First things first. Chef's name is Sigfried, and his handle in the kitchen is "Sigi", not "Ziggy". Not that it matters much, but as he was introducing himself it occurred to me that I should make that correction here on the blog. Bright-eyed and efficient, he is certainly not a cartoon character, although he could be.
I have to say that either the advanced students were exaggerating Chef Sigi's stern nature or we happened to catch him on a good first week here in Hot Kitchen II. He has been cheerful and pleasant, offering plenty of help while allowing us to get into our production recipes with a little independence. If there is a downside to Chef Sigi's instruction it would be his fairly thick German accent that makes our class time and recipe explanations something of an adventure in translation. As a result of students having trouble following his instruction, he has developed a series of post-statement affirmatives to insure that his meaning is understood. For example:
"Den vee vill hremove zee shicken from zee pan, Right? Right? Ja? Right? Ja? No? Ja?" etc...
We learned quickly that this is his way of not only allowing time for questions, but also time for him to mentally form his next statement so no response is really needed from us and we have forgone the standard reply of "Yes Chef!" to every Right and Ja. It has, however, become a running gag to occasionally start a reply chain that goes something like:
Chef - "Den vee vill hremove zee shicken from zee pan, Right?
One student - "yes chef"
Chef - "Right?"
All students - "YES CHEF"
Chef - "Ja?"
All loudly - "YES CHEF!!!"
The first couple of times he looked at us quizzically, now it makes him chuckle.
In addition to our end-of-phase test, Hot Kitchen II will also include a practical exercise that will see us devise our own menu, order ingredients, cook and present entirely on our own. We have this week to decide on a three-course menu with appetizer, main course (with veg and starch), and dessert that is beautifully presented, delicious, and prepared in a timely manner. It shouldn't be too tough as long as we keep it simple and avoid over-reaching. In giving us our instructions, Chef Sigi ran down a list of items that we cannot order: lobster, caviar, filet mignon, scallops, basically anything that is expensive. I've narrowed my list down to grilled cheese and nachos. We'll see what the class thinks of that.
Language and accents can be pretty amusing. Arriving one morning, Chef Sigi said to Enju, who is Korean, "Guten Morgan". Still working with English as her second language (I may never get over her confusion with what a shit pan/sheet pan is for), the German form of Good Morning had to be explained, as well as Jawohl(yes sir), which Chef uses a lot. Having been set straight, she now dutifully uses jawohl and Guten Morgan daily. This week was also Enju's Birthday and we had a little Birthday cake for dessert Tuesday and a fun get-together on Friday night at a local karaoke bar where they sang a bit and a good time was had by all. I've mentioned before and it bears repeating that having smart classmates that I like has been a big help in this course.
I've been a little slow to work on my cooking at home, but have decided that I need to start doing more practicing, so Wendy can look forward to getting more of my creative work and a little less chicken and pizza over the next few months. My Easter turkey and yeast rolls went over pretty well, and we enjoyed my toned-down version of rattatouille last week. Suggestions for recipes are always welcome.
Things we did or didn't do this week:
We DID make a recipe out of a magazine that Chef Sigi wanted to try out. It was terrific.
We DID NOT know that working on the Grande Buffet in March would help our grade, but my Garde Manger score was bumped a bit, which was a nice surprise.
We DID realize that Chef Sigi lacks only a small mustache under his nose and black hair to look an awful lot like an infamous leader in recent German history.
We DID NOT have to mop the floor even once, as the night class was tasked to do it. HAHA!
Enju DID try a hundred times to get me to sing Hotel California with her husband at the karaoke bar.
I DID NOT.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Rolling in dough
Well, it's the Easter weekend and we have just finished up with our first trip through the Bake Shop with Chef Chad. From our humble buttermilk biscuits in week one to the full loaves of wheat and white in week two to the labor-intensive rolling and folding of this week's puff pastry and danish, it has been an interesting and tasty three weeks. Chef Chad is a terrific baker, and he really loves to impart his knowledge to his students, though I will admit he wore me out on occasion with his almost obsessive cleaning and routines, but in the end it's part of what will make us better at our kitchen duties and that's what counts most. He works harder and stays at it longer than anyone, and then has an evening class of advanced students to do it all again every day. Chef Chad just keeps going and going like the Energizer Bunny covered in flour.
Not much to report in the way of drama in the classroom. I did miss my first minute (actually most of a day) of class time since the course began to attend a Family Day at Wendy's work site and I'm glad I did, it was VERY cool. I also missed a question on a test because I forgot about the one thing that dough does...rise. Once I got over that (which took about 5 days), things went very smoothly for everyone. One fellow student who shall as usual remain nameless (hope you're feeling better, S.) picked up a bacterial infection swimming in a local stream, some form of what we in Alaska call "Beaver Fever" and was terribly sick. Forced to miss a week of class, she managed to come back strong this week as my table partner and we managed to roll the hell out of our puff pastry. I'm thankful she was there in our hour of knead.
A sizable portion of our grade in the Bake Shop comes from building and maintaining a notebook of our formulas, notes, guidance sheets and references. Anyone that has had the misfortune to see my horrible handwriting knows that I would never be able to get a good grade if my formulas looked like they did when I wrote them down in class. So with the help of my resident technical advisor Wendy (who showed the patience of Job while I muddled through the lines and columns of Excel) I managed to make a few formula templates and get my notes and formulas not only neat and orderly, but accompanied by pictures of our finished products. You know I never brag, but the grade I got was A PLUSh one to say the least.
I'll be contributing to Sunday's big Easter Dinner at our good friends' home tomorrow by attempting some crusted rolls, baguettes, and a turkey, so I hope some of the book-learnin' has stuck with me. From here we move next week into the Hot Kitchen II, where we are finally going to be face to face with Chef Ziggy. We have heard from many of the other students that this is a make-or-break three weeks, as Chef Ziggy is infamous for his short temper and high expectations for his students. Bring it on.
Things we ate in class this week:
Of course, all the items we produced - Cheese, Almond, and Apple Danish, Apple- and Hazelnut-filled puff pastry, and big, crusty baguettes.
Lots of raisins and craisins.
Classmate Enju brought in Korean seaweed and rice soup for the class which I passed on, having just finished some craisins.
Some nice little shortbread cookies that Sandy provided.
Chef Klaus delivered some very sweet lemon chiffon one afternoon. I venture a guess that you will not see the words Chef Klaus and very sweet together in a sentence again anytime soon.
Coffee...LOTS of coffee.
Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero! - Horace
Not much to report in the way of drama in the classroom. I did miss my first minute (actually most of a day) of class time since the course began to attend a Family Day at Wendy's work site and I'm glad I did, it was VERY cool. I also missed a question on a test because I forgot about the one thing that dough does...rise. Once I got over that (which took about 5 days), things went very smoothly for everyone. One fellow student who shall as usual remain nameless (hope you're feeling better, S.) picked up a bacterial infection swimming in a local stream, some form of what we in Alaska call "Beaver Fever" and was terribly sick. Forced to miss a week of class, she managed to come back strong this week as my table partner and we managed to roll the hell out of our puff pastry. I'm thankful she was there in our hour of knead.
A sizable portion of our grade in the Bake Shop comes from building and maintaining a notebook of our formulas, notes, guidance sheets and references. Anyone that has had the misfortune to see my horrible handwriting knows that I would never be able to get a good grade if my formulas looked like they did when I wrote them down in class. So with the help of my resident technical advisor Wendy (who showed the patience of Job while I muddled through the lines and columns of Excel) I managed to make a few formula templates and get my notes and formulas not only neat and orderly, but accompanied by pictures of our finished products. You know I never brag, but the grade I got was A PLUSh one to say the least.
I'll be contributing to Sunday's big Easter Dinner at our good friends' home tomorrow by attempting some crusted rolls, baguettes, and a turkey, so I hope some of the book-learnin' has stuck with me. From here we move next week into the Hot Kitchen II, where we are finally going to be face to face with Chef Ziggy. We have heard from many of the other students that this is a make-or-break three weeks, as Chef Ziggy is infamous for his short temper and high expectations for his students. Bring it on.
Things we ate in class this week:
Of course, all the items we produced - Cheese, Almond, and Apple Danish, Apple- and Hazelnut-filled puff pastry, and big, crusty baguettes.
Lots of raisins and craisins.
Classmate Enju brought in Korean seaweed and rice soup for the class which I passed on, having just finished some craisins.
Some nice little shortbread cookies that Sandy provided.
Chef Klaus delivered some very sweet lemon chiffon one afternoon. I venture a guess that you will not see the words Chef Klaus and very sweet together in a sentence again anytime soon.
Coffee...LOTS of coffee.
Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero! - Horace
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Then Things Got Twisted...
Shifting gears this week we went from pouring the batter and soft dough of muffins, quick breads, and biscuits to punching, shaping, and forming the yeast doughs for breads. The opportunity to take out our frustrations by wailing on a mound of risen dough never happened, though, as Chef Chad informed us from the outset that you have to be gentler with the dough than most home bakers usually are. We "Fold-over" rather than "Punch Down" after the first fermentation (what you folks at home call "rise"). The science and mechanics of this kinder, gentler method was explained thoroughly and our excellent resultant products proved it all to be true. That didn't stop me from throwing a gut-punch into a mound of unsuspecting dough when chef wasn't looking as a tip of the hat to all the moms and grandmas out there slugging it out all these years.
We use some big equipment in making commercial-sized quantities of baked goods. If you take your home KitchenAid and put it on steroids, you get our mid-size mixer, good for around 15 pounds of dough. Then expose that mixer to radiation and you have the Big Boy, capable of dealing with 40 pounds of dough and destroying Tokyo. (This is a Godzilla reference, so quit shaking your head and thinking "oh my, how insensitive!") There are ridiculously larger machines in most commercial bakery operations, but all operate on the exact same principles. The formulas used in baking had my math-challenged brain swirling just a bit during our first week here, but really it's pretty simple: Multiply if you need more, divide if you need less.
Easy. No worries. But the dough and the machine are only there to prepare you for the part of the job that takes real knowledge and experience: Baking.
To most of the world, you throw the bread into a hot oven and wait a while. For the slightly more affluent (or lazy) you put the ingredients into a bread machine and touch a button. Chef Chad has taught us that you have to take into account gluten content and construction, temperature of the dough, direction of heat, moisture content, desired color and crusting, and of course, humidity. Yes, apparently bread baking in the warm, humid air of the deep south and here in Hawaii will come out different than bread baked in the dry air of say, Las Vegas. For that reason, you need to use what is called the Baker's Percentage to match your dough composition with where you are making it. Let's take a look:
The amount of flour in your dough always rates 100 %. All other ingredients will relate to the flour by a proportionate percentage based upon it's weight compared to the flour, and these percentages will be added together to total your baker's percentage, say 155%. To do this, you must convert the ounces of each ingredient to a decimal equivelent and divide these amounts by the flour ounce amount to get the percentage. The flour is 100%, water 30% (30% of the flour's weight), sugar 20%, etc...Now take your percentage and adjust moisture allowing for humidity and establish a NEW baker's percentage. Got that? Yeah, I didn't either for a few days. We'll save the Total Temperature Factor formula for next rotation.
This week we made White and Honey Wheat Split-Top Bread in larger amounts (for the bake sale, of course). Our lone failed project was Brownies. A classmate who shall remain nameless mis-measured the bitter cocoa powder and ruined the first batch so we had to do it again. Chef Chad measured out the ingredients for us on the new batch, which seemed to defeat the purpose of doing it again, since the issue was with the measuring and it would have made more sense to have the student do the measuring again under observation to possibly identify the problem and make corrections. Oh well. The second batch came out great and we move on. We then got into firmer doughs and manipulation of dough into specific shapes.
Bagels were pretty easy, just roll them out and connect the ends to form a circle. Single-Knot Yeast Rolls were just that, a rolled dough tied into a knot. The Brioche dough became a miniature bowling pin shape with a hole punched in the big end and the little end poked through. I'd never eaten brioche before, and it was hands-down the best roll I've ever had. We even did a little braiding with our Challa Bread, roll it out long, criscross, left over right, right over left...you women (and poofy long-haired men) know what I'm talking about. Lastly, we snapped a knot in our Bavarian Pretzel.
Thing That Made Me Think "Who Knew?"
All true bagels are boiled first.
In a week where I ate biscuits, brownies, bread, and pretzels, I managed to lose a couple pounds.
Proceeds from the bake sale are managed by Chef Chad and put right back into the budget for Bake Shop.
(I withdraw my previous insinuations)
There is a gadget that looks like 5 rolling pizza cutters welded together that's used for marking portions of cakes and pan-baked goods.
Pretzels are dipped in "Caustic Solution" before baking...perfectly safe, but I think they should change the name.
"It makes them moist!" - Billy Crystal as Buddy Young, Jr. Mr. Saturday Night
We use some big equipment in making commercial-sized quantities of baked goods. If you take your home KitchenAid and put it on steroids, you get our mid-size mixer, good for around 15 pounds of dough. Then expose that mixer to radiation and you have the Big Boy, capable of dealing with 40 pounds of dough and destroying Tokyo. (This is a Godzilla reference, so quit shaking your head and thinking "oh my, how insensitive!") There are ridiculously larger machines in most commercial bakery operations, but all operate on the exact same principles. The formulas used in baking had my math-challenged brain swirling just a bit during our first week here, but really it's pretty simple: Multiply if you need more, divide if you need less.
Easy. No worries. But the dough and the machine are only there to prepare you for the part of the job that takes real knowledge and experience: Baking.
To most of the world, you throw the bread into a hot oven and wait a while. For the slightly more affluent (or lazy) you put the ingredients into a bread machine and touch a button. Chef Chad has taught us that you have to take into account gluten content and construction, temperature of the dough, direction of heat, moisture content, desired color and crusting, and of course, humidity. Yes, apparently bread baking in the warm, humid air of the deep south and here in Hawaii will come out different than bread baked in the dry air of say, Las Vegas. For that reason, you need to use what is called the Baker's Percentage to match your dough composition with where you are making it. Let's take a look:
The amount of flour in your dough always rates 100 %. All other ingredients will relate to the flour by a proportionate percentage based upon it's weight compared to the flour, and these percentages will be added together to total your baker's percentage, say 155%. To do this, you must convert the ounces of each ingredient to a decimal equivelent and divide these amounts by the flour ounce amount to get the percentage. The flour is 100%, water 30% (30% of the flour's weight), sugar 20%, etc...Now take your percentage and adjust moisture allowing for humidity and establish a NEW baker's percentage. Got that? Yeah, I didn't either for a few days. We'll save the Total Temperature Factor formula for next rotation.
This week we made White and Honey Wheat Split-Top Bread in larger amounts (for the bake sale, of course). Our lone failed project was Brownies. A classmate who shall remain nameless mis-measured the bitter cocoa powder and ruined the first batch so we had to do it again. Chef Chad measured out the ingredients for us on the new batch, which seemed to defeat the purpose of doing it again, since the issue was with the measuring and it would have made more sense to have the student do the measuring again under observation to possibly identify the problem and make corrections. Oh well. The second batch came out great and we move on. We then got into firmer doughs and manipulation of dough into specific shapes.
Bagels were pretty easy, just roll them out and connect the ends to form a circle. Single-Knot Yeast Rolls were just that, a rolled dough tied into a knot. The Brioche dough became a miniature bowling pin shape with a hole punched in the big end and the little end poked through. I'd never eaten brioche before, and it was hands-down the best roll I've ever had. We even did a little braiding with our Challa Bread, roll it out long, criscross, left over right, right over left...you women (and poofy long-haired men) know what I'm talking about. Lastly, we snapped a knot in our Bavarian Pretzel.
Thing That Made Me Think "Who Knew?"
All true bagels are boiled first.
In a week where I ate biscuits, brownies, bread, and pretzels, I managed to lose a couple pounds.
Proceeds from the bake sale are managed by Chef Chad and put right back into the budget for Bake Shop.
(I withdraw my previous insinuations)
There is a gadget that looks like 5 rolling pizza cutters welded together that's used for marking portions of cakes and pan-baked goods.
Pretzels are dipped in "Caustic Solution" before baking...perfectly safe, but I think they should change the name.
"It makes them moist!" - Billy Crystal as Buddy Young, Jr. Mr. Saturday Night
Friday, April 8, 2011
Levity and Leavening
This week saw our class advance from the Hot Kitchen to the Bake Shop...a move of around 20 feet in distance and a thousand miles in kitchen personality. We are now under the tutelage of Chef Chad, a Master Baker who originally trained at the prestigious C.I.A. (Culinary Institute of America) in New York and has worked and studied with some of the great patisserie chefs of Germany, Italy, and Vienna. An artist as well as a baker, we've seen many photos of his ice sculpture, intricate wedding cakes, and ridiculously detailed pastries, some of which I will try to post next week. Chef Chad has a fast wit, ready laugh, and seems to be genuinely good-natured. He has a mind that grasps measures, ratios, and numbers, making him the ideal man to practice the precision required in properly done baking formulas (don't call them recipes). He jokes around a lot before and between work, but while we are busy at the task he's all business.
Our first couple days in the Bake Shop were centered around measuring and scaling ingredients, being introduced to unfamiliar equipment (and RE-introduced to already familiar equipment), cleanliness, and learning our responsibilities as regards cleanup. Class leadership has come into play for the first time, as each of us will serve as Class Leader on a rotating basis. My day in the leadership saddle came on Thursday, and I will say that I think I did a pretty decent job turning on the oven, keeping an eye on the baking items, releasing the class for mid-day break, and verbally recapping our days activities including the formulas, procedures, and methods used to produce some pretty respectable blueberry, corn, and bran muffins as well as tasty banana and carrot breads. Almost everyone got 100% on the weekly quiz, so I will take credit for being the leader during that success. Hail to the Chief.
We have a new temporary student, Ashley, who will be going into the Advanced Patisserie course in 9 weeks, but has to complete the entire beginning course with Chef Chad in that time. She seems nice and I hope she does well in that very challenging course. Her graduation is scheduled to coincide with ours in December.
Muffins, scones, biscuits, and quick breads were a good and varied start to our baking adventure. The first week went by quickly, even though we've been staying in class longer than in the other phases because it's a more time-consuming form of cooking and frankly the cleanup is extensive (flour can get everywhere). Chef Chad is just a little bit obsessive about being clean and orderly, to the point of assigning specific clipboards to the students and doing spoon and fork inventory at the end of the day. I have no problem with this, as his kitchen is BY FAR the cleanest and best-supplied that we've seen thus far.
I feel as though I haven't griped about anything for a while, so I'll mention here the weekly bake sale held on Friday mornings in the main school building. While Chef Chad is kind enough to allow us to take samples of our baked goods home with us, there are always a dozen or so items that are packaged and set aside for Friday morning where they are sold at a bake sale. I don't know where the proceeds from this sale go, probably into the same anonymous pocket that the Grande Buffet money went, but I can't say that I disapprove of at least getting the items out to people that will keep it from going to waste so for the time being I'll withhold judgement and maybe check it out on a Friday morning if we make something that I think is particularly good. The students have the opportunity to come in and work at the bake sale for internship credit and I'll likely be doing that a few times in the next ten months.
Classmate of the week is Chauntel. Chauntel is a Personal Chef by trade and I'm told by another student that she is a very talented karaoke singer as well. She is very comfortable in the kitchen and a good source of information if the chef isn't readily available. Her business, DeuceFuzion is a successful personal chef and small-scale catering operation that she hopes to expand and bolster with the knowledge and skills she is honing in our course. Those readers that are here on Oahu should check out: http://www.deucefuzion.com/
Things we do or don't have:
We DO have a mid-day lunch break, which is a big change from our previous classes where we worked through to produce the dishes and then took the time to eat them. As Chef Chad noted, even really good rolls and biscuits don't make a balanced meal.
We DO NOT have the relaxed morning arrival that we are accustomed to. We sit and work begins promptly at 0900.
We DO share our facility with the Hot Kitchen class ahead of us. So we get to hear a little Chef Klaus throughout the day whether we want to or not.
We DO NOT have to decide who does what - Chef Chad assigns everything from where we sit to what we do for cleanup. He's a very in-control guy.
We DO have two weeks remaining in this bake shop session to gain an understanding of the math for the baking formulas...
Which we DO NOT get as yet.
"Eat one of these biscuits, boy. I make damn fine biscuits" - Robert Redford as Jeremiah Johnson
Our first couple days in the Bake Shop were centered around measuring and scaling ingredients, being introduced to unfamiliar equipment (and RE-introduced to already familiar equipment), cleanliness, and learning our responsibilities as regards cleanup. Class leadership has come into play for the first time, as each of us will serve as Class Leader on a rotating basis. My day in the leadership saddle came on Thursday, and I will say that I think I did a pretty decent job turning on the oven, keeping an eye on the baking items, releasing the class for mid-day break, and verbally recapping our days activities including the formulas, procedures, and methods used to produce some pretty respectable blueberry, corn, and bran muffins as well as tasty banana and carrot breads. Almost everyone got 100% on the weekly quiz, so I will take credit for being the leader during that success. Hail to the Chief.
We have a new temporary student, Ashley, who will be going into the Advanced Patisserie course in 9 weeks, but has to complete the entire beginning course with Chef Chad in that time. She seems nice and I hope she does well in that very challenging course. Her graduation is scheduled to coincide with ours in December.
Muffins, scones, biscuits, and quick breads were a good and varied start to our baking adventure. The first week went by quickly, even though we've been staying in class longer than in the other phases because it's a more time-consuming form of cooking and frankly the cleanup is extensive (flour can get everywhere). Chef Chad is just a little bit obsessive about being clean and orderly, to the point of assigning specific clipboards to the students and doing spoon and fork inventory at the end of the day. I have no problem with this, as his kitchen is BY FAR the cleanest and best-supplied that we've seen thus far.
I feel as though I haven't griped about anything for a while, so I'll mention here the weekly bake sale held on Friday mornings in the main school building. While Chef Chad is kind enough to allow us to take samples of our baked goods home with us, there are always a dozen or so items that are packaged and set aside for Friday morning where they are sold at a bake sale. I don't know where the proceeds from this sale go, probably into the same anonymous pocket that the Grande Buffet money went, but I can't say that I disapprove of at least getting the items out to people that will keep it from going to waste so for the time being I'll withhold judgement and maybe check it out on a Friday morning if we make something that I think is particularly good. The students have the opportunity to come in and work at the bake sale for internship credit and I'll likely be doing that a few times in the next ten months.
Classmate of the week is Chauntel. Chauntel is a Personal Chef by trade and I'm told by another student that she is a very talented karaoke singer as well. She is very comfortable in the kitchen and a good source of information if the chef isn't readily available. Her business, DeuceFuzion is a successful personal chef and small-scale catering operation that she hopes to expand and bolster with the knowledge and skills she is honing in our course. Those readers that are here on Oahu should check out: http://www.deucefuzion.com/
Things we do or don't have:
We DO have a mid-day lunch break, which is a big change from our previous classes where we worked through to produce the dishes and then took the time to eat them. As Chef Chad noted, even really good rolls and biscuits don't make a balanced meal.
We DO NOT have the relaxed morning arrival that we are accustomed to. We sit and work begins promptly at 0900.
We DO share our facility with the Hot Kitchen class ahead of us. So we get to hear a little Chef Klaus throughout the day whether we want to or not.
We DO NOT have to decide who does what - Chef Chad assigns everything from where we sit to what we do for cleanup. He's a very in-control guy.
We DO have two weeks remaining in this bake shop session to gain an understanding of the math for the baking formulas...
Which we DO NOT get as yet.
"Eat one of these biscuits, boy. I make damn fine biscuits" - Robert Redford as Jeremiah Johnson
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Veeeerrrrry Interesting...
Despite a number of missed days due to sickness and doctors appointments, the whole class was on hand for our end-of-phase test for Hot Kitchen I on Thursday, and all passed with flying colors. Also a little verbal color, mostly blue, as a result of some disagreement as to how closely the definitions given in class matched up with the correct answers on the test. One question in particular that was answered incorrectly by the majority of the class seemed to stray from the quite specific instruction, and was called out by the students as being wrong, but we ran into the First Rule of Chef Klaus' Kitchen:
Chef is NEVER wrong. He isn't always right, but he's never wrong.
And he can apparently be pretty sneaky, too. In the words of the inimitable Richard Hatch:
"I WAS BAMBOOZLED!"
Here we go. I feel my face getting red just thinking about it. Repeatedly over these three weeks we have discussed roux as a means of thickening sauces and soups, with gumbo given as an example of when to use dark roux. Chef Klaus is a fan of Cajun cuisine, as am I, so it was easy to remember: dark roux, gumbo. Gumbo, dark roux. Roux, roux, dark, dark, gumbo, gumbo, I got it. No problem.
On the day of the test Chef tells us that he is going to prepare one of his favorites for us while we are taking our test, New Orleans style Jambalaya. I love Cajun. MMMMM...MMM!!! The great smells of anduille sausage, onion, Cayenne, and garlic waft through the kitchen. My tummy is smiling 'cause I'm almost done with the test, we'll make some French onion soup, and it'll be time to eat. I get to the question about dark roux that we've repeated for weeks, and I know the answer is gumbo, so I write:
Jambalaya.
Yes, Mom, I'm that gullible and/or dumb. Now I may be off in my read of Chef Klaus' expression when I brought my dumbass-ness up at the end of the day, but I swear he had an "I got another one" glint in his eye. I wonder just how long he has been offering up jambalaya on test day.
One of the most common expressions that we hear from Chef Klaus is an Arte Johnson/Laugh-In style "Verrry interesting". Last week he used this phrase to point out a potential problem that eventually became an actual cooking mistake and let us know that when we hear "Verrrry interesting", we should find out what might be the problem. This week he uttered those cautionary words as he looked over my shoulder at what I was cutting. I froze in mid-slice and asked what was wrong. He said "Nothing, sometimes it's just fun to say that and see what happens." Har, har, very funny...it is to laugh.
Classmate of the Week is Enju.
From Korea and an Air Force wife, Enju is a fun and enthusiastic student and seemingly an eating machine. She is always asking the instructors for the chance to handle new equipment and perform routine tasks for practice. Her command of English is pretty good, with only the occasional correction or explanation for unfamiliar words and phrases. She seems to always be eating something, to the extent of sneaking cuts, bites, and even the peels of the items we are preparing. She is great about sharing, especially the tasty Korean pears that she brings to class. She cemented a place on my good side with her first words to Chef Klaus - "Do you have a Korean girlfriend?" Her husband seems a nice guy and her dog, a big malamute, is beautiful and got to eat the bones left from our first pot of beef stock. Unless Enju got to them first.
I found our time with Chef Klaus very informative, well-managed, and professional. I learned a lot and look forward to returning to his teaching in a few months for our second rotation. As with Chef Otto, I like his sense of humor and enthusiasm for world affairs. It's nice to spend a few minutes each day talking about things other than cooking. I feel fortunate that I've always had a pretty high tolerance for accepting the Boss with his quirks.
Some things I learned this week:
The Third Man is a pretty good old movie.
Green, yellow, orange, and red bell peppers are all the same plant.
Translated from Italian, Sauce Puttanesca is the "Whore's sauce". Coincidence that it has anchovy?
Despite Wendy's objections, I WILL make butternut squash soup this week at home.
Hickam housing yard inspectors are inconsistent, stupid assholes. A bit off-topic, but there it is.
Monday we move on to the Bake Shop I phase of our course and Chef Chad whom we are told has a much more academic teaching style.
Chef is NEVER wrong. He isn't always right, but he's never wrong.
And he can apparently be pretty sneaky, too. In the words of the inimitable Richard Hatch:
"I WAS BAMBOOZLED!"
Here we go. I feel my face getting red just thinking about it. Repeatedly over these three weeks we have discussed roux as a means of thickening sauces and soups, with gumbo given as an example of when to use dark roux. Chef Klaus is a fan of Cajun cuisine, as am I, so it was easy to remember: dark roux, gumbo. Gumbo, dark roux. Roux, roux, dark, dark, gumbo, gumbo, I got it. No problem.
On the day of the test Chef tells us that he is going to prepare one of his favorites for us while we are taking our test, New Orleans style Jambalaya. I love Cajun. MMMMM...MMM!!! The great smells of anduille sausage, onion, Cayenne, and garlic waft through the kitchen. My tummy is smiling 'cause I'm almost done with the test, we'll make some French onion soup, and it'll be time to eat. I get to the question about dark roux that we've repeated for weeks, and I know the answer is gumbo, so I write:
Jambalaya.
Yes, Mom, I'm that gullible and/or dumb. Now I may be off in my read of Chef Klaus' expression when I brought my dumbass-ness up at the end of the day, but I swear he had an "I got another one" glint in his eye. I wonder just how long he has been offering up jambalaya on test day.
One of the most common expressions that we hear from Chef Klaus is an Arte Johnson/Laugh-In style "Verrry interesting". Last week he used this phrase to point out a potential problem that eventually became an actual cooking mistake and let us know that when we hear "Verrrry interesting", we should find out what might be the problem. This week he uttered those cautionary words as he looked over my shoulder at what I was cutting. I froze in mid-slice and asked what was wrong. He said "Nothing, sometimes it's just fun to say that and see what happens." Har, har, very funny...it is to laugh.
Classmate of the Week is Enju.
From Korea and an Air Force wife, Enju is a fun and enthusiastic student and seemingly an eating machine. She is always asking the instructors for the chance to handle new equipment and perform routine tasks for practice. Her command of English is pretty good, with only the occasional correction or explanation for unfamiliar words and phrases. She seems to always be eating something, to the extent of sneaking cuts, bites, and even the peels of the items we are preparing. She is great about sharing, especially the tasty Korean pears that she brings to class. She cemented a place on my good side with her first words to Chef Klaus - "Do you have a Korean girlfriend?" Her husband seems a nice guy and her dog, a big malamute, is beautiful and got to eat the bones left from our first pot of beef stock. Unless Enju got to them first.
I found our time with Chef Klaus very informative, well-managed, and professional. I learned a lot and look forward to returning to his teaching in a few months for our second rotation. As with Chef Otto, I like his sense of humor and enthusiasm for world affairs. It's nice to spend a few minutes each day talking about things other than cooking. I feel fortunate that I've always had a pretty high tolerance for accepting the Boss with his quirks.
Some things I learned this week:
The Third Man is a pretty good old movie.
Green, yellow, orange, and red bell peppers are all the same plant.
Translated from Italian, Sauce Puttanesca is the "Whore's sauce". Coincidence that it has anchovy?
Despite Wendy's objections, I WILL make butternut squash soup this week at home.
Hickam housing yard inspectors are inconsistent, stupid assholes. A bit off-topic, but there it is.
Monday we move on to the Bake Shop I phase of our course and Chef Chad whom we are told has a much more academic teaching style.
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