Week 5, Day 4. A pretty cool day. In lecture, we went over the homework as usual. But then Chef Warden assigned us a mini-menu planning activity. In the kitchen, we were going to cook a tournedo of beef and roast either pork or beef. Chef wanted us to create an entree using the tournedo with a sauce, a starch, a vegetable, and garnish. For the roast, we had to lard or bard it, and shoot for certain internal temperatures: 132 F-142 F for beef or 150 F-158 F for pork. We had to use the following items: onion, carrot, celery, shallot, garlic, fresh herbs, leek, cooking wine, liqueur, mustard or egg yolk, citrus, stock, tomato, peppers, mushrooms, raw butter, and cream or milk.
Joe joined our group because he doesn't have a partner. I didn't understand why he didn't pair up with Zac, whose partner Rodney left home early because he was sick. Zac joined Bjorn and Kinsey. I was glad to have Joe's help. He did all the chopping for the group. We would have been a lot more rushed if he didn't help us. Brainstorming menu items was fun. We rifled through the book for recipes and found one called Roast Pork Tenderloin with Leeks and Whole Grain Mustard Sauce. We decided that if we got the beef roast we'd substitute leeks with tomatoes and use red wine instead of white wine.
For the starch, we chose to do rissoto, so that Eve could practice for her practical. For the vegetable, we chose to do Glazed Carrots. We didn't have any use for citrus or tomato, so our garnish was a tomato crown with lemon zest. I am really not a big fan of garnish for garnish sake. Ideally I'd like it to be a mini side dish. I think we lucked out with the pork roast. I was picturing that in my head instead of a beef roast. I was in charge of the glazed carrots and pork roast, Eve handled the rissoto, the tournedo, and the garnish, and Joe did all the chopping. This was our final menu:
Tournedo of Beef with Mushroom Duxelle and Roasted Garlic Rissoto
Garlic Studded Roast Loin of Pork with Mustard Sauce
We had ten minutes to gather all the ingredients and then one hour to cook everything. For the pork, I poked holes in it with a paring knife and stuffed it with garlic cloves. Then I patted the outside with brown sugar and wrapped it in 4 pieces of bacon(this is known as barding). I seared it in a mixture of oil and clarfied butter and put it into the oven. Then I zoned out for a bit, but Eve got me back on track. I sweated onions, shallots, minced garlic, leeks, and celery in the oil-butter-bacon fat left over from the searing. Next, I placed this mixture in the roasting pan underneath the pork roast. Then I caramelized a diced green apple with some sage. I added this to the roasting pan as well. Then I made the glazed carrots. The roast reached 150 F and I took it out to rest with ten minutes remaining. I deglazed the roasting pan with white wine and added a mixture of cream and mustard. After straining the sauce, I added some more mustard for flavor and body. Eve really liked the resulting sauce. I was surprised it turned out so well.
During this time, Eve was making the rissoto and the compound butter to go on top of the tournedo. In the final ten minutes, she made duxelles, pan-roasted the tournedo, and made the garnish. Things went pretty well. Although I didn't hear the feedback from the Chefs. I was busy cleaning, when I heard him yell at us to get our food if we wanted to take it home.
After this experience, I am trully in awe of the Iron Chefs. It took me an hour to make roast pork and some glazed carrots. How in the world do they turn out four and five course meals? Experience and speed I guess.
Thursday, October 31, 2002
Week 5, Day 3. We watched two American Culinary Federation videos on beef. It wasn't the scary "here's Bessie, now let us show you how we turn her into hamburger." It was just two guys examining and discussing different primal cuts. I think the scary videos are shown in Meat Fab. Eve gave an in depth report on the history of the chef's uniform. It was well researched and informative. Her report was interrupted by a presentation a polo shirt to Chef Warden by the President for being a Chef Instructor of the Month or some other period of time. It was quite surreal.
More chicken cookery in the kitchen. We made Chicken Cordon Blue, Chicken Fricassee, and Naravin, a brown lamb stew. Today was not a good day in the kitchen. It started out well with a snack of scrambled eggs and hashed browns from the meat fab kids. But once I stepped into the kitchen, nothing seemed to go right. I guess just the Chicken Fricassee turned out bad. My liaison, a mixture of egg and cream used to thicken, broke and the fricassee was ruined. I also melted my instant thermometer by leaving it inside the Chicken Cordon Blue in the oven.
By the way, the chili competition was cancelled due to lack of entrants. There were only five entrants, three from our class though. Momma said there'd be days like this.
More chicken cookery in the kitchen. We made Chicken Cordon Blue, Chicken Fricassee, and Naravin, a brown lamb stew. Today was not a good day in the kitchen. It started out well with a snack of scrambled eggs and hashed browns from the meat fab kids. But once I stepped into the kitchen, nothing seemed to go right. I guess just the Chicken Fricassee turned out bad. My liaison, a mixture of egg and cream used to thicken, broke and the fricassee was ruined. I also melted my instant thermometer by leaving it inside the Chicken Cordon Blue in the oven.
By the way, the chili competition was cancelled due to lack of entrants. There were only five entrants, three from our class though. Momma said there'd be days like this.
Tuesday, October 29, 2002
Week 5 Day 2. It was all meat, all day long. Chef Warden admitted that the meat test is a bear. I don't think he intended the pun. He informed us that our next class is Saucier, so it's even more important for us to get the meat stuff drilled into our heads now so that we'll be ready for Meat Fabrication after Saucier.
We were going to watch two videos about separating veal into the foresaddle and hindsaddle, but a lot of people asked questions about meat. I'm a little scared about watching graphic videos depicting the slaughter of calves. The vision that's in my head is that of Lisa Simpson being transformed into a vegetarian after watching a similar video in her class.
We also talked about Kobe beef and fetal veal. According to Chef Warden, the cattle are nailed in place after a day of being able to walk so that they don't develop muscles. They are massaged and fed a diet of grain and beer. The meat has excellent marbling. I couldn't find any sources to validate the nailing in place bit, but I did find this informative site. Fetal veal is an unborn calf. Chef Warden has had this and assures us that "It's goood." I can't seem to find any information from the web on this though. (If anyone can find info about this please let me know, thanks.)
Debra gave her report on Jello. She read us her paper because she doesn't like speaking in front of the class. She went pretty fast, but the paper sounded pretty good. There was once chocolate flavored jello. It doesn't sound that bad, I wish it was still around.
In the kitchen, we made Schnitzel a la Holstein, which is part of one of the practical menus, and Stuffed Frenched Leg. For the schnitzel, we pounded a piece of pork tenderloin thin and breaded it with panko using the Standard Breading Procedure(flour, egg wash, and bread crumbs). This was browned in clarified butter, topped with a poached egg, and a lemon wheel garnish with capers and an anchovy. We made a beurre blanc to go with it. I didn't care for the lemon wheel, but lemon juice would have flavored the sauce nicely. The customer is supposed to break the egg yolk and combine it with the beurre blanc to create a richer sauce. The original dish calls for a fried egg, but I think poached is just as nice. It it good stuff. For the stuffed frenched leg, we used a leg that we fabricated yesterday. We stuffed it with duxelles (sauteed mushrooms with shallots and garlic) and wrapped it in caul fat. Then we seared all sides in clarified butter and finished it in the oven. Another quality dish. It even got the parental seal of approval.
We were going to watch two videos about separating veal into the foresaddle and hindsaddle, but a lot of people asked questions about meat. I'm a little scared about watching graphic videos depicting the slaughter of calves. The vision that's in my head is that of Lisa Simpson being transformed into a vegetarian after watching a similar video in her class.
We also talked about Kobe beef and fetal veal. According to Chef Warden, the cattle are nailed in place after a day of being able to walk so that they don't develop muscles. They are massaged and fed a diet of grain and beer. The meat has excellent marbling. I couldn't find any sources to validate the nailing in place bit, but I did find this informative site. Fetal veal is an unborn calf. Chef Warden has had this and assures us that "It's goood." I can't seem to find any information from the web on this though. (If anyone can find info about this please let me know, thanks.)
Debra gave her report on Jello. She read us her paper because she doesn't like speaking in front of the class. She went pretty fast, but the paper sounded pretty good. There was once chocolate flavored jello. It doesn't sound that bad, I wish it was still around.
In the kitchen, we made Schnitzel a la Holstein, which is part of one of the practical menus, and Stuffed Frenched Leg. For the schnitzel, we pounded a piece of pork tenderloin thin and breaded it with panko using the Standard Breading Procedure(flour, egg wash, and bread crumbs). This was browned in clarified butter, topped with a poached egg, and a lemon wheel garnish with capers and an anchovy. We made a beurre blanc to go with it. I didn't care for the lemon wheel, but lemon juice would have flavored the sauce nicely. The customer is supposed to break the egg yolk and combine it with the beurre blanc to create a richer sauce. The original dish calls for a fried egg, but I think poached is just as nice. It it good stuff. For the stuffed frenched leg, we used a leg that we fabricated yesterday. We stuffed it with duxelles (sauteed mushrooms with shallots and garlic) and wrapped it in caul fat. Then we seared all sides in clarified butter and finished it in the oven. Another quality dish. It even got the parental seal of approval.
Week 5, Day 1. No tricks in the test. Though we did have to write out the steps to making mayonnaise from memory instead of just having the steps there and ordering them. Only two more tests left in this block. A lot of people did well on this one. Maybe the topics of salads and fish are easier for for people to grasp. They probably studied harder.
The extra credit reports started today. Only three students did them: Tara, Eve, and Debra. Tara presented hers after the test on organic foods. Lots of good info various ogranic foods. She also brought in some apple juice for everyone. Visual aids are key. Actually its more like a total sensory aid. I wanted to do a report on dim sum, but I just couldn't write the six pages for the report. I even took pictures of dim sum dishes a couple of weekends ago for the poster. I think I can save it for another class.
The kitchen was fun. Each of us got to take apart two whole chickens. I've always thought that one of life's greater joys was deboning a chicken. I think I will enjoy that even more with what I learned today. I've always felt very comfortable handling raw carcasses of chicken, not as comfortable as that guy in Iowa but that's a differnt story. We broke the chicken down into boneless, skinless, double lobe breast, Frenched leg, and boneless leg. All the other parts went into a stock pot. I'm cringing at all the bacteria that may have been left behind despite our best cleaning efforts. Eve and I were kitchen managers for like the tenth time. I think Chef Warden just likes to put Eve in charge because she gets things done. She's quite good at it too.
I was pretty hungry after class because it was the first time we haven't cooked something to eat in a while. We arrived at the banquet room while they were still setting up; it wasn't until an hour later that they let people in to eat. The main takers for the banquet are the Basics kids. Mostly from our sister class, since the Chef gives them a break from lecture to get dinner. The theme was Southwestern cuisine. There was the usual fruit plate but with a watermelon fruit sculpture. You could tell it wasn't carved by Rodan but one of the things did look like a cactus. There were fajitas with choice of steak, chicken, and pork. Taquitos and quesadillas. Not too bad, but maybe not worth waiting an hour for. I wonder what will be among the themes for our banquets.
The extra credit reports started today. Only three students did them: Tara, Eve, and Debra. Tara presented hers after the test on organic foods. Lots of good info various ogranic foods. She also brought in some apple juice for everyone. Visual aids are key. Actually its more like a total sensory aid. I wanted to do a report on dim sum, but I just couldn't write the six pages for the report. I even took pictures of dim sum dishes a couple of weekends ago for the poster. I think I can save it for another class.
The kitchen was fun. Each of us got to take apart two whole chickens. I've always thought that one of life's greater joys was deboning a chicken. I think I will enjoy that even more with what I learned today. I've always felt very comfortable handling raw carcasses of chicken, not as comfortable as that guy in Iowa but that's a differnt story. We broke the chicken down into boneless, skinless, double lobe breast, Frenched leg, and boneless leg. All the other parts went into a stock pot. I'm cringing at all the bacteria that may have been left behind despite our best cleaning efforts. Eve and I were kitchen managers for like the tenth time. I think Chef Warden just likes to put Eve in charge because she gets things done. She's quite good at it too.
I was pretty hungry after class because it was the first time we haven't cooked something to eat in a while. We arrived at the banquet room while they were still setting up; it wasn't until an hour later that they let people in to eat. The main takers for the banquet are the Basics kids. Mostly from our sister class, since the Chef gives them a break from lecture to get dinner. The theme was Southwestern cuisine. There was the usual fruit plate but with a watermelon fruit sculpture. You could tell it wasn't carved by Rodan but one of the things did look like a cactus. There were fajitas with choice of steak, chicken, and pork. Taquitos and quesadillas. Not too bad, but maybe not worth waiting an hour for. I wonder what will be among the themes for our banquets.
Saturday, October 26, 2002
Week 4, Day 5. Yet another futile review session. I don't know why I subject myself to this hour of pain. I guess I'm secretly planning for the day when I'll contribute to the session. They really need to teach the kids how to study for the tests. Stuff that the Chef instructors don't give them. Techniques to memorize certain things, focusing on ways to study, and maybe even give them a practice test.
Chef Warden was back today. He found out he has an ulcer and did not feel well after some treatment. He hates missing a day of class. He seemed really concerned that we understood fish cookery. It was as if someone else painted on his masterpiece and he was making sure that the integrity of his work was still in place. I have never had a teacher in my entire life who earnestly cared about their students as much as Chef Warden does. If you ever find yourself at SCI, make sure you get Chef Warden for Basics, he'll make you a chef.
We went over the test as usual. It seems pretty comparable to the others. We didn't get to play Jeopardy because we got into an involved discussion about our final practical exam in week 6. We have to make a soup, salad, and entree with protein, vegetable, and starch in a very doable hour and fifteen minutes. One person from each group cooks on either Tuesday or Wednesday. The partner can only do prep work; they cannot start or finish a dish.
We also discussed the meaning of the dish Poached Fish Bonne Femme. This dish is usually sole rolled up and poached in white wine and mushrooms. The mushrooms is the ingredient that makes it Bonne Femme, otherwise it would simply by Sole Vin Blanc. Bonne Femme in French translates to good wife. So does that mean a good wife adds mushrooms? Not any wife of mine I hope. I am not overly fond of mushrooms. I did a little more reasearch in the Bible aka Larousse Gastronomique and the entry for Bonne Femme said "dishes that are prepared in a simple, family or rustic manner." So I guess there's still hope.
Tomorrow is graduation day. I think there are two graduation days a year: one in May and one in October. Students graduate at different times times so they all gather in May or October and walk the walk. Chef said they would be preparing one thousand crepes with creme fraiche and duck confit tomorrow in the Basics kitchen for the event and that any volunteers would be welcome. I'm thinking about it. The bad thing is that they start cooking at 730am.
It was shellfish day in the kitchen. Chef Warden demonstrated cooking lobster in three different ways: boiled, grilled, and stuffed with casino mixture and baked. The boiled lobsters were boiled whole. The grilled lobster were split in half, topped with a herb butter before grilling. We didn't get to cook lobsters, but we got to eat them. Instead we got to shuck oysters and clams, prepare Oysters/Clams Casino, and make Scampi Shrimp. My sauce for Scampi Shrimp, or Butter with Shrimp as I like to call it, didn't turn out as creamy as it was supposed to be. I think I overbuttered it, who knew that was even possible.
Chef Warden was back today. He found out he has an ulcer and did not feel well after some treatment. He hates missing a day of class. He seemed really concerned that we understood fish cookery. It was as if someone else painted on his masterpiece and he was making sure that the integrity of his work was still in place. I have never had a teacher in my entire life who earnestly cared about their students as much as Chef Warden does. If you ever find yourself at SCI, make sure you get Chef Warden for Basics, he'll make you a chef.
We went over the test as usual. It seems pretty comparable to the others. We didn't get to play Jeopardy because we got into an involved discussion about our final practical exam in week 6. We have to make a soup, salad, and entree with protein, vegetable, and starch in a very doable hour and fifteen minutes. One person from each group cooks on either Tuesday or Wednesday. The partner can only do prep work; they cannot start or finish a dish.
We also discussed the meaning of the dish Poached Fish Bonne Femme. This dish is usually sole rolled up and poached in white wine and mushrooms. The mushrooms is the ingredient that makes it Bonne Femme, otherwise it would simply by Sole Vin Blanc. Bonne Femme in French translates to good wife. So does that mean a good wife adds mushrooms? Not any wife of mine I hope. I am not overly fond of mushrooms. I did a little more reasearch in the Bible aka Larousse Gastronomique and the entry for Bonne Femme said "dishes that are prepared in a simple, family or rustic manner." So I guess there's still hope.
Tomorrow is graduation day. I think there are two graduation days a year: one in May and one in October. Students graduate at different times times so they all gather in May or October and walk the walk. Chef said they would be preparing one thousand crepes with creme fraiche and duck confit tomorrow in the Basics kitchen for the event and that any volunteers would be welcome. I'm thinking about it. The bad thing is that they start cooking at 730am.
It was shellfish day in the kitchen. Chef Warden demonstrated cooking lobster in three different ways: boiled, grilled, and stuffed with casino mixture and baked. The boiled lobsters were boiled whole. The grilled lobster were split in half, topped with a herb butter before grilling. We didn't get to cook lobsters, but we got to eat them. Instead we got to shuck oysters and clams, prepare Oysters/Clams Casino, and make Scampi Shrimp. My sauce for Scampi Shrimp, or Butter with Shrimp as I like to call it, didn't turn out as creamy as it was supposed to be. I think I overbuttered it, who knew that was even possible.
Friday, October 25, 2002
Week 4, Day 4. I went to school early today to take advantage of the jacket and pants sale at the other campus. There was no one in line when I got there, but according to Chef Karen's talley a lot had been sold already. I got five jackets and five pairs of checkered pants for $35. Not too bad. The jackets have Gabrielle and Millie embroidered on them. Minor details. I had loads of time when I got to campus, so I decided to do some homework in the library. I bumped into Rick, Shelby, and Rodney who told me about the banquet that the AM students put out from 1-2pm. That seems like a more realistic target for food than the night banquet.
Chef Warden was absent from class today. Chef Blakemore was his substitute. She teaches one of the AM classes. It felt kind of awkward. She lectures differently. Her notes are just outlines of the material in the book. She did tell us the story behind "a la meuniere" or "in the style of the miller's wife." It's a classic method of sauteing fish dredged in flour with clarified butter or oil. The idea behind the name comes from the fact that millers lived in apartments above their mills. At the end of the day, everything in the apartment would be coated with a light layer of flour, including the miller's wife.
The kitchen portion dealt with fish cookery. Earlier in class, Eve mentioned to me that her mother's way of overcooking things has scarred her fish cooking skills. I think she was exaggerating, her preparation of Trout and Flounder en Papillote was excellent. She let me have half of her grilled salmon, her Poached Salmon in Court Bouillon, and her Trout a la Meuniere. She just doesn't like to eat fish a lot, that's all. I ended the day with gigantic plate of salmon and buttery trout and flounder. Shelby gave me his grilled salmon too. My dishes came out pretty good for some reason. Everything was cooked to the right degree of doneness according to the Chefs. I didn't really plan it that way, it just kind of happened. Maybe it's a sign that I should go to Le Bernardin, or maybe not. I would have liked to have had pictures of my dishes but I usually take them after showing the Chef. Chef Blakemore tore at the fish to check for the right texture and doneness, so I just snapped a shot of the camera-shy Zac sauteing trout and salmon in clarified butter. Don't tell him, but I don't think we were supposed to make Salmon a la Menuiere.
Chef Warden was absent from class today. Chef Blakemore was his substitute. She teaches one of the AM classes. It felt kind of awkward. She lectures differently. Her notes are just outlines of the material in the book. She did tell us the story behind "a la meuniere" or "in the style of the miller's wife." It's a classic method of sauteing fish dredged in flour with clarified butter or oil. The idea behind the name comes from the fact that millers lived in apartments above their mills. At the end of the day, everything in the apartment would be coated with a light layer of flour, including the miller's wife.
The kitchen portion dealt with fish cookery. Earlier in class, Eve mentioned to me that her mother's way of overcooking things has scarred her fish cooking skills. I think she was exaggerating, her preparation of Trout and Flounder en Papillote was excellent. She let me have half of her grilled salmon, her Poached Salmon in Court Bouillon, and her Trout a la Meuniere. She just doesn't like to eat fish a lot, that's all. I ended the day with gigantic plate of salmon and buttery trout and flounder. Shelby gave me his grilled salmon too. My dishes came out pretty good for some reason. Everything was cooked to the right degree of doneness according to the Chefs. I didn't really plan it that way, it just kind of happened. Maybe it's a sign that I should go to Le Bernardin, or maybe not. I would have liked to have had pictures of my dishes but I usually take them after showing the Chef. Chef Blakemore tore at the fish to check for the right texture and doneness, so I just snapped a shot of the camera-shy Zac sauteing trout and salmon in clarified butter. Don't tell him, but I don't think we were supposed to make Salmon a la Menuiere.
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Week 4, Day 3. Lecture was kind of weird. We went over the homework which was about fish and shellfish. I learned that geoducks (gooey-ducks, huge clams) come from the West Coast, not the East Coast. Then Chef Warden gave us some time to work on the next chapter in class. After that we watched A&E's Biography on Julia Child. I really enjoyed it. It is hard for me to really appreciate all that she has done for the industry because I really don't have a good idea of what it was like before, I only see the fruits of her labor. I think she is a great role model as a person and as a cook.
Jamie reported that there hasn't been a lot of interest in the Chili Competition and it's in danger of being postponed or cancelled. I'll try to get my entry in on Friday. He also mentioned something about the school newspaper. I think I go to the next meeting to see if there's anything interesting to do. There's a big sale tomorrow and Friday for jacket and pants. These were made for students who have dropped out, so things are priced to move. Anyone one there want anything?
Today was an easy day in the kitchen. Two dressings Basic French Vinaigrette and Emulsified French Dressing and a bound chicken salad. Eve made the Vinaigrette, while I tackled the French Dressing. It's not the sweet and tomato-based French Dressing you see in supermarkets. This is unknown in France or at least not known as French Dressing. The French Dressing we made was oil and vinegar emulsified with egg yolk and seasoned. The orange tint comes from paprika. We were given the basic bound chicken salad recipe and allowed to modify it however we wanted. I found a red bell pepper in the reach-in, so I added that and some red curry paste. Chef Warden didn't like the pepper garnish, but he liked the color of the salad. It looked nice but I didn't think it was that great either. However the sweet crunchy red peppers were a perfect match for slightly spicy chicken salad. Maybe julienne strips would have been better or something more time consuming like red pepper powder (a la Thomas Keller).
Jamie reported that there hasn't been a lot of interest in the Chili Competition and it's in danger of being postponed or cancelled. I'll try to get my entry in on Friday. He also mentioned something about the school newspaper. I think I go to the next meeting to see if there's anything interesting to do. There's a big sale tomorrow and Friday for jacket and pants. These were made for students who have dropped out, so things are priced to move. Anyone one there want anything?
Today was an easy day in the kitchen. Two dressings Basic French Vinaigrette and Emulsified French Dressing and a bound chicken salad. Eve made the Vinaigrette, while I tackled the French Dressing. It's not the sweet and tomato-based French Dressing you see in supermarkets. This is unknown in France or at least not known as French Dressing. The French Dressing we made was oil and vinegar emulsified with egg yolk and seasoned. The orange tint comes from paprika. We were given the basic bound chicken salad recipe and allowed to modify it however we wanted. I found a red bell pepper in the reach-in, so I added that and some red curry paste. Chef Warden didn't like the pepper garnish, but he liked the color of the salad. It looked nice but I didn't think it was that great either. However the sweet crunchy red peppers were a perfect match for slightly spicy chicken salad. Maybe julienne strips would have been better or something more time consuming like red pepper powder (a la Thomas Keller).
Week 4, Day 2. I got my Maricopa County Food Handler's Card today. The test was pretty easy because we went over sanitation in chapter 2. There were people there who didn't pass the test. I felt sorry for them because they probably need the card to get a job. The test consists of 25 multiple choice questions. You pass if you get 5 wrong or less. After the proctor grades the test, he tells you your result right away. You only pay the $12 fee if you pass. Then you sit in a chair to get your picture taken, and then you get your card. It's a pretty quick process or maybe I just got lucky and went at the right time.
Today was kind of the opposite of yesterday. The topic was math, so I was very animated during lecture. I'm pretty good at simple math. Understanding formulas, using and manipulating simple equations, and stuff like that. The homework was all about units of measure, food cost percentages, portion costing, and recipe conversions. Sometimes, focusing on the math gets in the way. Simple math is a tool (as opposed to hard math which is more like an art form or full-contact sport) and you need to know how to use it properly. I like to think of the context of a problem. If it's a conversion, start out by thinking "Which number should be bigger?" Then go from there. If they taught the students to think about what they're trying to figure out instead of just telling them to plug numbers into a formula, it might make more sense to them. Maybe I can spread my gospel if I join the Escoffier Society and become a tutor. I just want to say "math rocks" and "food related math rocks even harder."
We got an unexpected treat in class today. No, I don't mean our grades for the first three weeks which we also got. Our class has perfect attendance so far! That translates into Vanilla Almond Crunch Haagen Dazs bars for everyone, that is, everyone who eats ice cream and likes nuts. Jim declined for dietary reasons and Bjorn doesn't like nuts. It just doesn't seem fair that they don't get to join in the celebration for our collective achievement.
After all the math madness, we watched videos that actually dealt with something we are going to learn. The first one was a safety video on fish and shellfish and the second one was about selecting and storing seafood. I appreciate the information contained in these videos, but their production values are dated and I'm sure there have been some equally educational videos made in the past couple of years dealing with the same topic. I just feel that if they really cared, more thought would go into choosing videos that are entertaining as well as educational. Soapbox time is over, on to the cooking.
The kitchen dealt with a category of foods that I often skip when browsing a cookbook. Salads. We made the classic Caesar salad and Wilted Spinach salad with hot bacon dressing. I burned my hot bacon dressing on the first try, so I was behind the whole class. Another result of this was that by the time I presented my salad to the chefs they were all salad-ed out. We were also supposed to make mayonnaise, but Eve and I ran out of time and forearm strength. It takes a lot of whisking to make mayonnaise which is very similar to Caesar salad dressing. I guess salads are okay and I may experiment with them in the future, but I prefer to leave them to the garde manger.
Today was kind of the opposite of yesterday. The topic was math, so I was very animated during lecture. I'm pretty good at simple math. Understanding formulas, using and manipulating simple equations, and stuff like that. The homework was all about units of measure, food cost percentages, portion costing, and recipe conversions. Sometimes, focusing on the math gets in the way. Simple math is a tool (as opposed to hard math which is more like an art form or full-contact sport) and you need to know how to use it properly. I like to think of the context of a problem. If it's a conversion, start out by thinking "Which number should be bigger?" Then go from there. If they taught the students to think about what they're trying to figure out instead of just telling them to plug numbers into a formula, it might make more sense to them. Maybe I can spread my gospel if I join the Escoffier Society and become a tutor. I just want to say "math rocks" and "food related math rocks even harder."
We got an unexpected treat in class today. No, I don't mean our grades for the first three weeks which we also got. Our class has perfect attendance so far! That translates into Vanilla Almond Crunch Haagen Dazs bars for everyone, that is, everyone who eats ice cream and likes nuts. Jim declined for dietary reasons and Bjorn doesn't like nuts. It just doesn't seem fair that they don't get to join in the celebration for our collective achievement.
After all the math madness, we watched videos that actually dealt with something we are going to learn. The first one was a safety video on fish and shellfish and the second one was about selecting and storing seafood. I appreciate the information contained in these videos, but their production values are dated and I'm sure there have been some equally educational videos made in the past couple of years dealing with the same topic. I just feel that if they really cared, more thought would go into choosing videos that are entertaining as well as educational. Soapbox time is over, on to the cooking.
The kitchen dealt with a category of foods that I often skip when browsing a cookbook. Salads. We made the classic Caesar salad and Wilted Spinach salad with hot bacon dressing. I burned my hot bacon dressing on the first try, so I was behind the whole class. Another result of this was that by the time I presented my salad to the chefs they were all salad-ed out. We were also supposed to make mayonnaise, but Eve and I ran out of time and forearm strength. It takes a lot of whisking to make mayonnaise which is very similar to Caesar salad dressing. I guess salads are okay and I may experiment with them in the future, but I prefer to leave them to the garde manger.
Monday, October 21, 2002
Week 4, Day 1. Another test in the books. The tests are pretty easy if you spent a little time studying the sudy guide, but on the previous two tests there's alway one section that you can't study for. Actually you can but you'd have to memorize the chapters themselves which is not a good thing to try. I got pretty lucky today. My educated guesses in "the section" were mostly correct. I'm especially proud of my shot-in-the-dark spaetzle answer to a dumpling question. Tests really take a lot out of me. Or maybe I was tired because I was up until 2am baking bread. (By the way, I'm getting there, but I still can't get the rise or the elastic dough.) I vow to get more sleep.
In other news, I hope to enter the Chili Competion on November 9th. My good friend Tushar has provided me with a recipe that will ensure a delicious bowl of chili for the spectators and who knows? It might just win over the judges. I got an email from Anozira, a staffing company that handles staffing for the catering events associated with the school as well as temporary positions at hotel, resorts, and country clubs. It'll be a great opportunity to get a taste of the food service industry. I'm sure they'll be plenty to learn from those opportunities.
I spent the breaks conserving energy for the kitchen. And it worked. I don't know what came over me, but I think I got a second wind. The theme for today was flavored pasta. We made pesto and puttanesca as well. Since I flubbed the pasta on Friday, I told Eve that I wanted to try making it today. She agreed to make the sauces. Eve owns a pasta maker and makes a mean noodle. I chose to use the "Eve method" and threw out the whole "weighing thing" that led to failure on Friday and just got equal amounts of flour and semolina. In addition to the two eggs, I added an extra egg yolk just because I think it's similar proportions to Barbara Lynch's pasta dough recipie I saw in the New York Times a while back. We decided to flavor our pasta with lemon juice. I couldn't taste it, but Eve said there was a hint. I had visited Cost Plus over the weekend to buy bannetons and I happened to browse through a book on pasta making. They said to roll the dough through the widest setting, then fold it in half and run it through until it is smooth. This technique worked out incredibly well, I wish we learned it in class. The pasta came out great and Chef Morrison liked it. Rodney, who will probably open his own Italian restaurant after graduating, made a cool looking tomato flavored pasta.
We were done pretty early, and I launched into cleaning machine mode. We rotated to the mop and sweep station which meant that I would be among the last in the kitchen. No matter. I helped out where I could until it was time to sweep and mop. Lara commented on my thorough sweeping job. I just try to do whatever I do as best as I can. It might not always be that good, but something like sweeping isn't a terribly hard thing to do very well. It's good to know I have something to fall back on. Now I'm tired again, but there's homework to do and studying for the Food Handler's Test. Sleep will come easy tonight.
In other news, I hope to enter the Chili Competion on November 9th. My good friend Tushar has provided me with a recipe that will ensure a delicious bowl of chili for the spectators and who knows? It might just win over the judges. I got an email from Anozira, a staffing company that handles staffing for the catering events associated with the school as well as temporary positions at hotel, resorts, and country clubs. It'll be a great opportunity to get a taste of the food service industry. I'm sure they'll be plenty to learn from those opportunities.
I spent the breaks conserving energy for the kitchen. And it worked. I don't know what came over me, but I think I got a second wind. The theme for today was flavored pasta. We made pesto and puttanesca as well. Since I flubbed the pasta on Friday, I told Eve that I wanted to try making it today. She agreed to make the sauces. Eve owns a pasta maker and makes a mean noodle. I chose to use the "Eve method" and threw out the whole "weighing thing" that led to failure on Friday and just got equal amounts of flour and semolina. In addition to the two eggs, I added an extra egg yolk just because I think it's similar proportions to Barbara Lynch's pasta dough recipie I saw in the New York Times a while back. We decided to flavor our pasta with lemon juice. I couldn't taste it, but Eve said there was a hint. I had visited Cost Plus over the weekend to buy bannetons and I happened to browse through a book on pasta making. They said to roll the dough through the widest setting, then fold it in half and run it through until it is smooth. This technique worked out incredibly well, I wish we learned it in class. The pasta came out great and Chef Morrison liked it. Rodney, who will probably open his own Italian restaurant after graduating, made a cool looking tomato flavored pasta.
We were done pretty early, and I launched into cleaning machine mode. We rotated to the mop and sweep station which meant that I would be among the last in the kitchen. No matter. I helped out where I could until it was time to sweep and mop. Lara commented on my thorough sweeping job. I just try to do whatever I do as best as I can. It might not always be that good, but something like sweeping isn't a terribly hard thing to do very well. It's good to know I have something to fall back on. Now I'm tired again, but there's homework to do and studying for the Food Handler's Test. Sleep will come easy tonight.
Saturday, October 19, 2002
Week 3 Day 5. Another week in the books. We get grades next week for the past three weeks. I wonder how that'll turn out. Chef Warden mentioned something interesting today when I told him that I brought in my starter for pasta making. He told me that we would be making different variations on Monday and that today we were going to make normal pasta first. I just said that I'd bring it back Monday which provoked him to say, "You don't get very excited do you?" I am often curious how people see me and I know that calm is used very often to descibe me, but I don't realize that I often appear unemotional. I feel emotions, but I guess they express themselves in ways invisible to the naked eye. By the way, I am tremendously curious what sourdough pasta will be like.
We went over what was going to be on the test as usual. This is where I feel a little awkward. Chef Warden pretty much tells us exactly what's going to be on the test. This feeling is reminiscent of math classes at Caltech, specifically AMA 95(Applied Mathematics) and Math 1(Calculus). Sean and Professor Ashbacher would go over what to expect on the test the day or night before. When we took the test it was no surprise. While this is very helpful, it reduces the material to a couple of problems. Pardon the digression, I know that these tests mean well, but I question their ability to invoke lasting knowledge. Will I still know everything six months from now? Maybe. Anyway, our Jeopardy win streak is up to three. Two more free points on the test.
The kitchen was an utter failure. Chef Morrison did the demo today for pasta and Alfredo sauce. I believe that I am cursed when working with dough. My breads haven't really developed and now my pasta was just horrible. Chef Morrison said he would work with me on Monday. I was still measuring out the flour and semolina while people were already rolling out their pasta. My dough never seemed to come together. Chef Morrison tried to work in some water, but by that time the dough was overworked. When I finally got a batch cooked, Chef had already eaten too much pasta to try mine and our Alfredo sauce turned a bit grayish due to over mixing with a whisk in a aluminum saute pan. At least we got out early. But is that really a good thing? In other news, I've decided to do my project for Week 5 on dim sum. I'm doing some "research" tomorrow.
We went over what was going to be on the test as usual. This is where I feel a little awkward. Chef Warden pretty much tells us exactly what's going to be on the test. This feeling is reminiscent of math classes at Caltech, specifically AMA 95(Applied Mathematics) and Math 1(Calculus). Sean and Professor Ashbacher would go over what to expect on the test the day or night before. When we took the test it was no surprise. While this is very helpful, it reduces the material to a couple of problems. Pardon the digression, I know that these tests mean well, but I question their ability to invoke lasting knowledge. Will I still know everything six months from now? Maybe. Anyway, our Jeopardy win streak is up to three. Two more free points on the test.
The kitchen was an utter failure. Chef Morrison did the demo today for pasta and Alfredo sauce. I believe that I am cursed when working with dough. My breads haven't really developed and now my pasta was just horrible. Chef Morrison said he would work with me on Monday. I was still measuring out the flour and semolina while people were already rolling out their pasta. My dough never seemed to come together. Chef Morrison tried to work in some water, but by that time the dough was overworked. When I finally got a batch cooked, Chef had already eaten too much pasta to try mine and our Alfredo sauce turned a bit grayish due to over mixing with a whisk in a aluminum saute pan. At least we got out early. But is that really a good thing? In other news, I've decided to do my project for Week 5 on dim sum. I'm doing some "research" tomorrow.
Thursday, October 17, 2002
Week 3 Day 4.Today's lesson was all about rice. Richie asked why rice was so cheap if it took so many machines to process it. Zack came up with the explanation, "Rice is cheap because it's made in sweatshops." But when you really think about it, a lot of things are cheap that go through a lengthy process like gasoline, gumballs, and anything you find in a vending machine or a 99 cent store. We were also talking about how to tell if rice has gone bad. Chef mentioned odor and weevils. Luckily(or unluckily) there were little containers of rice left over from some previous extra credit project. We got to see first hand little creatures roaming amongst the grains of rice. What was really distubing were the bugs crawling around inside a small jar of dried beans. I may have nightmares about that.
In the kitchen, we made rice using the pilaf method and the rissoto method. Everybody in class got to make their own pilaf. Eve chose to go simply with mushrooms and parsley garnish. When Chef Warden told us in class, I decided to make the Spanish Rice recipe in the book. But when I got downstairs, there was no paprika and I didn't feel like using green bell pepper. So I winged it. I rendered some bacon fat reserving the bacon for garnish. To this, I added chopped onion and garlic. I also added cayenne pepper, tumeric, salt, and white pepper. Next, I tossed in the rice to coat it with the flavored bacon fat. This is called necray for all French folks in the house. I then added some chicken stock, brought it to a boil, lowered it to a simmer, and let it cook. For the final presentation, I mixed about half of the bacon bits into the rice, spooned it into a bowl, and made a small indent in the middle of the rice with a ladle. Into the indentation, I cracked a raw egg and sprinkled the rest of the bacon bits and some parsley on top. The tumeric gave the rice a nice golden color and the cayenne pepper added a little kick. Chef Morrison was a little unnerved by the raw egg. He mentioned that guests might freak out if they saw that. I had remembered seeing this combination somewhere before but I couldn't think of it at that moment. Later on I realized that in Japan it is very common to mix raw egg into rice during breakfast time. I have also seen pictures of steak tartar garnished with a raw egg yolk. Back to the drawing board I guess. When I told Rodney about my dish, it blew him away. He was very supportive of my use of raw egg as garnish. Maybe I'm cooking for a different crowd.
The catering kids had their grand banquet today. The good thing was that we were definitely getting food. The bad thing was that we had to wait until after the public got first dibs. It was open to friends and families of the catering students. Luckily, we finished early and were first in line for the second dibs. There was plenty of stuff left for us: fresh fruit, canapes, cherry tomatos with fresh mozzarella, rissoto(which I couldn't touch), breaded mussels, chicken leg quarters, lamb chops, spaghetti carbonara, lots of cool looking breads that no one seemed to have the heart to tear into, and a dessert made with rasberries. I wonder if this means we've seen the last of banquets for a while. I don't thnk the new batch of kids will prepare banquets immediately.
In the kitchen, we made rice using the pilaf method and the rissoto method. Everybody in class got to make their own pilaf. Eve chose to go simply with mushrooms and parsley garnish. When Chef Warden told us in class, I decided to make the Spanish Rice recipe in the book. But when I got downstairs, there was no paprika and I didn't feel like using green bell pepper. So I winged it. I rendered some bacon fat reserving the bacon for garnish. To this, I added chopped onion and garlic. I also added cayenne pepper, tumeric, salt, and white pepper. Next, I tossed in the rice to coat it with the flavored bacon fat. This is called necray for all French folks in the house. I then added some chicken stock, brought it to a boil, lowered it to a simmer, and let it cook. For the final presentation, I mixed about half of the bacon bits into the rice, spooned it into a bowl, and made a small indent in the middle of the rice with a ladle. Into the indentation, I cracked a raw egg and sprinkled the rest of the bacon bits and some parsley on top. The tumeric gave the rice a nice golden color and the cayenne pepper added a little kick. Chef Morrison was a little unnerved by the raw egg. He mentioned that guests might freak out if they saw that. I had remembered seeing this combination somewhere before but I couldn't think of it at that moment. Later on I realized that in Japan it is very common to mix raw egg into rice during breakfast time. I have also seen pictures of steak tartar garnished with a raw egg yolk. Back to the drawing board I guess. When I told Rodney about my dish, it blew him away. He was very supportive of my use of raw egg as garnish. Maybe I'm cooking for a different crowd.
The catering kids had their grand banquet today. The good thing was that we were definitely getting food. The bad thing was that we had to wait until after the public got first dibs. It was open to friends and families of the catering students. Luckily, we finished early and were first in line for the second dibs. There was plenty of stuff left for us: fresh fruit, canapes, cherry tomatos with fresh mozzarella, rissoto(which I couldn't touch), breaded mussels, chicken leg quarters, lamb chops, spaghetti carbonara, lots of cool looking breads that no one seemed to have the heart to tear into, and a dessert made with rasberries. I wonder if this means we've seen the last of banquets for a while. I don't thnk the new batch of kids will prepare banquets immediately.
Wednesday, October 16, 2002
Week 3 Day 3. We watched a couple more videos in class today. After lecturing about potatoes, Chef Warden decided it was too hot to concentrate. He said that the videos are to give us ideas about presentation and food pairing. We watched video #6 from the Great Chefs of Chicago series. The first part was a four course meal prepared by Yoshi Katsumura. The second part featured Jackie Ectheber aka Jackie Shen. In the video, the restaurant Jackie's was still operational, but a little research reveals that it closed in 1999. Jackie Shen is now executive chef at Lawry's The Prime Rib. I've actually eaten there. It's where Michael Jordan signed his first contract with the Bulls. In the video, for dessert, Jackie prepares a Chocolate Bag. It's chocolate in the shape of a luch bag filled with white chocolate mousse topped with fresh berries and served with a rasberry sauce. I must admit that I polished one of these off after finishing a mighty slab of prime rib and thier famous Spinning Bowl salad. I knew it couldn't have been a coincidence. That's not a common dessert to see on menus.
It was potato day in the kitchen. We made Anna Potatoes, Rissole, and Duchesse potatoes. I messed up the Anna potatoes because I didn't slice them thin enough. Chef Warden said that along with consomme, Anna Potatoes frustrates students the most. It certainly got me. Rissole are those football shaped potatoes browned in clarified butter. I'm getting used to cutting potatos into seven-sided shapes. Duchesse potatoes are a mixture of pureed potatoes, egg yolks, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. We then put it into a pastry bag and pipe out different shapes with a star tip. It takes a while to bake in the oven. The taste or lack there of was disappointing. I guess we should taste and season before we put it in the piping bag. It might go well with a sauce though or the jus of an accompanying meat dish...
It was potato day in the kitchen. We made Anna Potatoes, Rissole, and Duchesse potatoes. I messed up the Anna potatoes because I didn't slice them thin enough. Chef Warden said that along with consomme, Anna Potatoes frustrates students the most. It certainly got me. Rissole are those football shaped potatoes browned in clarified butter. I'm getting used to cutting potatos into seven-sided shapes. Duchesse potatoes are a mixture of pureed potatoes, egg yolks, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. We then put it into a pastry bag and pipe out different shapes with a star tip. It takes a while to bake in the oven. The taste or lack there of was disappointing. I guess we should taste and season before we put it in the piping bag. It might go well with a sauce though or the jus of an accompanying meat dish...
Week 3, Day 2. My First Picture. As per a request from a good friend, I will attempt to provide pictures. At the beginning of class, Jamie gives us more details about the chili competition on November 9th. There a $10 entry fee, sign up is tomorrow, three categories: Red, Green, and non-traditional, contest is to make 1.5 gallons of chili, cooking starts at 9am, tasting starts at 12:30pm, and tasting tickets are 5 for a buck. I've been thinking a little about entering, but I've never made chili before. I'm thinking about a non-traditional entry using soybeans(edamame), dashi, thinly sliced beef, wasabi, daikon, and some other stuff. Sounds intriguing, but I'm not sure what the consistency should be or what taste I'm looking for.
Back into learning mode. The topic for today was soup. I really need to take more advantage of lecture. It's a time to ask questions about anything. That's how most interesting tangents in class get started. For instance, Zack asked how he should make roasted bell peppers if he has an electric range. We learned that Zack tried a variety of methods on the electric heating coils to no avail. Then Chef Warden cryptically asked Zack, "How's your kitchen?" This leads to a story from Chef Warden about a friend who was drunk and decided to show his non-chef friends the flambeeing technique. In two minutes, the guy caused $600 worth of damage to his ventilation system and partially melted his microwave. In response Zack claimed, "I don't cook drunk. It's dangerous enough sober." How true.
It was our last day of soups in the kitchen. We made consomme and spicy black bean soup. (Note: The consomme was a much more visually appealing dish, but I threw it away before I remembered to take pictures. Don't worry, I'm not done cooking yet.) I've been looking forward to the consomme making ever since I read about the process in The Making of a Chef. The process involves a clarification in which a mixture of ground beef, egg whites, herbs and spices, and lemon juice(for chicken consomme, tomatoes for veal consomme) is used to create a clear finished product. This raft starts at the bottom of the saucepan and rises to the top collecting impurities on its way up. It's a really cool process and I think everyone should try it at least once in their lives. The spicy black bean soup was not too bad. Eve and I decided to keep the heat content moderate by using ony jalpenos. Shelby and Casey used three habaneros and two scotch bonnets. Those are two of most hottest peppers arounds. I actually tried a spoonful of their soup. While the heat was strong, I wasn't panting like a rabid dog running for milk to cool down the burn like I was expecting to. I kind of surprised myself that I could take that much heat, but I really it was only a spoonful and a couple more bites would've probably rendered my tastes buds useless for a while.
A tray of chocolates appeared and quickly disappeared while we were cooking. Let me recount the hunt for tonight's banquet. We all waited anxiously in the hallway for the last students to finish their kitchen chores and for Chef Warden to dismiss us. A quick reminder about Chapter 18 tomorrow and we're off. Up the stairs to ground level, then up another flight of stairs to the banquet room. At ground level, there are three staff workers happily enjoying plates of food. This is a good sign! I'm a straggler, so by the time I'm half way up the stairs to the banquet room the faster and hungrier students are returning from the closed banquet doors. Dejected and disappointed, they spread the word that they have closed for the night. The hunt for the banquet continues . . .
Back into learning mode. The topic for today was soup. I really need to take more advantage of lecture. It's a time to ask questions about anything. That's how most interesting tangents in class get started. For instance, Zack asked how he should make roasted bell peppers if he has an electric range. We learned that Zack tried a variety of methods on the electric heating coils to no avail. Then Chef Warden cryptically asked Zack, "How's your kitchen?" This leads to a story from Chef Warden about a friend who was drunk and decided to show his non-chef friends the flambeeing technique. In two minutes, the guy caused $600 worth of damage to his ventilation system and partially melted his microwave. In response Zack claimed, "I don't cook drunk. It's dangerous enough sober." How true.
It was our last day of soups in the kitchen. We made consomme and spicy black bean soup. (Note: The consomme was a much more visually appealing dish, but I threw it away before I remembered to take pictures. Don't worry, I'm not done cooking yet.) I've been looking forward to the consomme making ever since I read about the process in The Making of a Chef. The process involves a clarification in which a mixture of ground beef, egg whites, herbs and spices, and lemon juice(for chicken consomme, tomatoes for veal consomme) is used to create a clear finished product. This raft starts at the bottom of the saucepan and rises to the top collecting impurities on its way up. It's a really cool process and I think everyone should try it at least once in their lives. The spicy black bean soup was not too bad. Eve and I decided to keep the heat content moderate by using ony jalpenos. Shelby and Casey used three habaneros and two scotch bonnets. Those are two of most hottest peppers arounds. I actually tried a spoonful of their soup. While the heat was strong, I wasn't panting like a rabid dog running for milk to cool down the burn like I was expecting to. I kind of surprised myself that I could take that much heat, but I really it was only a spoonful and a couple more bites would've probably rendered my tastes buds useless for a while.
A tray of chocolates appeared and quickly disappeared while we were cooking. Let me recount the hunt for tonight's banquet. We all waited anxiously in the hallway for the last students to finish their kitchen chores and for Chef Warden to dismiss us. A quick reminder about Chapter 18 tomorrow and we're off. Up the stairs to ground level, then up another flight of stairs to the banquet room. At ground level, there are three staff workers happily enjoying plates of food. This is a good sign! I'm a straggler, so by the time I'm half way up the stairs to the banquet room the faster and hungrier students are returning from the closed banquet doors. Dejected and disappointed, they spread the word that they have closed for the night. The hunt for the banquet continues . . .
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
Week 3, Day 1. Test Monday as usual. This time we graded each other's test in class afterwards. It was a difficult test in that it required reading the text rather than just studying the study guide. I was a little disappointed because I spent all weekend studying small sauces (and baking bread, making French fries and aoili.) We were given the impression by Chef Warden that small sauces would be a big part of the test, but only the last eight questions were devoted to the subject. On top of that, those questions weren't counted towards the test. Chef said that they hadn't counted the last nine times they gave the test. Well, I got a pretty good score. And I'm glad that I spent the time studying the sauces because I feel that those sauces will come in handy someday. These are classic combinations and they taught in culinary schools and cookbooks alike because they taste good. It's not like History class where you spend the entire weekend memorizing dates, names, and places only to forget them after the test.
The kitchen served as our introduction to soup week. Potage Crecy or Pureed Carrot soup, cream of mushroom, and French onion au gratin. I dislike mushrooms. Needless to say my mushroom soup was not up to par. My French Onion was out of whack, too. Chef Warden said that I needed to cook out the sherry more. It's been that kind of day. Everything has been just a little out of whack. The weather was a bit hotter than usual. The air conditioning in the classroom kept the room at a warm 31 degrees Celsius (I leave the conversion as an exercise for the reader.) I even noticed an abnormally high number of cars pulled over in the shoulder lanes suffering from various ailments. Eve made the Potage Crecy because it was one per group. She did a great job.
No banquet again. We really need to find out their schedule and plan accordingly. Sure we all had a little soup, there was even a roasting pan of turkey from the meat fab kids, but there's something pretty special about sitting at a table with fellow classmates, chowing down on decent free food, and washing it down with powerfully sweet Kool Aid. Well, there's always tomorrow.
The kitchen served as our introduction to soup week. Potage Crecy or Pureed Carrot soup, cream of mushroom, and French onion au gratin. I dislike mushrooms. Needless to say my mushroom soup was not up to par. My French Onion was out of whack, too. Chef Warden said that I needed to cook out the sherry more. It's been that kind of day. Everything has been just a little out of whack. The weather was a bit hotter than usual. The air conditioning in the classroom kept the room at a warm 31 degrees Celsius (I leave the conversion as an exercise for the reader.) I even noticed an abnormally high number of cars pulled over in the shoulder lanes suffering from various ailments. Eve made the Potage Crecy because it was one per group. She did a great job.
No banquet again. We really need to find out their schedule and plan accordingly. Sure we all had a little soup, there was even a roasting pan of turkey from the meat fab kids, but there's something pretty special about sitting at a table with fellow classmates, chowing down on decent free food, and washing it down with powerfully sweet Kool Aid. Well, there's always tomorrow.
Saturday, October 12, 2002
Week 2, Day 5. Bad butter. Today we watched more videos. More Two Fat Ladies the Picnic episode and the Cakes episode. Chef Warden was grading our homework while we were watching Jennifer and Clarissa cook with reckless abandon. I had a chat with Joe between the videos. He has a real knack for making good food. He's here to fill in the gaps, and put terms to techniques he's been using all his life. Another person destined to succeed.
We played Jeopardy again for bonus points on the test. We edged out the other team for the win. Our class really knows their stuff. I really enjoy the level of dedication to the material in our class. Maybe I'm just biased but when I went to the review session before class, it was near chaos. Let's just say there was a lot of complaining, whining, and immature behavior.
The kitchen promised to be another easy day of sauces but we fell victim to bad butter. Apparently the morning kids left us poorly clarified butter. Clarified butter is purified butter. That is, when you heat up a stick of butter in a saucepan, the pure butter is between the top layer of foam and the bottom layer of milk solids. We were supposed to create a Hollandaise and then add a tarragon reduction to make a Bearnaise. Then we were to split the Bearnaise into two; we add tomato paste to one to create Choron and meat glaze to the other to create Foyot.
The prevailing theory is that the groups who got the bottom of the "clarified butter," had an abnormally high concentration of milk solids which caused havoc. But I've seen many recipes that use regular chunks of butter that work fine. However our ratio of bufferfat to milksolids was higher than that found in a pat of butter. Possibly heat was the problem. Not enough that is. I'll try some experiments at home. Eve and I did manage to make a yellow pepper coulie. Eve picked out a yellow bell pepper which resulted in a dark yellow-green colored sauce. Chef Warden liked the color probably because it was different from everybody else's who chose green peppers.
The catering students were back at work. Our table today consisted of JB, Tara, Bjorn, Jamie, Rodney, Lara, Manny, and Shelby. The theme was Mexican. The buffet featured scallops ceviche, canapes, chicken mole, shrimp, rice, quesadillas, refried beans, and some cake. Of course the bottomless pitchers of Kool Aid were omnipresent. I'm eager to see what they'll dish up next week.
We played Jeopardy again for bonus points on the test. We edged out the other team for the win. Our class really knows their stuff. I really enjoy the level of dedication to the material in our class. Maybe I'm just biased but when I went to the review session before class, it was near chaos. Let's just say there was a lot of complaining, whining, and immature behavior.
The kitchen promised to be another easy day of sauces but we fell victim to bad butter. Apparently the morning kids left us poorly clarified butter. Clarified butter is purified butter. That is, when you heat up a stick of butter in a saucepan, the pure butter is between the top layer of foam and the bottom layer of milk solids. We were supposed to create a Hollandaise and then add a tarragon reduction to make a Bearnaise. Then we were to split the Bearnaise into two; we add tomato paste to one to create Choron and meat glaze to the other to create Foyot.
The prevailing theory is that the groups who got the bottom of the "clarified butter," had an abnormally high concentration of milk solids which caused havoc. But I've seen many recipes that use regular chunks of butter that work fine. However our ratio of bufferfat to milksolids was higher than that found in a pat of butter. Possibly heat was the problem. Not enough that is. I'll try some experiments at home. Eve and I did manage to make a yellow pepper coulie. Eve picked out a yellow bell pepper which resulted in a dark yellow-green colored sauce. Chef Warden liked the color probably because it was different from everybody else's who chose green peppers.
The catering students were back at work. Our table today consisted of JB, Tara, Bjorn, Jamie, Rodney, Lara, Manny, and Shelby. The theme was Mexican. The buffet featured scallops ceviche, canapes, chicken mole, shrimp, rice, quesadillas, refried beans, and some cake. Of course the bottomless pitchers of Kool Aid were omnipresent. I'm eager to see what they'll dish up next week.
Friday, October 11, 2002
Week 2, Day 4. Today was a weird day in class. We went over the homework on Chapter 17 Vegetable Cookery. After that Chef Warden started popping in videos. The first one was a Le Cordon Blue video. It looked like it was made in the early eighties. It was the first video in a seven part series. It reminded me of the Great Chefs series on the Discovery Channel (and the Travel Channel). The video was shot in Paris at the original Le Cordon Blue. The chef was speaking French, but there was a narrator translating the words. The were three dishes interspersed with scenes from Parisian markets. The first dish was an eggplant dish, the next was spinach loaf with tomato sauce, and the third was cruidtes with three different sauces. I don't understand the purpose of watching the videos. It seemed like we were just watching tv.
The next video was even more puzzling. We watched an episode of Two Fat Ladies cooking Fish and Shellfish. There wasn't anything dealing with vegetable cookery. Although Eve noted that it was the unedited version having seen the edited one on The Food Network. Just random comments made by the Two Fat Ladies that didn't have much to do with the cooking.
Chef Warden told us about an optional project that we can do for the fifth week. We can write a six-page paper about anything that deals with food. We also have to present it to the class. Extra credit is involved, so I'm not sure how many students will choose to do this. Chef mentioned that in the past people have done presentations on ducks, baby food, egg cookery, rices, and Escoffier. I'm not sure what I want to do. I'm considering topics like sourdough, offal, and sauces. Chef said that the school could provide any necessary ingredients within reason. That prompted Zack to request one porterhouse so that he could demonstrate the proper way to eat one. Sounds good to me.
Actually, I've done a little soul searching and I decided to pursue sourdough. I must confess that my first two attempts at this bread have been futile. But a little insight from the rec.food.sourdough FAQ has convinced me to try again. I think I owe it to my starter to make it into good bread. Since I don't have a fancy mixer with a dough hook, I'm hand kneading. I had no idea what a properly kneaded dough looks like, expect for the fact that it needs to be able to stretch so that you can see through it. I now know that I need to work the dough longer. I also discovered that I need to use colder water, possibly crushed ice, because kneading raises the temperature of the dough a lot. Stay tuned.
The kitchen was another easy day of sauces. We made the daunting Hollandaise, Robert, Bordelaise, and Beurre Blanc. The only mother sauce left is the ubiquitous Tomato. An interesting creature since the thickening agent is reduction with optional roux. The meat fab class sent over a roasting pan of enchiladas. Very tasty with little kick at the end to make you say, "Hey, that's pretty good stuff." There was no banquet today or as I like to call them "after-school specials." There's always tomorrow.
The next video was even more puzzling. We watched an episode of Two Fat Ladies cooking Fish and Shellfish. There wasn't anything dealing with vegetable cookery. Although Eve noted that it was the unedited version having seen the edited one on The Food Network. Just random comments made by the Two Fat Ladies that didn't have much to do with the cooking.
Chef Warden told us about an optional project that we can do for the fifth week. We can write a six-page paper about anything that deals with food. We also have to present it to the class. Extra credit is involved, so I'm not sure how many students will choose to do this. Chef mentioned that in the past people have done presentations on ducks, baby food, egg cookery, rices, and Escoffier. I'm not sure what I want to do. I'm considering topics like sourdough, offal, and sauces. Chef said that the school could provide any necessary ingredients within reason. That prompted Zack to request one porterhouse so that he could demonstrate the proper way to eat one. Sounds good to me.
Actually, I've done a little soul searching and I decided to pursue sourdough. I must confess that my first two attempts at this bread have been futile. But a little insight from the rec.food.sourdough FAQ has convinced me to try again. I think I owe it to my starter to make it into good bread. Since I don't have a fancy mixer with a dough hook, I'm hand kneading. I had no idea what a properly kneaded dough looks like, expect for the fact that it needs to be able to stretch so that you can see through it. I now know that I need to work the dough longer. I also discovered that I need to use colder water, possibly crushed ice, because kneading raises the temperature of the dough a lot. Stay tuned.
The kitchen was another easy day of sauces. We made the daunting Hollandaise, Robert, Bordelaise, and Beurre Blanc. The only mother sauce left is the ubiquitous Tomato. An interesting creature since the thickening agent is reduction with optional roux. The meat fab class sent over a roasting pan of enchiladas. Very tasty with little kick at the end to make you say, "Hey, that's pretty good stuff." There was no banquet today or as I like to call them "after-school specials." There's always tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 09, 2002
Week 2, Day 3. Discovery. Before class I managed to check out an industry magazine called Food Arts. It's keeps a pretty good pulse on the restaurant scene in major cities. I saw an ad for Sirha 2003 a hotel, catering, and food trade exhibition from Jan 25-29, 2003. Some cool events going on during this expo are the Bocuse d'Or and the World Pastry Cup. I'd love to go to this, but I'll probably be taking Management at that time. The Food Network has specials about these competitions. This is where chefs take cooking to an insane level.
Today's lecture was straight information about sauces and vegatables. No real tangets. Though Chef Warden did tell us the secret to good blueberry muffins. That is, without green color on the dough near the blueberries nor a blue batter. The blue batter happens because the juice of the blueberries gets into the batter. To prevent that gently mix in the berries at the end. Blueberries are the color they are because of the pigment anthocyanin. When it is cooked with an alkaline substance. such as baking soda, it turns greenish. Since we need the leavening power of the baking soda, we need a way to prevent the blueberry from coming in contact with the baking soda. We can accomplish this by coating the blueberries with flour before mixing it in with the rest of the batter. I really enjoy hints, tips, and tricks of all sorts. By the way I've added a comments feature to these entries so that you can give your own two cents if you feel like.
Late in the lecture, we were talking about freezer burn and Chef Warden asked the class how do we tell that something has freezer burn. Zach raises his hand and gives the following response, "Well, you know when you come out of the shower and you have a five-day-old scab. It kind of looks like that." Quite vivid. I'll never look at scabs nor freezer burn the same way again.
We did a couple more sauces in the kitchen: demiglace, bechamel, mornay, and soubise. Mornay and soubise are secondary sauces derived from bechamel. Sauces are basically a liquid, a thickening agent, and seasoning. For bechamel the liquid is milk, the thickening agent is a blond roux, and the seasoning is onion, cloves, and bay leaf. Mornay starts with bechamel and adds gruyere and parmesan. Soubise is bechamel with onions. We flambeed our onions with a little brandy. Cooks seem to like to play with dangerous things like fire and knives.
During the cooking time, I stepped outside to sample some food made by other students. There was a chocolate mousse cake, a pastry made with apples, rhubarb, and walnuts wrapped in phyllo dough, and some barbeque chicken wings. Little did I know that this was only a snack. The big discovery of the day was the spread that the banquet class puts out every night for the students. I guess Kalei mentioned something about this earlier, but I wasn't paying attention. I'm not sure what the theme was for today. There were fresh fruits, ratatouille, veal scallopini with saffron risotto, gnocchi, and a bunch of other things that I didn't bother to get because I had snacked earlier. Apparently there were ribs last night. I was beginning to wonder how people were going to put on weight during the course of the year. I think the average weight gain is 15 pounds. I don't think I'll make it though. Moderation is the key. It only takes a couple of bites to know the taste of a food.
I sat at a table with fellow classmates Rick, Lara, Rodney, Manny, Jeff, and the mighty Casey. There was also John who's in the final class, working at L'Ecole, the school's fine dining restaurant. He lives across the street so he gets to come down for free food. Aaron is in the Showpieces class. They do the fancy pastry creations including wedding cakes. The only oddity about the banquet was the beverage of choice, Kool Aid. There really is no beverage class, but maybe there should be. During the meal, I found out more about where people are heading in the food industry. Rodney is all set to open his own restaurant and he wants Rick to join him, Lara wants to work at a resort. As for me, I'm terribly curious about superfine dining. I have visions of working in four star restaurants in New York and maybe even getting some experience at fine dining establishments in France and Hong Kong. But who knows, maybe things'll change in the coming year.
Today's lecture was straight information about sauces and vegatables. No real tangets. Though Chef Warden did tell us the secret to good blueberry muffins. That is, without green color on the dough near the blueberries nor a blue batter. The blue batter happens because the juice of the blueberries gets into the batter. To prevent that gently mix in the berries at the end. Blueberries are the color they are because of the pigment anthocyanin. When it is cooked with an alkaline substance. such as baking soda, it turns greenish. Since we need the leavening power of the baking soda, we need a way to prevent the blueberry from coming in contact with the baking soda. We can accomplish this by coating the blueberries with flour before mixing it in with the rest of the batter. I really enjoy hints, tips, and tricks of all sorts. By the way I've added a comments feature to these entries so that you can give your own two cents if you feel like.
Late in the lecture, we were talking about freezer burn and Chef Warden asked the class how do we tell that something has freezer burn. Zach raises his hand and gives the following response, "Well, you know when you come out of the shower and you have a five-day-old scab. It kind of looks like that." Quite vivid. I'll never look at scabs nor freezer burn the same way again.
We did a couple more sauces in the kitchen: demiglace, bechamel, mornay, and soubise. Mornay and soubise are secondary sauces derived from bechamel. Sauces are basically a liquid, a thickening agent, and seasoning. For bechamel the liquid is milk, the thickening agent is a blond roux, and the seasoning is onion, cloves, and bay leaf. Mornay starts with bechamel and adds gruyere and parmesan. Soubise is bechamel with onions. We flambeed our onions with a little brandy. Cooks seem to like to play with dangerous things like fire and knives.
During the cooking time, I stepped outside to sample some food made by other students. There was a chocolate mousse cake, a pastry made with apples, rhubarb, and walnuts wrapped in phyllo dough, and some barbeque chicken wings. Little did I know that this was only a snack. The big discovery of the day was the spread that the banquet class puts out every night for the students. I guess Kalei mentioned something about this earlier, but I wasn't paying attention. I'm not sure what the theme was for today. There were fresh fruits, ratatouille, veal scallopini with saffron risotto, gnocchi, and a bunch of other things that I didn't bother to get because I had snacked earlier. Apparently there were ribs last night. I was beginning to wonder how people were going to put on weight during the course of the year. I think the average weight gain is 15 pounds. I don't think I'll make it though. Moderation is the key. It only takes a couple of bites to know the taste of a food.
I sat at a table with fellow classmates Rick, Lara, Rodney, Manny, Jeff, and the mighty Casey. There was also John who's in the final class, working at L'Ecole, the school's fine dining restaurant. He lives across the street so he gets to come down for free food. Aaron is in the Showpieces class. They do the fancy pastry creations including wedding cakes. The only oddity about the banquet was the beverage of choice, Kool Aid. There really is no beverage class, but maybe there should be. During the meal, I found out more about where people are heading in the food industry. Rodney is all set to open his own restaurant and he wants Rick to join him, Lara wants to work at a resort. As for me, I'm terribly curious about superfine dining. I have visions of working in four star restaurants in New York and maybe even getting some experience at fine dining establishments in France and Hong Kong. But who knows, maybe things'll change in the coming year.
10/8/2002
Week 2, Day 2. Just another day. This week I've been getting to school a bit earlier because there seems to be less traffic on the freeways. I chill out in the library and read the chapter we're assigned for the day. I'd like to get to the magazines, but there's so much reading to do. I see other students working on various other assignments. Up to this point, I thought that only the Basic kids have a gigantic amount of reading and studying to do. But I heard that we still have six more texts to go through in our other classes. There's a whole lotta learning ahead. I don't think it gets easier after Basics, you just get used to the workload. Bring it on.
At the beginning of class, two members from the Escoffier Society visited the class. It's an honor society of students with high GPA's that tutor and hold review sessions. And they also get to wear nifty powder blue neckerchiefs. I guess I'll apply for the club. Tutoring comes very natural to me, but those review sessions are not my speed.
Chef Warden began class by calling us up one by one to show us our test scores. I haven't done that since the fifth grade in Mr. Salonis's math class. I got a pretty good score thanks to the two extra points from being on the winning Jeopardy team. As Thomas Keller puts it, "Perfection is impossible. We can only strive to achieve it." Or something like that anyways.
During the review of the homework, Chef Warden tried to mess with my head. I gave an answer to a question and he said another term as if I had given the wrong answer and he was correcting me. After a brief silence and confusion from other students, Chef affirmed that I had given the right answer. Why do I bring this up? Well, I've been known to be an enigma at times to my former managers at my previous job. They claim that they can't tell my emotional state and my lack of expression at times seems to cause them confusion. Anyway, that's what that brief moment reminded me of. I guess it's my polite way of saying, "I am not amused."
In the middle of going over the homework, Chef Warden gave another speech in the series which I'll entitle "Meditations on What it Means to be a Chef." It was another awe-inspiring segment. I really like it when he launches into this mode. So idealistic. Chef Warden believes that being a chef is not about the money, nor the tv shows, nor about being the restaurant of the moment, nor the fame. It's about making and serving whole or part of a meal for someone who enjoys it and continually comes back to your restaurant and tells their friends about your restaurant. In other words it's about making people happy. For certain people in the world, myself included, there is no greater feeling.
During class we talked about stocks. This discussion led Zach to the realization that Jello is nothing but flavored liquid of boiled horse hooves. I'll still eat it. That could change if I actually saw it being made. Somehow the conversation contiued along the lines of animals carcasses. Lara revealed that she once held thirty lambs in her Camaro for her father's restaurant during a previous holiday season. She's been working in the restaurant since she was 13. She seems destined for something big.
But the story of the day came from Chef Warden's NECI days. He recalls going to his meat fabrication class at 215am. His class was usually responsible for providing the entire school and its restaurants with their meat. But on the this day, his Chef instructor brought the class outside to pen. Awaiting them were five live animals: a pig, a milk cow, a calf, a lamb, and an ostrich. They were informed that they were to slaughter the animal of their choice. Chef Warden chose the calf and used the revolver. Another student Tim choose the ostrich and spent twenty minutes chasing the bird down even after he had cut its throat. The Instructor handled the milk cow with his bare hands. Obviously, he was experienced. The pig went to an elderly woman of 64 who was there to learn more about cooking so that she could entertain her friends and family. Chef Warden recalled how she was extremely hestiant at first to even choose an animal. But after playing with the pig for a while, the old lady snapped, slashed the pig's throat with two quick stokes, and completed the task. I was disappointed when the Chef told us that we wouldn't have to do anything like that, but I wonder if I could actually go through with it...
The kitchen was ho hum. Two secondary sauces from the veloute me made yesterday: allemande and supreme. We also made another mother sauce, espagnole or brown sauce. I ducked out to eat some meat fab stuff before making my sauces. Apparently chicken was the topic matter of the day. The stuff was okay. I think I lost momentum for the day at that point though.
Week 2, Day 2. Just another day. This week I've been getting to school a bit earlier because there seems to be less traffic on the freeways. I chill out in the library and read the chapter we're assigned for the day. I'd like to get to the magazines, but there's so much reading to do. I see other students working on various other assignments. Up to this point, I thought that only the Basic kids have a gigantic amount of reading and studying to do. But I heard that we still have six more texts to go through in our other classes. There's a whole lotta learning ahead. I don't think it gets easier after Basics, you just get used to the workload. Bring it on.
At the beginning of class, two members from the Escoffier Society visited the class. It's an honor society of students with high GPA's that tutor and hold review sessions. And they also get to wear nifty powder blue neckerchiefs. I guess I'll apply for the club. Tutoring comes very natural to me, but those review sessions are not my speed.
Chef Warden began class by calling us up one by one to show us our test scores. I haven't done that since the fifth grade in Mr. Salonis's math class. I got a pretty good score thanks to the two extra points from being on the winning Jeopardy team. As Thomas Keller puts it, "Perfection is impossible. We can only strive to achieve it." Or something like that anyways.
During the review of the homework, Chef Warden tried to mess with my head. I gave an answer to a question and he said another term as if I had given the wrong answer and he was correcting me. After a brief silence and confusion from other students, Chef affirmed that I had given the right answer. Why do I bring this up? Well, I've been known to be an enigma at times to my former managers at my previous job. They claim that they can't tell my emotional state and my lack of expression at times seems to cause them confusion. Anyway, that's what that brief moment reminded me of. I guess it's my polite way of saying, "I am not amused."
In the middle of going over the homework, Chef Warden gave another speech in the series which I'll entitle "Meditations on What it Means to be a Chef." It was another awe-inspiring segment. I really like it when he launches into this mode. So idealistic. Chef Warden believes that being a chef is not about the money, nor the tv shows, nor about being the restaurant of the moment, nor the fame. It's about making and serving whole or part of a meal for someone who enjoys it and continually comes back to your restaurant and tells their friends about your restaurant. In other words it's about making people happy. For certain people in the world, myself included, there is no greater feeling.
During class we talked about stocks. This discussion led Zach to the realization that Jello is nothing but flavored liquid of boiled horse hooves. I'll still eat it. That could change if I actually saw it being made. Somehow the conversation contiued along the lines of animals carcasses. Lara revealed that she once held thirty lambs in her Camaro for her father's restaurant during a previous holiday season. She's been working in the restaurant since she was 13. She seems destined for something big.
But the story of the day came from Chef Warden's NECI days. He recalls going to his meat fabrication class at 215am. His class was usually responsible for providing the entire school and its restaurants with their meat. But on the this day, his Chef instructor brought the class outside to pen. Awaiting them were five live animals: a pig, a milk cow, a calf, a lamb, and an ostrich. They were informed that they were to slaughter the animal of their choice. Chef Warden chose the calf and used the revolver. Another student Tim choose the ostrich and spent twenty minutes chasing the bird down even after he had cut its throat. The Instructor handled the milk cow with his bare hands. Obviously, he was experienced. The pig went to an elderly woman of 64 who was there to learn more about cooking so that she could entertain her friends and family. Chef Warden recalled how she was extremely hestiant at first to even choose an animal. But after playing with the pig for a while, the old lady snapped, slashed the pig's throat with two quick stokes, and completed the task. I was disappointed when the Chef told us that we wouldn't have to do anything like that, but I wonder if I could actually go through with it...
The kitchen was ho hum. Two secondary sauces from the veloute me made yesterday: allemande and supreme. We also made another mother sauce, espagnole or brown sauce. I ducked out to eat some meat fab stuff before making my sauces. Apparently chicken was the topic matter of the day. The stuff was okay. I think I lost momentum for the day at that point though.
Monday, October 07, 2002
Week 2, Day 1. Big test. I was studying all weekend for the big test. Actually I was trying to bake bread, but that's another story for another time. I did study a lot though. Chef Warden told us on Friday what was going to be on the test, so it was no surprise. It was cut straight from the study guide. I don't even think the questions were rearranged just omitted. The toughest part was filling out a chart with diseases. We had to know the bacteria that caused the disease, foods that the disease was found in, and ways to prevent the disease. Certain things we have been learning stick in my head like Escoffier's Brigade system, equipment and tools, and cooking methods, but with diseases I really had to consciously review.
Besides the test, lecture was basically copying recipes out of the book into our recipe notebooks. Somehow, I managed to lose my recipe notebook over the weekend. Good thing there wasn't too much in it. I'll just have to get the recipes from Eve or someone else. I think the purpose of this exercise is to somehow plant the recipes in our heads. I don't think that really works for me. If the activity is something as mundane as copying something from a book, I tend to zone out and let my eyes and hand do the copying. Maybe I should try to think about what I'm copying down. That might actually slow me down, but I think I'll learn more. We also elected a student representative for the leadership board. There's one representative from each class that get together every Wednesday at the newer campus to discuss stuff like planning student activities or competitions and raise student concerns. Quite a few people ran for it; Jamie ended up the winner. He's working at a restaurant with a chef who graduated from our school. He's definitely got the personality to be a leader and he got my vote.
It's sauce week. All week we'll be making sauces. Today we made roux which is part of a lot of sauces. A roux is a cooked mixture of equal parts flour and butter. A white roux is cooked for 2 minutes, a blond roux is 6-8, a brown roux is 21. Past 21 minutes, you get black roux, which is used in Cajun or Creole cooking. It's for stuff like blackened catfish. We made three rouxs and veloute, which is one of the five mother sauces. It's blond roux and white stock. I don't think we're going to makes stocks in basics. There was a stockpot of it for us to use.
I had a little extra time so I made a dish that I didn't get to on Friday, sauteed mushrooms or duxelles. It's used as a stuffing for chicken legs and such. I used a bit too much butter and burnt some of it because I was in a hurry. I offered some some to Kalei who enjoyed it. I think the burnt pieces gave it a pleasing nutty flavor. I could've spent the time foraging for food outside, but I decided to pass. I think it was curry something. After that we had a timed exercise(15 minutes) with two carrots, medium dice and small dice. These sizes were a bit larger than I was accustomed to cutting. Small dice is 1/4 inch and medium dice is 1/2 inch. It felt cool looking a carrot and seeing it all sectioned out in head as to what cuts I had to make. Kind of like a sculptor freeing the sculpture from a block of stone, only less artistic and edible (unless we're talking cheese sculptures).
Besides the test, lecture was basically copying recipes out of the book into our recipe notebooks. Somehow, I managed to lose my recipe notebook over the weekend. Good thing there wasn't too much in it. I'll just have to get the recipes from Eve or someone else. I think the purpose of this exercise is to somehow plant the recipes in our heads. I don't think that really works for me. If the activity is something as mundane as copying something from a book, I tend to zone out and let my eyes and hand do the copying. Maybe I should try to think about what I'm copying down. That might actually slow me down, but I think I'll learn more. We also elected a student representative for the leadership board. There's one representative from each class that get together every Wednesday at the newer campus to discuss stuff like planning student activities or competitions and raise student concerns. Quite a few people ran for it; Jamie ended up the winner. He's working at a restaurant with a chef who graduated from our school. He's definitely got the personality to be a leader and he got my vote.
It's sauce week. All week we'll be making sauces. Today we made roux which is part of a lot of sauces. A roux is a cooked mixture of equal parts flour and butter. A white roux is cooked for 2 minutes, a blond roux is 6-8, a brown roux is 21. Past 21 minutes, you get black roux, which is used in Cajun or Creole cooking. It's for stuff like blackened catfish. We made three rouxs and veloute, which is one of the five mother sauces. It's blond roux and white stock. I don't think we're going to makes stocks in basics. There was a stockpot of it for us to use.
I had a little extra time so I made a dish that I didn't get to on Friday, sauteed mushrooms or duxelles. It's used as a stuffing for chicken legs and such. I used a bit too much butter and burnt some of it because I was in a hurry. I offered some some to Kalei who enjoyed it. I think the burnt pieces gave it a pleasing nutty flavor. I could've spent the time foraging for food outside, but I decided to pass. I think it was curry something. After that we had a timed exercise(15 minutes) with two carrots, medium dice and small dice. These sizes were a bit larger than I was accustomed to cutting. Small dice is 1/4 inch and medium dice is 1/2 inch. It felt cool looking a carrot and seeing it all sectioned out in head as to what cuts I had to make. Kind of like a sculptor freeing the sculpture from a block of stone, only less artistic and edible (unless we're talking cheese sculptures).
Saturday, October 05, 2002
Week 1, Day 4. That week went by pretty fast. Before going to the review session before class, I stopped off at the restaurant supply store. It's my new toy store. I finally got the peel and hopefully will start baking tomorrow. Thanks to Rodney I got the discount, but I didn't have to ask for it. The woman who rang me up was the same one who rang up my scraper. Mabye the checkered pants gave me away or the more obvious SCI logo t-shirt I was wearing. Whatever it was, I saved a buck and change. It's all good.
I got to school a little early for the review session. I took the time to setup a library account and checked out Cookwise by Shirley Corriher. It's a cookbook that also explains the science going on in the recipe. I think it's a little more readable that McGee's classic On Food and Cooking. I chatted with Susan about the book. She owns it and has extolled its virtues. I knew there had to be fellow readers in class.
On to the review session. At first I was confused by the different faces in the classroom. Then I realized that there were a lot of AM kids there. Besides our sister PM class, we also have two other brother classes. Judging from the questions some of these people were asking, I think our class might be a bit more studious. I also think it has a lot to do with Chef Warden. He set the tone early on and so far the students connect with his love of teaching and are giving him their best.
I must confess that today was not one of my better days. I go to the gym six days a week and I have chosen Friday as my rest day. My thought process in choosing Friday was that I would give my body a break so I would be fresher in the kitchen on Fridays. But I need to rethink that whole line of thinking because I was slugglish all morning. Going to the gym does tire me out a little because I put a lot of effort into it, but it also gets me going with all those lucious endorphins.
I wasn't up to par in class either. We played Jeopardy as a review for our test. The class was split in two and Chef Warden alternated asking questions from our readings to each side. They were mostly tricky true or false questions. I guess if someone had read all five chapters thoroughly, they would know all the answers. But herein lies my problem; due to the volume of work and my desire to finish it in the shortest amount of time possible, I merely look for answers to study guide questions in the book. So if the study doesn't ask for it, I don't know it. I missed my question, but our team won by one question, so we get two extra percentage points on our test on Monday.
There was cooking going on in the kitchen today. At the end of lecture, Chef Warden had us write down four recipes from the textbook: glazed carrots, braised cabbage, sauteed mushrooms, and sauteed zucchini. When Chef Warden demonstrated these recipes in the kitchen, he made changes to the recipes. It was difficult to keep track of all the changes. When it was our turn to cook, I was totally disorganized and had no idea how to tackle all the dishes. I gathered all the ingredients that we needed for the dishes, but I didn't know if we should either prep for one dish and cook it and then prep for the next one and so on or to prep for all the dishes first and then cook all of the dishes at the same time. Eve managed to execute the dishes one at a time. I also tried this method but I never got to the sauteed mushrooms. The way that Chef Warden demonstrated it was to cook with all the ingredients already prepped. I think that's the way to go. I need to pay closer attention during the demo. I got praise from the chefs for my glazed carrots and brasied cabbage, but I rushed the zucchini and managed to overcook it. I still need to learn from what happened in the kitchen today.
Eve and I had Kitchen Manager duty today. I found out why there are always certain people last in the kitchen. It's because they can only do their tasks with everyone else out of the kitchen. Anyway, Eve took charge and managed an efficient cleanup without much help from me. She may give credit to the students because they know the drill from two previous experiences, but she got the job done.
The meat fab class made ribs today. There were racks and racks of them. But they served them just as we were getting into the kitchen. I really wasn't in the mood to eat at that point, so I passed. But I guess I could have snagged a plate and put it above my station for later to go with the food I was going to make. That's how slow my thought process was all day today. I don't get the good ideas until 6 hours after the fact. In any case, I was happy eating my glazed carrots and braised cabbage.
It's time for bed, I pray for sweet sleep.
I got to school a little early for the review session. I took the time to setup a library account and checked out Cookwise by Shirley Corriher. It's a cookbook that also explains the science going on in the recipe. I think it's a little more readable that McGee's classic On Food and Cooking. I chatted with Susan about the book. She owns it and has extolled its virtues. I knew there had to be fellow readers in class.
On to the review session. At first I was confused by the different faces in the classroom. Then I realized that there were a lot of AM kids there. Besides our sister PM class, we also have two other brother classes. Judging from the questions some of these people were asking, I think our class might be a bit more studious. I also think it has a lot to do with Chef Warden. He set the tone early on and so far the students connect with his love of teaching and are giving him their best.
I must confess that today was not one of my better days. I go to the gym six days a week and I have chosen Friday as my rest day. My thought process in choosing Friday was that I would give my body a break so I would be fresher in the kitchen on Fridays. But I need to rethink that whole line of thinking because I was slugglish all morning. Going to the gym does tire me out a little because I put a lot of effort into it, but it also gets me going with all those lucious endorphins.
I wasn't up to par in class either. We played Jeopardy as a review for our test. The class was split in two and Chef Warden alternated asking questions from our readings to each side. They were mostly tricky true or false questions. I guess if someone had read all five chapters thoroughly, they would know all the answers. But herein lies my problem; due to the volume of work and my desire to finish it in the shortest amount of time possible, I merely look for answers to study guide questions in the book. So if the study doesn't ask for it, I don't know it. I missed my question, but our team won by one question, so we get two extra percentage points on our test on Monday.
There was cooking going on in the kitchen today. At the end of lecture, Chef Warden had us write down four recipes from the textbook: glazed carrots, braised cabbage, sauteed mushrooms, and sauteed zucchini. When Chef Warden demonstrated these recipes in the kitchen, he made changes to the recipes. It was difficult to keep track of all the changes. When it was our turn to cook, I was totally disorganized and had no idea how to tackle all the dishes. I gathered all the ingredients that we needed for the dishes, but I didn't know if we should either prep for one dish and cook it and then prep for the next one and so on or to prep for all the dishes first and then cook all of the dishes at the same time. Eve managed to execute the dishes one at a time. I also tried this method but I never got to the sauteed mushrooms. The way that Chef Warden demonstrated it was to cook with all the ingredients already prepped. I think that's the way to go. I need to pay closer attention during the demo. I got praise from the chefs for my glazed carrots and brasied cabbage, but I rushed the zucchini and managed to overcook it. I still need to learn from what happened in the kitchen today.
Eve and I had Kitchen Manager duty today. I found out why there are always certain people last in the kitchen. It's because they can only do their tasks with everyone else out of the kitchen. Anyway, Eve took charge and managed an efficient cleanup without much help from me. She may give credit to the students because they know the drill from two previous experiences, but she got the job done.
The meat fab class made ribs today. There were racks and racks of them. But they served them just as we were getting into the kitchen. I really wasn't in the mood to eat at that point, so I passed. But I guess I could have snagged a plate and put it above my station for later to go with the food I was going to make. That's how slow my thought process was all day today. I don't get the good ideas until 6 hours after the fact. In any case, I was happy eating my glazed carrots and braised cabbage.
It's time for bed, I pray for sweet sleep.
Friday, October 04, 2002
Week 1,Day 3. Today was a good day. I didn't get much sleep last night because I was trying to finish the reading assignment. We're blazing through our text in six weeks, so it's 1-2 chapters a day. Chef Warden gave us an extension for the homework due on Friday until Monday because we're the first class ever to have started on a Tuesday. I'll take it.
Today was the big math test. A little adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, fractions, decimals, and conversions. There weren't any proofs nor non-linear differential equations. It went well. Since I got less than five wrong, I am exempt from math classes on Tuesdays and Thurdays. About half the class got exempt. The other half has to go to the math classes until they pass the test. I would've done better but the batteries on my calculator died right away. I should have brought the solar-powered one. Doing math by hand is a strange feeling. I tend to rush because my hand is trying to keep up with the calculations going on in my head. Chef Karen brought in some Snickers bars for us today. She is in charge of Student Services. I think she is also an alumnus.
We had our first drop today. One of the Susans, but Chef Warden said that she'd be back in November. That means there are thirty of us. I think our sister class, the AM kids, has 27 students.
Rodney told the class about a 15% discount a restaurant supply store. I actually bought my scraper there. He's been a regular customer of that place for the past year. I talked to him during one of the breaks. He's married with three children, I think. We got to talking about braces since he has them. Turns out his entire family got them at the same time. That is not a small chunk of change. But I believe it's worth it. Perfect teeth allow you to grind foods evenly which in turn elevates the act of eating and enjoying food. I've considered getting braces, but I can't afford them at the moment. I'm not even sure that I need them, but one of my former dentists suggested I set up a consulation with an orthodontist.
We went over sanitation in class. On a slight tangent from bacterial diseases, the conversation led to offal. Chef Warden described what head cheese was and that we're going to make it in meat fab class. It's the head of a pig boiled for 14-16 hours. The liquid which contains melted gelatin(or is it collagen?) from the pig's head is reduced. All the meat is picked from the head and combined with the reduction. After a little cooling, head cheese! I can't tell you how excited I am about getting to make that. Honestly.
Other revealing tidbits discovered during lecture was that Jamie's dad likes kim-chee and he himself tolerates it. There are no vegetarians in the class. I'm not sure why I found that surprising. No one dislikes spicy foods. The only anomolies are that there are a few people allegeric to melons, bananas, and avacados. I really don't remember what lead to these discoveries. Whatever it was, it has something to do with sanitation.
In the kitchen, we did some new cuts. I thought we would be adding on to what we did yesterday, but it was all new. We learned to clarify butter. Actually we just skimmed of the top froth. We did concasser tomatoes (rough chop), chiffonade of spinach, supremes(sections) of lemon, lemon zest, tourner potatoes, and parsley dust. Parsley dust sounds cool and it is pretty cool. It's finely chopped parsley that's wrapped in cheesecloth, rinsed with water and squeeze dried. It makes a lovely garnish. To tourner or turn a potato is to make it into a seven-sided football shape with regular heptagons on both ends. I think it's one of the more difficult cuts to learn. How somebody dreamed that up is beyond me. As I understand it, the final shape makes it easy to saute the potatoes in a pan because they roll and will brown evenly. From one small to medium size potato comes one tourned potato. Actually I think there are three sizes: Cocotte, a l'anglaise, and Chateau(small medium and large). I guess we did Cocotte. There's a lot scrap pieces of leftover potato. Chef Warden says that these are known as dog bones. They usually end up as part of family meal in the form of dirty mashed potatoes or deep fried. But we chucked them. I will say that our final cuts were saved today. Maybe only the first day's stuff get completely junked.
I was a little more proactive with cleanup today. I wiped down some tables and helped to wash a lot of saucepans and bowls. I never felt so good washing dishes before. I'm sure my enthusiam will fade if it becomes routine. But I still feel that I needed to do more. When I left, there were still people doing some tasks.
I missed out on the soup because I was washing dishes, but I dug into the meat fab stuff. There were also some pastry things as well. I snagged some decent cheesecake. It had pineapple bits on top and the graham cracker crust was pretty good. I tried a turkey terrine and a pork terrine. It had the shape of meatloaf. Not too bad. I can't say the same for this fish concoction that I grabbed. I will spare the details because life is too short to talk about bad food let alone eat it. I felt kind of guilty when I saw fellow student Tara grab a plate of salad. I need to be more careful about portion control and get some healthy stuff as well.
I've been wondering about the length of my posts. There's no way I can keep this up, but so much goes on during the day. I think that if this was shorter more people might bother to read it. To me it's all like a big pile of sand: if you walk real slow and use a metal detector, you might find a little nugget of information here and there.
Today was the big math test. A little adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, fractions, decimals, and conversions. There weren't any proofs nor non-linear differential equations. It went well. Since I got less than five wrong, I am exempt from math classes on Tuesdays and Thurdays. About half the class got exempt. The other half has to go to the math classes until they pass the test. I would've done better but the batteries on my calculator died right away. I should have brought the solar-powered one. Doing math by hand is a strange feeling. I tend to rush because my hand is trying to keep up with the calculations going on in my head. Chef Karen brought in some Snickers bars for us today. She is in charge of Student Services. I think she is also an alumnus.
We had our first drop today. One of the Susans, but Chef Warden said that she'd be back in November. That means there are thirty of us. I think our sister class, the AM kids, has 27 students.
Rodney told the class about a 15% discount a restaurant supply store. I actually bought my scraper there. He's been a regular customer of that place for the past year. I talked to him during one of the breaks. He's married with three children, I think. We got to talking about braces since he has them. Turns out his entire family got them at the same time. That is not a small chunk of change. But I believe it's worth it. Perfect teeth allow you to grind foods evenly which in turn elevates the act of eating and enjoying food. I've considered getting braces, but I can't afford them at the moment. I'm not even sure that I need them, but one of my former dentists suggested I set up a consulation with an orthodontist.
We went over sanitation in class. On a slight tangent from bacterial diseases, the conversation led to offal. Chef Warden described what head cheese was and that we're going to make it in meat fab class. It's the head of a pig boiled for 14-16 hours. The liquid which contains melted gelatin(or is it collagen?) from the pig's head is reduced. All the meat is picked from the head and combined with the reduction. After a little cooling, head cheese! I can't tell you how excited I am about getting to make that. Honestly.
Other revealing tidbits discovered during lecture was that Jamie's dad likes kim-chee and he himself tolerates it. There are no vegetarians in the class. I'm not sure why I found that surprising. No one dislikes spicy foods. The only anomolies are that there are a few people allegeric to melons, bananas, and avacados. I really don't remember what lead to these discoveries. Whatever it was, it has something to do with sanitation.
In the kitchen, we did some new cuts. I thought we would be adding on to what we did yesterday, but it was all new. We learned to clarify butter. Actually we just skimmed of the top froth. We did concasser tomatoes (rough chop), chiffonade of spinach, supremes(sections) of lemon, lemon zest, tourner potatoes, and parsley dust. Parsley dust sounds cool and it is pretty cool. It's finely chopped parsley that's wrapped in cheesecloth, rinsed with water and squeeze dried. It makes a lovely garnish. To tourner or turn a potato is to make it into a seven-sided football shape with regular heptagons on both ends. I think it's one of the more difficult cuts to learn. How somebody dreamed that up is beyond me. As I understand it, the final shape makes it easy to saute the potatoes in a pan because they roll and will brown evenly. From one small to medium size potato comes one tourned potato. Actually I think there are three sizes: Cocotte, a l'anglaise, and Chateau(small medium and large). I guess we did Cocotte. There's a lot scrap pieces of leftover potato. Chef Warden says that these are known as dog bones. They usually end up as part of family meal in the form of dirty mashed potatoes or deep fried. But we chucked them. I will say that our final cuts were saved today. Maybe only the first day's stuff get completely junked.
I was a little more proactive with cleanup today. I wiped down some tables and helped to wash a lot of saucepans and bowls. I never felt so good washing dishes before. I'm sure my enthusiam will fade if it becomes routine. But I still feel that I needed to do more. When I left, there were still people doing some tasks.
I missed out on the soup because I was washing dishes, but I dug into the meat fab stuff. There were also some pastry things as well. I snagged some decent cheesecake. It had pineapple bits on top and the graham cracker crust was pretty good. I tried a turkey terrine and a pork terrine. It had the shape of meatloaf. Not too bad. I can't say the same for this fish concoction that I grabbed. I will spare the details because life is too short to talk about bad food let alone eat it. I felt kind of guilty when I saw fellow student Tara grab a plate of salad. I need to be more careful about portion control and get some healthy stuff as well.
I've been wondering about the length of my posts. There's no way I can keep this up, but so much goes on during the day. I think that if this was shorter more people might bother to read it. To me it's all like a big pile of sand: if you walk real slow and use a metal detector, you might find a little nugget of information here and there.
Thursday, October 03, 2002
Second day blues. I arrive for lecture at 3:15pm. There's already a bunch of students outside. I sit down at a table with Kalei and Joe. Kalei grew up in Hawaii. He actually started in August but I think he got sick after three weeks. Chef Warden keeps asking him about things from his previous stint in the class. Joe is in a weird predicament. The school advises us not to work for the first six weeks so that we can adjust to the new environment and fully absorb "The Basics." Pretty good advice I think. But I know there are quite a few studnets working various jobs to pay for rent and/or school. Anyway, Joe left his job, but now he got rejected by an apartment complex because of it. I couldn't imagine what it'd be like looking for an apartment now. (Not that it's tough to find housing here.) Maybe I just need to expand my multi-tasking powers or improve my imagination.
Chef Warden assigned us to get plastic scrapers for today. A lot of people in class had trouble finding one. I got one at the first place I looked. Just lucky I guess. There are quite a few restaurant supply stores in town. I went to one this morning and eyed a peel that I need for my baking experiment. I'll probably buy it tomorrow.
The quote of the day goes to Nelson. Chef Warden was planting informational timebombs in our heads. In other words, he was talking about stuff we haven't learned yet. When he asked if anyone knew the five mother sauces, Nelson gave an impressive list. But he had one too many and muttered, "Beth has V.D." Apparently that's his pneumonic device. It's actually pretty good considering the mother sauces are Bechamel, Espagnole, Tomato, Hollandaise, and Veloute. Nelson also gave Demi-glace as a mother sauce, but that is derived from Espagnole.
During one of the breaks, I listened in on a conversation about knives. Nelson and Jaime were extolling the virtues of Global knives. They lamented over the fact that we are not allowed to bring our own knives into the kitchens except what's in the kit. I marvelled at this topic of conversation. Only among culinary students and chefs will you hear people talk about cutlery with such reverence.
Chef Warden told us about an extra credit project opportunity during Thursday of the fifth week. It will raise our grade by five percentage points. That's quite a chunk of extra credit. I think I will present my adventures in baking. My starter is two weeks old today. That means I could come home tomorrow night and start baking if I wanted to. I think I'll save it for the weekend.
We took a tour of the campus. Most of the class probably already had one, but this time I paid more attention. Chef Warden told us that we always have to be in uniform on campus unless we're dining in the restaurant, even if we just come in to use the library on Saturday. The library is a great place. Computers with internet access, a wall full of cookbooks and books about food, videos, and twenty different food magazines. Hopefully I'll have the chance to spend some time there before class and maybe during breaks. In regards to the mandatory uniform, it kind of serves as an ID. If you're in whites, you bleong; if not, people will stop you ask you what you're doing here. We learned that the school restaurant has one seating for dinner and it lasts for four hours. You get 8-11 courses. I guess I've been at meals that have lasted for that long but they were marriage banquets. Apparently, it's a super bargain. I'll have to try it out some time. Now that I think about it, since I'm in the PM class I'll never get a chance to eat dinner until I finish school. Oh well, there's always lunch. That's only two hours long.
I forgot my apron today. I asked around the class but everyone seemed to have only brought one. Chef Warden told me to go without the apron. I actually ironed it before leaving for school. A lot of good that did me. Chef Warden announced groups during class I am in Group 3 with Eve. She's from Conneticut and has had five knee operations. Ouch. Her most recent operation cleared the way for her to start a career that involved standing all day. Let the adventure begin. We got to use our knives today. Yea! The chef demonstrated our assignment at the beginning of the class. Chef Warden went over things like how to hold the knife, using the steel, and the proper use of the non-knife hand. We cut celery on the bias and also made a brunois(cubes of 1/8 in length). We julienned carrot and also cut rondelles (small discs). When I julienned the carrots, the pieces would curl outward making it pretty hard to make the proper strips. We diced half an onion. Now that I think about it, the onion didn't make me tear. I'm not sure why. With the other half, we made saute cuts and julienne. We also diced a shallot and a clove of garlic. Some students were done early and were onto their cleaning assignments. Eve and I, and the group next to us, Rodney and Zack, were among the slower ones. After I finished my cuts, I showed them to Chef Warden. My onion saute cuts were too thick, but everything else seemed okay. He just tossed the plate into the trash. It seemed kind of wrong, but what else were we going to do with that stuff? I guess we could've eaten it. If only the school raised live chickens or another animal that could enjoy the fruits of our labor. Maybe even compost for the garden in my head...
Then came the chaotic part of the day. After putting our stuff outside in the hallway, I went back into the kitchen to see what cleanup our group was respoible for. All our tasks seemed to have been done. There were people sweeping and mopping. I wanted to help, but I decided that it was better to let people finish their tasks. I felt so lost. Even though our tasks seemed to be done, I wanted to know how to do them because I'll eventually have to do them. Maybe better luck tomorrow.
During this time, two pots of soup magically appeared from some other class; one was clam chowder and the other was a curry concoction. According to Escoffier's classical brigade system, the entremetier makes the soups, but that doesn't tell me which class made it. Logic tells me it was the stocks and soups class. I tried the clam chowder. It was quite good. Not too thick with a nice peppery bite. We got another invitation to food in the hallway after the meat fabrication class went through what they cooked. There were sausages, some rice, a little salad, and steaks. I had half a sausage. That was good eating. Some kind of meat mixture(probably pork) with big chunks of walnuts to give it a pleasing crunch.
Homework for tomorrow, other than reading from the text, is to bring in a brunois of carrots and celery in a plastic baggy. Tomorrow is the math test. I wonder what we have to know. I'm guessing it's more along the lines of basic math and not non-Euclidean geometry nor abstract algebra. We'll see. Another day in the books.
Chef Warden assigned us to get plastic scrapers for today. A lot of people in class had trouble finding one. I got one at the first place I looked. Just lucky I guess. There are quite a few restaurant supply stores in town. I went to one this morning and eyed a peel that I need for my baking experiment. I'll probably buy it tomorrow.
The quote of the day goes to Nelson. Chef Warden was planting informational timebombs in our heads. In other words, he was talking about stuff we haven't learned yet. When he asked if anyone knew the five mother sauces, Nelson gave an impressive list. But he had one too many and muttered, "Beth has V.D." Apparently that's his pneumonic device. It's actually pretty good considering the mother sauces are Bechamel, Espagnole, Tomato, Hollandaise, and Veloute. Nelson also gave Demi-glace as a mother sauce, but that is derived from Espagnole.
During one of the breaks, I listened in on a conversation about knives. Nelson and Jaime were extolling the virtues of Global knives. They lamented over the fact that we are not allowed to bring our own knives into the kitchens except what's in the kit. I marvelled at this topic of conversation. Only among culinary students and chefs will you hear people talk about cutlery with such reverence.
Chef Warden told us about an extra credit project opportunity during Thursday of the fifth week. It will raise our grade by five percentage points. That's quite a chunk of extra credit. I think I will present my adventures in baking. My starter is two weeks old today. That means I could come home tomorrow night and start baking if I wanted to. I think I'll save it for the weekend.
We took a tour of the campus. Most of the class probably already had one, but this time I paid more attention. Chef Warden told us that we always have to be in uniform on campus unless we're dining in the restaurant, even if we just come in to use the library on Saturday. The library is a great place. Computers with internet access, a wall full of cookbooks and books about food, videos, and twenty different food magazines. Hopefully I'll have the chance to spend some time there before class and maybe during breaks. In regards to the mandatory uniform, it kind of serves as an ID. If you're in whites, you bleong; if not, people will stop you ask you what you're doing here. We learned that the school restaurant has one seating for dinner and it lasts for four hours. You get 8-11 courses. I guess I've been at meals that have lasted for that long but they were marriage banquets. Apparently, it's a super bargain. I'll have to try it out some time. Now that I think about it, since I'm in the PM class I'll never get a chance to eat dinner until I finish school. Oh well, there's always lunch. That's only two hours long.
I forgot my apron today. I asked around the class but everyone seemed to have only brought one. Chef Warden told me to go without the apron. I actually ironed it before leaving for school. A lot of good that did me. Chef Warden announced groups during class I am in Group 3 with Eve. She's from Conneticut and has had five knee operations. Ouch. Her most recent operation cleared the way for her to start a career that involved standing all day. Let the adventure begin. We got to use our knives today. Yea! The chef demonstrated our assignment at the beginning of the class. Chef Warden went over things like how to hold the knife, using the steel, and the proper use of the non-knife hand. We cut celery on the bias and also made a brunois(cubes of 1/8 in length). We julienned carrot and also cut rondelles (small discs). When I julienned the carrots, the pieces would curl outward making it pretty hard to make the proper strips. We diced half an onion. Now that I think about it, the onion didn't make me tear. I'm not sure why. With the other half, we made saute cuts and julienne. We also diced a shallot and a clove of garlic. Some students were done early and were onto their cleaning assignments. Eve and I, and the group next to us, Rodney and Zack, were among the slower ones. After I finished my cuts, I showed them to Chef Warden. My onion saute cuts were too thick, but everything else seemed okay. He just tossed the plate into the trash. It seemed kind of wrong, but what else were we going to do with that stuff? I guess we could've eaten it. If only the school raised live chickens or another animal that could enjoy the fruits of our labor. Maybe even compost for the garden in my head...
Then came the chaotic part of the day. After putting our stuff outside in the hallway, I went back into the kitchen to see what cleanup our group was respoible for. All our tasks seemed to have been done. There were people sweeping and mopping. I wanted to help, but I decided that it was better to let people finish their tasks. I felt so lost. Even though our tasks seemed to be done, I wanted to know how to do them because I'll eventually have to do them. Maybe better luck tomorrow.
During this time, two pots of soup magically appeared from some other class; one was clam chowder and the other was a curry concoction. According to Escoffier's classical brigade system, the entremetier makes the soups, but that doesn't tell me which class made it. Logic tells me it was the stocks and soups class. I tried the clam chowder. It was quite good. Not too thick with a nice peppery bite. We got another invitation to food in the hallway after the meat fabrication class went through what they cooked. There were sausages, some rice, a little salad, and steaks. I had half a sausage. That was good eating. Some kind of meat mixture(probably pork) with big chunks of walnuts to give it a pleasing crunch.
Homework for tomorrow, other than reading from the text, is to bring in a brunois of carrots and celery in a plastic baggy. Tomorrow is the math test. I wonder what we have to know. I'm guessing it's more along the lines of basic math and not non-Euclidean geometry nor abstract algebra. We'll see. Another day in the books.
Tuesday, October 01, 2002
First day. When I got to school a lot of students were there already. They split us up into two groups. My group has lecture first. On our way to the classroom we picked up our knife kits and books. Class hasn't officially started. Students are still dribbling in. Then Chef Jason Warden comes in and gets things started by picking on the guy behind me, Jamie, and asks him where his neckerchief is. This prompts the question by Tara as to how to tie the darn thing. After having Chef Warden explain it visually, it turns out to be a single windsor knot. Any guy who had to wear a tie should know how to do this. After attendence, Chef Warden asks each of us to give a brief blurb of ourselves. Among the 27 of us, there is quite a mix of people. I feel that I'll get to know everyone's story a little more in depth as I work more with them.
Next Chef Warden tells us his windy path to Basics Instructor. From the early days in the kitchen with mom to the years in a restaurant as a teenager to New England Culinary Academy to various restaurants to teaching in Escondido to SCI. Quite a journey. His transition from the kitchen to the classroom was provoked by "love of wife." I am amazed at the number of people who are married in our class. How does a marriage last when one person works 15-16 hours a day for 6-7 days straight? Those are kind of extreme hours but not uncommon among restaurant workers. I don't even want to think about raising children in these conditions.
In the kitchen, I can't help but feel the militaristic disipline that we'll encounter from Chef Warden (how appropriate is his name!). We live up along the stoves for an inspection. Even though we were told what the dress code was in orientation, it is reinforced. There were students who were "unprepared." That is they had nail polish, sneakers, earrings, and other appearance issues. After the inspection, we go through our knife kits to make sure that everything is there. My interaction with other students so far has been minimal. As you'll get to know I'm kind of introverted. But with words, the feelings come through sometimes. I tend to think of myself as a slow starter. I don't make a first impression, but if you're around me for long enough I won't shy away from you. Anyway, Bjorn is on my left and some other guy is on my right. I'll learn his name tomorrow.
Next, we do a small exercise with equipment identification. A bunch of stuff was piled on two tables and we had to try to identify each one. Then Chef Warden asks a student to explain how to properly wash one's hands. I've never really thought about it before. It reminded me of a 4th grade assignment in which I learned how to write about doing something. Turn on the water. Fairly hot. Soap arms up to the elbows. Use the nail scrubber. Rinse. Dry off with a paper towel. Use the paper towel to turn the faucet off. Rub hand sanitizer between your hands until it dissipates. Lastly, Chef Warden describes the sink setup and points out where everything is. That was short, but full day tomorrow. Woo hoo!
After school, I went home to eat. I think during a full day there would be stuff to eat in the school somewhere made by another class. Then I went to Target to pick up some stuff that I didn't buy for today: a small notebook, pencils, masking tape, and shelf lining(to put under the cutting board). Before class tomorrow, I'll have to find a store that sells plastic scrapers. We also have quite a bit of homework to do. I wonder how people who work full-time outside of school find the time. I guess it's not that much: read a chapter, look up some terms, and answer some questions. We also have to wash all of our tools. I don't promise that all the future entries will be this lengthy, nor as boring. I think my style is a bit rough. If I had a little more time, I'd make things flow a bit better and add details to make things clearer.
Uniform kit:(We got this during orientation)
4 chef hats
10 side towels
5 chef jackets
4 pairs of checkered pants
2 navy blue neckerchiefs
4 white aprons
1 black bistro apron
1 black bowtie
Knife kit:
knife case - a little smaller than a rolling luggage suitcase
knife tray
8 tubes - kind of like pastry tips
piano whip
steel
ladel
oyster knife
tongs
kitchens scissors
pocket thermometer
pastry brush
sharpening stone
12" exoglass spoon
11" wavy edge slicer (Chef Cutlery)
9" chef's knife
6" stiff boning knife
6" flexible boning knife
10" slicer
6" straight fork
solid metal spoon
slotted metal spoon
spatula
offset spatula
large scraper
measuring cups
small scraper
measuring spoons
peeler
clam knife
melon baller
channel knife
2-1/2" peeling knife
zestor
3-1/2" paring knife
silpat
2 baking pads
pastry bag
small tube set - pastry tips
bench scraper
Books:
The Book of Yields - ChefDesk 5th ed.
The New Food Lover's Companion - Sharon Tyler Herbst 3rd ed.
Profession Cooking - Wayne Gisslen 5th ed.
Study Guide to Professional Cooking
Next Chef Warden tells us his windy path to Basics Instructor. From the early days in the kitchen with mom to the years in a restaurant as a teenager to New England Culinary Academy to various restaurants to teaching in Escondido to SCI. Quite a journey. His transition from the kitchen to the classroom was provoked by "love of wife." I am amazed at the number of people who are married in our class. How does a marriage last when one person works 15-16 hours a day for 6-7 days straight? Those are kind of extreme hours but not uncommon among restaurant workers. I don't even want to think about raising children in these conditions.
In the kitchen, I can't help but feel the militaristic disipline that we'll encounter from Chef Warden (how appropriate is his name!). We live up along the stoves for an inspection. Even though we were told what the dress code was in orientation, it is reinforced. There were students who were "unprepared." That is they had nail polish, sneakers, earrings, and other appearance issues. After the inspection, we go through our knife kits to make sure that everything is there. My interaction with other students so far has been minimal. As you'll get to know I'm kind of introverted. But with words, the feelings come through sometimes. I tend to think of myself as a slow starter. I don't make a first impression, but if you're around me for long enough I won't shy away from you. Anyway, Bjorn is on my left and some other guy is on my right. I'll learn his name tomorrow.
Next, we do a small exercise with equipment identification. A bunch of stuff was piled on two tables and we had to try to identify each one. Then Chef Warden asks a student to explain how to properly wash one's hands. I've never really thought about it before. It reminded me of a 4th grade assignment in which I learned how to write about doing something. Turn on the water. Fairly hot. Soap arms up to the elbows. Use the nail scrubber. Rinse. Dry off with a paper towel. Use the paper towel to turn the faucet off. Rub hand sanitizer between your hands until it dissipates. Lastly, Chef Warden describes the sink setup and points out where everything is. That was short, but full day tomorrow. Woo hoo!
After school, I went home to eat. I think during a full day there would be stuff to eat in the school somewhere made by another class. Then I went to Target to pick up some stuff that I didn't buy for today: a small notebook, pencils, masking tape, and shelf lining(to put under the cutting board). Before class tomorrow, I'll have to find a store that sells plastic scrapers. We also have quite a bit of homework to do. I wonder how people who work full-time outside of school find the time. I guess it's not that much: read a chapter, look up some terms, and answer some questions. We also have to wash all of our tools. I don't promise that all the future entries will be this lengthy, nor as boring. I think my style is a bit rough. If I had a little more time, I'd make things flow a bit better and add details to make things clearer.
Uniform kit:(We got this during orientation)
4 chef hats
10 side towels
5 chef jackets
4 pairs of checkered pants
2 navy blue neckerchiefs
4 white aprons
1 black bistro apron
1 black bowtie
Knife kit:
knife case - a little smaller than a rolling luggage suitcase
knife tray
8 tubes - kind of like pastry tips
piano whip
steel
ladel
oyster knife
tongs
kitchens scissors
pocket thermometer
pastry brush
sharpening stone
12" exoglass spoon
11" wavy edge slicer (Chef Cutlery)
9" chef's knife
6" stiff boning knife
6" flexible boning knife
10" slicer
6" straight fork
solid metal spoon
slotted metal spoon
spatula
offset spatula
large scraper
measuring cups
small scraper
measuring spoons
peeler
clam knife
melon baller
channel knife
2-1/2" peeling knife
zestor
3-1/2" paring knife
silpat
2 baking pads
pastry bag
small tube set - pastry tips
bench scraper
Books:
The Book of Yields - ChefDesk 5th ed.
The New Food Lover's Companion - Sharon Tyler Herbst 3rd ed.
Profession Cooking - Wayne Gisslen 5th ed.
Study Guide to Professional Cooking
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