For those of you keeping track (following up from NEW YEAR’S), chef school started up again this week in full force. Here I am on the first day with a couple of my new classmates, HELEN and SONJA. Everyone in my class is really interesting and our backgrounds are really varied. We are broken up in two groups (A and B). I’m in group A which is the morning shift, and I’m still recovering from the time change (which is why I haven’t posted). Morning shifts are NOT very punk rock.

This week has been pretty climactic at 105 DEGREES. Not only did school start Monday, but the restaurant went live with the new menu on that day as well. Lots of changes afoot. This is one of the new menu items, the Mexican Chop Salad (made by Sonja).

Anjela, one of my classmates, came up with the beautiful garnish for this dish. It’s the coconut curry, and it’s fantastic.

This is one of the trickier items to make on the new menu but also one of the most delicious…the Canneloni (made by Helen).

Each of us is assigned to a particular station for the next two weeks. Sonja is on the Mediterranean and Latin station. Anjela is the Asian station. Helen is Ms. Italiano, and I am the Pastry Girl. I will fill you in on my station tomorrow. Way to ring in the new decade, huh?

Happy New Year, everyone! I love New Year’s. New possibilities are so uplifting. I found this post I wrote for NEW YEAR’S 2008. It’s kind of interesting to look back at things you saw as possibilities (back then) with the benefit of hindsight. A lot has changed in that short time and little did I know how much IMPACT my wheatgrass plan of 2008 would have. Well, this time it’s not just a new year. It’s a new decade. Time for a more ambitious plan.

My goal for 2010 (the year) is simple. I just want to kick this CANDIDA INFECTION to the curb. There seem to be a million different ideas out there for how to go about doing that. But I think I’ve settled on a strategy that seems to be working for me. Here is a batch of kombucha I have brewing to help combat the infection. You can see that the SCOBY has started to separate into a mother and a daughter colony. That means it’s almost ready! I have a couple of these going right now. So that I can have a constant supply of affordable kombucha.

This morning for breakfast, I had some homemade dairy-free YOGURT made from coconut meat. This batch was a lavendar-vanilla. Basically, the mantra is to kill the bad stuff and re-populate with the good stuff.

This is the acidophilus I’ve been putting in my yogurt. I’ve been doing probiotic capsules too, but they’re really expensive. So, I’m hoping that I can get more bang for my buck by incorporating it into my food. This entire bottle ran me about $12. A bottle of capsules would be at least 2-5X that (depending on what you get). We’ll see how it goes. I’ll keep you posted on the effectiveness. I can say that although I am still having die off symptoms, they seem to be getting less severe. It’s only been a few weeks though.

Beyond that, I don’t have big ambitions for this year. Basically, I want to focus on my health issues one at a time until I stop having them. I’m hoping that this is the last of my health dramas. As far as the decade goes, well that’s a little more complicated. So, I’ll save that for part two.