city. There is a neat park with trails that runs along side the river. We walked along it and it was very beautiful! It made me miss fall and especially fall in Minnesota. In Seattle, we get about 5 minutes of the leaves changing and sweatshirt weather before the rain begins...

Saturday night we went out to a cute Mexican restaurant near our hotel. We stayed in downtown Edmonton, so there were a lot of things nearby to walk to. The food was delicious!

Next, we went to a little hold-in-the-wall pub for a true Canadian experience (well, we didn't make it to a hockey game, only saw it on TV...). We even ordered poutine, which is french fries covered in gravy and cheese. It's actually pretty good!

It was a fun, relaxing weekend. It was nice to hang out and catch up in a new city. Thanks for meeting me in Canada, Sissy!

Candace's Trip to Canada

In the beginning of October, I got the opportunity to go to Canada for a new store opening. It was so much fun! Designers (I was the only design trainee!) from our different stores around the US and Canada arrived in Edmonton, Alberta, a week prior to the new store opening to set up all the displays and to make the store look beautiful. It was a lot of work, but I loved it! Being a trainee, it was a great experience because I got to work with and learn from the cream of the crop, store designers and area designers who have a lot of talent. It was awesome!

I worked in our glass & tabletop section for the week, here are some displays I did: the area manager and designer liked this table setting so much, they moved it into a busier section in the middle of the store!

So this was my second table setting...

Since the opening was in October, some designers decided to start the trick-or-treating early and play tricks on us. Here was a hilarious example:

Fake teeth in the barware! Very cute :)

Here's what the store entrance looked like on the morning of the day prior to opening day. There was still a lot of work left to do, but we managed to pull it off!

The evening prior to the store opening, the staff gets to celebrate all of our hard work with a party. Here's me and my roommate Val, a designer from the San Francisco area.

Here's some of the design team I worked with. It's kind of like camp: you live and work with these people for a week, making friends and having fun!

The opening party was a great way to relax and congratulate ourselves on all of our hard work!

There was a line of people waiting outside to get in the morning of the opening, how exciting!

I had an awesome experience, I can't wait for the next store opening I get to attend!