Projects

One of the things I like to do at school is to see if I can guess what field of study a student is in by looking at them. I do pretty good most of the time. Interior designers are easy to spot, they look high-class. Fashion students are usually pretty easy too, they're either fashionable or have their own fashion that starts the trend. Most graphic design and web design students look pretty normal: minimal if any tattoos, more often natural hair cuts and colors, clothes not too weird or too trendy. Students in the animation program are sometimes difficult to describe, but I can usually spot these "colorful nerds" with their pink spiked hair and anime comics attached to them. They don't all have pink spiked hair of course, some are green. Culinary students are the easiest. They wear their uniforms of black and white checked pants and the white double-breasted black trimmed shirt and are always carrying food!
My friend Jerrad is a culinary student. When he talked about the slow cooked greens they made in their American Regional class, I decided I should show him how regular Southerners cook greens. We made dinner together: he made pan seared tilapia topped with sautéed mushrooms and onions in a white wine reduction sauce, he also made the acorn squash I suggested by baking it first with salt and white pepper then mashed it with butter and rosemary, and I made the collard greens. Simple, easy collard greens, nothing fancy, just delicious! And he really like them. Of course, I loved them because I made them and I know what I'm doing. I will share my knowledge here:

First, wash and chop your greens (no stems!). Next, fry a few strips of bacon in a deep stock pot until crispy. Crumble the bacon and while pot is still hot, add a little water to cover the bottom. Scrape the bacon leavin's (apparently this is called "deglazing", but whatever). Add a handful of greens and cover. Let them cook down for a few minutes, then stir in another handful of greens and, if needed, just enough water to keep the bottom of the pot covered. You want to essentially steam the greens, not boil them! At the last handful of greens, add a splash of apple cider vinegar and salt and pepper. Let them cook down until they are all a beautiful dark green.

In other news, I completed a project in my Color Fundamentals class using my nemesis of a program: Adobe Illustrator. I had a good idea and I was able to make it work. The teacher liked it and said I followed the directions as to how many groupings of colors was supposed to be present. Other students had some good themes too: Fairy Tale, The Kraken, Fashion.
Mine was Random Thoughts.