Man Am I STUFFED!!!

Whew!  Tonite… was a good nite in the kitchen!  :)  We're wrapping up our worldwide excursion into cereal grains.  Tonite was Cereal Grains of the Americas, which included Central and South America (read: Mexico, the Caribbean).

We each made our own tortillas (man, just HOW could I screw up such a simple task!).  I managed to get only about four corn tortillas made, and I struggled with the dough for my flour tortillas until I just finally ran out of patience.  Garrrr!!!

Anyway, it didn't matter 'cause by the time we were all served, I ended up eating MUCH more than I should have!  Below is a delicious quinoa salad made by Group 3:

A colorful, flavorful quinoa salad

My team made this freakin' delicious item called Dunkanoo (sounds like something you'd get at the Dunkin Donuts!).  This is basically grated fresh corn mixed with happy good things like brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, coconut milk, golden raisins and cornmeal.  We made a mash of that and stuffed banana leaves with it, then popped these li'l packages in the steamer…

Unwrap the banana leaf to find the delicious goodness inside...

They needed to cool first so the mixture would congeal together all nice-like.  And when they did…  whoa.  Tender, sweet/savory goodness.  Sigh… I love this class!

We've made some more straightforward things, too, while exploring cereal grains, such as your basic risotto and a pretty dang tasty stuffed bell pepper called, believe it or not, Etli Biber Dolmasi…

Your basic, average, everyday risotto...

Fancy name for stuffed peppers!

Tomorrow we start a three-day run of Noodles and Dough, starting with Southeast Asia (pad thai, potstickers), then continuing on to Europe and North Africa (pierogies!), and ending up back in the Americas (TAMALES!).

Did I mention that I love this class?

Peace out.  Namaste.

The Best Damn Indian Lamb Stew – EVER!!!

That’s right, foodies!  Tonite was the first nite of our Cuisine Across Cultures class at LCB, and we got off to… an auspicious start!

This class is ingredient-oriented, rather than culture-oriented.  What this means is that, each night we focus on a particular ingredient and visit how different cultures will use that ingredient in their cuisine.  Tonight was easy: rice.  We did a Spanish Paella, a Chinese Yangzhou Chau Fan, and an Indian Gosht Pulao.

Cheryl stir-fries while Ron preps paella

We broke into groups of about four and covered each recipe.  Our team made the Chinese stir-fry, which was really pretty easy.  We made a delicious marinade of soy sauce, rice wine, oyster sauce, sesame oil, salt and sugar.  I broke down some pork into small bite-sized chunks and we marinated that for about half an hour.  We then roasted those on a pan in the oven to save time stir-frying it later.  We got the wok goin’, then did the ginger, garlic, soy sauce, shrimp, then the pork, rice and scallions on top.

Our super-delicious pork & shrimp stir-fry

Another group did the paella, which definitely scored high points with both our chef instructors and the rest of the class.  The star of the night, though, was definitely the Gosht Pulao, which is a braised lamb stew.

Yes, it really is the best dang Indian lamb stew EVER!!!

It may not look like much, but this stuff was freakin’ DELICIOUS!  The lamb was diced and marinated in such spices as cumin, cayenne and turmeric.  The group then got some ghee heated in a large, heavy-bottomed sauté pan and toasted a whole cinnamon stick, some cardamom pods and cloves.  They then added in sliced onions, garlic and ginger.  I walked past and Mark grabbed my shoulder, beckoning me over.  I just stuck my face over the pan and breathed deeply…  sigh!

Next they added in some coriander, nutmeg and black pepper, topping it all off with some diced tomato and a few bay leaves.  In went a quart of water and the marinated lamb, and they covered and simmered that mixture for a good hour until the lamb was nice and tender and the flavors were well infused.

They finally topped it off with a big ol’ pile of basmati rice and let that simmer just enough for the rice to cook through.  They served it… and the whole class just about fell over!  We were beside ourselves.  We’d all had the other items already and were feeling pretty full.  But it seems we saved the best for last and we cleaned that whole pan of stew in ten minutes flat.

This is going to be an awesome class.  Tomorrow night we’re making sushi!  Later on we’ll make arepas, pad thai, and pierogies!  Tamales, fried cassava chips, tapioca cake, a lamb tagine, sake no miso, falafel, hummus, duck confit, mole, jerk…!  And we’re making some crazy stuff I never heard of like Gaeng Ped Hoi Mang Phu, Smodampete Nypoteter, Aloo Partha, and Bang Bang Ji Si…  ?!?!

I’m tellin’ ya, this class alone is worth the price of admission…  peace out, and Namaste.

My Dinner at Chataigne

The saying basically goes that eating a meal at a culinary school’s café is like getting a free haircut from the students at the local beauty school.  I want to be offended by that comment (I mean, c’mon!  This is the last ‘class’ taught before our externship… we oughtta be better than that by now!).  But if my dinner at Chataigne was any indication, I’m gonna have a pretty tough time with that argument.

Chataigne, which means, um, a sweet chestnut (?!), is the student-run café here at Le Cordon Bleu in Chicago.  They’re open for breakfast from 8am to 9am, lunch is from noon to 1pm, and dinner service starts between 7:30pm and 8pm.  I’m stuck working the dreaded day job, so I take classes at night, which leaves me no time whatsoever to sample the school’s restaurant.  Luckily, both our evening instructors (one for Hospitality Management and the other for Psych) are fans of the idea of taking their students to the café for ‘class.’  Our psyche instructor met us there at 7:30 last Thursday evening for dinner.

We were impressed with the ambience and the service, although the food delivery itself was quite slow.  Our five-course meal took a bit over an hour and a half to finish.  Since there was only one other group in the restaurant that evening, bringing the total patrons to around twenty, it shouldn’t have taken that long.

We were started off with an amuse bouche of a duck breast canapé, coated in sweet onions and draped across a crostini.  The onions were cloyingly sweet and made the whole thing rather heavy-handed.  The fact that the crostini was hard as a brick didn’t help.  Next came an under-seasoned chilled potato and roasted garlic soup.  The soup had potential, but being chilled meant they needed to be pretty liberal with the seasoning, and it just didn’t quite come together.

The second course, though, was the star of the show as far as we were concerned.  Below is the ricotta salata and summer squash strudel with tomato coulis (forgive the nastiness of the pics, I was using a cheap camera phone in a pretty dim restaurant!).

The combination of sweet, almost tart ricotta salata, savory summer squash and tangy tomato coulis was a knockout.  This is one we could’ve certainly had second helpings of.  Third course was a mixed green salad with bacon and apple.

The combination of flavors was good, and the vinaigrette was perfect.  This set the stage for our main course, which was a choice between spice-rubbed pork tenderloin with eggplant jam, pommes anna and carrot puree, or sautéed sablefish with an herb salsa verde and panzanella salad.

I wanted to try them both, but settled on the pork tenderloin, which I thought was a little overdone.  The eggplant jam and carrot puree were both decent accompaniments, though the pommes anna was a bit on the mild side.  Overall the dish was solid enough.  The folks who had the sablefish said it was good, not over- or under-done.  But they were tré disappointed in the panzanella salad.  I took a bite: it was like a weak, flavorless salsa mixed with soggy bread cubes.

Our last course was a choice of desserts, and I had the coconut rice pudding with a raspberry coulis.  Good thing that coulis was there ‘cause the rice pudding, I’m afraid, left an awful lot to be desired.

Would we go there again?  Absolutely, and not just because it was “free” (there’s a “suggested donation” for students of the school).  From what we’re told, the menu changes all the time as the students are experimenting with different styles of cuisine.  We should get at least one more chance to go to Chataigne in the next couple of weeks when our other instructor plans on taking us, and maybe we’ll have to “miss” class one of these nights to try it out yet again.

Overall it was a decent experience, and as a student whose restaurant rotation starts about four months from now (Gasp!  Is it nearly that time already?), it was a good introduction to what will be expected of us down the road

Here is a link to the Urbanspoon restaurant review page:

Hors d’Oeuvres – Catering & Buffets, Week 1

WE ARE FINALLY OUT OF THE CLASSROOM!


Don’t get me wrong: I did enjoy both the ‘Food, History & Culture’ and ‘Nutrition’ classes. Dice and Ashlee were both fun instructors, and I’d definitely take courses taught by them again. The material was interesting enough, but what ticked me off is how some of the students were really disrespectful of them. Yeah yeah, I know, “we’re here to cook!” Whatever. We’re here to learn. But while I enjoyed these classes, I’m glad we’re finally back in the kitchen. ☺


So here we are, in Chef Bruno’s Catering and Buffets class. I could tell within the first few days I’m going to love this class. We do work as teams, not individuals. I don’t have to stress about completing all elements of a single dish by myself. Instead, we work out as a team who’ll do which elements, and then we get to it, pulling everything together in the end for the final presentation.


The class is broken up into units, or sections, with each one building on an element or type of catering or buffet management until the final week, where we pull all these pieces together into The Grand Buffet. So this week we started out easy: hors d’oeuvres.





So here’s Chef Bruno demo’ing the Duck Breast Canapé. OMG, this was freakin’ delicious! The idea is to prep and sear a duck breast (drrooooooollllll!!!!!), then allow it to cool. Then we took a Pullman loaf and cut uniform squares, toasting them lightly. We supréme’d mandarin oranges, then sliced those wedges in half so we had a better-fitting piece of orange for the canapé. Finally we took some pistachios, soaked them for a while to loosen the skins, then shelled them. We chopped ‘em up nice and fine, then began the assembly.





The trick with hors d’oeuvres is symmetry and consistency: each piece should feel balanced not only visually, but in taste as well. For our team’s canapés, we made a delicious orange-rosemary butter to spread on our toasted croutons. We then placed an orange slice in one corner, some chopped pistachios in another, then a thin folded slice of seared duck breast in the middle. The result: freakin’ delicious.





Each week will get harder, with more items on the menu of greater complexity, requiring more prep and much better time management. The fun of it is the teamwork required. No one person will ever be responsible for one thing entirely, but we’ll each divvy up tasks and pull it all together for the final show. Once I have the pics from our final presentation (I forgot my camera that nite!), I’ll post the menu and the corresponding items.

Va-Va-Va-Voom!

Or, How Kim Kardashian Convinced Me to Eat Salad

May the gods bless the Internet! A friend of mine in L.A. turned me on to this Carl’s Jr. commercial featuring the leggy supermodel Padma who hosts Top Chef (no, not the Asian one, the Indian one). Since we don’t seem to have any Carl’s Jr.s here in Chicago (a crying shame, for sure), I went online to Ye Olde YouTube to check this out.

Oh, oh my! Watching Padma enjoy that Western Bacon Six Dollar Burger was quite a thing to behold. Something about leggy supermodels and messy fast food just makes me want to ditch my diet and hop a plane out west to the nearest Carl’s Jr. franchise. But scrolling down the search page I came across yet another leggy supermodel hocking their menu: Kim Kardashian.

Forty-eight stunned seconds later, I was a convert. Like a religious experience, the mere thought of ingesting that burger seemed distasteful, nay, disgusting. No, salads are where it’s at. Definitely. Like a Carl’s Jr. Cranberry Apple Walnut Chicken Salad. Now where’s my wallet?

They say that sex sells, and the guys over at the Mendelsohn|Zien, the ad agency behind the spot, completely get that. They did not only Kim’s and Padma’s commercials, but a Paris Hilton one as well (I won’t bother). These ads have obviously created quite a stir in the media. Tim Winter, the president of the Parents Television Council, says it’s like “using soft-core porn to market their hamburgers.” I say let ‘em, Tim!

The most obvious element of all of these spots is the juxtaposition of delicious ingredients with delicious bodies. A lot of care and attention is paid to each and every camera angle. The lighting is perfect in every shot, and they will shoot take after take to achieve the perfect mise-en-scène, or movement of elements within the scene. As Kim takes a bite of apple, for example, the vinaigrette (no doubt thickened a little bit with corn starch) drapes ever-so-sensuously over her lower lip. This one shot was done over and over again to get it just right, as shown in the behind-the-scenes clip that accompanies the director’s cut version of the ad (yes, a TV-MA, online-only, director’s cut version of a food ad… what IS our world coming to? Sigh…!).

Another common element to these ads is the models’ patter, um, I mean, enlightening stories. These little voice-over vignettes are supposed to make us see them as real women who enjoy fast food just as much as the rest of us slobs. But when they enjoy it, boy do they ENJOY it! Their descriptions, taken word-for-word, are not all that suggestive in and of themselves. This actually lends an air of innocence to what we’re seeing on the screen. The idea that the sensual enjoyment of all those calories is really just a carefree act of junk food-ingesting frivolity gives one a sense of glee when passing through the drive thru on the way home to load up on carbs, calories and cholesterol.

The music behind the patter is simple, beat-heavy but not fast, like hip-hop, R&B, or the like. It of course isn’t too distracting, consisting mainly of an uncomplicated melody with simple harmony. The main musical phrase is essentially looped over and over, creating a simple rhythm within the thirty or so seconds that sticks with the viewer when finished. When combined with the voiceover and, of course, the visuals, the music adds to the spot’s sensual impact, bringing back to mind the image of chipotle Caesar dressing dripping down Kim’s ample cleavage each and every time one later hears that song on the radio (and that knowing look on her face when it happens! Ohhhhhh!).

“Who says salads can’t be hot” is the tagline for these ads, of which Kim’s done three. Kim goes on to say in the video promo, “Salads are sexy. When you’re eating something that tastes good and you know is good for you, that’s sexy. That’s hot.” Right, Kim. That Southwest Grilled Chicken Salad with blue cheese dressing clocks in at 760 calories (according to the Carl’s Jr. website’s nutrition calculator). Oh, and Padma? You just scarfed down 1020 calories with that burger, including 480 from fat and a nice, heart-stopping 2,520 mg of sodium. Ya want fries with that?

I’m ever grateful to my friend for turning me on to these ads. I do miss living out west, and while I didn’t frequent Carl’s Jr. as much as I should have (more of a Jack in the Box fan, myself), I’ll wholeheartedly admit these ads DID make me want a burger… I mean, a salad. Let’s face it, hot women enjoying food ratchets up the hormones. The chemical receptors are stimulated, and while you’re salivating like some scientist’s dog, they show you images of food. THEIR food. A SIX-DOLLAR burger, mind you. Oh, wait, you don’t mind anymore, because all that salivating is now associated with their food. The very same food you’re about to spend your six dollars on. Yes, I’ll admit it…. SUCKER.

Quick Recipe: Tandoori Chicken

Scouring the Internet I found plenty of different forms of Tandoori spice, so I’m convinced that everyone sort of has their own and therefore I’m free to figure one out for myself. ☺

So I decided to roast a chicken the other night and wanted to Tandoori it. Michael Ruhlman has a great rant on the ‘convenience food’ thing, in particular pre-roasted chickens (you know, the kind you pick up from the grocery story on the way home from work). And speaking of America’s growing inability to cook for themselves, read this astounding article from The New York Times. It truly blew my mind.

I’ve tried this before but on boneless, skinless chicken breasts that I baked, and it didn’t turn out so well. I’ve adjusted the proportions a bit, and I think I’m getting closer, plus I’m trying it on a whole roaster. So here’s the mixture:

• Curry powder
• Cumin
• Coriander
• Turmeric
• Smoked paprika
• Cayenne pepper
• Minced garlic
• Grated ginger
• Salt & pepper
• Peanut oil

(I wanted to add some cardamom, but do you know how freakin’ expensive cardamom is?! Yeah, it’s $16 for one of those little 2 oz bottles, sheesh!)

I used a tablespoon of each of the dry spices, except for the cumin, of which I used only a half-tablespoon. I also used only about a teaspoon of salt and just a pinch of pepper. I minced up four garlic cloves and about ½” of ginger root (with the skin off).


I then added about ½ cup of peanut oil and stirred it all together. I placed the chicken in a large stainless steel bowl and coated it with the spice mixture. I then covered the whole thing and put it in the fridge for about two hours before cooking it (stuffing about five cloves of garlic and two handfuls of a combination of fresh rosemary, thyme and sage inside the cavity just before putting it in the oven).

The bird looked beautiful, and it tasted great, too. I made some basmati rice using chicken stock instead of water, and I steamed some mixed veg to go with it.


I’m still working out the balance of spices. The cayenne certainly gives it the kick it needs, and reducing the cumin was a good move, too. I think I need to increase the curry powder and coriander, ‘cause I’m getting a good combination of flavor there. And I should just break down and get that $16 bottle of cardamom, just to try it out and see what it does.

A'ight, Happy Sunday, peace out, and Namaste.

Producing Palmier, Pithivier and Paris Brest with Puff Pastry and Pâte à Choux…

Reminds me of a certain Sesame Street sketch…

Anyway, it was French Pastry week for us at LCB… those of us who even made it to class, that is! I have to admit, it probably wasn’t a good idea to come to class sick, but I didn’t want to miss any more days and so decided to just tough my way through it. Problem is, I think I took out half the class with me… ☹

Yeah, either I spread it ‘round or folks were gettin’ sick anyway, but we’ve had a bit of an attendance problem these last couple of weeks. Needless to say, those of us who got our sorry asses to class made… PASTRY!

We started by making some base doughs: blitz puff pastry and pâte à choux. Then we made a few kinds of pastry cream for filling, such as a vanilla cream, praline diplomat and crème Chantilly.

Production wasn’t exactly hard, just time-consuming, and since Val and I were both running on almost-empty (thanks for the cough drops, Val!), we had a bit of trouble keeping up. We basically prepped all our doughs the day before, and we baked off the basic shapes of the pâte à choux into puffs, éclairs and Paris Brest (which are bicycle tire-shaped wheels piped with a star tip). These cooled and went into a bag for the next day, along with the base pastry cream for our fillings later.

Below we have Val verifying the proper consistency of the pâte à choux using the ill-named yet ever-popular “Snot Test”…


So the next day, we finished the fillings by either adding butter & vanilla or almond paste to each half of the pastry cream. We also made whipped cream, or crème Chantilly (since we threw some vanilla in it). These fillings went into the various shapes we had made the night before:


We used the puff pastry to make a funky, round, um… pastry ravioli (!) called a pithivier… except time ran out and I didn’t get to mine. Bummer, ‘cause it’s on our two-day practical tomorrow and Tuesday! We were also supposed to make palmiers, which looked like they’d’ve been tasty. But, alas, another one bites the dust…

And finally we have cheese straws. Pretty simple: take some puff pastry, roll it out, sprinkle on a mixture of delicious parmiggiano Wisconsiano, some cayenne and some paprika, chill it, cut it into strips, twist ‘em up a little as you lay ‘em down on a parchment-lined pan, then bake ‘em…


I mixed the cheese mixture into the dough itself instead of just sprinkling it on top, which I wish I could say was an intentional thing. Nevertheless, they were pretty tasty.

So, practical time is upon us again, and here’s what’s on the board for Monday-Tuesday:

• Apple pie
• Pear-almond tart
• A 6” pithivier
• Six Paris Brest
• Six éclairs

I’m pretty confident in most of the above, except for the pithivier (since I never got to it before, it’ll be the first time I’m attempting it now). But I’ve got all the notes, we can take Monday to prep almost everything we can, so Tuesday will just be a quick assembly day.

Now if I could just kick this dang cough…

Baking & Pastryyyyyyy!!!!!!!!

Man, has it really been since last November that I posted?! Sheeit, how time flies when... yeah. Anywho, I can catch up on Foundations III Finals later, and I'm sure no one wants to hear about my travails with English Composition and Food Cost Control/Management... PHBT! :)

Really, the main reason for this post is because a certain bench partner has been out sick two days in a row! Needless to say, these last two days have been a LIVING HELL! (I can't bitch too much... I did ditch 'er two days last week, which just so happened to be two reeeaaaally heavy production days)

A'ight, Val - we're even!!!

Last night was all about making doughs for tonite. We made mealy dough. We made flaky dough. And we made something called sucree, as well as frangipane and some lemon curd stuff, too. All of this was in prep for tonite's cooking... Apple pie, pear-almond tart, Quiche Lorraine, key lime tartlets, and some other stuff I never got to... :)

Chef laid out the production for us on the board... holy SHIT it was a lot of work! Even those with partners had trouble getting to it all, and those without... we were pretty much SOL. I decided to just start at the top of the list and concentrate on getting each item done properly... no sense in rushing and then screwing it up (though I did manage to make that happen, too!).

I started with the apple pie by peeling then slicing a bunch of green apples. I then cooked them in a pan with some butter and a little bit of lemon juice, later adding in a mix of sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg (and a cornstarch slurry to thicken it up)...


I rolled out the mealy dough (the one where the butter is incorporated very thoroughly) as the bottom crust, and when the apple mixture had cooled, I filled the pan...


The last step was topping it with the flaky dough (the one where the butter is only a little bit incorporated), chilling it a bit, then brushing on some milk and sugar. The baking commenced...


Success!!! We get to save this one for tomorrow nite when we'll eat it with a creme chantilly...

Next I moved on to the pear-almond tart. I started out on the wrong foot by using the wrong tart pan (Hey! I saw a bunch of tart pans, I took one! How the frak was I supposed to know it was too big?! Oh yeah, Chef Leahy specified the size... damn). I lined the bottom of the pan with another mealy bottom crust, then sliced the pears thuswise...


Nice! We peeled the pears last nite and passed them to Chef, who placed them in a big ol' pot with wonderful ingredients like wine and sugar and various spices and such and whatnot. Anyway, she poached them in there for a while, then they went in the walk-in. We pulled 'em out tonite, Sliced 'em in half, then made cuts lengthwise starting at about 3/4" from the top and cutting all the way to the bottom. We then lightly pressed on them in one direction, and the slices, still attached at the top, fanned out...

Alright, so we filled the tart crust with the frangipane we made the night before, then topped that with the pears, like so...


Then I put it in the oven and... oh, there's my other mistake. I was supposed to chill the dang thing before I baked it! Sheesh! No wonder it came out looking like this...


Sigh! The team next to me of Steven and Cheryl, though, made an excellent pear tart...


So on I went. I actually spent so much time futzing with dough that I ended up having trouble with the next item: a Quiche Lorraine. I got the crust started, which involved filling the pan and trimming it just so. Then you line the crust with plastic wrap and fill that with these beans that will help keep the crust from 'poofing up' too much during the pre-bake phase. I got that part done, and it was already 9:30. Shoot! Dang! Golly! The next step was to cool that, then remove the beans and plastic, fill it with the quiche mixture (swiss cheese and bacon), as well as the curd, then bake it.

I did start the key line tart crust, which also had to chill, but I ran out of time so it had to be trashed!! Anyway, here's someone else's Quich Lorraine, just so we all have a good idea of what mine was SUPPOSED to look like!



So, what's on the docket for tomorrow?

• A quiz on cookies! (reach the chapter in the book and review what we've done in class so far)
• Pate choux (which will be for eclairs and such... mmm!)
• Blitz puff pastry dough (which will be for Thursday, more than likely)
• Paris brest (noooo... B-R-E-S-T! sheesh)

As a side note, I got a 93 on my written exam last week - woot!


Y'know, I talked to Chef about the whole production thing. See, theyz seen me coughin' and hackin' the last week or so, and some of 'em have even made comments about it (well, some were like 'Wow! You're such a trouper!' while others were like 'You shoulda stayed at home!'). And with Val out sick-as-a-dog (hey, she's NEVER missed a class since we started last July - NEVER!), Chef knew I was doing the best I could under the circumstances.

She doesn't ask us to bring up our production for review like we do in our culinary classes, so I was wondering how I was being graded. She tells me, "Hey, I look around the room and see who's working hard and who's slacking off. I won't bother checking your production, you're doing just fine in here."

Nice.

A'ight, I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I wanna watch Lost... Peace out, and Namaste.

Time Management and Confidence

Chef Kang said it again, and again, and again, almost all last week, and the week before: “Cameron, you gotta work on your time management!”

Well he didn’t just say it to me. He said it to lots of us who have trouble juggling eighteen separate little tasks and completing our 2-3 dishes per night in a more timely fashion. The basic setup is this: You listen to the lecture and watch the demo. He has the recipes there, so all you have to do is follow them. Once he’s done and we get to work, we ‘go shopping’ and gather up all the ingredients, then start prepping them for our dishes.

And this is where the time management thing comes in. We could prep everything, then go about making one dish at a time until we’re done. Or we could prep for our first dish, get it started, then while we’re waiting for, say, the chicken to braise (20-30 minutes), we prep and start our next dish. The idea is that our work overlaps, and we complete our 2-3 dishes in much less time.

The only problem is, it’s hard to know just what steps you can do ahead of time or while overlapping something else when you’re still just figuring out what you’re doing! I have a hard time with retention of the demo, so I tend to re-look at the recipe several times as I go. Some of the steps I’m more familiar with (we covered them before and have done them a few times already). But a lot of stuff is still relatively new, so getting what stages can be overlapped with others is more difficult.

So what I think it boils down to is confidence. I tend to get stressed that I’m going to get too many things going on at once and will end up screwing something up. It won’t be the first time that I over-reduced a sauce I had going on the stove while I was running around getting other elements of a plate together.

But the more I do this, the more familiar I’m getting with the basic techniques: grill some meat, start a braise, make a pan sauce, etc. Knowing how to fit those steps into production in a way that reduces any wasted time is a little difficult, but I’m getting the hang of it. Practice makes perfect.

These past weeks were pretty fun. Week One of class was beef, which was really rather easy:


This is my grilled steak with gratin potatoes underneath and creamed spinach on the side. While I may have had some difficulty getting everything in on time, Chef never complained about the doneness of the meat, which was near-perfect every time.

Week Two was poultry. I certainly needed more practice in breaking down a chicken, but we also broke down and cooked a duck, including confit (cooked in its own fat). I missed turkey night (out sick), but since Thanksgiving is coming up, I’m sure there’ll be plenty more to come.


Above is a simple grilled chicken breast, marinated with some oil, garlic, salt & pepper. We made some tossed greens and surrounded the plate with a delicious fruit salad, which was really very easy:

• Cantaloupe
• Honeydew
• Pineapple
• Red bell pepper
• Jalapeño
• Red onion
• Rough chopped cilantro
• Lime juice
• Salt

Just cut all the fruit and vegetables the same size, proportioning them how you want them. Throw in the cilantro, squeeze half a lime over it, toss in some salt and balance out the flavor with a little sugar or honey if it’s too acidic.

Tomorrow starts Week Three, which is fin and shellfish, including things like oysters and shrimp. I’m a little nervous since I can’t really stand the taste of most shellfish! But hey, I ain’t tried it all yet, so we’ll see. ☺

Namaste.

The Start of a New Chapter

Oh man, it’s been weeks since I’ve blogged about CHIC! Being in the evening program, and going for the full Associates Degree (rather than just the Certificate), means that we gotta take stuff like Math and Public Speaking classes (ugh!). This was the cause of the six-week break between Culinary II and III.

But hey, as much fun as math and speech are (at least they threw in some culinary math, and the speech class was fun and easy), it is so freakin’ great to be back in the kitchen! And what’s best is that we have Chef Kang again!

Say it with me now: Wwwwoooooooook KAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaannng!!!

Sigh… that was fun. ☺

So anyway, we were all chomping at the bit near the end of math and speech classes to get cooking again. And we were worried that some of us wouldn’t make it to Culinary III. Some folks dropped out of the math class, or didn’t finish the speech class, so for a while there we thought they were going to be held back or something.

But happily, The Team wasn’t broken up, and we all started together last Monday. I’m gonna love this class. Beef, turkey, chicken, fish, lobster, clams, oysters, etc., etc., etc… Yes, this is the class where we cook MEAT!

We all started with such a great attitude. Everyone was real happy to be cooking together again, and it’s shown in how things have been going. In general, we’re all a lot more confident. And generally more competent, too! I don’t know, it’s like having the six-week break from cooking allowed us to sort of settle and collect our thoughts or something. Gone is a lot of that frantic, frustrated thing that I know I wasn’t the only one to be going through. Everyone seems to feel better about what they’re doing in general, and it reflects in the whole atmosphere and tone in the kitchen.

So we spent this past week with beef. Next week is chicken and turkey, I believe. I’ll throw in some pictures once I get a new cable for my camera (teensy little apartment fire left me with a melted cable!). I’m settin’ down to study this week’s reading and recipes, and I’ll update The C-Dawg Chronicles as much as I can.

Peace out, and Namaste.

What a Week at CHIC...

(or two weeks, as it were)

Has it really been two weeks since I’ve posted? My how time flies when we’re… well, you know.

The one thing I’ve had to become accustomed to with going back to school are the ups and downs. Some nights go really well, and others… suck. Case in point: last Monday I went to class with plenty of energy, got through most of the production just fine, and generally felt pretty good. Then I went home and was up again until one in the morning working (day job, from home). I had trouble getting to sleep, then was awoken by neighbors in the hall having a fight at five am!

Needless to say, I was barely able to get through Tuesday night’s demo with my eyes open, and I knew I’d be no good in production. I (gasp!) excused myself from class and went home to crash. I got the basics of veg cookery from the demo, but not the practical experience. By the end of the week I managed to get back in the game a bit. Here’s my Potage Crécy (purée of carrot soup):


But what’s really, truly getting me is balancing work and school. We’re now at a point where we need to come up with our own recipes. Mind you, we’re not making them up out of thin air. We have the book, but the recipes there are designed for larger-scale food service. Our job is to reduce them down to single-serving sizes and still meet the needs of the recipe itself in terms of the flavor and consistency of what we’re supposed to be making.

But add that to the fact that the production seems to be increasing, and the time spent outside of class is getting to be more and more. Work has been hellaciously busy these days, so between OT and school, I’ve barely had time to breathe! ☺

At least I grabbed me a four-day weekend (I took Friday off, and we have Monday off for Labor Day). Sigh… maybe I’ll make me some more of that delicious Tabbouleh:


One nummy treat from last week: we played with potatoes, and deep fried ‘em! I’m very much a proponent of the philosophy that everything tastes better deep fried, and potatoes are no exception! We made delicious little Pomme Dauphine, which is a potato mixture made with Pate a Choux and cut into little segments which are thrown in the fryer… freakin’ delicious:


So, with my day off tomorrow, I not only need to get caught up on some housekeeping (!), but I need to work from home to be as caught up as I can before I go back into the office on Tuesday, AND I need to review this upcoming week’s material, AND write out all my recipes. Ugh. I know it will get better… I know it will get better… I know it will get better…

Peace out, wish me luck, and Namaste.

Success!! (or very nearly so)

What a night! It seemed as if all my time management issues were behind me. I’d studied my flashcards on the bus and at work, knowing what sauces we’d be making tonight (a slew of ‘em!). I felt confident walking into class, ready to go… only to realize I’d forgotten my cravat!

WTF?! I scurried on over to Student Services, waited forever for some dude to root through a cabinet and find me a loaner, which I then had to sign out (sheesh!), then I ran back over and got in line for inspection with nary a moment to spare. Whew!

Production went (mostly) awesome. I was on top of things, planning out in advance the different sauces I’d have to make, gathering up my stuff and being all organized and such and what not. I was cruising along when Chef Kang told us we’d also have to start a veal stock. What?! Um, well, ok. I’ll squeeze it in.

And I felt the squeeze. I was raring to go with both of my reductions going on the stove at the same time (Chef walked over to me with a smile on his face – yeah, I got this time management thing down, buddy!), then I had to break to drag out these big ol’ roasting pans full of veal bones. Ugh, talk about breaking my rhythm.

If that weren’t bad enough, I broke my Buerre Blanc, too! S—t! I think it was the heat of the plate I presented it on that broke the butter and vinegar reduction emulsion I was shooting for. I was told to (gasp!) do it again. Ugh. Double-ugh.

And then it broke the second time! Oh geez oh Pete! This time I went running around, looking for a freakin' chinois to strain my freakin’ sauce, leaving it to sit there and separate. A little last minute whisking helped pull it together well enough for the presentation, though, so I managed to pull that one out of the fire.

What really cheesed me off, though, is that I couldn’t get to the very last sauce. We’d had to make five sauces tonight, and dagnabit I was gonna get all of ‘em done! I was, seriously, THREE MINUTES AWAY from straining my vinegar reduction into my Hollandaise to make a Bernaise when Chef called it for the night! Ack! I gave him a pleading look as he walked by, frantically whisking egg yolks and clarified butter with one hand while sautéing shallots, thyme, vinegar and white wine with the other. But no dice. It was time to do the dishes…

Oof. Well, at least I can say I’m really prepared for tomorrow night’s sauce practical and quiz, and I get to have steak! Well, they were there for us tonight to use with our sauce if we wanted to (and, um, had time!), but anyone who couldn’t get to theirs tonight can have it tomorrow. Mmmmm… steeeaaak… <drrrroooolllll!!!!!>

And on that note, good night.

Time To Get My Act Together

‘Twas a rough week at CHIC, folks. I’m sure part of it was the feeling of being overworked at my day job (I’ve been puttin’ in quite the number of hours), but I have to admit that part of it was just my lack of preparation.

We’ve just finished Week One of six weeks of Culinary Foundations Two, and I already feel like I’ve repeated the whole of Foundations One class. Sure, we’re reviewing a lot of basic things, like making stocks, etc. But the amount of production is much higher. See, the last class was really only a little over two hours (7:45pm to 10:05pm – BTW, who came up with this ‘:05’ business?!). But Foundations Two is all evening, 6pm to 10:35pm (again, that extra five minutes, what is it FOR, I ask?!?).

This means that after a short lecture and demo, we set off to make a lot more stuff than we ever did in the first class. Wednesday and Thursday each I struggled to keep up while we had to make four or five separate sauces or dishes. Wednesday I did pretty well, even though I only turned in three items. Chef Kang was happy with both the flavor and the consistency of what I brought him, and I ended up making a pretty dang tasty little number called a Cauliflower Gratinée:


But Thursday… well, Thursday was another story. I was burnt out. Honestly, I was fried. I struggled through the day at work, then I struggled through class. We had five freakin’ sauces to make, and honestly, there’s no reason why I couldn’t get them all done. I struggled with TWO of them, and then I barely cranked out a third only after Chef stepped in with an assist! How humiliating! When the instructor steps in and starts doing it for you, you know you need to work a lot harder. ☹

I’m not (entirely) knocking the help – he did give me a bit of a ‘kick in the pants,’ which helped me at least get one more sauce done. I felt pretty sheepish walking up to him with it, after he’d called it for the evening (‘end of production, everyone clean up’). He gave me the chance, and it did turn out alright (a simple-as-all-heck-darn red wine and shallot reduction, for Pete’s sake). I just felt like it was a ‘gimme’, and I went home disappointed in myself despite it all.

The highlight of the week, though, had to be sitting down with Chef Beckman and recording a CHIC Podcast. Here’s the thing that got me interested in culinary school in the first place. Chef Beckman’s podcast comes out once a week, and is syndicated individually or through the excellent Culinary Media Network feed. What I love about it is the laid-back style. Meeting Chef Beckman was a treat, and he’s certainly one of the easiest people to get along with I’ve ever met! We rapped about my experiences (limited as the were) in the culinary world, and why I wanted to attend school. For anyone out there who either attends CHIC or is even remotely interested in what culinary school instructors are chattin’ about, this is a must-have addition to your podcast feed.

So on to Week Two, and this time I wisely read ahead in the syllabus and made flashcards of everything we’d be making this week. With all certainty, I’ll be studying those flashcards on the bus and at work. But my biggest crutch right now is Time Management. For the love of the gods, they could teach me a whole class in this! Some folks seem to come by it naturally, and others are picking it up well enough. But me, I’m still struggling with it.

I can concentrate really well on making one sauce at a time, and making it pretty decent. But to be working on five sauces at a time, and to get them done well, is quite a challenge. It’s one of those things that, quite frankly, just doesn’t come naturally to me. It’s probably because I’m still struggling with the basic cooking part! So it’s the kind of thing I’ll need to devise my own system for. This is like a lot of other things I've done. I need to figure out my own way out of the woods on this one, and that’ll take a lot of work. But I know that once I get it down… look out. ☺

A’ight, it’s late, it’s Sunday night, I’m beat having worked from home all day, so I’m hittin’ it. Check out The CHIC Podcast, as well as CMN. Good night, and Namaste.

The Difference is Night and Day

I started Foundations Two class tonight with Chef Wook Kang.

Whoa. Talk about a night and day difference.

Chef Kang is much more organized, calm, cool, collected, and easier to get along with than my former instructor. And he’s a bear for discipline (which our group certainly needs!). The more straightforward and disciplined approach is a welcome change. I was frustrated in my last class by things feeling too chaotic for me to concentrate and learn. Tonight we did a knife cut quiz, made veal stock, then ended with a written quiz. Everything seemed to flow smoothly from one part of the class to the next, and while we certainly got a lot done, it never felt rushed or chaotic.

Many of the folks from my prior class are in this one, so I already know everyone. Some went to a different class, and some I found were held back! They just didn’t get the grades they needed and so they have to repeat Foundations One (with a different instructor). Campus IT seems to have finally fixed the problem with my grades, though the instructor from my last class filled in a couple as estimates. I barely got by with a B- in Sanitation and a flat C in Culinary.

Oof.

I dunno, though. I had a nice long weekend to think about it, and things certainly feel different this time. My whole attitude and approach is different. I’ve made a lot of progress towards changing my patterns (the ones that got in the way, at least!), and I’m feeling better about what I’m doing overall. My focus is sharper, and I feel more confident in what I’m doing. I think the six-week blocks are a perfect way to segment the classes, as they give you enough time to get immersed in what you’re doing, but not enough time to feel too comfortable or get into a rut. They keep you on your toes at CHIC, that’s for sure!

So here’s to the new class. We’ll see what lies ahead.

IT’S OVER!!!!!

Well, this first 6-week block of classes anyway. ☺

What a nerve-wracking week it’s been. This entire time I’ve always found it difficult to find time to study, and so I’ve been cramming it in as much as possible in the last few days. I made flashcards last weekend and took them everywhere with me, going over them again and again and again, only to find that information seemed to seep out the more I studied!

And I was really stressing over the Sanitation final. This was the state exam that we had to pass to move on. So I memorized as much as I could cram into my noggin about bacteria, fungi, parasites, viruses, and the proper temperature food should be cooked to, stored at, cooled and reheated to with such-and-such amount of time, etc., etc., etc. Seriously, I had butterflies in my stomach all day at work leading up to this test.

And it turned out to be way dang easier than I expected.

WTF?!?

Is this really all that people gotta know to pass this exam and run a restaurant? That test only increased my apprehension level over the sanitation practices in various establishments…

But the worst was yet to come: the Kitchen Practical – otherwise known as… Hell (not Hell’s Kitchen, no, that would’ve been more entertaining, just plain Hell).

We had to make consommé and a sauce. The consommé was easy (we did it the night before, just grind up some chicken and some mirepoix, throw it in a sauce pan with some tomato paste and egg whites and sweat it, add some stock and a sachet, and let that baby simmer, then strain it out). But Chef picked which sauce we were going to do.

I (silently) pleaded: “Please make it Hollandaise! Please make it Hollandaise!” Hollandaise I can do in my sleep standing on my head with one hand tied behind my back. Well, you know. And it’s GOOD! Alas, I was given a choice between Espagnol and Velouté. If anyone reading this has taken Culinary before, you’ll know why I chose Velouté. ☺ Well, at least I do (it was easier!).

And you know what? It turned out alright! Initially. I was feelin’ so good with myself that I went ahead and set it on the back burner, thinking I’d present that and the soup at the same time for Chef and “impress” him (or something).

Bad move. My once semi-perfect sauce turned into a thick, gooey mess by the time I was breaking down my soup. S—t! I tried to save it with some oil and some seasoning, but to no avail. Chef ran a spoon through it, stopped, looked up at me and glared “Is this what I taught you??”

(a moment to swallow the lump in my throat – I swear, I felt like a scolded child)

“No, Chef.”

“What did I teach you??”

“Ummm…..” I frantically tried to come up with an answer that would both affirm my knowledge of the proper way to make this sauce and still explain why I’d managed to completely f— it up.

“It’s not… nappé?” (some culinary term I never quite got but I know Chef reminded us of time and time again when demo-ing sauces)

The look on Chef’s face said it all. Any of you who’ve taken Culinary know the look: “Why am I here? Why am I teaching Culinary One to a bunch o’ dingbats who can’t boil an egg? I could be off running my own catering business, or my own personal chef business, or my own… whatever. Anything… but this.”

Chef proceeded to demonstrate how incorrect my sauce was with the back of his spoon, and then it was over. My sauce was graded, and I threw the rest of it out, moving on to break down my consommé with a heavy heart.

Sigh…

My consommé actually turned out alright. After a mishap with the china cap (and a trip next door to Chef Bruno’s kitchen which I choose not to describe), I had a relatively clear, clarified soup that, after proper seasoning, actually tasted pretty good. I got it back up to temp, did my knife cuts, laid ‘em in there as garnish and presented it. This time it was a cursory “Mm,” and I was done. On to cleaning.

I didn’t get home until after eleven last night, but I was both fried and wired at the same time and ended up working (day job, from home) until one-thirty in the morning. I knew I was gonna sleep well the next day…

Which was today (well, tonight). A repeat performance of yesterday: butterflies in my stomach all day, even to the point of feeling sick! OMG, when’s the last time I ever felt sick to my stomach with nervousness?!?

But all it was was the Culinary final, and like the Sanitation exam, this one was much easier than expected. I sailed through it, then we all went in the kitchen and cleaned a bit before Chef gathered us around and “wished us luck” in our next class by warning us of all the things we could potentially get wrong and in how many ways we needed to improve if we ever hoped to get through Culinary Two. Sigh… good times.

So I got a three-day weekend here (taking a much-needed Friday off of work) to clean and run chores and errands, getting myself ready for the start of class Monday. Now, as long as Campus IT fixes their screwup where they deleted most of my grades from the system (!), I should be all prepared and ready to go, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, for the next chapter in The C-Dawg Chronicles…


Namaste.