Yeah, we pretty much rock. Our Practical Exercise meal went superbly on Wednesday with all aspects being judged by Chef Sigi as excellent. And it WAS excellent, garnering a score of 89 out of a possible 90. Our end of phase test was also completed and passed easily by everyone, so we are now officially done with two-thirds of our course. Second Rotation is history. We now have a week of work for the late-summer version of the Grand Buffet and unlike the last one, no one has given us a clue about what we will be working on. So we will show up Monday morning with our gear and brilliance to pitch in and help the evening classes that have been practicing and prepping for a week now. I feel safe in saying it will likely be a lot of veggie cutting and dressing preparation, maybe even some mass-produced crepes or, since it's a Pacific Fusion theme, it may be won tons, egg rolls, and poke. Poke (pronounced PO-KEE) is one of my favorite Hawaiian foods. Cut up raw seafood (I prefer the ahi tuna) seasoned lightly or heavily depending on the fish, with onions, seaweed, sesame oil and seeds, some spices and Hawaiian salt. Dee-lish!
Tuesday was a little hectic with Chef Sigi out on an unscheduled doctors visit so the class had a pretty easy time with our one project, to produce a big batch of large muffins for the bake sale. It was an easy task, and with most of us sitting around bored, we wanted to get permission to bag the day and head home at 11 am. Trouble was we had no chef or administrator to ask, so we checked with Jim, the guy that does all the ordering and receiving for the school. I had always just assumed that he was a lower member of the staff, but when Jessica asked "Can you make the call on something like this? We really don't know where you stand in the scheme of things." Jim says "Well I think I can make that call, I own the school." HA! Joke's on us - the guy who is always around and no doubt hears all of our bitching and venting is The Boss! Enju and I (who, let's face it, don't have anything better to do) volunteered to stay and finish up the muffins while Jessica (who's mom was visiting) and Sandy were able to get out and make some use of the rest of the day.
By the way, those muffins were delectable but a little too moist because we were told to substitute mango puree for the dried sweet mango pieces...they took forever to cook and never really finished in the middle. I brought this up on Thursday when we were asked on the spur of the moment to make another batch. Chef Sigi made adjustments by eliminating 3/4 of the orange juice and over 1/2 of the mango puree, thereby solving the excess moisture problem but producing a muffin whose flavor was totally average. I'd have kept the flavor ingredients the same (since everyone agreed they tasted awesome) and increased the flour a bit to dry them out...just sayin.
Understanding that we were a little disappointed with the hit or miss supervision these last two weeks, school officials let us know that Chef Sigi is going back to the hospital Monday for an operation. This was sad news, as we've come to like Chef Sigi and his quirks very much. Get healthy, Chef, we'll see you in Third Rotation.
“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy, and to make plans.”- Ernest Hemingway
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