Cold Cold melbourne.

Today is cold and my bones ache. It makes me sound so old saying that! It has nothing to do with my age though, just my body. A couple of years ago I contracted ross river fever, which basically wears you out a lot and makes you very tired. One symptom of it is achey bones. Every so often it comes back and sitting down or being in an uncomfortable position really hurts. I don't think the cold is helping at all.

Today was theory day at school, which I also consider to be a day off. We really do nothing at all (except I draw pictures in my note books of cup cakes and whales.) So it was quite a short day for me. Tomorrow we are working on danish dough. All 'laminated doughs' (dough with butter folding through it) are such headaches. I want to love it, I really do, but its just not coming naturally to me. I find friday so stressful. This week we are working on danish dough, savoury muffins, sweet muffins, wholemeal bread, brioche, creme patissiere, and a few other things. We have to multi task between all these products, and hope that each one turns out well, for presenting and getting marked on. I try to remind myself that I'm there because I want to be and I love cooking. Some days though its just very hard. I feel like I'm missing so many details and I just want to slow everything down so I can take it all in.

I find myself in class continually asking the teacher "why?" trying to work out the in's and out's of all the products we make, desperately wanting to grasp what the hell I'm doing. Some pastry products are such mysteries to me. "Tell me your secrets!!" I want to yell at them, but alas the stupid buttery concoctions stay quite. They won't tell me a thing, so I find myself scouring text books and cook books, looking for tips. The food world however is so incredibly vast, that when I think I have finally grasped a tiny concept like cooking chicken (I now can successfully break down a chicken into all its different parts. Poach, stuff, or fry the breasts. Marinate, fry or bake the wings. Braise the thighs. Stew the legs. Or stuff the chicken whole.) I find that I have no idea of all the herbs that can be used to cook with it. For goodness sake, there is just so much out there. My bed is covered in cooking magazines and sometimes I fall asleep with a cook book in my bed!

It can all be too much to think about! So I'm going to head back into the city to meet a friend for some wine. I'll take my poor aching body to the bar and have some fun.