Chef Chad has been giving us a little more autonomy in the bake shop. He reasons (rightly, I think) that we have been around long enough to get things done without constant supervision. Of course he keeps his eye on us and has offered improvements and fixes for the projects that went even slightly astray. Thankfully he wasn't watching when, after Jessica and I had painstakingly measured and divided the very last egg in the refrigerator into egg white for my recipe and whole egg for hers, I bumped into the table and spilled several ounces. A brisk walk up to the main kitchen for 5 dozen more eggs and all was well. This week has been good, with some baked items that I had never seen before. The heavy high-ratio cake seemed like a brick until he explained that we would cut it in thin disks and use if as the base of our Ice Cream Cake. We also completed baked Alaska, joconde cake, pecan bars, and pumpkin bread (for the bake sale, of course). A few absences through the week left us short-handed, with Enju experiencing a hurt back and Sandy recovering from a weekend on Kauai with the Marines. She's so patriotic, helping our boys with their adjustment in returning from overseas.
Staying at the home of some terrific friends, I've tried to make myself useful by helping with the cooking and it's brought home the fact that even with all the stuff I've learned this last year there are millions of moms and grandmas out there that can cook me under the table. Now I realize that professional cooking will be much different in the quantities, timing, equipment, and such, and I know that if I do my best that it will turn out ok, but I can't shake the feeling that they eat it and smile and say it's good just to be polite. I need to work on my confidence.
We had an extensive discussion about some of the more intricate things we've learned and how once we learned them we were told that we would probably never make it again. Hmmmmm. Demi Glace, the base for most of the brown sauces, is time consuming to make and the formula, while sounding simple enough, is a little tricky to get right. So we learned to make it and then Chef told us that "You probably won't find a professional kitchen that makes their own, they buy it in a prepared base." O.K. Stocks, the basic building block of almost all soups, sauces, gravies, braises and stews, is pretty easy to make, but the large pots and lack of storage make the concentrated bases far more desirable for the pro kitchen. We learned Cherries Jubilee and Crepes Suzette complete with the flambe flourish, then were told that most restaurants can't do the flame anymore because of fire hazard. This is all a part of being "classically" trained. I for one am glad I've had the chance to work on these sorts of items, because when they look in the pantry and find they are out of beef stock, I'll be right there to save the day! Assuming I remember how.
So it didn't take much calculation to realize that we have exactly 15 school days left, a short Thanksgiving week with Chef Chad, and then our final phase, Hot Kitchen II for three more weeks. I've been asked if I will continue to post The Innocent, keeping those few that are still interested apprised of my success or lack thereof in The Industry. I think I will, at least until I'm a real pro or my culinary aspirations come crashing down around me. Honestly can't say which it is more likely to be at this point. But until then, there's still a month of learning in store so stay tuned.
“The best way to execute French cooking is to get good and loaded and whack the hell out of a chicken. Bon appétit. ” ― Julia Child
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