With Monday of last week being a holiday celebrating presidents who are dead and probably don't appreciate it anyway, we stayed very busy for the three class days we had left in the week trying to get through four days of lessons and recipes. Two of our six classmates were also absent for a day, so we were able to spend a little more individual time on full recipes, which was the silver lining to missing a few breaks. Idle hands being the Devil's workshop, busy is good. Up to a point. We also have a temporary addition to our class, Daisy. She is actually finished with the rest of the course, but missed two weeks of cold kitchen when she started, so she is just picking up these two weeks with us. Her knife is battered and scratched, so I guess we can look forward to some real work in the months to come.
There have been many discussions in and around class that focus on the cost - vs - benefit of going to culinary school in general and to this school in particular. These talks usually stem from the level of training we are receiving, and are often started with a simple statement like "Wow, today I made deviled eggs."
When part of your day involves learning to make things that most of us have made at home for years, like deviled eggs or a ham and cheese sandwich, it's easy to wonder what part of your fairly large tuition is being applied to that lesson. I think it's important to remember that this is a course of instruction, so lessons are geared to the lowest skill level in the class and then built upon in subsequent sessions. When we are stoked to get into more challenging work, it's tough to remember sometimes that we are less than 1/10th of the way into the course. And I suspect that when we are further along and working our butts off, we will think back fondly on the ham and cheese day. Methods will often be very different in the business of food as opposed to home meal preparation, and that fact can't be discounted. Quick, make me a deviled egg without using mayonnaise, vinegar, mustard, or paprika. I didn't think I could either, but I did. This is just one example of the difference between home cooking and working in the food service industry (hereafter referred to as "the industry").
We did some exercises with eggs; frying, boiling, and poaching. It was fun, with everyone trying to flip an over-easy egg with no implements (not that difficult, if you ask me) and limiting the loss of egg white when making a poached egg that is oval and pretty. By the way, I believe I was the only one that successfully flipped the egg. I'm just sayin. We then enjoyed our eggs with our scratch corned beef hash made with the leftover corned beef from our Reuben sandwich lesson and our German hot potato salad. Awesome eats.
I think most of you would be surprised at how much use is made out of leftovers in the industry. We'll come back to that another day.
Our week ended with the short-handed class making hamburgers. Sounds like a possible gripe about another simple-to-make food, right? Next time you make a burger, be sure to:
Grind your own burger (and measure the fat content to 10%)
Bake your own onion buns
Mix your own Mayonnaise, relish, and barbecue sauce
Weigh all your components to meet specific portion sizes
Do all this while interspersing lessons on use of the commercial mixer, chopper, and food processor.
I feel like we got in plenty of varied cooking instruction and technique, and so did the rest of the class. Ultimately, I'm happy with the fact that we are laying a very basic foundation for our future lessons. We have one week left of cold kitchen, then it's downstairs to the hot kitchen and the instruction of one Chef Klaus.
Things I learned this week:
No, you don't need mayo for deviled eggs
or vinegar
or mustard.
According to Chef Otto, eating celery root will give a man...shall we say...strength and longevity at night.
I'm getting much better with the knife.
Ants hate baking soda.
Later days!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Week one in the Garde Manger
Finishing out this first week in the cold kitchen ended up being busy, fun, and a little frustrating. Having mentioned the cut fingers of the first two days, I must have jinxed myself because I drew blood on Wednesday, slicing off a bit of my skin and nail while chopping garlic. On the bright side, I'm impressed with the sharpness of our Wustof knives, and their ability to hold an edge. Also on Wednesday we were annoyed by dozens of big black flies that somehow got into the building overnight. As some of you may know, I have considerable skill shooting flies with a large rubber band, so I offered my services to get rid of them but was told that that would be unsanitary. So instead, the building handman chased them around the classrooms and kitchens with a can of RAID, spraying willy-nilly. Much more sanitary, obviously.
The first job in the morning is to wipe down the counters/tables/surfaces to insure they are sanitary for the day's work. This is a quick and easy task, but twice this week we've had to put in extra effort to clean up chocolate drops left behind by the evening advanced baking class. Unacceptable. I'm leaving a note next week if it happens again and maybe hide some of their equipment if that doesn't work.
Our kitchen days have grown easier as we have gotten used to the routine. We arrive in the morning, wipe everything down, spend some time in the textbook, get our briefing from Chef Otto on what we are preparing that day, and go to work. Chef Otto is always in motion, checking each work station and telling us that we shouldn't trust the book recipes, that we should make adjustments by taste and do considerable estimating of ingredients. This makes total sense, but in the same breath he'll tell us that the tests will be based on the book recipes. We also have to utilize our production, which is a way of saying that we eat what we make. This week's sampling of food has been pretty good, with Chef Otto throwing in a few extras not on the daily menu to enhance our lunch and give us some extra practice (deep fryed mahi mahi to go with our tatar and remoulade sauces, Thai fish balls to eat with peanut sauce, and we made some focaccia bread that goes with everything). He also gave us an introduction to boning a chicken. This involves removing the bones, leaving all the meat and skin intact and will be one of our challenges when we move into the hot kitchen in a month or so. All in all, a pretty good week.
Things we did and did not do this week:
We DID put together/cook a fair number of recipe items, including mayo, vinaigrette, tartar sauce, remoulade, salad dressings, croutons, salads, and sandwiches.
We DID NOT lose any students.
We DID lose some blood, with the lion's share coming from my left index finger on Wednesday. Total for the week: 4 cuts, no burns.
We DID NOT have a second incident of leaking a quart of oil/vinegar from an improperly assembled food processor thanks to my keen observation and shouted warning.
We DID, or rather I did, have an unfortunate FIRST incident of the above mentioned leak.
Bonne President's Day, mes amis!
The first job in the morning is to wipe down the counters/tables/surfaces to insure they are sanitary for the day's work. This is a quick and easy task, but twice this week we've had to put in extra effort to clean up chocolate drops left behind by the evening advanced baking class. Unacceptable. I'm leaving a note next week if it happens again and maybe hide some of their equipment if that doesn't work.
Our kitchen days have grown easier as we have gotten used to the routine. We arrive in the morning, wipe everything down, spend some time in the textbook, get our briefing from Chef Otto on what we are preparing that day, and go to work. Chef Otto is always in motion, checking each work station and telling us that we shouldn't trust the book recipes, that we should make adjustments by taste and do considerable estimating of ingredients. This makes total sense, but in the same breath he'll tell us that the tests will be based on the book recipes. We also have to utilize our production, which is a way of saying that we eat what we make. This week's sampling of food has been pretty good, with Chef Otto throwing in a few extras not on the daily menu to enhance our lunch and give us some extra practice (deep fryed mahi mahi to go with our tatar and remoulade sauces, Thai fish balls to eat with peanut sauce, and we made some focaccia bread that goes with everything). He also gave us an introduction to boning a chicken. This involves removing the bones, leaving all the meat and skin intact and will be one of our challenges when we move into the hot kitchen in a month or so. All in all, a pretty good week.
Things we did and did not do this week:
We DID put together/cook a fair number of recipe items, including mayo, vinaigrette, tartar sauce, remoulade, salad dressings, croutons, salads, and sandwiches.
We DID NOT lose any students.
We DID lose some blood, with the lion's share coming from my left index finger on Wednesday. Total for the week: 4 cuts, no burns.
We DID NOT have a second incident of leaking a quart of oil/vinegar from an improperly assembled food processor thanks to my keen observation and shouted warning.
We DID, or rather I did, have an unfortunate FIRST incident of the above mentioned leak.
Bonne President's Day, mes amis!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Dressing...and Dressing
Well, last week's test went smoothly as everyone passed with high marks. Test-day afternoon found us being issued our uniforms and checking them out for fit, function, and coolness. Knife sets were also distributed so that we would have the opportunity to cut ourselves over the weekend. They are a nice 7-piece set with a fancy case that should be just the thing to cut, dice, slice, chop, julliene, and mince. Hopefully not fingers.
Today was day 1 in the kitchen and we were all very excited to get our hands busy and MAKE something. As the students arrived in the morning, there were comments all around about how the new outfits look and feel. It might be a silly notion, but it felt just like the first day of school after summer break when your parents took you to buy "school clothes" and you got to wear them for the first time. And we all looked GOOD.
Our fellow student that lost her father last week returned to class today in good spirits.and we are very happy to see her. She's a Personal Chef and a really nice person (and if today is any indication, Chef Otto will be using her as his assistant from time to time).
The first rotation through the kitchen is called Garde Manger, and is essentially the preparation of cold foods. Salads, sandwiches, pate', dressings, many of which are prepared hot and served cold, so we will be cooking occasionally over the next three weeks. Today we made our own mayonaise, the very first item of production for the class. Each student made about 2 quarts of mayo (and it was excellent), which we combined and will use as a base for other dressings this week and on the many sandwiches we will be making. We also did an hour of knife drill on carrots, potatoes, and cucumbers. Chef Otto donned his Mr. Miagi Dojo headband as a blindfold and gave us a demonstration of blindfolded slicing and dicing that was pretty impressive.
Two of my classmates cut themselves over the weekend trying out their new knives, and we had our first bloody finger in class on this, the very first day. I just hope when it's my turn to cut myself I can show the same restraint and just nick myself a little bit.
Things I learned today:
I have pretty stout forearms, but whipping up mayo turned them into rubber.
Chewing tarragon tastes like licorice...and your tongue gets numb.
No matter what you do, something will splatter on your brand new white apron.
There are 10,000 expensive kitchen utinsels in the world, but without a $.99 peeler the potatoes just sit there.
Jusqu'à la prochaine fois, mes amis.
Today was day 1 in the kitchen and we were all very excited to get our hands busy and MAKE something. As the students arrived in the morning, there were comments all around about how the new outfits look and feel. It might be a silly notion, but it felt just like the first day of school after summer break when your parents took you to buy "school clothes" and you got to wear them for the first time. And we all looked GOOD.
Our fellow student that lost her father last week returned to class today in good spirits.and we are very happy to see her. She's a Personal Chef and a really nice person (and if today is any indication, Chef Otto will be using her as his assistant from time to time).
The first rotation through the kitchen is called Garde Manger, and is essentially the preparation of cold foods. Salads, sandwiches, pate', dressings, many of which are prepared hot and served cold, so we will be cooking occasionally over the next three weeks. Today we made our own mayonaise, the very first item of production for the class. Each student made about 2 quarts of mayo (and it was excellent), which we combined and will use as a base for other dressings this week and on the many sandwiches we will be making. We also did an hour of knife drill on carrots, potatoes, and cucumbers. Chef Otto donned his Mr. Miagi Dojo headband as a blindfold and gave us a demonstration of blindfolded slicing and dicing that was pretty impressive.
Two of my classmates cut themselves over the weekend trying out their new knives, and we had our first bloody finger in class on this, the very first day. I just hope when it's my turn to cut myself I can show the same restraint and just nick myself a little bit.
Things I learned today:
I have pretty stout forearms, but whipping up mayo turned them into rubber.
Chewing tarragon tastes like licorice...and your tongue gets numb.
No matter what you do, something will splatter on your brand new white apron.
There are 10,000 expensive kitchen utinsels in the world, but without a $.99 peeler the potatoes just sit there.
Jusqu'à la prochaine fois, mes amis.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Tomorrow is TEST DAY!!
This is where the rubber meets the road.
The last three weeks of study culminate in tomorrow's test to see if we get to move on to the fun stuff in the kitchen. A lot of subjects and a wide range of information, but I feel pretty good about how it's sunk into my grey matter so I look forward to testing my knowledge. Some of my classmates aren't so optimistic, and are stressing more than I think is warranted. My thinking is that "cramming" for a test is counterproductive and just clogs your brain. Of course this is the attitude that left me at the tail end of my High School class, so let's hope that the many years of life experience and confidence-building successes have made me a better student.
Today I made a comment about how rude it was for our Korean student to text almost constantly during class and was told that she has a portable translation gizmo and it helps her understand the harder words. I guess that makes me the insensitive, judgemental jackass. Not the first time, unfortunately.
Not even the first time this week. I need to be a nicer person.
The upper class treated us to a plate of one of their projects, a poached Ahi steak over baby greens and mango/pineapple salsa that was delicious. So was the light cheesecake with berry drizzle that followed.
The guys in that class are all very cool and supportive of us, which has been helpful the last couple weeks.
Today they had a girl from the class ahead of theirs that came back to go through the remainder of her course with them after missing several weeks for family issues. Good to know that there is some flexibility in case of problems.
Assuming we pass our test, we are scheduled to finally be issued our chef's whites and knife set tomorrow, so I'm guessing we will see some band-aids on fingers come Monday morning, along with us in our spiffy new duds. It seems that putting on the white shirt and hat is the most anticipated event of the year, so I will try to get some sort of picture up next week.
I sniff plants on my breaks. Chef Otto has some very nice rosemary bushes growing around the building, as well as grape vines and papaya. I find it soothing to pick a little rosemary that I savor while I'm getting fresh air during my break. This week we've also watched several videos, and while I appreciate the good information (they were excellent), it seems to me that showing bootlegged VHS tapes from other cooking schools is bad form. Call me picky.
Things I learned this week:
I guess we'll find out on the test tomorrow. Souhaitez moi bonne chance, mes amis
The last three weeks of study culminate in tomorrow's test to see if we get to move on to the fun stuff in the kitchen. A lot of subjects and a wide range of information, but I feel pretty good about how it's sunk into my grey matter so I look forward to testing my knowledge. Some of my classmates aren't so optimistic, and are stressing more than I think is warranted. My thinking is that "cramming" for a test is counterproductive and just clogs your brain. Of course this is the attitude that left me at the tail end of my High School class, so let's hope that the many years of life experience and confidence-building successes have made me a better student.
Today I made a comment about how rude it was for our Korean student to text almost constantly during class and was told that she has a portable translation gizmo and it helps her understand the harder words. I guess that makes me the insensitive, judgemental jackass. Not the first time, unfortunately.
Not even the first time this week. I need to be a nicer person.
The upper class treated us to a plate of one of their projects, a poached Ahi steak over baby greens and mango/pineapple salsa that was delicious. So was the light cheesecake with berry drizzle that followed.
The guys in that class are all very cool and supportive of us, which has been helpful the last couple weeks.
Today they had a girl from the class ahead of theirs that came back to go through the remainder of her course with them after missing several weeks for family issues. Good to know that there is some flexibility in case of problems.
Assuming we pass our test, we are scheduled to finally be issued our chef's whites and knife set tomorrow, so I'm guessing we will see some band-aids on fingers come Monday morning, along with us in our spiffy new duds. It seems that putting on the white shirt and hat is the most anticipated event of the year, so I will try to get some sort of picture up next week.
I sniff plants on my breaks. Chef Otto has some very nice rosemary bushes growing around the building, as well as grape vines and papaya. I find it soothing to pick a little rosemary that I savor while I'm getting fresh air during my break. This week we've also watched several videos, and while I appreciate the good information (they were excellent), it seems to me that showing bootlegged VHS tapes from other cooking schools is bad form. Call me picky.
Things I learned this week:
I guess we'll find out on the test tomorrow. Souhaitez moi bonne chance, mes amis
Thursday, February 3, 2011
And then there were five...
Week two of class found us facing a lot of information and losing four of our students. It is not unsusual to lose close to half the class, but as our adminstrator said, it shouldn't happen in the first two weeks. To be fair, most of the drops were prompted by understandable circumstances. Conflict with work took one, while conflict with rehab took another. We hope to get back a very nice woman (and professional chef) whose father unfortunately passed away this week. These are good reasons for dropping, but I have to wonder if the woman that dropped from the course because of something Chef Otto said wasn't being a bit thin-skinned. In a discussion about the food of various nations, he merely said that if he went to England he would only eat at McDonald's, since that was as good as the food gets there. Well, she's British, is apparently in denial, and left the class the next day...God save the Queen (but don't save the Queen any of those nasty fish and chips).
So for the time being it's down to five and we've decided to look on the bright side and be thankful for the extra instructional time with the chefs. Can't say if we will be that positive when it's time to clean up the kitchen every day.
SO MUCH INFORMATION! Not overwhelming, but with subjects ranging from kitchen equipment to herbs and spices and seemingly everything in between, I can see why the more advanced class is very happy to be in the kitchen rather than the classroom. One more week and a test that I'm told only three students in the last class passed and we'll be in the kitchen for the first round, called Garde Manger. And guess what? Chef Otto is our instructor! I like Chef Otto, even though he "blah, blah, blah"s more than anyone I've ever seen. It's his version of Seinfeld's "yadda, yadda". An example would be "At the end of your shift, you pack up your knives, blah blah blah...and go home" We kept track this week, and Tuesday was the top "blah" day, with 21. All blahs aside, he gave us some killer creme de menthe chiffon today as a treat.
Next week we will each select a cheese and offer a report on how it is made, it's qualities, uses, blah blah blah and give a report on Wednesday while we each sample the cheeses and maybe even some wine that Chef Otto has recommended. Sounds like a good day so I need to bone up on Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch and decide on a cheese to report...I doubt Venezuelan Beaver Cheese will be accepted, so I welcome recommendations from anyone.
Things I learned this week
The class ahead of ours have been all male from the start, and are terribly jealous of my being the only man left in my class. It's the cross I have to bear.
Chef Otto's worst cut came from the knife of a Viet Cong soldier during one of his three years of duty in Vietnam. He is now married to a Vietnamese woman, sees her twice a year, and is opening cooking schools in Vietnam and Thailand. I told you I liked this guy.
I don't take notes well.
I was the only one that knew what a "church key" was.
I store all my oils wrong...you probably do, too.
If you are English and someone says your food sucks, just agree. The world already knows.
A virus on my computer meant a trip to the geek squad, so I had limited access this week. I'll try to keep it interesting and informative, thanks for checking in. Bangers and mash all around!
So for the time being it's down to five and we've decided to look on the bright side and be thankful for the extra instructional time with the chefs. Can't say if we will be that positive when it's time to clean up the kitchen every day.
SO MUCH INFORMATION! Not overwhelming, but with subjects ranging from kitchen equipment to herbs and spices and seemingly everything in between, I can see why the more advanced class is very happy to be in the kitchen rather than the classroom. One more week and a test that I'm told only three students in the last class passed and we'll be in the kitchen for the first round, called Garde Manger. And guess what? Chef Otto is our instructor! I like Chef Otto, even though he "blah, blah, blah"s more than anyone I've ever seen. It's his version of Seinfeld's "yadda, yadda". An example would be "At the end of your shift, you pack up your knives, blah blah blah...and go home" We kept track this week, and Tuesday was the top "blah" day, with 21. All blahs aside, he gave us some killer creme de menthe chiffon today as a treat.
Next week we will each select a cheese and offer a report on how it is made, it's qualities, uses, blah blah blah and give a report on Wednesday while we each sample the cheeses and maybe even some wine that Chef Otto has recommended. Sounds like a good day so I need to bone up on Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch and decide on a cheese to report...I doubt Venezuelan Beaver Cheese will be accepted, so I welcome recommendations from anyone.
Things I learned this week
The class ahead of ours have been all male from the start, and are terribly jealous of my being the only man left in my class. It's the cross I have to bear.
Chef Otto's worst cut came from the knife of a Viet Cong soldier during one of his three years of duty in Vietnam. He is now married to a Vietnamese woman, sees her twice a year, and is opening cooking schools in Vietnam and Thailand. I told you I liked this guy.
I don't take notes well.
I was the only one that knew what a "church key" was.
I store all my oils wrong...you probably do, too.
If you are English and someone says your food sucks, just agree. The world already knows.
A virus on my computer meant a trip to the geek squad, so I had limited access this week. I'll try to keep it interesting and informative, thanks for checking in. Bangers and mash all around!
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