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!