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.
Showing posts with label Hollandaise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hollandaise. Show all posts
Monday, August 24, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
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.
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.
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