June 23, 2003 - June 27, 2003
Advanced Baking Week 3, Day 5. Last day. The first five students done with everything got to go home early. Those who finished after them had to stick around and pretty much sit around. It was kind of like the last day of school where kids just sit around signing each other's yearbooks. They played Trivial Pursuit with Chef Mallet.
My blueberry cheescake came out pretty good. I had a tough time getting them out of the ring molds though and my crumb base was waterlogged due to the water bath. I finished my cake yesterday by icing it with whipped cream, coating the sides with graham cracker crumbs, and piping a border around the top. The last thing to do was a dessert presentation from our group project. We chose to do our signature dessert, Floating Iceberg. The base was a sea of creme anglaise with lemon rind and a splash of vanilla. I poached a quenelle of meringue in milk for the iceberg. Blair made the caramel sauce for the drizzle, Eve made the Titanic cookie out of shortdough, Molly made the lifeboat out of sugar, and Jen cut perfect small dice survivors out of strawberries and pears. She also assembled the dessert. The Chefs got a big kick out of the dessert. They were very impressed with the creativity. Chef Mallet recognized the Floating Island dessert as Oeuf a la Nage from a kitchen he worked at. We finished the day with a last bout of cleaning that included wrapping the tables that had product underneath them. Chef Mallet gave us our grades told us that we were no longer maggots and that we muxt take control of our lives because there are people more than willing to do it for us.
Advanced Baking Week 3, Day 4. Note: for all those longing for the days of visuals, I have made use of my camera again, at least for a couple of shots. First day of practicals. I chose to work in the back room. It's more quiet and cooler there. It's also devoid of all the chaos that happens in the main kitchen. We have to do five things: make six portions of a dessert, six pieces of decor, 20 pastries or 12 mini-tarts, finish a cake, and present a dessert from our project. For our project we chose the theme of the last dinner on the Titanic. Eve had the inspiration for that one from a cookbook she borrowed from Jen. The dessert we are going to prepare is Floating Iceberg. It's not from the actual menu like our other desserts were, but it's a morbid rendition of the popular French dessert and Julia Child's favorite Floating Islands which are poached meringues drizzled with caramel in a custard sauce.
I started out with the decor. Before class I made a stencil of a cluster of cubes. It's basically a cube on each face of a central cube. It took a while to pipe out all the lines on the tuile. I got a point taken off because they were a bit underdone, but the chefs thought the design was cool. I worked a bit with James because we picked all the same things for our practicals. Next we worked on the mini-tarts. I thought everybody would do these for their pastry practical because they're easy, but quite a few people chose the eclair route. No one was insane enough to choose petit fours. But I think there would be time for that if some chose to do so. I baked off some small round tart shells, filled them with pastry cream, and conjured up a fruit design. I made a pear base with a slice of strawberry topped with a slice of kiwi, and topped off with the tip of the strawberry. I used Eve's pea scoop to remove the tip of the strawberry and put a blueberry there. Shelby was kind enough to let me use his blueberries that he brought in to use for his panna cotta. After that I worked on my cake practical. I split it, filled it, and masked it. I left the rest to tomorrow. I finished up the day with dessert. I decided to make Junior's cheesecake. I got the recipe from the web. I made the base recipe and added the rest of Shelby's blueberries. I still need to bake it, and unmold them. Hopefully that goes well. The bad thing about choosing cheesecake is that there are only two fleximolds in the class that are suitable, so I chose to experiment with ring molds. In theory it should work. We'll see tomorrow.
Advanced Baking Week 3, Day 3. Final Exam. It took a long time to finish, but I think it went well. We also finished our cake practical with a layer of buttercream icing and a border around the rim. Chef judged it by slicing a piece and seeing if the layers were even. We also had our bag piping practical. We had to pipe five perfect rosettes. I still don't have them perfectly but I think it will come with practice.
Chas and I work on pate a choux today. We made a croque en bouche. It's a pretty cool looking dessert. First we made the pate a choux dough. Then we piped out a lot of golf ball size pieces. Then we baked them. Chas prepared some sugar while Manny and I filled each ball with pastry cream. There were a lot of balls to fill. Chef Roberts made a 10" base of caramelized sugar for us. Then Manny and I dipped the golf balls in very hot sugar and stuck them on the base. We went around and around forming a tall hollow behive. Then with yet another pot of sugar, we made angel hair sugar and wrapped it around the beehive. It was a very stunning presentation. Chef Roberts was pleased with the result. We nestled some chocolate leaves in the angel hair for garnish. The dessert was brought up to catering.
Advanced Baking Week 3, Day 2. Chas and I were assigned mini fruit tarts. I've noticed that pastries lend themselves very to suggestive decorations. I turn a deaf hear to such talk and concentrate on symmetry, balance, and visual appeal. All Chas and I did was to arrange kiwi, strawberries, mandarian orange wedges, and rasperrries in two different designs. The mini tarts were easy to make and everyone will probably choose that to do for their pastry practical. We rolled out short dough on the sheeter machine. Short dough is made for us by the Basics Baking class; very conveneient. Then we lined up the mini tart shells, placed the dough over them, and rolled across them cutting off the excess dough. We docked the shells by piercing them with a fork and blind baked them. Next we filled them with pastry cream. After that we put out fruit designs on and glazed the fruit. Done. the fruit tarts seem to be a popular item. They taste great and it's a nice change of pace from chocolate.
We started our cake proficiency by splitting, filling, and masking a cake.
Advanced Baking Week 3, Day 1. Pastries. Chas and I worked on petit fours. We built it backwards. First we rolled out a half sheet pan of marzipan. Then we spread raspberry on top of that. Next we put on a layer of frangipane. Another layer of jam, followed by frangipane, more jam, and then the final layer of frangipane. At this point, we put it in the freezer for 30 minutes so that it would be easier to cut. Then I cut the cake into one inch square pieces while Chas dipped them in pate a glacier. Bill and Kinsey, the future pastry chefs in our class, piped designs on each piece. We served them at the family meal that the meat fab class prepared.
Sunday, July 13, 2003
June 16, 2003 - June 22, 2003
Weekend event: Titanium Chef Grand Finale. for the final round, each team chose a chef instructor to work with. We chose Chef Deflieze as our Team Chef. The protein that had to be in every dish was red snapper. We were lucky to have Chef Deflieze since he is real fast at butchering protein. We came up with the following dishes: Red Snapper Roulade with artichoke heart, and fried polenta, red snapper bisque, pan seared snapper with snap peas, black rice rissoto, and prickly pear beurre blanc, and a peach brule with candied snapper skin. We didn't finish in the top three so I'll just say we finished fourth. The judges were top chefs from around the valley. Half of them were former SCI graduates which was a good thing to see.
Advanced Baking Week 2, Day 5. Blair, Michele, and I worked on sugar. For the sugar station, we made things out of sugar for decoration on the final plates. The first thing we did was to caramelize three saucepans of sugar. We made shields, almond thingys, and corkscrews. It went pretty fast.
We also practiced masking a cake. We split a cake into layers, filled it, and masked it. We are going to finish glazing them on Monday.
Advanced Baking Week 2, Day 4. I was assigned to work on tuiles with Blair and Michele but Chef Roberts decided that I had worked on enough tuiles and I worked on a special assignment with Jim. We made Chocolate caramel mousse cakes topped with crushed pistachios in a chocolate cylinder. The key to the assignment for me was working with chocolate. I got the chance to temper dark chocolate.
Advanced Baking Week 2, Day 3. Switch day. The dessert sides switched to pastries and decor and vice versa. Our group went to decor. Chas, Jamie, and I were assigned to do tuiles. These are like thin crispy cookies used for decoration on dessert plates. The batter we use is pate a cigarette. I made some stencils out of a cake box. Then we put the stencil on a silpat and smoothed the batter over it. After making all the shapes on the silpat, we mixed cocoa powder with a part of the batter and used that to draw designs on the shapes. The teardrop shape I cut out turned into a leaf. Chas chose to use some precut stencils in the toolbox, and Jamie made a lighthouse. Then we bakes them in the oven and cooled them off. It was a pretty easy project; we even had time to do another batch.
Advanced Baking Week 2, Day 2. Working solo on panna cotta. I really enjoy panna cotta even though it's simply gelatinized heavy cream. I put raspberries in mine after about an hour of setting so that they would be suspended in the panna cotta instead of sinking to the bottom. After that I helped Kinsey make Apple Phyllo logs. It's frangipane and apple pie filling wrapped in phyllo. Chef makes us do a bunch at a time and then has us freeze them. They hold well. We had our gel piping practical. Everyone had to pipe designs on five petit fours. I didn't do so well. It's a combination of poor bag making skills and bad luck.
Advanced Baking Week 2, Day 1. I worked with Chas on restaurants. It was a little easier than I thought. We didn't have a lot to do. We cut the Chocolate Guiness cakes that Molly and James made on Friday. Cutting is an interesting process. We have to heat the knife blade with a blowtorch, slice through the cake, pull it out slowly, clean the blade, and repeat the process.
Weekend event: Titanium Chef Grand Finale. for the final round, each team chose a chef instructor to work with. We chose Chef Deflieze as our Team Chef. The protein that had to be in every dish was red snapper. We were lucky to have Chef Deflieze since he is real fast at butchering protein. We came up with the following dishes: Red Snapper Roulade with artichoke heart, and fried polenta, red snapper bisque, pan seared snapper with snap peas, black rice rissoto, and prickly pear beurre blanc, and a peach brule with candied snapper skin. We didn't finish in the top three so I'll just say we finished fourth. The judges were top chefs from around the valley. Half of them were former SCI graduates which was a good thing to see.
Advanced Baking Week 2, Day 5. Blair, Michele, and I worked on sugar. For the sugar station, we made things out of sugar for decoration on the final plates. The first thing we did was to caramelize three saucepans of sugar. We made shields, almond thingys, and corkscrews. It went pretty fast.
We also practiced masking a cake. We split a cake into layers, filled it, and masked it. We are going to finish glazing them on Monday.
Advanced Baking Week 2, Day 4. I was assigned to work on tuiles with Blair and Michele but Chef Roberts decided that I had worked on enough tuiles and I worked on a special assignment with Jim. We made Chocolate caramel mousse cakes topped with crushed pistachios in a chocolate cylinder. The key to the assignment for me was working with chocolate. I got the chance to temper dark chocolate.
Advanced Baking Week 2, Day 3. Switch day. The dessert sides switched to pastries and decor and vice versa. Our group went to decor. Chas, Jamie, and I were assigned to do tuiles. These are like thin crispy cookies used for decoration on dessert plates. The batter we use is pate a cigarette. I made some stencils out of a cake box. Then we put the stencil on a silpat and smoothed the batter over it. After making all the shapes on the silpat, we mixed cocoa powder with a part of the batter and used that to draw designs on the shapes. The teardrop shape I cut out turned into a leaf. Chas chose to use some precut stencils in the toolbox, and Jamie made a lighthouse. Then we bakes them in the oven and cooled them off. It was a pretty easy project; we even had time to do another batch.
Advanced Baking Week 2, Day 2. Working solo on panna cotta. I really enjoy panna cotta even though it's simply gelatinized heavy cream. I put raspberries in mine after about an hour of setting so that they would be suspended in the panna cotta instead of sinking to the bottom. After that I helped Kinsey make Apple Phyllo logs. It's frangipane and apple pie filling wrapped in phyllo. Chef makes us do a bunch at a time and then has us freeze them. They hold well. We had our gel piping practical. Everyone had to pipe designs on five petit fours. I didn't do so well. It's a combination of poor bag making skills and bad luck.
Advanced Baking Week 2, Day 1. I worked with Chas on restaurants. It was a little easier than I thought. We didn't have a lot to do. We cut the Chocolate Guiness cakes that Molly and James made on Friday. Cutting is an interesting process. We have to heat the knife blade with a blowtorch, slice through the cake, pull it out slowly, clean the blade, and repeat the process.
Sunday, June 15, 2003
June 9, 2003 - June 15, 2003
Weekend event: ACF Junior Team practice. We did some knife cuts for an hour and then we went over some techniques for our menu. Chef Riposo made us some breakfast burritos. They were pretty good.
Advanced Baking Week 1, Day 5. I was on Production today with Chas. Supposedly it was an easy day consisting of a parallel mousse cake, bavarians, and finishing a marjolane. To make the parallel mousse cake we first "prep the bottom." This means to get a layer of chocolate flourless bisquit(BIS-KWEE), which is a thin layer of sticky cake than serves as the bottom layer, spread melted chocolate on top of it, cover it with parchment, invert in onto another sheet pan, and put a sheet pan extender on top of it, so we now have a rectangular box to hold the mousse. All we had to do was put a 3/4 inch layer of chocolate mouse on, freeze it until set, and then an equal layer of white choclate mousse, but this is where our troubles began. We attempted to make white chocolate mousse using a recipe for dark chocolate mouse. Mistake number 1. After an errant batch, we had to start over again. Then we didn't have enough chocolate mousse, so we had to whip up a batch of that. Mistake number 2. It was definitely poor organization on our part. I broke off to do the bavarians and let Chas finish the chocolate mousse. I enlisted the help of JB to help make creme anglaise for the bavarians. I forgot to look in the walk in to see if there was creme anglaise already made. Mistake number 3. After slapping the bavarians together during our dinner break, I had to finish the creme anglaise I started while everybody else was doing gel piping practice except for Chas who was finishing off the parallel mousse cake.
After cleanup, we a our first test. It was reminiscent of the Basic Baking tests. Lots of procedures to regurgitate as well as terms to remember. No big deal. Two more days of desserts. Chef gave us an extra credit assignment worth five points. We have to bring in proof of leisure: a ticket stub, a receipt, something to show that we advantage of the time off. I must admit this will be tough, but I'll think of something.
Advanced Baking Week 1, Day 4. Chas's birthday. In Chef Mallet's class the birthday ritual is a pie in the face. Chas took it on good humor. Chef Mallet made him a chocolate mousse cake to take home. According to Chef Mallet, theoretically it should taste good.
Today I worked with Blair to make cheesecake flavored at our discretion. Since Blair is allergic to dairy products, I was designated flavor chooser. Apple cinnamon, a nice flavor combo, not too exotic. The cheesecakes were literally a piece of cake. We had enough leftover batter to make mini cheesecakes for the catering class.
We then helped Kalei and Eve with eclairs. Blair and I cut the baked pate a choux in half while Eve and Kalei filled then with pastry cream. After that I help Molly cut bisquit for the bottoms of her bavarians.
Chef Mallet gave the lecture tonight on cake mixing methods.We learned that his favorite dessert is Marjolane, a cake made with halzelnut flavored bisquit.
Advanced Baking Week 1, Day 3. More desserts. My assignment today was Sacher Torte with Joe. We had to made four of them. In Basic Baking, we make the cake part. In Advanced Baking we get to finish it. The Sacher Torte is named after Franz Sacher who owned the Sacher Hotel in Vienna, It still exists today and you can have their Sacher Tortes shipped to you for a price. The cake is made with chocolate and almond flour. Joe and I trimmed the tops off and then cut the cakes in half. We spread the bottom layer with apricot jam and put the top layer back on. Then masked the cake with a layer of ganache. Ganache is equal parts of cream and chocolate. It's like a frosting at room temperature. Then we froze the cakes. After that layer set, we poured a ganache glaze on top of it and froze it again. Then we marked it into twelve pieces and wrote the word 'Sacher' on each piece with ganache using a piping bag. Kind of easy only if you can make ganache properly. Chef had to show us how to make after two failed attempts. Boil the cream. pour over chocolate, and mix vigorously.
I also helped Chef Roberts with the Paris-Brest dessert. Name after the oldest bicycle race, it's a dessert with a ring of pate choux, cut in half, drizzled with ganache, filled with pastry cream, topped with whipped cream, and then the top is placed back on top and drizzled with more ganache.
Advanced Baking Week 1, Day 2. First day of production. All the desserts that we make are for the school's fine dining restaurant L'Ecole. We make all the desserts for lunch and dinner service. We had a lecture first to discuss all the things that go on in the kitchen. My assignment today was Creme caramel with Jim. I didn't expect to work with Jim becuase he's not in my group but Chef seems to be treating the two dessert groups as one.
Creme caremel is a simple dessert. We made caramel and custard. Then we lined small disposable aluminum tins with the caramel and then poured the custard in them. Then we baked them in the oven until the custard set, cooled them down, wrapped them up, and stored them in the walk in.
After cleanup, we had a lecture on pate a choux, Chef Roberts demoed that. Boil water, butter, and salt. Add the flour, incorporate into a ball, mix until cool, add eggs one at a time until slow plop, and you're ready to pipe. Pipe into shapes (we do eclairs and swans) and then bake.
Advanced Baking Week 1, Day 1. According to Chef Mallet the title of this course is a misnomer. We learn neither "advanced" stuff nor do we bake. A better title to the course is "Introduction to Pastries." The average weight gain in this class is 7-8 pounds. Chef Mallet encourages us to eat everything we make. Couple that with the fact that we may or may not get fed by Meat Fab, our only choice seems to be to subsist on pastries. Chef will also allow us to snack on fruits, bread, and cheeses in the walk-in. He is very lax in his management style. He is trying to give us the feel of an industry pastry shop: complete with tempermental equipment and allowance of mild profanity, a term he feels is ill defined because what is profane to one person is not to another. We have a project due the third week of class. We have to redo the dessert menu of a restaurant. We have to cost out the desserts, write a paper about them, sketch their presentation, and create one during our practicals on the last day of class. I was invited to join Jen, Molly, and Eve in their group. It should be a lot of fun.
Weekend event: ACF Junior Team practice. We did some knife cuts for an hour and then we went over some techniques for our menu. Chef Riposo made us some breakfast burritos. They were pretty good.
Advanced Baking Week 1, Day 5. I was on Production today with Chas. Supposedly it was an easy day consisting of a parallel mousse cake, bavarians, and finishing a marjolane. To make the parallel mousse cake we first "prep the bottom." This means to get a layer of chocolate flourless bisquit(BIS-KWEE), which is a thin layer of sticky cake than serves as the bottom layer, spread melted chocolate on top of it, cover it with parchment, invert in onto another sheet pan, and put a sheet pan extender on top of it, so we now have a rectangular box to hold the mousse. All we had to do was put a 3/4 inch layer of chocolate mouse on, freeze it until set, and then an equal layer of white choclate mousse, but this is where our troubles began. We attempted to make white chocolate mousse using a recipe for dark chocolate mouse. Mistake number 1. After an errant batch, we had to start over again. Then we didn't have enough chocolate mousse, so we had to whip up a batch of that. Mistake number 2. It was definitely poor organization on our part. I broke off to do the bavarians and let Chas finish the chocolate mousse. I enlisted the help of JB to help make creme anglaise for the bavarians. I forgot to look in the walk in to see if there was creme anglaise already made. Mistake number 3. After slapping the bavarians together during our dinner break, I had to finish the creme anglaise I started while everybody else was doing gel piping practice except for Chas who was finishing off the parallel mousse cake.
After cleanup, we a our first test. It was reminiscent of the Basic Baking tests. Lots of procedures to regurgitate as well as terms to remember. No big deal. Two more days of desserts. Chef gave us an extra credit assignment worth five points. We have to bring in proof of leisure: a ticket stub, a receipt, something to show that we advantage of the time off. I must admit this will be tough, but I'll think of something.
Advanced Baking Week 1, Day 4. Chas's birthday. In Chef Mallet's class the birthday ritual is a pie in the face. Chas took it on good humor. Chef Mallet made him a chocolate mousse cake to take home. According to Chef Mallet, theoretically it should taste good.
Today I worked with Blair to make cheesecake flavored at our discretion. Since Blair is allergic to dairy products, I was designated flavor chooser. Apple cinnamon, a nice flavor combo, not too exotic. The cheesecakes were literally a piece of cake. We had enough leftover batter to make mini cheesecakes for the catering class.
We then helped Kalei and Eve with eclairs. Blair and I cut the baked pate a choux in half while Eve and Kalei filled then with pastry cream. After that I help Molly cut bisquit for the bottoms of her bavarians.
Chef Mallet gave the lecture tonight on cake mixing methods.We learned that his favorite dessert is Marjolane, a cake made with halzelnut flavored bisquit.
Advanced Baking Week 1, Day 3. More desserts. My assignment today was Sacher Torte with Joe. We had to made four of them. In Basic Baking, we make the cake part. In Advanced Baking we get to finish it. The Sacher Torte is named after Franz Sacher who owned the Sacher Hotel in Vienna, It still exists today and you can have their Sacher Tortes shipped to you for a price. The cake is made with chocolate and almond flour. Joe and I trimmed the tops off and then cut the cakes in half. We spread the bottom layer with apricot jam and put the top layer back on. Then masked the cake with a layer of ganache. Ganache is equal parts of cream and chocolate. It's like a frosting at room temperature. Then we froze the cakes. After that layer set, we poured a ganache glaze on top of it and froze it again. Then we marked it into twelve pieces and wrote the word 'Sacher' on each piece with ganache using a piping bag. Kind of easy only if you can make ganache properly. Chef had to show us how to make after two failed attempts. Boil the cream. pour over chocolate, and mix vigorously.
I also helped Chef Roberts with the Paris-Brest dessert. Name after the oldest bicycle race, it's a dessert with a ring of pate choux, cut in half, drizzled with ganache, filled with pastry cream, topped with whipped cream, and then the top is placed back on top and drizzled with more ganache.
Advanced Baking Week 1, Day 2. First day of production. All the desserts that we make are for the school's fine dining restaurant L'Ecole. We make all the desserts for lunch and dinner service. We had a lecture first to discuss all the things that go on in the kitchen. My assignment today was Creme caramel with Jim. I didn't expect to work with Jim becuase he's not in my group but Chef seems to be treating the two dessert groups as one.
Creme caremel is a simple dessert. We made caramel and custard. Then we lined small disposable aluminum tins with the caramel and then poured the custard in them. Then we baked them in the oven until the custard set, cooled them down, wrapped them up, and stored them in the walk in.
After cleanup, we had a lecture on pate a choux, Chef Roberts demoed that. Boil water, butter, and salt. Add the flour, incorporate into a ball, mix until cool, add eggs one at a time until slow plop, and you're ready to pipe. Pipe into shapes (we do eclairs and swans) and then bake.
Advanced Baking Week 1, Day 1. According to Chef Mallet the title of this course is a misnomer. We learn neither "advanced" stuff nor do we bake. A better title to the course is "Introduction to Pastries." The average weight gain in this class is 7-8 pounds. Chef Mallet encourages us to eat everything we make. Couple that with the fact that we may or may not get fed by Meat Fab, our only choice seems to be to subsist on pastries. Chef will also allow us to snack on fruits, bread, and cheeses in the walk-in. He is very lax in his management style. He is trying to give us the feel of an industry pastry shop: complete with tempermental equipment and allowance of mild profanity, a term he feels is ill defined because what is profane to one person is not to another. We have a project due the third week of class. We have to redo the dessert menu of a restaurant. We have to cost out the desserts, write a paper about them, sketch their presentation, and create one during our practicals on the last day of class. I was invited to join Jen, Molly, and Eve in their group. It should be a lot of fun.
Sunday, June 08, 2003
June 2, 2003 - June 8, 2003
Weekend event: ACF Junior Team tryouts. This is the second time I'm trying out for the team. I feel a little bit wiser now having gone through International. I know what Chef Santos is looking for in terms of knife cuts and platings. I feel ready. The reason that we're having tryouts is that half the team stopped coming to practice. They had practice every Saturday. Apparently they were only doing knife cuts and people wanted to do more cooking. I'm okay with just knife cuts because I know I don't practice them enough.So I made the team, but it seems like just the beginning. The first competition is in October, when I start my externship. I think I'll stay in the area for my externship because of this. There's going to be a lot of knife cut practicing over the next six months. I think that'll be good. I needed a compelling reason to work on my knife skills.
The tryouts was pretty neat. There was a pretty low turnout, so I had an even better chance. I'm not sure why the spirit in this school has died. I think it's due to the weather. I think it'll pick up again in the fall. We had to five knife cuts in 30 mintues and then we had to make a plate in an hour. It was just like International only a tad harder. Our protein was chicken, so I just sauteed the breast and finished it in the oven. For the starch I made risotto. I made some spinach, batonnet carrots, and fennel for the vegetable. The sauce was just a plain old veloute. I could have improved on the sauce and the presentation, but I was in a bit of a rush at the end. The chicken and the risotto were cooked well. So were the vegetables I think.
International, Week 3 Day 5. Test 3 and knife cut test 3 and market basket. I ran through the test in about half an hour. I guess I could have scrutinized it more, but I felt like starting my knife cuts. I practiced before class with the tournes, but I just couldn't get them right for the test. Maybe there was a little test anxiety. We did have a thirty minute time limit. My julienne and brunoise were a bit big as well. Today being the last day, we got to cook whatever we wanted. I started prepping for a beef stir-fry, but Michele and Fran also wanted to do a stir fry, so I switched to grilled flank steak and Dauphinois potatoes instead. It came out pretty well. I threw together the Dauphinoise potatoes from what I remember from how Chef Rosenberg did it from the Wine dinner in March. It came out all right I think. Joe liked it which means a lot because I value his palate. After cleanup, Chef Santos gave us a farewell speech. He told an inspiring story about a woman who attempted to swim 26 miles to the shores of San Francisco from some island. The woman gave up a quarter mile from the shore. In a news conference she lamented, "If I could only have seen the shore." Chef Santos said that our future is cloudy sometimes because our vision is impaired by self-doubt or some other force. We must persevere because the stars are within our reach.
International, Week 3 Day 4. We presented our country reports today. I pretty much finished at the last moment. We didn't have to speak if we didn't want to, but it counted towards our class participation grades. I thought some people dragged out a bit too long. But when I went up to do my report on Italy, I would up taking the most time. There were fellow classmates signalling me to wrap it up when I was only halfway done. I didn't really prepare for the oral presentation I was just talking using my paper as a guide. I thought I could zoom through all 20 regions of Italy 30 seconds at a time. Apparently talking about the Northern regions took longer than I anticipated. I felt bad about boring the class to death; maybe next time I'll try to practice beforehand. About a third of the class presented their papers. I felt it was a good opportunity to practice talking in front of people. Although as the class representative I do talk in front of the class on a weekly basis.
Mexico. The most popular day of food. Probably because we are familiar with the flavors and know what we are looking for in terms of taste. Jamie and I made Chile Rellenos. Jamie roasted the aneheim chiles while I sliced the pepperjack and gathered the rest of the ingredients. We also decided to make a sauce, so Jamie made a spicy salsa that we added to a bechamel base that Kinsey made. We were rushing at the end to batter and fry the chiles because we needed about twice the amount of batter that the recipoe provided us. I discovered that I have the ability to whip egg whites very fast. A good thing to know. But we got our food out in time. After cleanup, we had a test review. Chef Santos basically ready off questions from two old final exams. I felt pretty good about the material.
International, Week 3 Day 3. Plating 6 - lamb rack. The last plating. I was up until 2am composing my plan for the plating. I decided to made a roasted lamb rack with wild mushroom polenta, carrots, beets, artichoke hearts, and simple red wine sauce. My main focus was on presentation. I made a cone of polenta, surrounded it with four chops of lamb on puddles of sauce. For the vegetables I used a melon baller to make spheres of beet and carrots. I slice them in half and made balls of half carrot and half beet. I put this on top of a quartered artichoke heart and put one of these vegetable setups in between each lamb chop. But course there were still mistakes. My carrots were undercooked, I burned the bones of the lamb rack and my sauce was starting to break. But my lamb was at the perfect doneness and I got a 17/20. Very please with room for improvement. I think I'm gettin there. I just wish there were more platings.
South America. My dish was Peas Portuguese. An interseting dish of peas cooked with onions, and served with chicken, ham, and bacon on the edge. To finished the dish, eight eggs are cracked on top of the peas and cooked until they are set. I was a tad late since I misjudges how loing it would take for the eggs to set. Chef Santos finsihed the dish in the broiler. Other items on the menu were Ceviche, Crab empanadas, chancho adobado, halibut escabeche, poblano mashed potatoes, calamari rice, black bean soup, bean and asparagus salad, and rice pudding. Lecture was about North America.
International, Week 3 Day 2. Plating 5 - chicken. For this plating, we were allowed to choose our own starch, veg, and sauce. I planned out a dish with curry couscous with peas, tourne carrots and turnips, and supreme sauce. It came together well and I got a 17/20, my highest grade yet. I felt pretty good afterwards. The grades for platings actually mean a lot more to means than test grades. I wish we had platings every day.
Molly had an accident with her knife. She sliced off a little chunk off the tip of her middle finger on her left hand in the middle of the plating. I saw the little flap of skin on her knife. She stayed for a bit and then went to the doctor. She actually came back right before we put out family meal. She's got a lot of toughness and drive in her.
India and the Middle East. My assigment was Cabbage Salad, but the morning class had a bunch leftoverl Chef Santos gave me a recipe for Aash-e Aab Lee Moo, a Persian rice dish with peas, onions, and mint. Other students made vindaloo, falafel with hummus, salatat knodar, sambosic bilahm, tandoori chicken, lemon rice, mulligatawny, basal mahshi, lamb curry, and cauliflower with tahini. Lecture on Mexico to end the day.
International, Week 3 Day 1. Test 2 and knife cut test 2. A test is a test. Again I feel the advantage of my mind and the ability to retain facts about food. Knife cuts are humbling. No matter how many times I tourne a potato, it seems like a new experience every time. Maybe it's because I only tourne 5 or 6 at one session. If I had to do 200 hundred of them for a meal, it would make me better. Julienne and brunoise. It's hard for me to be consistent on such a small scale. The only thing I can do is practice. Today we made food from Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. My assignment was Singapore noodles. It's made with chuka soba, shrimp(Jen helped peel and devein them for me), pork loin, garlic, onions, green beans, carrots(I used the class' knife cuts), bean sprouts, and spring onions. Our group leader Amor'e helped me prep a lot of the vegetable while I figeted with the pork. I sort of overcooked the noodles but it all came out in the end. Other menu items were steamed whole fish, gado gado - cooked vegetable crudite, nonya chicken and lime curry, sizzling rice soup, stir fry snake beans and cauliflower, eggplant with tofu, pork satay, crunchy stuffed tofu puffs, pad thai, and tom yum gong. Lecture was about South America.
Weekend event: ACF Junior Team tryouts. This is the second time I'm trying out for the team. I feel a little bit wiser now having gone through International. I know what Chef Santos is looking for in terms of knife cuts and platings. I feel ready. The reason that we're having tryouts is that half the team stopped coming to practice. They had practice every Saturday. Apparently they were only doing knife cuts and people wanted to do more cooking. I'm okay with just knife cuts because I know I don't practice them enough.So I made the team, but it seems like just the beginning. The first competition is in October, when I start my externship. I think I'll stay in the area for my externship because of this. There's going to be a lot of knife cut practicing over the next six months. I think that'll be good. I needed a compelling reason to work on my knife skills.
The tryouts was pretty neat. There was a pretty low turnout, so I had an even better chance. I'm not sure why the spirit in this school has died. I think it's due to the weather. I think it'll pick up again in the fall. We had to five knife cuts in 30 mintues and then we had to make a plate in an hour. It was just like International only a tad harder. Our protein was chicken, so I just sauteed the breast and finished it in the oven. For the starch I made risotto. I made some spinach, batonnet carrots, and fennel for the vegetable. The sauce was just a plain old veloute. I could have improved on the sauce and the presentation, but I was in a bit of a rush at the end. The chicken and the risotto were cooked well. So were the vegetables I think.
International, Week 3 Day 5. Test 3 and knife cut test 3 and market basket. I ran through the test in about half an hour. I guess I could have scrutinized it more, but I felt like starting my knife cuts. I practiced before class with the tournes, but I just couldn't get them right for the test. Maybe there was a little test anxiety. We did have a thirty minute time limit. My julienne and brunoise were a bit big as well. Today being the last day, we got to cook whatever we wanted. I started prepping for a beef stir-fry, but Michele and Fran also wanted to do a stir fry, so I switched to grilled flank steak and Dauphinois potatoes instead. It came out pretty well. I threw together the Dauphinoise potatoes from what I remember from how Chef Rosenberg did it from the Wine dinner in March. It came out all right I think. Joe liked it which means a lot because I value his palate. After cleanup, Chef Santos gave us a farewell speech. He told an inspiring story about a woman who attempted to swim 26 miles to the shores of San Francisco from some island. The woman gave up a quarter mile from the shore. In a news conference she lamented, "If I could only have seen the shore." Chef Santos said that our future is cloudy sometimes because our vision is impaired by self-doubt or some other force. We must persevere because the stars are within our reach.
International, Week 3 Day 4. We presented our country reports today. I pretty much finished at the last moment. We didn't have to speak if we didn't want to, but it counted towards our class participation grades. I thought some people dragged out a bit too long. But when I went up to do my report on Italy, I would up taking the most time. There were fellow classmates signalling me to wrap it up when I was only halfway done. I didn't really prepare for the oral presentation I was just talking using my paper as a guide. I thought I could zoom through all 20 regions of Italy 30 seconds at a time. Apparently talking about the Northern regions took longer than I anticipated. I felt bad about boring the class to death; maybe next time I'll try to practice beforehand. About a third of the class presented their papers. I felt it was a good opportunity to practice talking in front of people. Although as the class representative I do talk in front of the class on a weekly basis.
Mexico. The most popular day of food. Probably because we are familiar with the flavors and know what we are looking for in terms of taste. Jamie and I made Chile Rellenos. Jamie roasted the aneheim chiles while I sliced the pepperjack and gathered the rest of the ingredients. We also decided to make a sauce, so Jamie made a spicy salsa that we added to a bechamel base that Kinsey made. We were rushing at the end to batter and fry the chiles because we needed about twice the amount of batter that the recipoe provided us. I discovered that I have the ability to whip egg whites very fast. A good thing to know. But we got our food out in time. After cleanup, we had a test review. Chef Santos basically ready off questions from two old final exams. I felt pretty good about the material.
International, Week 3 Day 3. Plating 6 - lamb rack. The last plating. I was up until 2am composing my plan for the plating. I decided to made a roasted lamb rack with wild mushroom polenta, carrots, beets, artichoke hearts, and simple red wine sauce. My main focus was on presentation. I made a cone of polenta, surrounded it with four chops of lamb on puddles of sauce. For the vegetables I used a melon baller to make spheres of beet and carrots. I slice them in half and made balls of half carrot and half beet. I put this on top of a quartered artichoke heart and put one of these vegetable setups in between each lamb chop. But course there were still mistakes. My carrots were undercooked, I burned the bones of the lamb rack and my sauce was starting to break. But my lamb was at the perfect doneness and I got a 17/20. Very please with room for improvement. I think I'm gettin there. I just wish there were more platings.
South America. My dish was Peas Portuguese. An interseting dish of peas cooked with onions, and served with chicken, ham, and bacon on the edge. To finished the dish, eight eggs are cracked on top of the peas and cooked until they are set. I was a tad late since I misjudges how loing it would take for the eggs to set. Chef Santos finsihed the dish in the broiler. Other items on the menu were Ceviche, Crab empanadas, chancho adobado, halibut escabeche, poblano mashed potatoes, calamari rice, black bean soup, bean and asparagus salad, and rice pudding. Lecture was about North America.
International, Week 3 Day 2. Plating 5 - chicken. For this plating, we were allowed to choose our own starch, veg, and sauce. I planned out a dish with curry couscous with peas, tourne carrots and turnips, and supreme sauce. It came together well and I got a 17/20, my highest grade yet. I felt pretty good afterwards. The grades for platings actually mean a lot more to means than test grades. I wish we had platings every day.
Molly had an accident with her knife. She sliced off a little chunk off the tip of her middle finger on her left hand in the middle of the plating. I saw the little flap of skin on her knife. She stayed for a bit and then went to the doctor. She actually came back right before we put out family meal. She's got a lot of toughness and drive in her.
India and the Middle East. My assigment was Cabbage Salad, but the morning class had a bunch leftoverl Chef Santos gave me a recipe for Aash-e Aab Lee Moo, a Persian rice dish with peas, onions, and mint. Other students made vindaloo, falafel with hummus, salatat knodar, sambosic bilahm, tandoori chicken, lemon rice, mulligatawny, basal mahshi, lamb curry, and cauliflower with tahini. Lecture on Mexico to end the day.
International, Week 3 Day 1. Test 2 and knife cut test 2. A test is a test. Again I feel the advantage of my mind and the ability to retain facts about food. Knife cuts are humbling. No matter how many times I tourne a potato, it seems like a new experience every time. Maybe it's because I only tourne 5 or 6 at one session. If I had to do 200 hundred of them for a meal, it would make me better. Julienne and brunoise. It's hard for me to be consistent on such a small scale. The only thing I can do is practice. Today we made food from Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. My assignment was Singapore noodles. It's made with chuka soba, shrimp(Jen helped peel and devein them for me), pork loin, garlic, onions, green beans, carrots(I used the class' knife cuts), bean sprouts, and spring onions. Our group leader Amor'e helped me prep a lot of the vegetable while I figeted with the pork. I sort of overcooked the noodles but it all came out in the end. Other menu items were steamed whole fish, gado gado - cooked vegetable crudite, nonya chicken and lime curry, sizzling rice soup, stir fry snake beans and cauliflower, eggplant with tofu, pork satay, crunchy stuffed tofu puffs, pad thai, and tom yum gong. Lecture was about South America.
May 26, 2003 - May 31, 2003
Weekend event: Taste of the Nation. This annual event is put on by Share Our Strength which raises money and awareness for anti-hunger programs. About 60 students helped out with the event. Top valley chefs were there with tables to serve little paltes of food to the guests. I helped out in the VIP room which was held in the Demo Kitchen. I helped Chef Christoper Gross and Michel Richard with their dishes: Braised boneless short ribs with red wine sauce, and chocolate peanut cruch bar. There were two seatings: one at 7pm and another at 9:30pm. The Chef did demos of their dish while we plated in the back and took their cue to serve to the audience. There were about 30 people at each seating. We plated the short ribs on potato mousseline, a small frise salad, and a dash of mushroom powder. I thought the mushroom powder was a great use of the gills of portabello mushrooms which are usually waste. Chef Richard's dessert was simple two small squares of chocolate peanut crunch bars on top of a coffee sauce. I didn't get a chance to wander around much because I didn't know I was allowed to. I did partake in famuly meal which was a hearty lasagna and garlic bread. Before the event, I helped out an Arizona Republic reporter with a blind tasting of supermarket hotdogs. She had four chefs: Matt Cater of Zinc's Bistro, Christopher Gross of Christopher's Fermier, Bradley Thompson of Mary Elaine's at the Phoenician, and Michel Richard of Citronelle taste test Nathan's , Ball Park, Jennie-O, Hebrew National, and one other I can't remember. The clear loser was Jennie-O. I think Nathan's was favored by a couple of chef. I grilled the hot dogs and helped to serve them. The dhefs didn't take more than one bite of each one. I haven't seen the article yet, so maybe it was scrapped.
International, Week 2 Day 5. Chef Santos started off with a lecture on Oriental foodstuffs. I actually tried a fetal chicken egg. I didn't have it raw; rather it was boiled. It tasted like chicken and egg. It's a little disturbing to take a bite and see that you've eaten the head of a developing chicken. some other things we got to sample were tamarind, fresh lychees, dragon fruit (milky white opaque flesh with tiny black seeds). We also had some thawed durian. Interestingly enough I had some fresh durian over Easter break in Pasadena. I like it a lot. I used to be afraid of trying it due to the strong odor, but I guess my palate has developed. The difference between the fresh stuff and the frozen stiff is the texture. The fresh stuff is stringier while the frozen stuff is mushy; the flavor is the same. I think I prefer fresh, but frozen is still good.
Australia. My turn to be group leader again. No one in my group really needed help. I worked on pork satay for Monday's family meal. I made the marinade with Jim and Rodney. Then I sliced and skewered the pork. On the menu today were spice chicken and lentil salad, scallops with black bean vinaigrette, yabbie salad with gazpacho sauce and potatoes anna, potato pancakes with sweetbreads, shepards pie, oysters, tazmanian salmon burger, goat cheese olive fennel tart, and roasted tomato soup.
International, Week 2 Day 4. Plating 4 - Fish. Ocean perch with sauteed spinach, tourne carrots, haricots vert, rissoto, and a beurre rouge (red wine butter sauce). Another struggle with the plate. My sauce broke, my rissoto was a little burnt, my fish still had some bones and scales, and I was late. I'll get it right one of these times. I think I'm starting to get used to cooking under time pressure.
China. Surprisingly, the worst food day of the three week block. I'm not sure why. The food was just not very appetizing. Deborah and I were assigned fried rice. Easy enough. But I misread the time our food was due, so I had to rush last minute with everything. I personally thought the recipe was lacking, but I followed it. We were missing ham which provides a key component to the overall flavor. My mom wanted me to bring in some Chinese sausage. That would have saved the dish, but I forgot. On the menu was lemon chicken, vegetable chop suey, chinese bbq pork, chinese cabbage, spring rolls, whole fried fish - I talked Eve into easy the eyeball and she nearly gagged, stuffed lychees, peking duck - actually turned out well, chow mein, halibut with pineapple, and stir fried taro with carrots. Lecture was on India and the Middle East.
International, Week 2 Day 3. Plating 3 - NY strip with tourne potatoes, batonnet carrots, haricots vert, and rosemary Maderia sauce. What did I do wrong this time? Well, I over cooked the steak to medium well instead of medium rare, my potatoes were undercooked, my sauce was gummy, and I was late. More to improve on.Japan. Jamie and I were assigned gyoza pork dumplings. When I told Chef that my dumpling folding wasn't up to par he said my mom would be disappointed at me. I guess that should be true, but we usually buy our dumplings frozen at home. Turns out that I fold em just fine. We saved a lot of time beacause the morning class made a lot of extra stuffing. So we only had to fold and fry. Other students made Carrot Kinpira, Vegetable tempura - by the way mushrooms should never be used for tempura in my humble opinion, shumai shrimp, sukiyaki, soba noodles, bamboo rice, miso soup, daikon, sushi - maki rolls with various fillings, negimayaki - rolled beef, chicken teriyaki, sunumono - cucumber salad, and pureed corn soup. Today's lecture was on Singapore, Thailand, Mayalsia, Thailand, and Indonesia.
International, Week 2 Day 2. Test 1 and knife cut test 1. The test was pretty easy even though the chef didn't give a thorough review like the other instructors do. Five days worth of terms done in matching style, some true or false, and a few short answer. The knife cut test was interesting. In one hour, we have to produce 2 ounces of julienne carrots (1/8" x 1/8" x 2 - 2 1/2" matchsticks), 2 ounces of brunoise (1/8" cubes) and three tourne potatoes (seven sided football shape measuring 2" with 3/4" diameter). I got a point taken from each cut for a 7 out of 10. Not bad. The time limit for the next knife cut shrinks to 45 minutes and the last one is 30 minutes; all with the same production requirements.
Germany, Belgium, UK, Norway, and Sweden. Jamie and I made Poulet Facon Bayeux. I think it's a Belgoum dish since they're cuise is heavily influenced by the French. We roasted 12 rock cornish game hens, quartered them, topped them with royal glacage that JB and Krystal made, and browned them under the broiler. Other students made kottbullar - swedish meatballs, zweibelkuchen - onion tart, bergens fiskessuppe, shepards pie, sauerkraut with sausage, spaetzel, rotkraut, and fish and chips. Lecture was on Australia.
International, Week 2 Day 1. Memorial Day, no school. Recovering from food poisoning. Not from school because no one else got sick. It's more likely from eating leftovers at home because my mom got sick as well.An interesting development surfaced. Richie left for home to get married. Apparently, he will return to be with us in Advanced Baking and finish up the last two weeks of International another time.
Weekend event: Taste of the Nation. This annual event is put on by Share Our Strength which raises money and awareness for anti-hunger programs. About 60 students helped out with the event. Top valley chefs were there with tables to serve little paltes of food to the guests. I helped out in the VIP room which was held in the Demo Kitchen. I helped Chef Christoper Gross and Michel Richard with their dishes: Braised boneless short ribs with red wine sauce, and chocolate peanut cruch bar. There were two seatings: one at 7pm and another at 9:30pm. The Chef did demos of their dish while we plated in the back and took their cue to serve to the audience. There were about 30 people at each seating. We plated the short ribs on potato mousseline, a small frise salad, and a dash of mushroom powder. I thought the mushroom powder was a great use of the gills of portabello mushrooms which are usually waste. Chef Richard's dessert was simple two small squares of chocolate peanut crunch bars on top of a coffee sauce. I didn't get a chance to wander around much because I didn't know I was allowed to. I did partake in famuly meal which was a hearty lasagna and garlic bread. Before the event, I helped out an Arizona Republic reporter with a blind tasting of supermarket hotdogs. She had four chefs: Matt Cater of Zinc's Bistro, Christopher Gross of Christopher's Fermier, Bradley Thompson of Mary Elaine's at the Phoenician, and Michel Richard of Citronelle taste test Nathan's , Ball Park, Jennie-O, Hebrew National, and one other I can't remember. The clear loser was Jennie-O. I think Nathan's was favored by a couple of chef. I grilled the hot dogs and helped to serve them. The dhefs didn't take more than one bite of each one. I haven't seen the article yet, so maybe it was scrapped.
International, Week 2 Day 5. Chef Santos started off with a lecture on Oriental foodstuffs. I actually tried a fetal chicken egg. I didn't have it raw; rather it was boiled. It tasted like chicken and egg. It's a little disturbing to take a bite and see that you've eaten the head of a developing chicken. some other things we got to sample were tamarind, fresh lychees, dragon fruit (milky white opaque flesh with tiny black seeds). We also had some thawed durian. Interestingly enough I had some fresh durian over Easter break in Pasadena. I like it a lot. I used to be afraid of trying it due to the strong odor, but I guess my palate has developed. The difference between the fresh stuff and the frozen stiff is the texture. The fresh stuff is stringier while the frozen stuff is mushy; the flavor is the same. I think I prefer fresh, but frozen is still good.
Australia. My turn to be group leader again. No one in my group really needed help. I worked on pork satay for Monday's family meal. I made the marinade with Jim and Rodney. Then I sliced and skewered the pork. On the menu today were spice chicken and lentil salad, scallops with black bean vinaigrette, yabbie salad with gazpacho sauce and potatoes anna, potato pancakes with sweetbreads, shepards pie, oysters, tazmanian salmon burger, goat cheese olive fennel tart, and roasted tomato soup.
International, Week 2 Day 4. Plating 4 - Fish. Ocean perch with sauteed spinach, tourne carrots, haricots vert, rissoto, and a beurre rouge (red wine butter sauce). Another struggle with the plate. My sauce broke, my rissoto was a little burnt, my fish still had some bones and scales, and I was late. I'll get it right one of these times. I think I'm starting to get used to cooking under time pressure.
China. Surprisingly, the worst food day of the three week block. I'm not sure why. The food was just not very appetizing. Deborah and I were assigned fried rice. Easy enough. But I misread the time our food was due, so I had to rush last minute with everything. I personally thought the recipe was lacking, but I followed it. We were missing ham which provides a key component to the overall flavor. My mom wanted me to bring in some Chinese sausage. That would have saved the dish, but I forgot. On the menu was lemon chicken, vegetable chop suey, chinese bbq pork, chinese cabbage, spring rolls, whole fried fish - I talked Eve into easy the eyeball and she nearly gagged, stuffed lychees, peking duck - actually turned out well, chow mein, halibut with pineapple, and stir fried taro with carrots. Lecture was on India and the Middle East.
International, Week 2 Day 3. Plating 3 - NY strip with tourne potatoes, batonnet carrots, haricots vert, and rosemary Maderia sauce. What did I do wrong this time? Well, I over cooked the steak to medium well instead of medium rare, my potatoes were undercooked, my sauce was gummy, and I was late. More to improve on.Japan. Jamie and I were assigned gyoza pork dumplings. When I told Chef that my dumpling folding wasn't up to par he said my mom would be disappointed at me. I guess that should be true, but we usually buy our dumplings frozen at home. Turns out that I fold em just fine. We saved a lot of time beacause the morning class made a lot of extra stuffing. So we only had to fold and fry. Other students made Carrot Kinpira, Vegetable tempura - by the way mushrooms should never be used for tempura in my humble opinion, shumai shrimp, sukiyaki, soba noodles, bamboo rice, miso soup, daikon, sushi - maki rolls with various fillings, negimayaki - rolled beef, chicken teriyaki, sunumono - cucumber salad, and pureed corn soup. Today's lecture was on Singapore, Thailand, Mayalsia, Thailand, and Indonesia.
International, Week 2 Day 2. Test 1 and knife cut test 1. The test was pretty easy even though the chef didn't give a thorough review like the other instructors do. Five days worth of terms done in matching style, some true or false, and a few short answer. The knife cut test was interesting. In one hour, we have to produce 2 ounces of julienne carrots (1/8" x 1/8" x 2 - 2 1/2" matchsticks), 2 ounces of brunoise (1/8" cubes) and three tourne potatoes (seven sided football shape measuring 2" with 3/4" diameter). I got a point taken from each cut for a 7 out of 10. Not bad. The time limit for the next knife cut shrinks to 45 minutes and the last one is 30 minutes; all with the same production requirements.
Germany, Belgium, UK, Norway, and Sweden. Jamie and I made Poulet Facon Bayeux. I think it's a Belgoum dish since they're cuise is heavily influenced by the French. We roasted 12 rock cornish game hens, quartered them, topped them with royal glacage that JB and Krystal made, and browned them under the broiler. Other students made kottbullar - swedish meatballs, zweibelkuchen - onion tart, bergens fiskessuppe, shepards pie, sauerkraut with sausage, spaetzel, rotkraut, and fish and chips. Lecture was on Australia.
International, Week 2 Day 1. Memorial Day, no school. Recovering from food poisoning. Not from school because no one else got sick. It's more likely from eating leftovers at home because my mom got sick as well.An interesting development surfaced. Richie left for home to get married. Apparently, he will return to be with us in Advanced Baking and finish up the last two weeks of International another time.
Saturday, June 07, 2003
May 19, 2003 - May 25, 2003
Weekend event: I actually sat out a Sunday event at the Ritz-Carlton called Wine, Women, and Jazz. It featured about 20 of the top women chefs in the valley. However, on Saturday I did assist Chef Gwen Walters with her dish for the event. I helped her make 130 summer rolls. It was sauteed carrots, onions, peppers, cucumbers, grilled chicken, cellophane noodles in sesame oil, and mint leaves wrapped in a rice noodle wrapper. Very good stuff.
International, Week 1 Day 5. We started off with a double lecture on Japan and China. It felt very familiar.
France. My assignment today was Sweetbreads. I was supposed to work with Deborah but she was absent. A couple of other people were absent as well. Since we have Monday off, they probably took the advantage to have a four day weekend. I was excited to cook sweetbread since I've never handled them before. It was a pretty good experience. It is soaked in milk overnight to remove the undesireable flavors. I poached them in court bouillon until they were cooked. They I cooled them down and removed the membrane and veins. It was combined with hame, chicken, mirepoix, and mushrooms and then topped with puff pastry to form a crust. I didn't have to make the puff pastry as Baking did that for us. I just rolled it out. Manny helped my make and cut the chicken as well as rolling out the crust. I finish with time to spare. Other students made sausage wrapped in brioche, coq au vin, endive meuniere, soup aux moules, quiche, potage cressionaire, strawberries romanoff crepes, skate in brown butter, casoulet with duck confit, lorette potatoes.
International, Week 1 Day 4. Plating 2 - Pork medallion, with tourne potatoes, medium dice carrots, haricot verts, and a port thyme sauce. I overcooked the pork, Chef wanted it medium and I was at well done. I burned the sauce and was trying to save it. I lost track of my vegetables and they were overcooked. I need more practice at juggling multiple pans at once. Instead of trying to save the suace it would have been much faster just to start over. Live and learn. There are still four more platings.
Italy. My assignment today was Pasta e faigoli, a soup of pasta and beans. I burned the beans on the first try. Luckily enough were soaked the night before to give me another chance. I also burned a little of the pancetta and mirepoix. I fished out all the little burnt pieces when I added the stock. I think I was a little thrown off my the mistakes I made during my plating. It came together in the end. Other students made chicken marsala, polenta, mushroom risotto, osso buco, tortelli, insalate di melanzane - eggplant salad, bruschetta, veal piccata, potato gnocchi, sunchoke gratin - a sunchoke aka Jerusalem artichoke looks like a knobby potato, insalata russa, and zucchini ripeni.
After cleanup, we had another double lecture of France and Germany, belgium, UK, Norway, and Sweden.
International, Week 1 Day 3. Plating 1 - Salad. So in this class we have six platings. We would have seven, but we have a holiday next Monday. For the plating we have an hour to duplicate the plate that the Chef demos for us. Today, Chef Santos demoed four salad plates. We didn't have to duplicate his though; just compose a salad. His platings were elegant and seemed so effortless. I guess that's why he's the Instructor. We were allowed to use anything in the walk-in except the stuff on the speed cart which was to be used for the family meal. The other restriction was that we were not allowed to use mustard or egg to emulsify our vinaigrette. I made a pear salad with a pear and sage vinaigrette and a goat cheese patty. I made the mistake of making the vinaigrette in a food processor instead of a blender so it didn't emulsify. I put too many pear slices on the plate so my portion control was off. And I hid the goat cheese which should be more highlighted because it was the most expensive item on the plate. Learning is good.
Greece, Morocco, Lebanon, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey. I was the group leader today. I helped Deborah with the tortellini filling for her dish tomorrow, Amor'e with Green Beans with Tomatoes, and Gabe with his Osso Buco also for tomorrow. I spent a lot of time making veal stock: roasting bones and cutting mirepoix. I also helped to roll out pitas for family meal. Other students made Paella, assorted tapas, spanish tortillas, hummus, tiropetes - cheese and egg rolled in phyllo dough and fried, roast leg of lamb, Brandade du Morue - patties of salt cod and potatoes, moussaka, baba ganoush, tabouleh, and quail with fruit.
International, Week 1 Day 2. Russian. I got an easy dish to make eggplant caviar. Bake an eggplant, peel and chop it. Cook it with onions, garlic and tomatoes. Let the flavors meld together. Adjust the seasoning and you're done. We served it room temp, but it is usually served chilled. The key to this dish is to caramelize the onions while the eggplant is baking. It adds a hint of sweetness to the dish. Other students made blinis, chicken kiev, pojarski, salmon koulibiaca, and pirogis. When we in Basic Baking and came over to International for dinner it was a scary experience. Now the roles are reversed, I think we have a greater appreciation for the food because we know what's in it. I also think that our class is good at following directions which I believe translates to better tasting food.
Cleaning up the International kitchen is notorious. The floor is never totally clean. There's alway squibs, little particles of stuff, on the floor. I think it's because the wheel on the tables are dirty. We roll them back and forth to clean the floor underneath. I also think that people are as detail oriented as others.
We had double lecture today. We learned about Greece, Morocco, Lebanon, Spain, and Turkey before family meal and Italy after kitchen cleanup. The Mediterranean lecture was mainly about Spain. In these lectures we go over terms and they we discuss traditional and indigenous foods and factor that affect the cuisine: climate, terrain, geographical location, tradition, religion, education, and economy.
International, Week 1 Day 1. I have been kind of dreading this class for a some time. They used to post grades of students in classes and I would see one or two A's every time. I also heard a lot of things from students saying how tough things were and how stressful things get. We'll see how it goes. Our instructor is Chef Santos Villarico and his associate is Chef John Deflieze whom we had for Charcuterie. We had hours and hours of lecture. From 3:30-10, Chef Santos told us about the rules, policies, and what to expect. At the end, he finished with the first lecture on Russia. We were finally back in the kitchen but still no cooking. This class is Saucier and Catering rolled into one. We learn about the cuisine of 20+ countries, have three knife cut tests and six platings as well as three written exams. Each day we make a dish for family meal pertaining to a particular country. Tomorrow's meal is Russian. The class is split into five groups for cleanup duties: washing pots and pans, kitchen manager duties, floors, stainless steel, and walk-in and fryers. Within our groups, there is a group leader who helps out with everyone else as well as working on miscallaneous projects for the chef like making a dish with other group leaders or making stock. I'm in group 2 with Michele (she and her husband Fran just joined our class, they were one block ahead of us but missed a block due to illness), Amor'e (she's retaking the class), Jamie, Deborah, and Gabe.
Weekend event: I actually sat out a Sunday event at the Ritz-Carlton called Wine, Women, and Jazz. It featured about 20 of the top women chefs in the valley. However, on Saturday I did assist Chef Gwen Walters with her dish for the event. I helped her make 130 summer rolls. It was sauteed carrots, onions, peppers, cucumbers, grilled chicken, cellophane noodles in sesame oil, and mint leaves wrapped in a rice noodle wrapper. Very good stuff.
International, Week 1 Day 5. We started off with a double lecture on Japan and China. It felt very familiar.
France. My assignment today was Sweetbreads. I was supposed to work with Deborah but she was absent. A couple of other people were absent as well. Since we have Monday off, they probably took the advantage to have a four day weekend. I was excited to cook sweetbread since I've never handled them before. It was a pretty good experience. It is soaked in milk overnight to remove the undesireable flavors. I poached them in court bouillon until they were cooked. They I cooled them down and removed the membrane and veins. It was combined with hame, chicken, mirepoix, and mushrooms and then topped with puff pastry to form a crust. I didn't have to make the puff pastry as Baking did that for us. I just rolled it out. Manny helped my make and cut the chicken as well as rolling out the crust. I finish with time to spare. Other students made sausage wrapped in brioche, coq au vin, endive meuniere, soup aux moules, quiche, potage cressionaire, strawberries romanoff crepes, skate in brown butter, casoulet with duck confit, lorette potatoes.
International, Week 1 Day 4. Plating 2 - Pork medallion, with tourne potatoes, medium dice carrots, haricot verts, and a port thyme sauce. I overcooked the pork, Chef wanted it medium and I was at well done. I burned the sauce and was trying to save it. I lost track of my vegetables and they were overcooked. I need more practice at juggling multiple pans at once. Instead of trying to save the suace it would have been much faster just to start over. Live and learn. There are still four more platings.
Italy. My assignment today was Pasta e faigoli, a soup of pasta and beans. I burned the beans on the first try. Luckily enough were soaked the night before to give me another chance. I also burned a little of the pancetta and mirepoix. I fished out all the little burnt pieces when I added the stock. I think I was a little thrown off my the mistakes I made during my plating. It came together in the end. Other students made chicken marsala, polenta, mushroom risotto, osso buco, tortelli, insalate di melanzane - eggplant salad, bruschetta, veal piccata, potato gnocchi, sunchoke gratin - a sunchoke aka Jerusalem artichoke looks like a knobby potato, insalata russa, and zucchini ripeni.
After cleanup, we had another double lecture of France and Germany, belgium, UK, Norway, and Sweden.
International, Week 1 Day 3. Plating 1 - Salad. So in this class we have six platings. We would have seven, but we have a holiday next Monday. For the plating we have an hour to duplicate the plate that the Chef demos for us. Today, Chef Santos demoed four salad plates. We didn't have to duplicate his though; just compose a salad. His platings were elegant and seemed so effortless. I guess that's why he's the Instructor. We were allowed to use anything in the walk-in except the stuff on the speed cart which was to be used for the family meal. The other restriction was that we were not allowed to use mustard or egg to emulsify our vinaigrette. I made a pear salad with a pear and sage vinaigrette and a goat cheese patty. I made the mistake of making the vinaigrette in a food processor instead of a blender so it didn't emulsify. I put too many pear slices on the plate so my portion control was off. And I hid the goat cheese which should be more highlighted because it was the most expensive item on the plate. Learning is good.
Greece, Morocco, Lebanon, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey. I was the group leader today. I helped Deborah with the tortellini filling for her dish tomorrow, Amor'e with Green Beans with Tomatoes, and Gabe with his Osso Buco also for tomorrow. I spent a lot of time making veal stock: roasting bones and cutting mirepoix. I also helped to roll out pitas for family meal. Other students made Paella, assorted tapas, spanish tortillas, hummus, tiropetes - cheese and egg rolled in phyllo dough and fried, roast leg of lamb, Brandade du Morue - patties of salt cod and potatoes, moussaka, baba ganoush, tabouleh, and quail with fruit.
International, Week 1 Day 2. Russian. I got an easy dish to make eggplant caviar. Bake an eggplant, peel and chop it. Cook it with onions, garlic and tomatoes. Let the flavors meld together. Adjust the seasoning and you're done. We served it room temp, but it is usually served chilled. The key to this dish is to caramelize the onions while the eggplant is baking. It adds a hint of sweetness to the dish. Other students made blinis, chicken kiev, pojarski, salmon koulibiaca, and pirogis. When we in Basic Baking and came over to International for dinner it was a scary experience. Now the roles are reversed, I think we have a greater appreciation for the food because we know what's in it. I also think that our class is good at following directions which I believe translates to better tasting food.
Cleaning up the International kitchen is notorious. The floor is never totally clean. There's alway squibs, little particles of stuff, on the floor. I think it's because the wheel on the tables are dirty. We roll them back and forth to clean the floor underneath. I also think that people are as detail oriented as others.
We had double lecture today. We learned about Greece, Morocco, Lebanon, Spain, and Turkey before family meal and Italy after kitchen cleanup. The Mediterranean lecture was mainly about Spain. In these lectures we go over terms and they we discuss traditional and indigenous foods and factor that affect the cuisine: climate, terrain, geographical location, tradition, religion, education, and economy.
International, Week 1 Day 1. I have been kind of dreading this class for a some time. They used to post grades of students in classes and I would see one or two A's every time. I also heard a lot of things from students saying how tough things were and how stressful things get. We'll see how it goes. Our instructor is Chef Santos Villarico and his associate is Chef John Deflieze whom we had for Charcuterie. We had hours and hours of lecture. From 3:30-10, Chef Santos told us about the rules, policies, and what to expect. At the end, he finished with the first lecture on Russia. We were finally back in the kitchen but still no cooking. This class is Saucier and Catering rolled into one. We learn about the cuisine of 20+ countries, have three knife cut tests and six platings as well as three written exams. Each day we make a dish for family meal pertaining to a particular country. Tomorrow's meal is Russian. The class is split into five groups for cleanup duties: washing pots and pans, kitchen manager duties, floors, stainless steel, and walk-in and fryers. Within our groups, there is a group leader who helps out with everyone else as well as working on miscallaneous projects for the chef like making a dish with other group leaders or making stock. I'm in group 2 with Michele (she and her husband Fran just joined our class, they were one block ahead of us but missed a block due to illness), Amor'e (she's retaking the class), Jamie, Deborah, and Gabe.
Recap of the rest of Management and Nutrition (April 14, 2003 - May 18, 2003)
Let me condense six weeks of management and nutrition down for you. There were some tests. We had about three to four hours of lecture each day. Throw in a demo from a traveling chef and a picnic at Chapparal Park and there you have it. I spent a lot of time doing other things like volunteering at a Bon Appetit event at the Greyhawk Golf Resort. There were a lot of famous chefs there but I didn't get to meet many of them. I was busy prepping and helping to make a cake with the Chef Bruce Tanner and Chef Robert Cacciola who has coordinated the past 11 James Beard Awards Galas. I got a chance to speak with Chef Chris Bianco. He is the owner of Pizzeria Biano. Coincidently he won this year's James Beard Award for Best Chef of the Southwest the following week. I had a chance to eat there with Molly, Jen, and Eve. Some of the best pizza I have ever eaten. That's a lot considering I grew on the East Coast chowing down on NJ and NY pizza. I also did some golfing here and there, helped out with graduation, and ran an 8K race at night.
Let me condense six weeks of management and nutrition down for you. There were some tests. We had about three to four hours of lecture each day. Throw in a demo from a traveling chef and a picnic at Chapparal Park and there you have it. I spent a lot of time doing other things like volunteering at a Bon Appetit event at the Greyhawk Golf Resort. There were a lot of famous chefs there but I didn't get to meet many of them. I was busy prepping and helping to make a cake with the Chef Bruce Tanner and Chef Robert Cacciola who has coordinated the past 11 James Beard Awards Galas. I got a chance to speak with Chef Chris Bianco. He is the owner of Pizzeria Biano. Coincidently he won this year's James Beard Award for Best Chef of the Southwest the following week. I had a chance to eat there with Molly, Jen, and Eve. Some of the best pizza I have ever eaten. That's a lot considering I grew on the East Coast chowing down on NJ and NY pizza. I also did some golfing here and there, helped out with graduation, and ran an 8K race at night.
Friday, June 06, 2003
April 7, 2003 - April 13, 2003
Weekend event: Scottsdale Culinary Festival. On Sunday April 13th, Eve, Gabe I did a demo of Bananas Foster in the Demo tent at the Scottsdale Culinary Festival. We gave away about 200 samples of Bananas Foster. There was a slight problem igniting the rum at the beginning, but it lit eventually. We were part of the Great Arizona Picnic at the Scottsdale Civic Center. There were lots of restaurants with booths selling tastes of their foods. There was also a Beer Garden(which I missed) and a Maragarita tent. Being a vendor, we got to go into an event called Cooks and Corks (normally $40) where there were wine tastings, cooking demos from top valley chefs and more food from different restaurants. I got to see Chef Brad Thompson give a demo involving gnocchi and a morel cream sauce. He is the executive chef of Mary Elaine's at the Phoenician.
Management, Week 1 Day 5. I'm not sure how interesting these entries will be because I'm in the lecture portion of school. I hope I can make it through these classes and learn something.
Management, Week 1 Day 4. First day of Nutrition. Our teacher for this part of the course is Regina Shadwick. A true Southern lady. She also works at a resort for a spa. She has a masters in nutrition, but is not a chef and requests us not to address her as one.
Management, Week 1 Day 3. Diversity lecture. Chef Pasquet was out today, so we had Chef Flynn. Diversity is a touchy subject. I think the lecture was geared more towards ignorant caucasians. I use the term ignorant in a non-negative way although to me it always has a negative connotation. Being an Asian-American, I feel I have a very open mind towards diversity. To me each person is different no matter what their race, culture, gender, or whatever. I try not to fall into the trap of stereotyping. Some may see this attitude as naive, others as open-minded. To me it's just my nature not to assume information that is not given. Maybe it's my scientific mind at work. Who knows?
Management, Week 1 Day 1. Management. First day initiations. Policies, new books, homeworks, overviews, introductions, etc. For management, we are united with our sister class so there are about 60 of us in class. We were also joined by three other students who need to complete management for one reason or another. We get out earlier, around 630pm. But what does that really mean? Less education? More time to do more homework. The teachers encourage us to highlight the book. This is one technique I have never found useful in my school career, but I'll give it a try. We have an interesting restaurant project in which we have to eat out at a restaurant and answer about ten pages of questions about it. Then we have to transform the information into a narrative like a restaurant review. We split up into groups of 6 or less. I formed a group with Eve, Manny, Jen, Molly, and Lara. We're going to Tutti Santi, an Italian restaurant that Jen had been to.Our instructor is Chef Pasquet. He has a lot of experience in business as well as in the restaurant industry. He has a lot of mannerisms like Rodney Dangerfield that makes
lecture interesting. But please don't compare him to Captain Kangaroo.
Weekend event: Scottsdale Culinary Festival. On Sunday April 13th, Eve, Gabe I did a demo of Bananas Foster in the Demo tent at the Scottsdale Culinary Festival. We gave away about 200 samples of Bananas Foster. There was a slight problem igniting the rum at the beginning, but it lit eventually. We were part of the Great Arizona Picnic at the Scottsdale Civic Center. There were lots of restaurants with booths selling tastes of their foods. There was also a Beer Garden(which I missed) and a Maragarita tent. Being a vendor, we got to go into an event called Cooks and Corks (normally $40) where there were wine tastings, cooking demos from top valley chefs and more food from different restaurants. I got to see Chef Brad Thompson give a demo involving gnocchi and a morel cream sauce. He is the executive chef of Mary Elaine's at the Phoenician.
Management, Week 1 Day 5. I'm not sure how interesting these entries will be because I'm in the lecture portion of school. I hope I can make it through these classes and learn something.
Management, Week 1 Day 4. First day of Nutrition. Our teacher for this part of the course is Regina Shadwick. A true Southern lady. She also works at a resort for a spa. She has a masters in nutrition, but is not a chef and requests us not to address her as one.
Management, Week 1 Day 3. Diversity lecture. Chef Pasquet was out today, so we had Chef Flynn. Diversity is a touchy subject. I think the lecture was geared more towards ignorant caucasians. I use the term ignorant in a non-negative way although to me it always has a negative connotation. Being an Asian-American, I feel I have a very open mind towards diversity. To me each person is different no matter what their race, culture, gender, or whatever. I try not to fall into the trap of stereotyping. Some may see this attitude as naive, others as open-minded. To me it's just my nature not to assume information that is not given. Maybe it's my scientific mind at work. Who knows?
Management, Week 1 Day 1. Management. First day initiations. Policies, new books, homeworks, overviews, introductions, etc. For management, we are united with our sister class so there are about 60 of us in class. We were also joined by three other students who need to complete management for one reason or another. We get out earlier, around 630pm. But what does that really mean? Less education? More time to do more homework. The teachers encourage us to highlight the book. This is one technique I have never found useful in my school career, but I'll give it a try. We have an interesting restaurant project in which we have to eat out at a restaurant and answer about ten pages of questions about it. Then we have to transform the information into a narrative like a restaurant review. We split up into groups of 6 or less. I formed a group with Eve, Manny, Jen, Molly, and Lara. We're going to Tutti Santi, an Italian restaurant that Jen had been to.Our instructor is Chef Pasquet. He has a lot of experience in business as well as in the restaurant industry. He has a lot of mannerisms like Rodney Dangerfield that makes
lecture interesting. But please don't compare him to Captain Kangaroo.
Saturday, April 12, 2003
Bonus coverage - Titanium Chef Round II. On Saturday, I competed in a cooking competition at our school. Our team consisted of Lara, Jen, Eve, and myself. The mystery protein was buffalo. They provided us with a market basket of items: purple potatoes, salsify, baby leeks, baby red onions, pecans, walnuts, red lentils, couscous, golden raisins, dried forest mushrooms, and a purple artichoke. We had an hour and a half to create as many dishes featuring buffalo as we could from the ingredients we had. We also had access to staples in the kitchen such as oils, liquors, butter, cream, veal stock, chicken stock, spices, etc. This was the second of three rounds of competition. The top six point totals from the three rounds advance to the finals.We are judged on proper sanitation, presentation, and flavor by a panel of chef instructors. We made three dishes: roulade of buffalo stuffed with baby leeks, forest mushrooms, raisins, and walnuts served with raisin couscous and a natural jus. I made the sauce by browning scraps of buffalo and the scraps of the vegetables combined with veal stock. It turned out pretty well. We also made a buffalo stew with purple potatoes and baby vegetables with a pastry crust. The flavor was great but the presentation might have been lacking. Our thrid dish was a dessert. We made vanilla thyme ice cream topped with candided buffalo and pecans. It was inspired by a dessert made by Chef Exley using ostrich. It tasted quite good. We finished second on the day. I think we are fifth overall. We may choose to compete in the third round if there are any spots open. The only mishap was slicing my hand open on my mandoline, but the day was fun.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 5. Last day at the back of the house. We got a lot of help with our prep because other teams were done with their prep. Being on salad and dessert, our prep wasn't to hard. I got a little crazy and started making sugar cages for the desserts. It's simple to make and is a great crowd pleaser. Richie and Manny handled most of the salad orders because they made them the night before. Manny has a reverence for salads that is admirable. I wish I had his passion for the craft. Plating the desserts was pretty fun. We had a model to copy, but we did our own presentations. There was an Asian woman who had a birthday, so decorated the plate by writing happy birthday in Chinese with mango sauce and topping her dessert with a sugar cage. I'm happy to report that she was very impressed. A great last night for all.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 4. I took a break from the restaurant to volunteer for a function in the demo kitchen. There was a rehearsal dinner for a party of 47. The menu was:
Baby Blue salad - mixed baby greens, blue cheese, balsamic vinaigrette, and candied walnuts
Chicken Provencale - this is an item on the L'Academie menu, chicken brest with tomatoes, capers, garlic, and olives served with fingerling potatoes and broccoli rabe
Crepes Suzette - two thin crepes flavored with a sauce of melted butter, sugar, orange and lemon zest served with fresh berries
I helped with prepping the broccoli rabe, fingerling potatoes. I also help to plate all the dishes. Not a bad experience. Chef Elliot did the flaming liqueur with the Crepes Suzette demo. It's a nice visual in a darkened room.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 3. Second day at the soup and sandwiches. It tool me a soup or two to perfect the french onion soup. It's all a matter of figuring out the hot spots in the salamander(broiler). The soups are made during prep. Ours are taken care of by the AM class. For our prep, we heat up two gallons of it and hold it at 140 F. To plate up french onion, we fill a crock with french onion, top it with a crouton, sprinkle on some gruyere, layer two slices of provolone and place it under the salamander in a small saute pan. We need to turn it halfway to get even browning of the cheese. Minestrone is lot simpler. We spoon two ladles of soup into a bowl, add 2-3 tasting spoons of acini di pepe(peppercorn shaped pasta) and a heaping teaspoon of parmesan. We are also responsible for the roast turkey sandwich and the pan bagnat, but it's very rare that someone orders those.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 2. New day at the soup station. Manny manned the line. It's only a one person operation mostly making French onion soup. He also made some minestrone soup. The rare items are the roast turkey sandwich and the pan bagnat(tuna sandwich). Richie and I spent the entire prep time coming up with a special. Chef Elliot gave us some smoked salmon to work with. We came up with a smoked salmon salad: haricot verts, roasted bell peppers, butter lettuce, and cream cheese wrapped inside two slices of smoked salmon and a bed of mixed greens with a roasted bell pepper vinaigrette. Manny the master of the salad du jour made the vinaigrette and the mixed green salad. We actually sold some. It's a gratifying feeling to sell something that you helped to create.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 1. Another day at the pasta station. I stayed in the back in the kitchen while Richie and Manny were on the line. I don't recall the prep I did in the kitchen. It was one of those days.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 5. Last day at the back of the house. We got a lot of help with our prep because other teams were done with their prep. Being on salad and dessert, our prep wasn't to hard. I got a little crazy and started making sugar cages for the desserts. It's simple to make and is a great crowd pleaser. Richie and Manny handled most of the salad orders because they made them the night before. Manny has a reverence for salads that is admirable. I wish I had his passion for the craft. Plating the desserts was pretty fun. We had a model to copy, but we did our own presentations. There was an Asian woman who had a birthday, so decorated the plate by writing happy birthday in Chinese with mango sauce and topping her dessert with a sugar cage. I'm happy to report that she was very impressed. A great last night for all.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 4. I took a break from the restaurant to volunteer for a function in the demo kitchen. There was a rehearsal dinner for a party of 47. The menu was:
Baby Blue salad - mixed baby greens, blue cheese, balsamic vinaigrette, and candied walnuts
Chicken Provencale - this is an item on the L'Academie menu, chicken brest with tomatoes, capers, garlic, and olives served with fingerling potatoes and broccoli rabe
Crepes Suzette - two thin crepes flavored with a sauce of melted butter, sugar, orange and lemon zest served with fresh berries
I helped with prepping the broccoli rabe, fingerling potatoes. I also help to plate all the dishes. Not a bad experience. Chef Elliot did the flaming liqueur with the Crepes Suzette demo. It's a nice visual in a darkened room.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 3. Second day at the soup and sandwiches. It tool me a soup or two to perfect the french onion soup. It's all a matter of figuring out the hot spots in the salamander(broiler). The soups are made during prep. Ours are taken care of by the AM class. For our prep, we heat up two gallons of it and hold it at 140 F. To plate up french onion, we fill a crock with french onion, top it with a crouton, sprinkle on some gruyere, layer two slices of provolone and place it under the salamander in a small saute pan. We need to turn it halfway to get even browning of the cheese. Minestrone is lot simpler. We spoon two ladles of soup into a bowl, add 2-3 tasting spoons of acini di pepe(peppercorn shaped pasta) and a heaping teaspoon of parmesan. We are also responsible for the roast turkey sandwich and the pan bagnat, but it's very rare that someone orders those.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 2. New day at the soup station. Manny manned the line. It's only a one person operation mostly making French onion soup. He also made some minestrone soup. The rare items are the roast turkey sandwich and the pan bagnat(tuna sandwich). Richie and I spent the entire prep time coming up with a special. Chef Elliot gave us some smoked salmon to work with. We came up with a smoked salmon salad: haricot verts, roasted bell peppers, butter lettuce, and cream cheese wrapped inside two slices of smoked salmon and a bed of mixed greens with a roasted bell pepper vinaigrette. Manny the master of the salad du jour made the vinaigrette and the mixed green salad. We actually sold some. It's a gratifying feeling to sell something that you helped to create.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 1. Another day at the pasta station. I stayed in the back in the kitchen while Richie and Manny were on the line. I don't recall the prep I did in the kitchen. It was one of those days.
Sunday, March 30, 2003
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 2, Day 5. We move to a new station for the Friday rush. We are now on Station 2. Here we are responsible for four entrees: angelhair pesto, linguini, veal ravioli, and bouillabaisse. We were prepped well by the AM class. The only things we had to do were make gorgonzola cream sauce for the ravioli, par cook angelhair, roll out more linguini, and cook some clams for the bouillabaisse. We were a little late getting our demos out by 545pm, but Chef Elliot had other concerns. James showed us the procedures for each dish. Eve had given us the cheat sheet for the station yesterday which really helped. It was a little crazy at the start. I was reading off the cheatsheet to Manny as what to do step by step while doing some steps myself. Even though it was a Friday, we really didn't get slammed hard. Angelhair was a big seller followed by the ravioli. We didn't sell any linguini. Richie was in the back making ravoilis.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 2, Day 4. I worked on the line today. Pizzas and calzones. I didn't get a chance to learn how to make the paninis because they aren't a big seller. The seafood lasagnas were kind of interesting. We make them in the pizza oven. It takes twenty minutes to cook through so we put it in the coldest part of the 600 degree oven. Pizza is another interesting item. The dough we use comes from the Basic Baking students. We make a veg pizza that uses a pesto sauce and a meat pizza that uses tomato sauce. The veg pizza just has tomatoes on it, kind of like a margherita pizza and the meat pizza has sausage and roasted portabellos. We also make a calzone of the day. The ingredients comes from whatever extra prep that's in the kitchen. Today we had some pepperoni, salami, and spinach.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 2, Day 3. I worked in the back today while Manny and Richie worked on the line. I was busy putting together the seafood lasagna at the beginning of service. We always have ten on hand for service. I had to make seven of them because the AM class left us three premade ones. I also made some bechamel sauce for the first time since basics. The one thing about being in the back that I'm not crazy about is cleaning up. It seems like it takes forever to clean the kitchen. I had walk-in duty which meant I had to made sure things were properly wrapped, labeled, and in the right place in the walk-in. I did a lot of consolidating which usually happens because people don't look for product they need before they start making it.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 2, Day 2. Another relaxing day at the take out station. Richie made the soup again. Manny and I prepped for the hot entree, Sausage and peppers sandwich. Manny cooked it while I tried to make some bowtie pastas. I don't think anyone could have bought a sandwich even if they wanted to because we didn't have any bread.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 2, Day 1. We move to Station 7. Here we are responible for the take out operation of L'Academie. We usually don't do any business, but we have to have a certain amount of items in stock. We usually have bowtie pasta salad, le grande salad, spinach salad, grilled vegetable sandwich, and prosciutto mozzarella sandwich. We also have forrest mushroom soup and a hot entree. Our entire prep usually consists of making the hot entree. Today the hot entree was navarin, a lamb stew. Manny and I prepped for it and I cooked it. I added a pinch too much salt, but it was extrememly edible. The hot entree usually ends up as family at night. Richie worked on the forrest mushroom soup and made rice pilaf for the navarin. We really don't have to do anything during service, so we prep for tomorrow or help out other stations. Today station 3 was short two people. Jen and Nelson were absent, so Molly and Bjorn had a lot to do. Manny, Bill, and I helped Molly make French Onion soup. Molly was flustered, but remained very composed and got everything done. She really stepped up to the challenge. Bjorn didn't help by making a mistake with the minestrone.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 2, Day 4. I worked on the line today. Pizzas and calzones. I didn't get a chance to learn how to make the paninis because they aren't a big seller. The seafood lasagnas were kind of interesting. We make them in the pizza oven. It takes twenty minutes to cook through so we put it in the coldest part of the 600 degree oven. Pizza is another interesting item. The dough we use comes from the Basic Baking students. We make a veg pizza that uses a pesto sauce and a meat pizza that uses tomato sauce. The veg pizza just has tomatoes on it, kind of like a margherita pizza and the meat pizza has sausage and roasted portabellos. We also make a calzone of the day. The ingredients comes from whatever extra prep that's in the kitchen. Today we had some pepperoni, salami, and spinach.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 2, Day 3. I worked in the back today while Manny and Richie worked on the line. I was busy putting together the seafood lasagna at the beginning of service. We always have ten on hand for service. I had to make seven of them because the AM class left us three premade ones. I also made some bechamel sauce for the first time since basics. The one thing about being in the back that I'm not crazy about is cleaning up. It seems like it takes forever to clean the kitchen. I had walk-in duty which meant I had to made sure things were properly wrapped, labeled, and in the right place in the walk-in. I did a lot of consolidating which usually happens because people don't look for product they need before they start making it.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 2, Day 2. Another relaxing day at the take out station. Richie made the soup again. Manny and I prepped for the hot entree, Sausage and peppers sandwich. Manny cooked it while I tried to make some bowtie pastas. I don't think anyone could have bought a sandwich even if they wanted to because we didn't have any bread.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 2, Day 1. We move to Station 7. Here we are responible for the take out operation of L'Academie. We usually don't do any business, but we have to have a certain amount of items in stock. We usually have bowtie pasta salad, le grande salad, spinach salad, grilled vegetable sandwich, and prosciutto mozzarella sandwich. We also have forrest mushroom soup and a hot entree. Our entire prep usually consists of making the hot entree. Today the hot entree was navarin, a lamb stew. Manny and I prepped for it and I cooked it. I added a pinch too much salt, but it was extrememly edible. The hot entree usually ends up as family at night. Richie worked on the forrest mushroom soup and made rice pilaf for the navarin. We really don't have to do anything during service, so we prep for tomorrow or help out other stations. Today station 3 was short two people. Jen and Nelson were absent, so Molly and Bjorn had a lot to do. Manny, Bill, and I helped Molly make French Onion soup. Molly was flustered, but remained very composed and got everything done. She really stepped up to the challenge. Bjorn didn't help by making a mistake with the minestrone.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 1, Day 5. The fish of the day was stuffed squid, clams casino, and shellfish nage. The lesson of the day was braised lamb shank with wild mushroom rissoto, swiss chard, and natural jus. Richie and I handled the orders on this Friday night, while Manny prepped in the back. We were pretty organized today and a lot of prep was done for us by the morning class. They have more time to prep than we do so they do some for us as well. We did our demo plate on time. So I had time to make some red pepper diamonds for our garnish. The natural jus reduced down to an amazing sauce. Even though Manny slightly overcooked the rissoto, it went well. Being a Friday night, we were extremely busy. At station 6, we are responsible for the lesson of the day and Chicken Provencal. I think we plated fourteen plates of each.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 1, Day 4. We had to come in half an hour early to take a review exam of all the things we have learned in school up until this point. I would say it was pretty comprehensive. We didn't have lecture due to the exam, so Chef Elliot just handed us the recipe for the lesson of the day: Roast Pork Loin Stuffed with Figs, Spinach, and Pancetta with fried polenta and drunken fig sauce. We rotated to the lesson station just in time for the weekend rush. It turned out to be a slow Thrusday though. Maybe the war is keeping people glued to the TV.
James showed us how to make the Chicken Provencal. It's a little involved, but it's manageable. There is a lot prep for this dish. The chicken is braised and fully cooked ahead of time. The broccoli rabe needs to be blanched and shocked. We also quarter, blanch and shock red bliss potatoes. For service, when the chef calls for an order of Chicken Provencal, we heat one ladle of brasing liquid, one ladle of chicken stock, some piece of chopped leg meat, and a chicken breast in a saute pan and cover. In another pan, we saute the broccoli rabe with butter and lemon juice. We also deep-fry five red bliss potatoes. To finish the dish, we saute the potatoes in butter and parsley and plate up the dish.
The pork loin is a bit easier. We don't have to do anything on order. All the work is done a la minute when the chef calls to fire the dish. Typically for entrees, chef orders an item and then fires the item. When he orders an item certain steps are done and when he fires the entree is finished. When the chef fires the pork loin, we fry two polenta patties, slice two pieces of pork loin, and plate the dish.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 1, Day 3. The fish of the day was sauteed lemon sole with vegetable ratatouille, potato mousseline, and basil pesto sauce. Manny butcher the sole, Richie made the ratatouille, and I tackled the potato mousseline and the basil pesto sauce. I lost my Chef's knife yesterday when I left my stuff in the kitchen to go out to the front area to cook on the line. I think it's a blessing in disguise. I've been wanting to buy a new knife for some time.
I worked in the back for prep while Manny and Richie were out on the line. I chopped a lot of shallots.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 1, Day 2. We have lecture before service for about an hour. During this time, Chef Elliot describes the fish of the day and the lesson of the day. Today the fish of the day was Grilled Salmon with herbed orzo, asparagus tips, and roasted tomato-garlic coulis. The lesson was panfried veal cutlet with roasted fingerling potatoes, eggplant caponata, and wild mushroom sauce.
After lecture, we prep our stations for service. Richie butchered the salmon, Manny prepped the asparagus, and I made the herbed orzo. The line is visible to the diners with the chef ordering and firing dishes as the tickets come in. There is also a back kitchen where the prep goes on and the dishwashing area is. The school hires dishwashers so that the students can focus on the kitchen operations. We are still responsible for washing our own equipment.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 1, Day 1. Back in the kitchen. We had three hours of lecture. Our chef is Chef Bryan Elliot. His Associate Chef is SCI alum Chef Andre Abelkis. Chef Elliot was born into the industry and has tons of experience. He's been around the world three times and has seen almost every cuisine. We are his last class because he is opening up a restaurant in mid-April. He'll have a pool of student among the people who want to work for him. He mentioned that he will setup an externship for SCI students. He is very energetic and shows his enthusiasm well. He told us that when he went to the CIA, he would spend two hours after classes typing up his notes, writing down recipes and techniques he learned that day. He told us that if we really apply ourselves this year of culinary school, it will pay off the rest of our careers.
The kitchen is split into seven stations. Manny, Richie, and I start on Station 5. Our responsibilities for Tuesday and Wednesday are Mussels Meuniere and the Fish of the Day. After lecture, we prepped for tomorrow's service. Other groups chopped garlic, shallots, and onions. We made the roasted tomato-garlic coulis for tomorrow's fish.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 1, Day 4. We had to come in half an hour early to take a review exam of all the things we have learned in school up until this point. I would say it was pretty comprehensive. We didn't have lecture due to the exam, so Chef Elliot just handed us the recipe for the lesson of the day: Roast Pork Loin Stuffed with Figs, Spinach, and Pancetta with fried polenta and drunken fig sauce. We rotated to the lesson station just in time for the weekend rush. It turned out to be a slow Thrusday though. Maybe the war is keeping people glued to the TV.
James showed us how to make the Chicken Provencal. It's a little involved, but it's manageable. There is a lot prep for this dish. The chicken is braised and fully cooked ahead of time. The broccoli rabe needs to be blanched and shocked. We also quarter, blanch and shock red bliss potatoes. For service, when the chef calls for an order of Chicken Provencal, we heat one ladle of brasing liquid, one ladle of chicken stock, some piece of chopped leg meat, and a chicken breast in a saute pan and cover. In another pan, we saute the broccoli rabe with butter and lemon juice. We also deep-fry five red bliss potatoes. To finish the dish, we saute the potatoes in butter and parsley and plate up the dish.
The pork loin is a bit easier. We don't have to do anything on order. All the work is done a la minute when the chef calls to fire the dish. Typically for entrees, chef orders an item and then fires the item. When he orders an item certain steps are done and when he fires the entree is finished. When the chef fires the pork loin, we fry two polenta patties, slice two pieces of pork loin, and plate the dish.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 1, Day 3. The fish of the day was sauteed lemon sole with vegetable ratatouille, potato mousseline, and basil pesto sauce. Manny butcher the sole, Richie made the ratatouille, and I tackled the potato mousseline and the basil pesto sauce. I lost my Chef's knife yesterday when I left my stuff in the kitchen to go out to the front area to cook on the line. I think it's a blessing in disguise. I've been wanting to buy a new knife for some time.
I worked in the back for prep while Manny and Richie were out on the line. I chopped a lot of shallots.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 1, Day 2. We have lecture before service for about an hour. During this time, Chef Elliot describes the fish of the day and the lesson of the day. Today the fish of the day was Grilled Salmon with herbed orzo, asparagus tips, and roasted tomato-garlic coulis. The lesson was panfried veal cutlet with roasted fingerling potatoes, eggplant caponata, and wild mushroom sauce.
After lecture, we prep our stations for service. Richie butchered the salmon, Manny prepped the asparagus, and I made the herbed orzo. The line is visible to the diners with the chef ordering and firing dishes as the tickets come in. There is also a back kitchen where the prep goes on and the dishwashing area is. The school hires dishwashers so that the students can focus on the kitchen operations. We are still responsible for washing our own equipment.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 1, Day 1. Back in the kitchen. We had three hours of lecture. Our chef is Chef Bryan Elliot. His Associate Chef is SCI alum Chef Andre Abelkis. Chef Elliot was born into the industry and has tons of experience. He's been around the world three times and has seen almost every cuisine. We are his last class because he is opening up a restaurant in mid-April. He'll have a pool of student among the people who want to work for him. He mentioned that he will setup an externship for SCI students. He is very energetic and shows his enthusiasm well. He told us that when he went to the CIA, he would spend two hours after classes typing up his notes, writing down recipes and techniques he learned that day. He told us that if we really apply ourselves this year of culinary school, it will pay off the rest of our careers.
The kitchen is split into seven stations. Manny, Richie, and I start on Station 5. Our responsibilities for Tuesday and Wednesday are Mussels Meuniere and the Fish of the Day. After lecture, we prepped for tomorrow's service. Other groups chopped garlic, shallots, and onions. We made the roasted tomato-garlic coulis for tomorrow's fish.
Saturday, March 15, 2003
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 3, Day 5. Final exam. It was a race to the finish. 100 questions in 1 hour. There might have been a handful of multiple choice and fill-ins. The majority of it was short answer. Quite challenging but in an organizational way. It was open notes, so to succeed you had to either know the answer straight out or know where to look. For service, I was the student manager. I had a small chore rearranging the students who wanted to do different positions. I have slight trouble being someone's superior after being their co-worker all along. But things went well. We had 96 covers in the books, I'm not sure how many showed up, but a lot did. We even took in some walk-ins. Everyone was on, so I didn't have too much to do.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 3, Day 4. Today I presented my project to class. My idea was to open a new restaurant in Kew Gardens near London. It already has four places to get food, but not the type of Modern British cuisine that I want to prepare. I mainly liked the fact that I would have a large potential audience to start off with since the Gardens are such a tourist attraction.For service, I was backserver for Gabe. Even though I was sleep deprived, I managed to do the job without breaking or spilling anything. I just realized that for the past three weeks, I've probably eaten more sweets than I have since Baking. It hard to realize because I get so hungry during family at the end of the night. So at the end of the night, the back of the house puts out food left over from the day's service for family meal. They get first dibs, then everybody else gets to dig in. Every night there are lots of desserts left over. They range from panna cotta to cheesecake to tortes and different cakes. Tonight I had a Chocolate Marquee Cake and the Roasted banana tiramisu. There's three more weeks of eating like this and then it's all gone, except for when our management class gets invited to eat at the restaurant.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 3, Day 3. Project presentations in class. For service, I was expeditor with Deborah. Expediting consists of bursts of activity. When plates come up from the chef, we wipe them clean, finish with whatever special utensils are needed for the dish, then send it out with the front or backserver. For this job, it's important to know who at what table ordered what item so that we can arrange it one the tray properly for the server.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 3, Day 2. History of food from the 1900s to the present. I was frontserving again today with Shelby as my backserver. I only had three tables. Chef didn't allow the Management students today because he thought they might be disruptive today. I got the opportunity to serve Deborah's fiance Bobby and his friend. They make a nice couple; Deborah and her fiance that is. The specials today were Chilean Sea Bass and Brasied Stuffed Veal Breast.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 3, Day 1. History of food from 10000 BC to 1900s. For service, I was a frontserver and Shelby was my backserver. I had five tables, but four of them were only two people. Our specials were Grilled Wild Alaskan King Salmon and Grilled Top Sirloin. Nothing out of the ordinary. I got to serve Will's brother and neice. I also had my first experience serving Management students. On slow nights, we invite the students from Management to dine in the restaurant so that we can practice. They were okay, but two of them ordered double cappucinos as their beverage. An odd request for a starting beverage that only a student would request.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 3, Day 4. Today I presented my project to class. My idea was to open a new restaurant in Kew Gardens near London. It already has four places to get food, but not the type of Modern British cuisine that I want to prepare. I mainly liked the fact that I would have a large potential audience to start off with since the Gardens are such a tourist attraction.For service, I was backserver for Gabe. Even though I was sleep deprived, I managed to do the job without breaking or spilling anything. I just realized that for the past three weeks, I've probably eaten more sweets than I have since Baking. It hard to realize because I get so hungry during family at the end of the night. So at the end of the night, the back of the house puts out food left over from the day's service for family meal. They get first dibs, then everybody else gets to dig in. Every night there are lots of desserts left over. They range from panna cotta to cheesecake to tortes and different cakes. Tonight I had a Chocolate Marquee Cake and the Roasted banana tiramisu. There's three more weeks of eating like this and then it's all gone, except for when our management class gets invited to eat at the restaurant.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 3, Day 3. Project presentations in class. For service, I was expeditor with Deborah. Expediting consists of bursts of activity. When plates come up from the chef, we wipe them clean, finish with whatever special utensils are needed for the dish, then send it out with the front or backserver. For this job, it's important to know who at what table ordered what item so that we can arrange it one the tray properly for the server.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 3, Day 2. History of food from the 1900s to the present. I was frontserving again today with Shelby as my backserver. I only had three tables. Chef didn't allow the Management students today because he thought they might be disruptive today. I got the opportunity to serve Deborah's fiance Bobby and his friend. They make a nice couple; Deborah and her fiance that is. The specials today were Chilean Sea Bass and Brasied Stuffed Veal Breast.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 3, Day 1. History of food from 10000 BC to 1900s. For service, I was a frontserver and Shelby was my backserver. I had five tables, but four of them were only two people. Our specials were Grilled Wild Alaskan King Salmon and Grilled Top Sirloin. Nothing out of the ordinary. I got to serve Will's brother and neice. I also had my first experience serving Management students. On slow nights, we invite the students from Management to dine in the restaurant so that we can practice. They were okay, but two of them ordered double cappucinos as their beverage. An odd request for a starting beverage that only a student would request.
Saturday, March 08, 2003
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 2, Day 5. We learned about the history coffee and tea in class. The history of food is quite fasciating. I think kids in public schools should be exposed to it. I think I was eating too much before and during service yesterday which affected my balance. I abstained from the wine tasting before service. We had a 2001 Incognito Viognier, a 2001 Incognito red blend of syrrah and petite syrah, and 7 Deadly Zins, a blend of seven different zinfindels. I was a front server tonight - our only busy night of the week. I had six tables one two-top, four four-tops, and a five-top. For me, one one the trickier parts is timing the capuccino or espresso order so that it comes out at the same time as the desserts. But I think front serving is my favorite position. It kind of like a game juggling all the tables and making sure the right food goes to the right person at the right table. I am begining to see how vital are the parts of the front of the house are. The host determines how busy a server is. The back server sets up the front server. The front server is the link for the chef to decide what to fire and when. The expeditor gives the server what it ordered. The cashier handles the money, and the bread server, the wine steward, and the bartender take care of their niches. And of course, the manager oversees the entire process and handles any problems that arise.
The specials tonight were Monksihfish Saltimbocca and Prime rib. The monkfish was excellent - the mild firm flesh surrounded by salty proscuitto with a creamy spinach and leek rissoto base. Prime rib was prime rib - we ran out of that during service.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 2, Day 4. More culinary French in lecture. I was Lara's backserver today. It was another slow night, but I managed to spill a tray of water at the bar and drop a glass of Mint Italian soda at a table. I don't think liquids are my friends. Maybe that's why they put me on front server tomorrow, so that I won't have to bring out the drinks. Another night in the books. I learned not to try to do too much at once and to concentrate on the task at hand.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 2, Day 3. In lecture, we learned about Culinary French. We went through A-M of terms for sauces, wine regions, garnish terms - basically stuff we've learned before at different times. For service I was Eve's back server. The backserver gets water for the table, serves and clears plates, and then busses and resets the table when it is done. It's a very simple job. I think the toughest positions might be front server and expeditor. I would like to expedite next week. We only had two tables in our section, so it was another slow night. I'm beginning to realize what a big night it was for our first full night of service.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 2, Day 2. We watched a video about the Riveria. It was a Food Network production featuring Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, and Rocco (I forget his last name). They talked about various aspects of food near Cannes. After that we had a quick beer tasting: Ace Pear Cider, Moretti, and Fischer Amber. They all tasted pretty good and I'm a fan of beers. I had more alcohol before service as wine steward. Tongiht's offerings were Cote du Rhone Viognier and Handley Pinot Noir Rose. The Viognier was clearly the favorite. I even got to serve my first bottle of Champagne, but it was another slow night.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 2, Day 1. We had a short allergy awareness quiz and then we looked at menu projects from previous classes to get an idea for our projects. We need to come up with a business plan for a
restaurant. In the restaurant Gabe, Jim, and I were the wine stewards. The two wines we showcased for the night were Porcupine Ridge Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa and Ca del Solo, a blend of many French and Italian grapes. It was a slow night. We would approach the table after they ordered their beverages to offer a sample tastes of tonight's wine selections. We would then get them whatever wine they wanted.
The specials tonight were Monksihfish Saltimbocca and Prime rib. The monkfish was excellent - the mild firm flesh surrounded by salty proscuitto with a creamy spinach and leek rissoto base. Prime rib was prime rib - we ran out of that during service.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 2, Day 4. More culinary French in lecture. I was Lara's backserver today. It was another slow night, but I managed to spill a tray of water at the bar and drop a glass of Mint Italian soda at a table. I don't think liquids are my friends. Maybe that's why they put me on front server tomorrow, so that I won't have to bring out the drinks. Another night in the books. I learned not to try to do too much at once and to concentrate on the task at hand.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 2, Day 3. In lecture, we learned about Culinary French. We went through A-M of terms for sauces, wine regions, garnish terms - basically stuff we've learned before at different times. For service I was Eve's back server. The backserver gets water for the table, serves and clears plates, and then busses and resets the table when it is done. It's a very simple job. I think the toughest positions might be front server and expeditor. I would like to expedite next week. We only had two tables in our section, so it was another slow night. I'm beginning to realize what a big night it was for our first full night of service.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 2, Day 2. We watched a video about the Riveria. It was a Food Network production featuring Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, and Rocco (I forget his last name). They talked about various aspects of food near Cannes. After that we had a quick beer tasting: Ace Pear Cider, Moretti, and Fischer Amber. They all tasted pretty good and I'm a fan of beers. I had more alcohol before service as wine steward. Tongiht's offerings were Cote du Rhone Viognier and Handley Pinot Noir Rose. The Viognier was clearly the favorite. I even got to serve my first bottle of Champagne, but it was another slow night.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 2, Day 1. We had a short allergy awareness quiz and then we looked at menu projects from previous classes to get an idea for our projects. We need to come up with a business plan for a
restaurant. In the restaurant Gabe, Jim, and I were the wine stewards. The two wines we showcased for the night were Porcupine Ridge Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa and Ca del Solo, a blend of many French and Italian grapes. It was a slow night. We would approach the table after they ordered their beverages to offer a sample tastes of tonight's wine selections. We would then get them whatever wine they wanted.
Sunday, March 02, 2003
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 1, Day 5. We thought it was going to be a busy night being Friday, but there were only 64 covers. Service was pretty smooth. I was front server again because our assignment are for two days. However, Molly was manager today, so my backserver was JB. He broke a water glass, but it was taken care of quickly. We had our first wine lecture and tasting before class. Chef Larry is very passionate and knowledgeable about wines. We also had a menu item quiz before the wine tasting. Chef didn't prepare us too thoroughly for it as the other chefs do, but he said we were going to take it again. We serve French Riveria style cuisine:
Tomato mozzarella salad with greens wrapped in proscutto
Mussels Mariniere
Spinach salad
Le Grande Salade
French onion soup or minestrone
Tomato mozzarella basil panini
Italian deli meat panini
Roast turkey on focaccia with brie, spinach and red onion
Pan Bagnat - tuna on ciabatta with grilled squash, roasted peppers, aioli
Tomato mozzarella basil pesto pizza
Italian sausage, portabello, mozzarella pizza
Calzone du jour
Chicken Provencale with fingerling potatoes
Bouilabaisse
Fresh Seafood Lasagna
Homemade Linguine with sauasage
Pesto Angelhair with Spicy Shrimp
Veal Ravioli in a Gorgonzola Cream sauce
Fish of the day
Chef's Lesson of the day
There are different desserts everyday based on what Advanced baking makes. I think Basic baking saometimes makes the tiramisu. There's always a gelato flavor and a sorbet flavor. I haven't tried the seafood lasagna nor the bouilabaisse. I really like the veal ravioli. I'm also a big fan of the calzones and the pizzas. I never met a dessert I didn't like and everything else is just okay. I guess the fish and the lesson are probably sure bets as well.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 1, Day 4. Today was my first day as a front server. It went pretty well. Molly was my backserver and made sure I was where I needed to be. We had 85 covers tonight. I never realized how many things go into serving one table. This is a different kind of "dance" that one gets used to. First the host the seats the guest, the back server serves water and removes extra place settings, then the frint server greets the table, gets beverage orders, tell about the specials, and then goes to the bartender to order the drinks while the wine steward gets the wine order. At this point, a server returns with the drinks, the complete order is taken, menus are retrieved, orders are entered into the ordering system so that the chef can order and fire appetizers and entrees. The expeditor calls out for a server and the appetizers go out. Then the bread server comes with the bread. The appetizer plates are cleared, we bring out the entrees, check up to see that everything is okay. Possibly more wine or more bread or more beverages. Then we clear the entrees and offer dessert and after dinner drinks. We enter the dessert order, serve dessert and drinks, check up after a little while, clear dessert, present the check and comment cards, process the credit cards or get change for cash, and then wish them a good evening. Finally we clear the table and reset it.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 1, Day 3. First real day of serving. We served 76 covers tonight. That's quite a few people. I was slotted in as cashier for the day, so I had a front row seat for the carnage that went on in the dining room. It wasn't all that bad, but if you want to eat at the restaurant I would opt to come during the second or third week when the students have ironed all the kinks out. No one died, Chef Larry tried to be posistive in a stern way about the night. He may have rubbed some poeple the wrong way, but it was constructive criticism. People just need to get used to the flow of service. There were no major mishaps, just a lot of little things here and there. We also had a visit from Chef Noel Dunham. She teaches Wines and Spirits, but she is also the assistant career advisor. For this class, we have a project to write our resumes and a cover letter.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 1, Day 2. In lecture, we learned about the steps of service, beverage service, and wine service. It's a lot of new information, but I'm sure we all get used to the flow of it. Seven of us broke away from the group to serve dinner for a group from the American Institute of Wine and Food in the demo kitchen. Jamie, Eve, and I were assigned wine service. we also absorbed water service since Gabe was absent. There were about 50 people for dinner. Chef Elliot and students from the back of the house helped prepare the meal. For dessert, Chef Elliot did a demo of Bananas Foster. Anythings with flames is a great crowd pleaser, especially when it looked liked he was pouring flames onto the sugary bananas and ice cream. The finishing dash of cinnamon also added sparks as it burned when nearing the flaming brandy.
The other part of our class was to handle a party of twenty in the restaurant, but it was cancelled and they only wound up serving about five tables. On slow nights they invite students from Management class to eat so that we can get practice with Front of the House duties.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 1, Day 1. No service today, just an orientation to the class. In this class, we learn about restarant operations. Chef Larry Canepa likes to gives us the theory behind the actions we perform. Every two days or so we volunteer for different positions: host, manager, front server and back server, wine steward, expeditor, bartender, cashier, and bread server.
Tomato mozzarella salad with greens wrapped in proscutto
Mussels Mariniere
Spinach salad
Le Grande Salade
French onion soup or minestrone
Tomato mozzarella basil panini
Italian deli meat panini
Roast turkey on focaccia with brie, spinach and red onion
Pan Bagnat - tuna on ciabatta with grilled squash, roasted peppers, aioli
Tomato mozzarella basil pesto pizza
Italian sausage, portabello, mozzarella pizza
Calzone du jour
Chicken Provencale with fingerling potatoes
Bouilabaisse
Fresh Seafood Lasagna
Homemade Linguine with sauasage
Pesto Angelhair with Spicy Shrimp
Veal Ravioli in a Gorgonzola Cream sauce
Fish of the day
Chef's Lesson of the day
There are different desserts everyday based on what Advanced baking makes. I think Basic baking saometimes makes the tiramisu. There's always a gelato flavor and a sorbet flavor. I haven't tried the seafood lasagna nor the bouilabaisse. I really like the veal ravioli. I'm also a big fan of the calzones and the pizzas. I never met a dessert I didn't like and everything else is just okay. I guess the fish and the lesson are probably sure bets as well.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 1, Day 4. Today was my first day as a front server. It went pretty well. Molly was my backserver and made sure I was where I needed to be. We had 85 covers tonight. I never realized how many things go into serving one table. This is a different kind of "dance" that one gets used to. First the host the seats the guest, the back server serves water and removes extra place settings, then the frint server greets the table, gets beverage orders, tell about the specials, and then goes to the bartender to order the drinks while the wine steward gets the wine order. At this point, a server returns with the drinks, the complete order is taken, menus are retrieved, orders are entered into the ordering system so that the chef can order and fire appetizers and entrees. The expeditor calls out for a server and the appetizers go out. Then the bread server comes with the bread. The appetizer plates are cleared, we bring out the entrees, check up to see that everything is okay. Possibly more wine or more bread or more beverages. Then we clear the entrees and offer dessert and after dinner drinks. We enter the dessert order, serve dessert and drinks, check up after a little while, clear dessert, present the check and comment cards, process the credit cards or get change for cash, and then wish them a good evening. Finally we clear the table and reset it.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 1, Day 3. First real day of serving. We served 76 covers tonight. That's quite a few people. I was slotted in as cashier for the day, so I had a front row seat for the carnage that went on in the dining room. It wasn't all that bad, but if you want to eat at the restaurant I would opt to come during the second or third week when the students have ironed all the kinks out. No one died, Chef Larry tried to be posistive in a stern way about the night. He may have rubbed some poeple the wrong way, but it was constructive criticism. People just need to get used to the flow of service. There were no major mishaps, just a lot of little things here and there. We also had a visit from Chef Noel Dunham. She teaches Wines and Spirits, but she is also the assistant career advisor. For this class, we have a project to write our resumes and a cover letter.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 1, Day 2. In lecture, we learned about the steps of service, beverage service, and wine service. It's a lot of new information, but I'm sure we all get used to the flow of it. Seven of us broke away from the group to serve dinner for a group from the American Institute of Wine and Food in the demo kitchen. Jamie, Eve, and I were assigned wine service. we also absorbed water service since Gabe was absent. There were about 50 people for dinner. Chef Elliot and students from the back of the house helped prepare the meal. For dessert, Chef Elliot did a demo of Bananas Foster. Anythings with flames is a great crowd pleaser, especially when it looked liked he was pouring flames onto the sugary bananas and ice cream. The finishing dash of cinnamon also added sparks as it burned when nearing the flaming brandy.
The other part of our class was to handle a party of twenty in the restaurant, but it was cancelled and they only wound up serving about five tables. On slow nights they invite students from Management class to eat so that we can get practice with Front of the House duties.
L'Academie - Front of the House Week 1, Day 1. No service today, just an orientation to the class. In this class, we learn about restarant operations. Chef Larry Canepa likes to gives us the theory behind the actions we perform. Every two days or so we volunteer for different positions: host, manager, front server and back server, wine steward, expeditor, bartender, cashier, and bread server.
Saturday, February 22, 2003
Catering/Garde Manger Week 3, Day 5. Finals and Market basket. Last day of catering. We took the final exam and then drew the assignment for the final buffet. I picked the dreaded vegetable and started rooting around the kitchen for something to make. We also had to do knife cuts, so I started on those while I pondered over the available ingredients in the kitchen. I came up with Oyster Mushrooms with Pearl Onions and Butternut squash. Last night I read a little of The Soul of a Chef - the part where Michael Ruhlman discusses the playful ideas behind Thomas Keller's cooking. I think the section about Oysters and Pearls stuck in my head and came out in a subliminal manner. I was worried about the dish the entire time I was making it. I've never made oyster mushrooms before and I didn't know if the flavors went together. I caramelized the pearl onions and put it in the hot box. Then I parboiled small dice butternut squash in chicken stock and added that to the onions. Finally I sauteed two boxes of oyster mushrooms with some garlic. I added a little white wine to deglazed it a bit. I combined it with the onions and squash with ten minutes to spare. I reduced the chicken stock I used to parboil the squash and added it to the vegetables just before bringing it out to the buffet line. It came out pretty well. Even though I despise mushrooms, oyster mushrooms have a very nice texture. All in all, it gave me back a little bit of confidence in my cooking abilities. (Most of which I lost while trying out for the ACF Junior team last Saturday.)
Catering/Garde Manger Week 3, Day 4. Grand Buffet - Hawaiian. The day to put up or shut up. The day we are tested as a team. We pass with flying colors. Lara, Bjorn, and I were responsible for aspic. We had to produce two plates each. It went very well. Bjorn did two different beach scenes. Lara did a pineapple and a beach scene. I used a fish mold to make a fish with a hula girl figurine suspended inside. And for my second plate I did a surfer riding a wave. For the wave I transposed Hokusai's The Breat Wave off Kanagawa. Eve and Jen were the dining room managers. The buffet line was well designed and the flower decorations were very picturesque. Not to mention the beverages were very good: some sort of tropical punch, along with still or sparkling water. A far cry from the usual fruit punch and lemonade. Kalei made a roast suckling pig. He was a little disappointed by how it turned out, but he's from Hawaii and has had the real stuff a lot. He only had four hours to cook the pig. I think longer slower cooking would have provided the results he was looking for. Jim, Jaime, and Rodney made canapes. Manny made an extremely flavorful Painolo Steak. JB made Crispy Summer Rolls. Chas made a tofu stir fry. Joe made a Sweet potato salad. Nelson made Mahimahi. Will made the fruit mirror and the watermelon carving.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 3, Day 3. Plated Dinner day. In lecture, Chef Groeger did an ice carving of a marlin for the Grand Buffet. He made it look so easy. First, he make a template on a piece of butcher paper. Adhered it to the surface of a 40x20x10 standard ice block. Next, he used a Rotozip to transfer the design to the ice. Then he used a chainsaw to cut away big blocks of empty space. Finally he gradually added more detail with various other tools.
For the buffet, we did a plated service which means we set out a set number of salad plates (45). We plated hot entrees and put them in two hot boxes. At the table, we had bread, canapes, and salads. The menu was simple. A mesclun mix salad in a toasted lavosh ring surrounded by a necklace of thinly sliced tomatoes. The main entree was an airline chicken breast roasted wrapped in pancetta on roasted garlic mashed potatoes and a vegetable confetti with a potato window garnish. A potato window is a leafy herb sandwiched between two sliced of potatoes and then fried. I think you can also sandwich these between two sheet pans and bake them. I was on dining room manager duty with Richie. We managed to trip the circuit breakers in the dining area by plugging in the hot boxes. Apparently we were not supposed to plug them in - six sternos provided ample heat.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 3, Day 2. Holiday. Pretty appropriate since we just came back from a three-day weekend. Chef Groeger lectured about the basic components of a meal and optional courses that we could provide. He also talked about the basics of ice carving and how to prepare the block of ice. Rodney, Molly, and I were on aspic. Apparently, we were the last three to do aspic. It pretty simple: make the gelatin. Make a base layer by mixing the gelatin with mayonnaise. This is classically known as chaud froid. Then use a sauce gun to pour the chaid froid onto an oval platter. Wait for this layer to set. Then etch out a design of choice using cookie cutters or a paring knife. Then fill in the empty spaces with colored gelatin. There are endless possibilities: spices, vegetables, and liquers. Wait for that layer to set and then top with a layer of clear gelatin. This is a very classical technique that is not used much anymore. The platter is used for serving canapes. Rodney made a snowman. Molly made a gingerbread man with a heart. I made a "green-shot" eyeball using fennel fronds for the blood shot effect. Maybe it's more of a post-holiday effect but on topic nonetheless.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 3, Day 4. Grand Buffet - Hawaiian. The day to put up or shut up. The day we are tested as a team. We pass with flying colors. Lara, Bjorn, and I were responsible for aspic. We had to produce two plates each. It went very well. Bjorn did two different beach scenes. Lara did a pineapple and a beach scene. I used a fish mold to make a fish with a hula girl figurine suspended inside. And for my second plate I did a surfer riding a wave. For the wave I transposed Hokusai's The Breat Wave off Kanagawa. Eve and Jen were the dining room managers. The buffet line was well designed and the flower decorations were very picturesque. Not to mention the beverages were very good: some sort of tropical punch, along with still or sparkling water. A far cry from the usual fruit punch and lemonade. Kalei made a roast suckling pig. He was a little disappointed by how it turned out, but he's from Hawaii and has had the real stuff a lot. He only had four hours to cook the pig. I think longer slower cooking would have provided the results he was looking for. Jim, Jaime, and Rodney made canapes. Manny made an extremely flavorful Painolo Steak. JB made Crispy Summer Rolls. Chas made a tofu stir fry. Joe made a Sweet potato salad. Nelson made Mahimahi. Will made the fruit mirror and the watermelon carving.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 3, Day 3. Plated Dinner day. In lecture, Chef Groeger did an ice carving of a marlin for the Grand Buffet. He made it look so easy. First, he make a template on a piece of butcher paper. Adhered it to the surface of a 40x20x10 standard ice block. Next, he used a Rotozip to transfer the design to the ice. Then he used a chainsaw to cut away big blocks of empty space. Finally he gradually added more detail with various other tools.
For the buffet, we did a plated service which means we set out a set number of salad plates (45). We plated hot entrees and put them in two hot boxes. At the table, we had bread, canapes, and salads. The menu was simple. A mesclun mix salad in a toasted lavosh ring surrounded by a necklace of thinly sliced tomatoes. The main entree was an airline chicken breast roasted wrapped in pancetta on roasted garlic mashed potatoes and a vegetable confetti with a potato window garnish. A potato window is a leafy herb sandwiched between two sliced of potatoes and then fried. I think you can also sandwich these between two sheet pans and bake them. I was on dining room manager duty with Richie. We managed to trip the circuit breakers in the dining area by plugging in the hot boxes. Apparently we were not supposed to plug them in - six sternos provided ample heat.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 3, Day 2. Holiday. Pretty appropriate since we just came back from a three-day weekend. Chef Groeger lectured about the basic components of a meal and optional courses that we could provide. He also talked about the basics of ice carving and how to prepare the block of ice. Rodney, Molly, and I were on aspic. Apparently, we were the last three to do aspic. It pretty simple: make the gelatin. Make a base layer by mixing the gelatin with mayonnaise. This is classically known as chaud froid. Then use a sauce gun to pour the chaid froid onto an oval platter. Wait for this layer to set. Then etch out a design of choice using cookie cutters or a paring knife. Then fill in the empty spaces with colored gelatin. There are endless possibilities: spices, vegetables, and liquers. Wait for that layer to set and then top with a layer of clear gelatin. This is a very classical technique that is not used much anymore. The platter is used for serving canapes. Rodney made a snowman. Molly made a gingerbread man with a heart. I made a "green-shot" eyeball using fennel fronds for the blood shot effect. Maybe it's more of a post-holiday effect but on topic nonetheless.
Monday, February 17, 2003
Catering/Garde Manger Week 2, Day 5. Heart Healthy. Kind of on topic with Valentine's day. The menu items geared towards low sodium and butterless recipes. We had a whole poached thirty pound tuna. It was supposed to be an eight pound red snapper, but we got the tuna instead. Eve and I made Braised Belgian endive with cabbage and shiitake mushrooms. I didn't think much of it. I need to consider what would make it tastier. We tried to spruce it up with garlic, shallots, and grated lemongrass, but to no avail. Jim and Jen made grilled chicken on a bed of carrot ribbons. The carrot ribbons made the dish. Lightly salted deep-fried carrot peelings. Simple, flavorful, and goes well with chicken.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 2, Day 4. Cocktail day. In lecture, Chef told us what he expected from our buffet project. On the first day, we were assigned a project to create a proposal for buffet for 100 people. We chose the theme to be Hawaiian cuisine. The buffet consists of 11 items of our choosing: 2 hot appetizers, 2 cold appetizers, 2 vegetables, 1 salad, 1 entree, 1 starch, 1 dessert, and 1 beverage. We have to cost out each dish, write out the procedure to prepare each dish, fill in a boilerplate contract, create a labor schedule, and price out the part with a 15% profit.
Lara, Jim, and I made Coconut Shrimp with mango chutney. Jim and Lara handled the shrimp: peeling, breading, and frying while I setup the breading station and made the mango chutney. It felt good to use my knife again. I need to practice my knife cuts more. We had a huge cheese tray for the buffet. Chef said that the hotel would probably charge a grand for what we put out.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 2, Day 3. Kosher day. In lecture, we had a test review for Friday. It's basically going to be a math test. Blair and I made Latkes. One concept we've learned in catering is a firing sheet. To prepare a buffet everything is served at once, so we use a firing sheet to organized when items should be heated before holding for service. For example, all fried items are actually fried as soon as possible, put in the hot box, and reheated twenty minutes before service.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 2, Day 2. New England day. Mock clam bake, boiled dinner, baked beans, we had it all. Chas and I made Maple Glazed Chicken with Cranberry Pecan Pilaf. I made the pilaf and Chas prepared the chicken. It was a very easy dish, but the wheat berries and the rye berries that we used for the pilaf took forever to cook.
In lecture, we talked about contracts and what we should consider when drawing them up with our lawyer.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 2, Day 1. Deli Day. No hot foods just salads and a big deli tray. In lecture, we were reacquainted with cost cards. We also got into some word problems dealing with figuring out the costs of a catering situation. For production, I was dining room manager with Deborah as my assistant. We kind of overused certain tablecloths, but it came out well in the end. We were busy the enture time. It's amazing how time flies by even when you're not cooking. We set up the buffet line, put out tables and chairs, and made signs. Setting up the buffet line took the longest time. We have to map out all the dishes and come up with a design for the tables. To vary the height of dishes, we used wooden blocks wrapped in tablecloths. Deborah did a great job wrapping the blocks with the tablecloths. It's very awkward. I tried it myself, but no good came of that.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 2, Day 4. Cocktail day. In lecture, Chef told us what he expected from our buffet project. On the first day, we were assigned a project to create a proposal for buffet for 100 people. We chose the theme to be Hawaiian cuisine. The buffet consists of 11 items of our choosing: 2 hot appetizers, 2 cold appetizers, 2 vegetables, 1 salad, 1 entree, 1 starch, 1 dessert, and 1 beverage. We have to cost out each dish, write out the procedure to prepare each dish, fill in a boilerplate contract, create a labor schedule, and price out the part with a 15% profit.
Lara, Jim, and I made Coconut Shrimp with mango chutney. Jim and Lara handled the shrimp: peeling, breading, and frying while I setup the breading station and made the mango chutney. It felt good to use my knife again. I need to practice my knife cuts more. We had a huge cheese tray for the buffet. Chef said that the hotel would probably charge a grand for what we put out.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 2, Day 3. Kosher day. In lecture, we had a test review for Friday. It's basically going to be a math test. Blair and I made Latkes. One concept we've learned in catering is a firing sheet. To prepare a buffet everything is served at once, so we use a firing sheet to organized when items should be heated before holding for service. For example, all fried items are actually fried as soon as possible, put in the hot box, and reheated twenty minutes before service.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 2, Day 2. New England day. Mock clam bake, boiled dinner, baked beans, we had it all. Chas and I made Maple Glazed Chicken with Cranberry Pecan Pilaf. I made the pilaf and Chas prepared the chicken. It was a very easy dish, but the wheat berries and the rye berries that we used for the pilaf took forever to cook.
In lecture, we talked about contracts and what we should consider when drawing them up with our lawyer.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 2, Day 1. Deli Day. No hot foods just salads and a big deli tray. In lecture, we were reacquainted with cost cards. We also got into some word problems dealing with figuring out the costs of a catering situation. For production, I was dining room manager with Deborah as my assistant. We kind of overused certain tablecloths, but it came out well in the end. We were busy the enture time. It's amazing how time flies by even when you're not cooking. We set up the buffet line, put out tables and chairs, and made signs. Setting up the buffet line took the longest time. We have to map out all the dishes and come up with a design for the tables. To vary the height of dishes, we used wooden blocks wrapped in tablecloths. Deborah did a great job wrapping the blocks with the tablecloths. It's very awkward. I tried it myself, but no good came of that.
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Catering/Garde Manger Week 1, Day 5. Southwest day. We had our first test. No big deal. Chef did a great job getting us ready for this one. I worked alone again and made a Romaine salad with Chipotile Dressing and Croutons. Green salad, my greatest fear. Leafy green vegetables are unwieldly and delicate. There's no fire or heat involved. Cut, wash, and go. Should be simple and it is, but I make a big deal out of it. Maybe it has something to do with raw food in general...
Catering/Garde Manger Week 1, Day 4. Heartland day. We went over in-house and off property catering. Chef gave us a lot of useful information about catering. He recommends the lifestyle of catering because unlike a restaurant owner you don't have to worry about getting customers when you have already bought the food, you don't have to own any large equipment, and you set your own hours and can take a vacation whenever you can feel like it. He makes a very convincing argument for the life of a caterer.
I worked alone today. I was responible for the five bean salad. The five beans were kidney, white, green, wax, and garbanzo. It felt like a lot of work because I'm still fairly slow in the kitchen. Basically, I had to prepare each bean, then the emulsified vinaigrette, and combine them. I've always been a bit antsy about salads. I've always skipped that section in cookbooks. I guess I should take this opportunity to deal with my weakness.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 1, Day 3. Cajun day. In lecture, we talked about cold hors d'oeuvres. Onto the buffet. Shelby and I worked on a pot roast with root vegetables. We took turns during service to man the carving station. I have trouble carving with the roast. I didn't realize until much later that I usually carve with my left hand when I'm eating a steak or something, so that might have something to do with it.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 1, Day 2. BBQ day. Eve and I made corn on the cob. We boiled it milk, water, salt, pepper, and sugar. We also made honey butter. Looks like I'll either be working with Eve or Rodney everyday. The recipes don't seem to be very special. We have to okay all tweaks and changes with the chef.
In lecture, we talked about sanitation and aspic. I'll spare the details about sanitation, but it's all on tape if anyone wants to hear it. Aspic is a more interesting topic. It's a classical technique that's not really used that much anymore. It's a gelatin substance that sets up firm at room temperature. We use it to decorate the serving platters for canapes.
Our theme for Grand Buffet is Hawaiian. Kalei was born there so maybe he'll have some good ideas. I voted for Pacific Northwest, but we only had 9 votes out of 26. During dinner, we chose our assignments for Grand Buffet. I picked Fruit Mirror, but I traded that to Nelson for Canape. Then I traded Jim for Aspic.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 1, Day 1. The way things go in this class is that we start off with lecture. Then we go over the menu with Chef. He calls out the assignments and we go over the firing sheet. The firing sheet is a list of times when all hot items are given the last amount of heat and when they go into the hot box. For example, tonight we planned to have dinner ready by 845pm. Chef wanted the garlic bread in the hot box, a device used to keep hot foods at a certain temp, at 815pm. The firing time was 8pm. This is went we put the pans of corn in water and milk on the stove to boil and simmer.into the oven. So we have 15 minutes from the time the bread is oven to get it prepared and into the hot box ready for dinner. Other items vary. All cold items are prepared as soon as possible and put in the coolers. 15 minutes before dinner, we put the food out and chef goes over the menu and other points with us. Then we eat and open the doors for other students on campus. After dinner, half the class gets to go home and the other half cleans the kitchen. We alternate each night.
Lecture was long. Chef Groeger told us all about professionalism and what the industry is all about from his viewpoint. He is another chef who suggested working while in culinary school. He also told us about our project, the Grand Buffet. One Week 3 Day 4, the class will be preparing a grand buffet that the class as a whole decided on. I'm a little worried about having the 26 kids in our class trying to agree on one theme.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 1, Day 4. Heartland day. We went over in-house and off property catering. Chef gave us a lot of useful information about catering. He recommends the lifestyle of catering because unlike a restaurant owner you don't have to worry about getting customers when you have already bought the food, you don't have to own any large equipment, and you set your own hours and can take a vacation whenever you can feel like it. He makes a very convincing argument for the life of a caterer.
I worked alone today. I was responible for the five bean salad. The five beans were kidney, white, green, wax, and garbanzo. It felt like a lot of work because I'm still fairly slow in the kitchen. Basically, I had to prepare each bean, then the emulsified vinaigrette, and combine them. I've always been a bit antsy about salads. I've always skipped that section in cookbooks. I guess I should take this opportunity to deal with my weakness.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 1, Day 3. Cajun day. In lecture, we talked about cold hors d'oeuvres. Onto the buffet. Shelby and I worked on a pot roast with root vegetables. We took turns during service to man the carving station. I have trouble carving with the roast. I didn't realize until much later that I usually carve with my left hand when I'm eating a steak or something, so that might have something to do with it.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 1, Day 2. BBQ day. Eve and I made corn on the cob. We boiled it milk, water, salt, pepper, and sugar. We also made honey butter. Looks like I'll either be working with Eve or Rodney everyday. The recipes don't seem to be very special. We have to okay all tweaks and changes with the chef.
In lecture, we talked about sanitation and aspic. I'll spare the details about sanitation, but it's all on tape if anyone wants to hear it. Aspic is a more interesting topic. It's a classical technique that's not really used that much anymore. It's a gelatin substance that sets up firm at room temperature. We use it to decorate the serving platters for canapes.
Our theme for Grand Buffet is Hawaiian. Kalei was born there so maybe he'll have some good ideas. I voted for Pacific Northwest, but we only had 9 votes out of 26. During dinner, we chose our assignments for Grand Buffet. I picked Fruit Mirror, but I traded that to Nelson for Canape. Then I traded Jim for Aspic.
Catering/Garde Manger Week 1, Day 1. The way things go in this class is that we start off with lecture. Then we go over the menu with Chef. He calls out the assignments and we go over the firing sheet. The firing sheet is a list of times when all hot items are given the last amount of heat and when they go into the hot box. For example, tonight we planned to have dinner ready by 845pm. Chef wanted the garlic bread in the hot box, a device used to keep hot foods at a certain temp, at 815pm. The firing time was 8pm. This is went we put the pans of corn in water and milk on the stove to boil and simmer.into the oven. So we have 15 minutes from the time the bread is oven to get it prepared and into the hot box ready for dinner. Other items vary. All cold items are prepared as soon as possible and put in the coolers. 15 minutes before dinner, we put the food out and chef goes over the menu and other points with us. Then we eat and open the doors for other students on campus. After dinner, half the class gets to go home and the other half cleans the kitchen. We alternate each night.
Lecture was long. Chef Groeger told us all about professionalism and what the industry is all about from his viewpoint. He is another chef who suggested working while in culinary school. He also told us about our project, the Grand Buffet. One Week 3 Day 4, the class will be preparing a grand buffet that the class as a whole decided on. I'm a little worried about having the 26 kids in our class trying to agree on one theme.
Friday, January 31, 2003
Basic Baking Week 3, Day 5. I went with Rodney to volunteer at a catering event at Boeing. It was my first experience inside an institional kitchen. Aramark runs Boeing cafeteria and the Chef was contracted to do the catering event. I'll admit that we didn't serrve haute cuisine, but people liked it. It showed me a lot. There's a side of the industry that I choose not to enter. I am not going to culinary so that I can learn the shortcuts when I enter the industry. I guess I'm only against those "timesavers" that compromises the integrity of the food. I will work at a place that respects food enough to serve it with care. All this took place between 630am and 1pm.
And all that before our practical for Basic Baking. For the roll-in station, we had to make blitz puff pastry dough and then make dessert Vol-au-vents. According to Larousse Gastronomique, the classical vol-au-vents are savory and round with a lid. The dessert ones we made look like diamonds with twists on two opposite corners. I think we made the classical dessert ones which use cherry filling. Here's how you make it: Cut up 13 ounces of cold butter into cubes and mix it(with your hands) with 18 ounces of bread flour. The consistency is still very powdery. Then slowly incorporate 9 ounces of cold water with .5 ounces of salt. The consistency of the dough should be soft with chunks of butter. If it's still a bit floury, add a ittle bit more water. Shape the dough into a rectangle and then roll it out into a larger rectangle. Ensure that the underside is well-floured. Fold opposite sides to the middle and then fold in half. This is a four-fold. Roll the dough out again into a large rectangle. Do another four-fold. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 5-10 minutes. Roll and four-fold two more times and refrigerate again. After another 5-10 minutes, the dough is ready to be rolled into vol-au-vents. Fold into a large reactangle about a 1/4-inch thick. Roll it out so that you can cut out as many 4"x4" squares you can. To make the vol-au-vent from a square, first fold corner to corner so you have a triangle. Now make two cuts each about 1/4 inch from the legs of the triangle(not the hypotenuse) but don't connect the two lines(this would separate a smaller triangle). Now unfold the triangle and brush it with egg wash(1-2 eggs beaten). Now there should be two opposing v-cuts facing each other. Fold the vertex of one v to the opposite inner v. Fold that piece of dough back over this first one. what you should have now is a smaller square with twists of dough at two opposing corners. Brush the top well with egg wash. Fill the inner square with the filling of your choice: sweet or savory. Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 mintues or until golden brown. We had to make six of these for our practical. Piece of cake ... er, puff.
Basic Baking Week 3, Day 4. The test wasn't too bad. A lot of memorization gone awry. Deborah and I made puff patry dough. It didn't start out pretty, but by the time we got to the fourth rolling, it was a thing of beauty. Too bad we won't get to make anything out of it. We also made savarins which look like doughnuts.
Basic Baking Week 3, Day 3. I attended a Student Leadership Council meeting today. They brought up all the competitions and events that are coming up: Cherry Recipe contest, Scottsdale Culinary Festival, ACF Junior team, a wine tasting event, and elections. In lecture, we reviewed for tomorrow's written final exam. It's going to be a lot of memorization. In the kitchen, Deborah and I made biscuits with blue cheese, rosemary, and sun-dried tomatos. We also made Mexican wedding cookies and peanut butter and strawberry jelly muffins.
Basic Baking Week 3, Day 2. We had our last lecture on Baker's percentages. Baker's use percentages for their recipes so that it's easier to scale. Everything is based on the main ingredient which is usually flour, so that makes flour 100%. If the recipe/formula calls for 50% water that mean 50% water comapared to flour(in ounces). Pretty simple concept.
Deborah and I made buttermilk poundcake. We didn't have the same experience as Joe and JB did. We also made Blitz puff pastry dough for Vol-au-vents. We finished the day with chocolate chip muffins filled with chocolate ganache. Nelson and Will made very good star-shaped garlic, spinach, and rosemary biscuits.
Basic Baking Week 3, Day 1. Lecture was about creme anglaise, custard, pastry cream, and ice cream. They all have similar ingredients and have fairly similar procedures. My partner for this week is Deborah. We were the oven people today, so we just proofed, baked, cooled, and wrapped everyone else's stuff. There was a slight mishap with Joe and JB's buttermilk poundcake. It bubbled over and made a mess in the over. We were lucky that it was one of the smaller ovens so that we didn't get backed up. We also were responsible for putting out the break trays. Today there was sundried tomato and parmesan bisuits, mango-rasberry muffins, blondies, baklava, and heart-shaped chocolate chip cookies.
And all that before our practical for Basic Baking. For the roll-in station, we had to make blitz puff pastry dough and then make dessert Vol-au-vents. According to Larousse Gastronomique, the classical vol-au-vents are savory and round with a lid. The dessert ones we made look like diamonds with twists on two opposite corners. I think we made the classical dessert ones which use cherry filling. Here's how you make it: Cut up 13 ounces of cold butter into cubes and mix it(with your hands) with 18 ounces of bread flour. The consistency is still very powdery. Then slowly incorporate 9 ounces of cold water with .5 ounces of salt. The consistency of the dough should be soft with chunks of butter. If it's still a bit floury, add a ittle bit more water. Shape the dough into a rectangle and then roll it out into a larger rectangle. Ensure that the underside is well-floured. Fold opposite sides to the middle and then fold in half. This is a four-fold. Roll the dough out again into a large rectangle. Do another four-fold. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 5-10 minutes. Roll and four-fold two more times and refrigerate again. After another 5-10 minutes, the dough is ready to be rolled into vol-au-vents. Fold into a large reactangle about a 1/4-inch thick. Roll it out so that you can cut out as many 4"x4" squares you can. To make the vol-au-vent from a square, first fold corner to corner so you have a triangle. Now make two cuts each about 1/4 inch from the legs of the triangle(not the hypotenuse) but don't connect the two lines(this would separate a smaller triangle). Now unfold the triangle and brush it with egg wash(1-2 eggs beaten). Now there should be two opposing v-cuts facing each other. Fold the vertex of one v to the opposite inner v. Fold that piece of dough back over this first one. what you should have now is a smaller square with twists of dough at two opposing corners. Brush the top well with egg wash. Fill the inner square with the filling of your choice: sweet or savory. Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 mintues or until golden brown. We had to make six of these for our practical. Piece of cake ... er, puff.
Basic Baking Week 3, Day 4. The test wasn't too bad. A lot of memorization gone awry. Deborah and I made puff patry dough. It didn't start out pretty, but by the time we got to the fourth rolling, it was a thing of beauty. Too bad we won't get to make anything out of it. We also made savarins which look like doughnuts.
Basic Baking Week 3, Day 3. I attended a Student Leadership Council meeting today. They brought up all the competitions and events that are coming up: Cherry Recipe contest, Scottsdale Culinary Festival, ACF Junior team, a wine tasting event, and elections. In lecture, we reviewed for tomorrow's written final exam. It's going to be a lot of memorization. In the kitchen, Deborah and I made biscuits with blue cheese, rosemary, and sun-dried tomatos. We also made Mexican wedding cookies and peanut butter and strawberry jelly muffins.
Basic Baking Week 3, Day 2. We had our last lecture on Baker's percentages. Baker's use percentages for their recipes so that it's easier to scale. Everything is based on the main ingredient which is usually flour, so that makes flour 100%. If the recipe/formula calls for 50% water that mean 50% water comapared to flour(in ounces). Pretty simple concept.
Deborah and I made buttermilk poundcake. We didn't have the same experience as Joe and JB did. We also made Blitz puff pastry dough for Vol-au-vents. We finished the day with chocolate chip muffins filled with chocolate ganache. Nelson and Will made very good star-shaped garlic, spinach, and rosemary biscuits.
Basic Baking Week 3, Day 1. Lecture was about creme anglaise, custard, pastry cream, and ice cream. They all have similar ingredients and have fairly similar procedures. My partner for this week is Deborah. We were the oven people today, so we just proofed, baked, cooled, and wrapped everyone else's stuff. There was a slight mishap with Joe and JB's buttermilk poundcake. It bubbled over and made a mess in the over. We were lucky that it was one of the smaller ovens so that we didn't get backed up. We also were responsible for putting out the break trays. Today there was sundried tomato and parmesan bisuits, mango-rasberry muffins, blondies, baklava, and heart-shaped chocolate chip cookies.
Saturday, January 25, 2003
Basic Baking Week 2, Saturday - Bonus. I spent the day helping out at our Titanium Pastry Chef competition. It was the finals. Four teams headed by Chef instructors faced off for two and a half hours trying to make as many plates as they could from a market basket of items and four mandatory mystery items: blood oranges, blue cheese crumbles, fresh rosemary, and another less exotic ingredient that escapes me at the moment. The market basket had pastry cream, buttercream, creme anglaise, phyllo dough, vanilla beans, plain shortbread dough, chocolate shortbread dough, plain petite four dough, chocolate petite four dough, rasberries, blackberries, a mango, a pear, a green apple, two limes, puff pastry dough, and bittersweet chocolate. The teams were also allowed to use whatever was in the kitchen.
The teams all did very well. The top two teams were actually missing people. The teams were well organized. The winning team made a creme brulee using blue cheese and rosemary. It felt kind of weird cleaning up as Rodnay and I trashed the plates.
Basic Baking Week 2, Day 4. Another Friday, another test and practical. For the bread station, we had to make knots, roll dinner rolls, and shape a baguette. The written test wasn't too bad; a lot of methods muffin#1, muffin#2 aka creaming, biscuit, high-ratio, warm foaming, and separation foaming. I stayed after class with Rodney to help Chef prep for the Titanium Pastry Chef competition tomorrow. The Chocolate-Sour Cherry Bread came out well except for the size of the loaf. I don't think I let it ferment enough yesterday. The bitter chunks of chocolate matched well with the tang of the sour cherries. These components were interspersed in a soft moist dark loaf. It doesn't have the texture of cake since it's made with bread flour, and the sourness of using a sourdough starter was not really present. I think I'll try again next week.
Basic Baking Week 2, Day 3. I came in a little early to try making Nancy Silverton's Chocolate-Sour Cherry Bread. The dough came out pretty good. Since it's a two-day bread, we'll see what happens tomorrow. JB and I made Ciabata. It uses a biga which is kind of like a starter. It's a two day process some we'll make rolls out of them tomorrow. It was Chinese day in the International kitchen. The kids made a good effort. The duck had good flavor.
Basic Baking Week 2, Day 2. In lecture, Chef demoed three types of meringues: French or Common, Swedish, and Italian. His attempt to make the Italian meringue was foiled by the slowness of boiling water. Chef used the Swedish meringue to make a mini Baked Alaska. We each got to make our own as well. It was fun using a blowtorch to brown the meringue, but Chef used Will's New Castle ice cream which didn't match well with the cake base and meringue. JB and I made Blue Cheese Buttermilk rolls and sourdough.
Basic Baking Week 2, Day 1. First day of bread making. My partner for this week is JB. Our first project was Focaccia. We added some sun dried tomatoes to the dough for flavor. We almost got to the French Bread, but we ran out of time. Bread station is a little different. Our reference point for the night is 530pm. That is when all doughs to be baked for that day is punched down and bench rested. Our group for the bread station is 8 people; so we all make doughs for about an hour and then let it ferment for about half an hour(exceptions are ciabatta and sourdough, those are fermented overnight in the walk-in). After the bench rest, we scale and divide the dough into production units and then we shape. Dinner rolls are either rounded or tied into knots. We use a dough cutter for these to cut a three pound piece of dough into 36 equal pieces. We made focaccia rolls by gently shaping into a ball and pressing down, brushing with olive oil and dusting with parmesan cheese. We also made sheet pans of focaccia. After we shape and placed the products on sheet pans we give in the the oven person to proof and bake. Everyday two people from the roll-in team are in charge of the ovens.
Today the International students served up German and English food. I'm not sure why the quality of this food is so poor. I guess I'll find out when I take the class.
The teams all did very well. The top two teams were actually missing people. The teams were well organized. The winning team made a creme brulee using blue cheese and rosemary. It felt kind of weird cleaning up as Rodnay and I trashed the plates.
Basic Baking Week 2, Day 4. Another Friday, another test and practical. For the bread station, we had to make knots, roll dinner rolls, and shape a baguette. The written test wasn't too bad; a lot of methods muffin#1, muffin#2 aka creaming, biscuit, high-ratio, warm foaming, and separation foaming. I stayed after class with Rodney to help Chef prep for the Titanium Pastry Chef competition tomorrow. The Chocolate-Sour Cherry Bread came out well except for the size of the loaf. I don't think I let it ferment enough yesterday. The bitter chunks of chocolate matched well with the tang of the sour cherries. These components were interspersed in a soft moist dark loaf. It doesn't have the texture of cake since it's made with bread flour, and the sourness of using a sourdough starter was not really present. I think I'll try again next week.
Basic Baking Week 2, Day 3. I came in a little early to try making Nancy Silverton's Chocolate-Sour Cherry Bread. The dough came out pretty good. Since it's a two-day bread, we'll see what happens tomorrow. JB and I made Ciabata. It uses a biga which is kind of like a starter. It's a two day process some we'll make rolls out of them tomorrow. It was Chinese day in the International kitchen. The kids made a good effort. The duck had good flavor.
Basic Baking Week 2, Day 2. In lecture, Chef demoed three types of meringues: French or Common, Swedish, and Italian. His attempt to make the Italian meringue was foiled by the slowness of boiling water. Chef used the Swedish meringue to make a mini Baked Alaska. We each got to make our own as well. It was fun using a blowtorch to brown the meringue, but Chef used Will's New Castle ice cream which didn't match well with the cake base and meringue. JB and I made Blue Cheese Buttermilk rolls and sourdough.
Basic Baking Week 2, Day 1. First day of bread making. My partner for this week is JB. Our first project was Focaccia. We added some sun dried tomatoes to the dough for flavor. We almost got to the French Bread, but we ran out of time. Bread station is a little different. Our reference point for the night is 530pm. That is when all doughs to be baked for that day is punched down and bench rested. Our group for the bread station is 8 people; so we all make doughs for about an hour and then let it ferment for about half an hour(exceptions are ciabatta and sourdough, those are fermented overnight in the walk-in). After the bench rest, we scale and divide the dough into production units and then we shape. Dinner rolls are either rounded or tied into knots. We use a dough cutter for these to cut a three pound piece of dough into 36 equal pieces. We made focaccia rolls by gently shaping into a ball and pressing down, brushing with olive oil and dusting with parmesan cheese. We also made sheet pans of focaccia. After we shape and placed the products on sheet pans we give in the the oven person to proof and bake. Everyday two people from the roll-in team are in charge of the ovens.
Today the International students served up German and English food. I'm not sure why the quality of this food is so poor. I guess I'll find out when I take the class.
Friday, January 17, 2003
Basic Baking Week 1, Day 4. We reviewed for tomorrow's test by playing a game. It was kind of like Family Feud in that we had two teams and people went head to head to answer one question. For production, Joe and I made chocolate Petit Four dough for the AM class, Creme Anglais, pate a choux - dough used for eclairs and pastries of that nature, and ice cream. We messed up our first Creme Anglais by overcooking the eggs. Our second batch came out great and served as the base for our ice cream. Joe flavored our Creme Anglais with lemon extract, so I came up with a lemon poppyseed ice cream with lemon curd swirl. It was fun squeezing in the lemon curd with a mixing bag as the lemon poppyseed ice cream was extruded from the ice cream machine to create the swirling effect. Needless to say that it was very lemony and sweet. Everyone who tried it really liked it, but I found it a bit too sweet for my taste. People might have been comparing it to Nelson's Guiness Ice Cream which had a creamy stout flavor. William made his ice cream with New Castle Nut Brown Ale and roasted macadamia nuts. JB came up with an orange Grand Marinier flavor, Deborah made a rasberry mint chocolate chip ice cream. We have some strong creavity flowing in this class.
The cuisine of the day was Italian. Much better than yesterday's stuff: osso buco, veal scallopini, chicken picata, bruschetta, polenta, mushroom rissoto, and some halibut. In our break trays, we served up some chocolate-white chocolate cookies, angel food cake, cornbread, biscuits, croissants, stuffed croissants, and muffins.
Basic Baking Week 1, Day 3. Joe and I made angel food cake, devil's food cake, and a Sachertorte. The Sachertorte is a proprietary dessert. I not exactly clear where the name comes from; a town or hotel in Germany, I think. We only made the cake portion which uses cocoa powder and almond flour. Traditionally it is then split in half, moistened with kirsch, spread with apricot jam, sandwiched back together, covered with ganache, and iced with Chocolate Glacage.
The International kids whipped up some Greek and Morrocan fare. People didn't think too highly of it, but I thought it was okay. There was hummus, tabouli, baba ganoush, veal, squid, and loads of other stuff that I ate but forget about.
Basic Baking Week 1, Day 2. First day of production. My partner for this class is Joe. We made pastry cream and spongebutter cake.
In lecture, we went over the twelve stages of breadmaking: mice en place and scaling, mixing, primary fermentation, punching, scaling and dividing, rounding, bench resting, shaping, proofing, baking, cooling, and storing.
We sent out our first break trays. We had biscuits, muffins, International served up Russian and Hungarian food. There was borscht, goulash, salmon in some pastry dough, breaded cauliflower, fried potato things, and some other stuff. Supposedly the class doesn't label their stuff because it's not like catering where the food is made for other students. Here, the class is "inviting" the other classes to eat their food. We could always just ask, but there are invisible social barriers between classes.
The cuisine of the day was Italian. Much better than yesterday's stuff: osso buco, veal scallopini, chicken picata, bruschetta, polenta, mushroom rissoto, and some halibut. In our break trays, we served up some chocolate-white chocolate cookies, angel food cake, cornbread, biscuits, croissants, stuffed croissants, and muffins.
Basic Baking Week 1, Day 3. Joe and I made angel food cake, devil's food cake, and a Sachertorte. The Sachertorte is a proprietary dessert. I not exactly clear where the name comes from; a town or hotel in Germany, I think. We only made the cake portion which uses cocoa powder and almond flour. Traditionally it is then split in half, moistened with kirsch, spread with apricot jam, sandwiched back together, covered with ganache, and iced with Chocolate Glacage.
The International kids whipped up some Greek and Morrocan fare. People didn't think too highly of it, but I thought it was okay. There was hummus, tabouli, baba ganoush, veal, squid, and loads of other stuff that I ate but forget about.
Basic Baking Week 1, Day 2. First day of production. My partner for this class is Joe. We made pastry cream and spongebutter cake.
In lecture, we went over the twelve stages of breadmaking: mice en place and scaling, mixing, primary fermentation, punching, scaling and dividing, rounding, bench resting, shaping, proofing, baking, cooling, and storing.
We sent out our first break trays. We had biscuits, muffins, International served up Russian and Hungarian food. There was borscht, goulash, salmon in some pastry dough, breaded cauliflower, fried potato things, and some other stuff. Supposedly the class doesn't label their stuff because it's not like catering where the food is made for other students. Here, the class is "inviting" the other classes to eat their food. We could always just ask, but there are invisible social barriers between classes.
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