#78 - How many pilots does it take to fly an A380?

I was waiting to board the plane when I saw 4 men walk past in what looked like pilots' clothes.  It could be that there was a navigator or a first officer (I don't know if he does any of the flying) or a couple of co-pilots - ages ago a pilot said it took two co-captains to take the place of a captain.  Anyway, I was wondering why they needed 4.  Maybe a couple were relief crew?  It was a 7hour 55minute flight to Singapore, then a 14hour flight to London.

Safely back in London

There was a moment of panic at the airport when I said something about a visa.  Note to self:  let the immigration guy do all the talking.  We managed to get my wording sorted out and he, not wanting to look through an entire stack of documents, looked at 2 pieces of paper, then sent me on my merry way.  You can bet if I hadn't had all the other papers, he would have wanted to see them.  Oh well, better to be over-prepared...

Had to run some errands before heading back to LCB - my first time at the new campus, so my camera was charged and ready to go.  Oh, and I had to get directions.  Lots of little things to do and I saw the amount of stuff I left at my friend JB's place - goodness there's a lot!  Luckily the largest box was full of supplies and ingredients and part of the smaller box had my uniforms.


So the first class was a demo - fun demo - it was the last dish I did back in November before I burned my hand - the practical is tomorrow morning at 8am - back to fish mongery (to be precise) and killing crayfish first thing, then a champagne sauce.  The champagne sauce was good and so was the crayfish one, but the dover sole wasn't my favorite that day.  Maybe because I'd been travelling for so long it was hard to tell which way was up.


30 hours of travelling then having to stay awake for another 15 hours was enough to make anyone pass out at the oh-so-partying-hard hour of 9pm.  You'd think that would help one sleep, no?  Well yes - for three hours anyway.  I was wide awake at midnight and didn't get back to sleep until sometime between 4 - 5am, then awake again early in the morning.  I was pleased to find out the cafe at school opens at 7am...except I didn't go in the side entrance and spent several minutes fighting with the biometric scan which actually doesn't turn on until 7:15.  Yes, they have biometrics - they scan in your fingerprint which opens the gates to admit you to the locker rooms and kitchens.  Um...they have reset my fingerprints several times - index, thumb...I was tempted to give the scanner the middle except that probably wouldn't have worked.

Our new digs are in Bloomsbury Square - opposite some enormous building which looks like it could be a museum or an academic institution of some kind.  I got there early enough to see the milk and other dairy delivery.  I'm not sure if it's a daily thing, but wouldn't be surprised if it were.  I love the idea that it's cold enough that they can leave the milk outside and that it's delivered daily.  There's something so anachronistic about it.


Luckily the cafe still gave me the student discount even though my finger didn't scan - probably because no one would wear the uniform as a fashion statement.  The time difference was sufficient that I actually ate breakfast - and the croissant was still a little warm from the oven.  What can I say, coffee and croissant are definitely worth waking up early.  It's nice to have the cafe - the breads look good and I can attest that the croissant is excellent.  I haven't tried the sweets, but they resemble some of the ones we made for the Superior Tea Party so I'm not really in a hurry to try them, although some of the banana bread type things would be nice to take over to people's houses or good with tea.  Or both.  Why choose if you don't have to?

First practical
I feel like I got started on the wrong foot today.  I got caught with my coffee mug in class (although I had it more for the fact that it was a warm drink which helped with a vicious cough, rather than because I didn't care about not having a hot beverage in class).  Then a surprise:  Chef JW expected me to take part in class from 8am this morning - blown sugar and a few other things.  I was under the impression that I would be watching only (so said my schedule), which was why I didn't have my knife kit or any equipment with me other than my uniform - the uniform being required if you are going to be in the kitchen.  My mistake - I got the knife kit and participated in the second session - a run through of the sugar centrepiece for the final exam, for which I am very grateful.  Verdict:  need a lot of work, but today was the last day of my group's sugar module so I have some catching up to so.


The photos...not so good.  My notes are somewhere between London and Sydney so I had to try to remember things.  The sugar sculpture is literally 3 ingredients:  sugar, water and glucose.  I just couldn't remember exactly when the glucose was supposed to go in.  The induction stoves are amazing - they heat up really quickly.  This is both a good thing and a bad thing:  good because you don't sit there forever, waiting for the sugar to get to the right temperature.  Bad because you could turn your back for a second and the sugar is all of a sudden much too hot (about 10 degrees too hot, although somehow I managed to save it).

I thought the sugar would be ok, but...well, not so much.  I got some good feedback, constructive criticism and a few useful tips, but it just makes me realize just how much I lost by being out of it for so long.  Perhaps I should have repeated Superior after all, but I didn't have the energy to sustain such a pace nor was my hand strong enough to handle it.  But back to the sugar - it was very plain - so much so that it showed all the flaws in the piece.  There was no movement and the whole thing just didn't look very good.  You forget all these little things (like a support for the backdrop) and try new things (which resulted in not having a very good color or assembly of the sculpture in general.  Someone asked me if I had to do the sugar piece for the exam - I'm guessing they asked because of the accident last term.  I told them it wasn't optional.


My group then had a cuisine practical - I didn't go because I had missed the demo for it last week.  I suppose I could have done it but I was a bit done in and I still had to prepare for tomorrow's class.  I decided I'd give the cafe another try - lunch.  This is cream of mushroom soup with croutons.  I assume the green on top of the soup is drizzled olive oil.  The bread which came with the soup wasn't very good though, so I ended up leaving it.  Notes are done and I feel a little more organized for tomorrow morning's class.  It's now a decent hour to go to sleep, so off I go to the land of Nod.


Apologies for any errors in this post - it's late enough that jetlag is making my thoughts extremely silly and disjointed.


So until next time, may you be free from misunderstandings and miscommunication.