Buyouts, a bitch, and a fig tart for good measure

A beautiful fig tart by Pastry Chef Jennifer Kenny Nguyen made with organic, homegrown Simmons (Jen's aunt) Figs.

Salt House is being invaded with Buyouts these next few weeks. In fact, there is one this Thursday. Jen's been pretty excited because it means a change in pace but also a lot of work. First, she has to ensure there is enough desserts up to the day of the buyout. Stop regular production the day before the event. Then, she has to make a whole new menu as well as complete production on all the items for the event. The buyout event itself is run by the night crew with all hopes Jen would have made it simple enough for nothing to go wrong. The following day, Jen must purge all her regular menu items for they are now two days old and produce everything on her regular menu all fresh. So, yeah, lots of work, but sometimes, the celebs, themselves, are worth all the work. Two buyouts that were scheduled are KQED, with a book promotion event for Jen's idol, renowned Chef Jacques Pipan, and MTV. Unfortunately, KQED just pulled out citing timing issues, thus, leaving Jen sorely disappointed she would not be cooking for her idol.

On other news, Jen and I attended a MBA fair on Tuesday. 50 schools from all over the world were there to pitch themselves at prospective students. I only went to talk to 4 schools, pretty good use of my time considering my list is only 7 schools long. Upon getting there though, I seemed to have made a slight error. Somehow I misread Northeastern to be Northwestern, my bad. Has anyone ever even heard of Northeastern? Anywho, the representatives of Johnson School of Business at Cornell University and Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University were excellent recruiters that answered my questions and made me really feel the enthusiasm of apply to their school. In business terms, they sold their brand to me. On the other hand, there was good old USC, the bottom rung of my school application rankings. Unlike the other schools who sent representatives, USC sent the Dean of Admissions himself, Mr. Keith Vaughn. And what a bitch he was. He berated me for asking him a simple question that I asked repeated throughout the night regarding USC's alumni base. He kept going on and on about how my question was a complete "no-brainer" and gave the impression that I wasting his time to talk to him. He then proceeded to talk about schools as brands and how each school's brand will dominate the regional area they serve. And as one of the top four business schools in California, USC is bound to have a large alumni basis in LA and the SF Bay Area. So, the short answer to my question could have been "yes, there is a significant alumni presence in the SF Bay Area." He would have even gone the extra mile to direct me to an alumni chapter member, but he chose not to. Instead, he left me feeling belittled and infuriated Jen. So that shortens my list a little as Jen has forbade me from applying to USC.

Lastly, take a gander at that beautiful fig tart above. Made with organic, homegrown figs from Jen's aunt.