It was my first day at the kitchen when I realized how interesting this summer will be. We toured around the resort and I couldn't imagine that I'll be working in a 3 star hotel (pardon me it's not a five star hotel.)

The kitchen which was equipped with great facilities were also used by the great chefs, Chef Jimmy assigned us into different departments: Me and Lexter at the Pastry section and Bea and Melody at the cold kitchen.

First task was to make a chocolate crumble: it's a dessert made out of leftover cakes that hadn't been displayed because of it's form that is not garnishable.. or to put it simply when you cut a cake for display there are leftover cakes that wouldn't be a size for a single serve (it's clean don't worry :D) and put some cocoa powder and rum to eliminate the combination of cakes. I tasted one and it's like a munchkin.

Next, we were tasked to prepare ingredients for cakes to be eaten at an event banquet. Chef Din was assigned to do that and also Chef May; Chef Neil and Chef Keenan were the ones who garnish and prepare the food. Every night they prepared desserts for the Cafe's buffet and also the banquets. The day of the event, they're just going to cut into single serving slices and arrange them into a big plates and they'll garnish it with colored chocolates.

Sometimes Chef May will tell me to deliver her pastries to a pizza restaurant or put them in a walk-in chiller, Chef Neil who is the head trusted me to make butter icing and Chef Din requested me to make layered mousse every night for the buffet.

Chef Keenan who is the coach of our last entry for the FHM Ultimate Dessert Competition was just trolling around and singing; The most unforgettable prank that he did was when Chef Neil started to talk about a house spider that he failed to kill and asked me about centipedes

Chef Neil: Why? are you afraid of them?
Me: Yeah, I do.
Chef Neil: There are dozens of them here... Chef Keenan will find one.
Me: No, please I don't want to see one.



later..

Chef Keenan: you know what, centipedes are not harmful..

and he showed me one.

I screamed and ran to the bakery, everyone laughed so hard even Chef Neil, when I looked at Chef Keenan, he showed me his forefinger which he drew a centipede using chocolate Ganache ( Chocolate Ganache is made out of milk ,cream and chocolate, usually they used it for other pastries and icing)

then I realized that this kitchen is so clean that a centipede wouldn't dare to go because every night stewards wash the floors with disinfectants..

well, moving on, I'm used to their routine of preparing pastries and the work that they've undergone; I really learned a lot since pastry is one of my obsession. One time, Chef Keenan made a watermelon Par cake; It was named after melody when she suggested to put watermelon in a dessert.

Sometimes, I go to the bakery and ask the secret ingredient of soft muffins and destroy their empanada; One time I helped Chef Jesse put muffin papers into the molders. I usually tell Chef Michael about the shortage of ingredients and fortunately copied some recipes from Chef Marvin's notebook.

Working in the Pastry section was fun; and I met a lot of new friends and one of them is Lorelyn. She is a kindhearted happy girl that teaches me how to speak Ilonggo. If ever I go to M'lang I'll be able to see her again and we talked about the kitchen and she'll teach me how to speak her native tongue.

Somtimes days in the Pastry are busy and sometimes not; when we were preparing, Chef Neil will mimick the sound of a saxophone, Chef Keenan raps like there's no tomorrow and everyone will joke around.

Unfortunately, there's a problem which I have to solve and that means leaving the pastry section.