Completing Associates Degree In Cullinary Arts

Upon Completion of my degree at Sullivan I walked away with more knowledge than I started with. Sullivan university is a great college and if you want to finish your degrees within a two and a half year program this is the school for you. Being at Sullivan has mature my levels in the kitchen I look forward to pursing my career outside of Sullivan. I thank Sullivan very much for helping me with completing my degree.
Alexis Addison

Memorial Day weekend

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, In Honor of this day I wish that everyone gets to spend time with loved ones or in remembering loved ones. I also hope that everyone has a great holiday and gets full off delicious wonderful food! Happy Memorial Day Guys!
Alexis Addison

My Final Midterms

Sad to say this has been my last mid term at Sullivan, only 4 more weeks to go and I will officially be done with all my classes. It has been fun at Sullivan. Can't imagine my life without Sullivan. I have made so many new friends and meet so many great inspiring mentors. I love the culinary world. & Sullivan has given me a great experience in getting my degree. For those of you who are attending Sullivan still or going to be attending just remember it will be worth it in the end and to keep pushing!!
-Alexis Addison

Week 1 of the quarter

The first week is always very stressful. New teachers, assignments, books, classes. It is so hard to figure out the syllabus and what is due and when and how. I find the first two weeks especially stressful, but as soon as I know what is expected and I have developed a routine, everything is fine. I like to but my books early but that does not work out well all the time. Sometimes books get changed at the last minute and I have had to return books before because shortly before the quarter started the book had changed. I usually try to buy my books used or I rent them because it is such a savings. Sometimes I am able to borrow a book from a class mate, which is always great. Some books are really expensive and it can add up. This quarter I had two books that were $300 and I was able to get them for a fraction of the price used. I am all for trying to reduce my student loans and books are a good way to do it.

Claudia (March #2)

Should you listen to your class mates?

I have wondered about this question. I could not decide whether I should take Principles of Accounting online or on campus. So I asked my class mates, but of course, there is no general consensus. Some say that you should not take "difficult" (what's a "difficult" class anyway?) classes online but rather sit in class with a real time teacher. I have decided to take it online because I can not concentrate during a night class as well as I can during the day. Accounting will make no sense to me at 8 p.m. Plus online classes have so many nifty features that help you through assignments, and there is always the tutoring center. So far I have no regretted my decision and accounting is going well. I hope it will stay this way.

Claudia (March #1)

Advanced Tech

Well my last quarter was in Advanced a Tech this is the last lab you all enter before your internship for the culinary degree. You will have chef Moeller at first you may feel intimidated but this is how he has to be as that's the purpose of the class ADVANCED. Everything you do will be pressured and fast pace you will have to test your skills in this class. I learned in this lab that to pass you must use your head and keep it simple. Don't over due it. Most of all don't use someone else's ideas like from a magazine or web. You can take pieces of informtion but you must make the dish and presentation your Own. This lab is about putting what you know to the test and being knowledgeable in using everything you've learned throughout the entire degree. But remember that this is not going to be a piece of cake!
Alexis Addison

Job Opportunities

I'm done with school in 3 weeks!! I already have an opportunity to work where I am interning (the 5 diamond Seelbach Hotel), and now I've just gotten a job offer from the Houston Country Club. Chef Spendlove recommended me and it looks like an amazing opportunity. I'm already in the process of looking at housing and moving dates!! I could not be happier with the opportunities I'm getting! Most kids don't have a job in their field out of college, but in pastry work there is so much to do!!

-Kate Richter

Ukrainian Wedding Bread -Korovia

As part of a group project, each team was assigned a different type of bread from various countries. 
Korovai is a traditional in weddings where it symbolizes different things. The two birds on top represent the couple. The braided wreath around it symbolizes purity and love. The bread does not have to be in any particular style. It can be modified to fit each of the couples' stories. It has a beautiful meaning behind it as well as a great taste!-Heather 

Dead Dough

It's a beautiful thing when art and food are combined. In my Advanced Techniques class, our amazing chef introduced a type of art, made of bread! She called it Dead Dough because it does not contain any yeast. This helps it to be more malleable, sort of like play dough! I have a background in art, so when I heard about our latest project, I couldn't wait to start. 

First we decided what our design was going to be. I chose to do an ocean scene with a pirate ship that had been destroyed by an octopus. Others chose scenes from movies such as Alice in Wonderland or Up. We began working dough that did have yeast and wove it basket style to make the plaque that the design would eventually go on. Then the fun part! All of the tiny details were created by using different basic kitchen tools, such as a strainer for a grassy texture. My favorite part was marbling the dough to create an aged wood look. This was one of my favorite projects! -Heather 

Night classes, online classes

With the winter quarter I have finished all my paralegal classes, which were only offered during nights. For my remaining classes I am going completely online, which will save me money on gas and the stress of driving in rush hour traffic. I also don't have to go to class after work anymore and can work from home. I am very excited. There are so many great things about online classes and I feel like I am having so much more time because I save the time I normally spend driving to class. I will miss my classmates, though. If you haven't tried online classes I encourage you to give it a try and see of you like it.

Claudia (February #2)

Valentine's Day at Sullivan

The Sullivan students had a great time celebrating Valentine's Day during the winter quarter. Miss Kim did a great job as always coming up with a photo booth and decorating ideas. The café was turned into "Project Love".

Claudia (February #1)

Chef Shadow

I can remember the first time I got to work in Sullivan's kitchens just as a sophomore in high school. It was so cool to be able to skip regular school and spend the day as a culinary student instead. It was the day I knew for sure that this was what I wanted to do with my life. As a student ambassador, I got the chance to be the chef that a student in high school could shadow. It was great to be able to help inspire someone and help them along on their culinary journey. 

The menu we worked with featured various Hispanic dishes such as empanadas, Patatas bravas, and pork roulades. I feel that all of the young students had a great time, just as I did when I was in their position. -Heather 

Baguettes!

As a part of my Advanced Techniques class, we are learning how to make various types of breads. One we have been practicing with is the classic baguette. We learned what it takes to make a preferment and how long of a process each of the preferments take. It was very interesting to taste the difference in each of the baguettes we made.  At first, the baguettes were very oddly shaped and our scoring was off, but now we are getting the hang of it! And not to mention how much fun it is to work with so much dough! -Heather

Cookie Decorating Competition

I have now started my Advanced Techniques class as a part of my Baking and Pastry Arts Degree. It has been such a blast to learn new ways of doing things. Recently, we were given the chance to unleash our creative sides in a cookie decorating competition. Each group had the class period to present one dozen cookies with a royal icing design. My group decided to go with a superhero theme. The time went by a lot faster than we had expected! Luckily, we were able to present 12 cookies. We did not win, but it was a great experience! It was awesome to see all of the different themes! -Heather

Internship Progress

I'm finished with the fourth week of my internship. If all goes well, I should be working at the Seelbach Hilton sometime starting in February. I really love it there so far and have learned so many things. I think the most important thing about interning is that you get to learn about working fast paced and product consistency in mass production. These are things we don't learn at Sullivan since we learn to make small products perfectly. In the real world, you don't get one hour to ice a cake to perfection. It's eye opening to plate 400 desserts in a few hours, which is what I did today at the hotel. I graduate in April and I'm so ready to take on the world!

-Kate Richter

Paper usage

Sullivan has enacted a new paper usage policy last quarter. Basically, every student can only print a certain amount of pages. I think this is a great policy because it helps save paper and save the environment because it forces students to think twice before they print any unnecessary pages.  I wish there was also a way to use recycling paper instead of regular white paper and that we could print research on paper that was already used (at home, I reuse old paper and I print my research or drafts on the second side so I can save paper). I really wish they would give us an option to print to a "draft" printer and to print on a "regular" printer with the assignments that we actually turn in. There is one thing that really upsets me though: the printers in the library are set up to print Word documents as "draft" (in gray, not in black) and every time I print something I forget and then I end up printing the same paper twice because I can not turn it in as draft. I know it's my own fault, but instead of saving ink and paper this default setting costs more ink and paper. I wonder how many students are like me and keep forgetting to set the printer to regular before they print their papers.

Claudia (January #2)

Winter Quarter

Week one of the winter quarter is over and things are started to come together. The first week is always so stressful with trying to figure out assignments, deadlines, books, homework, and new teachers. Once the first week is over you finally know your way around and what to expect. I can't wait to get the first graded assignments back to see if I was headed in the right directions or if I need to make adjustments. It's always good to know what to expect and what is expected. It makes doing your homework so much easier. I have one night class and two online classes this quarter and it seems that it will be less stressful this quarter than last quarter. Last quarter all my weekly assignments were due on the same days and this quarter they are more spread out. My one class has due dates of Tuesdays, while my other class had due dates of Thursdays. So much easier than when everything is due on Tuesdays! I think that this quarter will be just fine. Let's hope that we won't have any snow days that could ess everything up.

Claudia (January #1)