Dreams walking in broad daylight

First there was a little earthquake. Then I dreamed that my car was missing... no, stolen! And, in the weird way of dreams, I was driving around in the very same car I was searching for, over by the McDonald's near the Oakland Coliseum. Then it was time to get up, and I did, and I can't tell you how certain I am that I will not be taking a job that requires a 5:10 am wake-up call.

Once I reached school, I sat in the Careme Room (now that we're "seniors", it's the hip place to hang out before class), drinking coffee and reading the Food section from the Chronicle. A guy I don't know, dressed in his uniform, plopped his knife kit down on the table between us and said, "Damn. My car was stolen last night."

Then there's the shoelace. One of my heavy duty shoe laces (from my heavy duty shoes) is fraying. It's my life's goal to get through culinary school without having to replace the laces. I'll certainly never be wearing the shoes again after November 9th.

It was Chocolate Day in Chef Lorriann's kitchen, starting with a tasting and a lecture and demonstration on chocolate tempering. Then five of us tempered our own chocolate and made candy and garnishings, while the other groups worked on cookies, cakes, and bread.

If you're going to melt chocolate and use it for coating, dipping, or molding, you need to temper it. Tempering gives chocolate snap, shine, and durability. I've always found the whole process really intimidating, but Chef Lorriann explained it concisely. Tempering means heating the chocolate to 120°, then lowering it to 88°, then using it. You can temper in three ways: with a fancy, pricey machine; by spreading it out on a marble slab and working it back and forth until it's evenly cooled; or by "vaccination": melting half the chocolate, then stirring in as much as 100% more until it's cooled to the proper temp. A digital thermometer comes in handy ($70 in our on-campus store; $16.95 at Amazon.com), and patience is required.

I tempered three pounds of dark chocolate (Callebaut 811), melting it in the microwave to start. You can melt the chocolate over a water bath also, but avoid water. Any water in the chocolate will cause it to sieze up and become grainy and there's no coming back.

After my chocolate was tempered, I made mendiants, Italian-style confections that serendipitously also figured in the report I wrote on Provence for Chef Alain -- they're part of the Christmas dinner tradition. Mine were decorated with orange peel, pistachios, almonds and dried cherries. Chef Lorriann showed me a neat trick with the pastry bag for portioning the chocolate: you hold the cut tip end of the bag between a thumb and forefinger, making a little valve that you squeeze open and shut as you move the bag over the parchment.

Meanwhile, Sarah made chocolate bark, and Kristine made chocolate haystacks, using coconut and slivered almonds. Anthony made multi-colored letters, using colored cocoa butter that comes in a squeeze bottle (who knew?), and Meghan spent the entire morning making rocky road, including marshmallows from scratch. A production brought on by an extreme case of the munchies, definitely.

Later, I prepped for tomorrow, making caramel and lining two creme caramel molds, and cutting up the bread for tomorrow's bread pudding. We're starting to organize ourselves more efficiently, with the goal of leaving the classroom by noon. Chef Lorriann seems content to let us set our own pace (apparently, she's not in a hurry to leave), but the rest of us are, and today, we almost made it.

And something about hearing the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" on the radio just flips my mood switch to "Really Good."