Monday, November 9, 2009

First Gourmet Dinner

I meant to write in here about a month and a half ago and kept pushing it off. Once I start typing you'll understand why.
You see, at the end of September we had our first gourmet dinner. No managers, just using previous dishes that Chef Dowie loves. I was super nervous going into it because I've only viewed these from a first-year server perspective. Just watching the tense and vital plate-up session is enough to send anyone running (experienced or not). I volunteered for the intermezzo which was a grape sorbet of some sort. As we were going through the menu and volunteering, I realized mine wasn't all that labor-intensive, at all actually. So I ended up working on the dessert course with one of my classmates. It was a tres leches cake- which I love, and have made a few times at work. It wasn't nearly as bad as I was making it out to be, especially since desserts are my strongpoint. We followed the recipe and made a few changes per Chef Dowie. Once the batter was complete we tasted it to check our product. Very cinnamon-y, but very good. We baked off the cakes and then poured our milk mixture ontop and let it soak up all the goodness. The next day we were working on it some more and talking about how it tasted more cinnamon-y than all the other weeks they made it. I heard Chef Dowie and my classmate say how they thought it was weird that we only used .75 (? measurement) of cinnamon when we were doubling it. I spoke up and said "it has a one in front of it"- we used 1.5. I guess she told us to double when we weren't supposed to. THAT explains it! She said I should have spoke up, but it was her fault. No one else seemed to mind it though. We garnished with fresh fruit, shaved chocolate flowers (that we made), mint, and whip cream!
At the end of the day when Chef was signing our competencies sheet and I was the last one in the room, she told me I was a natural and looked very comfortable in the kitchen. It made my day!