Uh-Oh, the end is near

Ooops. Last semester of culinary school is upon me and I have so much that I haven't told you guys about. I'm sorry! My schedule this semester actually looks super easy with classes only all day mondays and then wednesday nights. I'll try to start racking my brain for good stories and information to relay to you.

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!

Fall 2009 Classes

While I wish I could update you on all the happenings of my life as of late, I simply don't have the time. I would like to tell you what classes I will be enduring this fall semester:

Dining Management- taught by this older woman whose cooking experience stops at microwaving popcorn the class is about people, sales and profit as it pertains to the food and beverage industry. She has lots of chain restaurant experience so I know she knows her stuff, she just finds herself too darn hilarious to get very far in one 2-hour lecture per week. Not to mention her hand out fonts are large enough to see from one end of the lecture hall to the other.

International Cuisine Lecture- learning about different countries and the types of cuisine they have to offer. We've only met once and we've already learned a fistful of French vocab words. Prepping us for January when we have 25 French chefs and their spouses over here, I suppose.

Purchasing- taught by the most down-to-earth Chef and going over some of the items we simply touched on in Menu Planning. For this class we will also have a huge project so that will bring its own stresses I'm sure. Otherwise we will be learning how to properly order food and products for an establishment.

Culinary Skills Development- cooking in the student-run bistro inside the ICI building that is open to the public. Each sectioned group of students is responsible for coming up with a buffet that will change weekly as well as a complete menu that remain for their three weeks reign of the kitchen. All the recipes are thought of and executed by the group of students. Basically, it's putting all of our skills and practices into order to see if we can execute appropriately.

Dining Room Service- the service end of bistro at ICI. Where one side of it is the cooking aspect, we must also learn how to serve tables in an appropriate and professional manner. Easy for some (like me) who work in restaurants and do this sort of thing every day, not so easy for others. The positions range from server, host, cashier, manager, expo, dishwasher and busser.

Lastly I have International Cuisine- this "class" is not only helping execute three gourmet dinners but also managing a specific nationality-themed dinner. In my case, Mediterranean. Managing means we must find every recipe we wish to use (after researching the history and typical dishes of that region),we must order our food from suppliers, we come up with plating techniques for each dish and how we want it to be garnished, and then we must relay all of our knowledge and hard work onto the others working that specific dinner and have them be our hands of the operation. It's really intense, and lucky me- I'm first! As in, I have a month to do all the above! No pressure, yeah?

So that is my semester, along with work (as usual) in which I still manage to work 5-6 nights a week. To sum it up, if you're not in my classes or alongside me at work, you probably never see me. Sad, but true. My life is consumed with busyness but such is the life of a second year culinary student!

One year down, one to go.

My twenty days of summer are nearly complete. It seems like just yesterday I was baking off the perfect baguette for my bakery final, getting docked 5% on my Food Prep II Final for talking, and completing my first year of culinary school. I hope to go back and write more on my last days of first year but right now my life is consumed with work. Lots of changes going on so I have a lot of my mind as well, which has been nice having the time off from school. But on Wednesday, August 26th that will all change. Soon I will be yet again juggling a practically full-time job with full-time culinary status. Not to mention trying to maintain a semi-normal social life and enough time to sleep :-)

Project(ed)

No matter how proud or good of a student you are, always listen to your teacher (or in my case, chef). I remember the beginning of summer classes and debating whether or not to stay in my menu planning class because of all the outside work. I ended up staying in it because I figured there was no way it would really require THAT much time. hahaha, oh boy was I wrong! I've been working off and on this project ever since he gave it to us, but only really dived in about 2 weeks ago finalizing my menu and figuring out the costs of each ingredient used. Then over the last three days I have been nonstop working on detailing the menu according to our book, marking up the costs to get my selling cost, and finishing my twelve page business plan.
Having just completed the last step of this project (a short speech in which we "sell" our restaurant)--I feel complete relief. Yes, my pricing is probably off, but considering the limited time- I'm quite happy with my menu and concept. For my financial stability paragraph I put that my family used to live in Italy and we sold our land and moved to America to open a restaurant based on my grandmother's dying wishes (haha). I thought about going up for my speech and being like "yeeeeeeeah, I'm secretly rich. I'm funding myself." I figured that wouldn't go over too well....

Anyways, the top pictures are of items I've made lately in my baking class. This coming Wednesday is the last day for that class :-(. Anyways- Chef Easter has been out because he had a stroke, but a former student (Julie) and Chef O'Brien aretaking over for him. We've had a lot of fun making the above items as well as some not pictured. The left picture is of whole wheat loaf bread, white loaf bread, and my BABY (aka sourdough that I developed for seven days). The right picture is almond poppseed muffins & golden raisin currant scones.

In Garde Manger we attempted to make sausages (which I will never eat again). We did everything up to the grinding for the sausage before one of the teams managed to break both of our working grinders. Oh, and this was only after every other group had gone. So therefore, not knowing exactly when the blade edges wore off- we had to throw away all the sausage.....except ours! haha, that's what we get for being patient I suppose. So then we were using the big buffalo grinder and that worked but Chef Boetel managed to short that out right before we could case the meat. Needless to say, we went home early this day :-)

Food Prep 2 has changed since I last blogged. Chef Carey no longer instructs us (which is something I never thought I'd be sad to say). Instead, Chef Miller took over and we are doing demonstrations. This means that he'll give us a recipe the week before, he'll demo it the day of, and then we copy what he did and produce the same thing. Last week we had a delicious Sauteed Chicken with Supreme Sauce and Glazed Carrots. I received at 85/100 because he said it wasn't seasoned quite enough and that my chicken was a tad overcooked (my thermometer stopped working). Then this week we made Beef Stew rimmed with Whipped Potatoes. I received a 90/100 this time only both items needed more seasoning. I've decided I'm going to start arguing with him (advice from a book I'm reading) about his "complaints" on my food. I seasoned the heck out of that stew. It says a pinch and I "pinched" about ten times (no joke). So now, anytime we make something I'm going to season it to my liking and then add double. I wonder if there's something wrong with his taste buds....eating 85 different student's stews can do that to ya, right?

Pacific Northwest

I don't even know where to begin on updating you on my life's happenings.
Honestly, I did not expect summer school to go this quickly. Sure eight weeks is a short amount of time to learn a semester's worth of information- but I have learned a TON and the semester is not even over yet. In Food Prep II we just completed making all five mother sauces. Each one proved to have its own difficulties.
Hollandaise- sure enough my very first time making it, it curdled. I tried my best to save it (as did Jimmy) but in the end I had to toss it an start over. Luckily it was a quick recovery and my next attempt proved to be successful. This sauce tasted good, but only in moderation. It's very very rich in butter.
Bechamel- my personal favorite. It took forever to stir, about 45 minutes, but in the end this was hands down the best tasting of all the sauces.
Veloute- my mortal enemy. Seriously, I was working on this sauce the whole time while my classmates breezed on to their third sauce of the day (this was my first). Finally, two slurries later and about an hour and a half later- Chef said it was complete.
Espagnole- Not what I imagined when I thought of brown sauce. Very red in complexion up until we sent it through the sieve in which it then looked brown (true to its name afterall!). At the beginning stages when you're browning the roux it look like stuffing at Thanksgiving time...haha, though I doubt it would taste remotely good.
Tomato- 2nd favorite of mine, it tasted delicious despite being a combination of about 12 students' sauces. It required a lot of time (2 hours in the oven) and constant stirri.ng to prevent ending up with a black tomato sauce, but it was good
In baking we had a "feed the baby" project in which over a period of seven days we take away and add to a levain (or sourdough starter). Today is actually day 7 for me so I'm taking mine a week late and cooking my baby off :-) since I was out of state. We also got to make croissants and danishes which have very rich doughs and lottsa butta!
Garde Manger we have made sandwiches, condiments, crackers, and pickles. Today I personally made a dried apricot relish and sweet coin pickles. Both of which are really good (I can tell already). The pickles take three days to...well, pickle and the relish takes a day. Throughout the week we get to check up on our product (aka sample). We also got in two fresh Ivory Salmon from Seattle that weighed 32Lbs together. They were ginormous! We all got to help scale the fish, fillet it, de-bone it, and scoop out the insides for salmon tar-tar. We grilled one after a short cold brine and it was freakin' awesome. Like 5x better than your normal salmon. The other three fillets we are going to smoke later on in the week.
Menu Planning is getting close to the due date. I finally have a feasible menu (kinda) with all items except five. It is indeed a lot of work and I have two short weeks to complete it all so here's to hoping I can complete it and complete it well.
My recent trip to Seattle gave me some very good insight as that is actually the location for the restaurant that I had in mind. In going there I realized Seattle is a very populated area and has a tooooooon of food options available to the many tourists and locals. Therefore, I decided to instead focus on surrounding cities that are on the rise. I also was able to visit a few restaurants and get ideas. Tutta Bella was probably the largest contributor. I realized that despite their good food and hyped up restaurant, I do not want to be like that. Much too small and not at all the atmosphere I envisioned for my place. Instead, I'm beginning to toy with incorpating something similar to another restaurant, Melting Pot into my Italian restaurant theme. It'll be interesting to see how it all fuses together.
Seattle was indeed awesome and I looved my time there hanging out with my APU friend Alison, hanging with my sister on three different days, and even meeting up with another APU friend, Kevin. I saw a bunch of what Seattle has to offer and I would love to live there someday! Definitely recommend going there any chance you get. Oh and it did not rain one single day I was there (and I was there for 10 days)!

Artsy Fartsy

You're looking at my latest Garde Manger creations! I have to admit...when I heard we were carving fruits and veggies for this class- I was super nervous especially as she stated that the artistically gifted would appreciate this most. I have never taken an art class and am an AWFUL artist... we're talking stick people here. So she shows this super intimidating movie where the chef is carving masterpieces within seconds and then she send us to work. Luckily she was super chill about it and just wanted us to be practicing and be as creative as possible. My products actually turned out really well and I was happy with my results. Looks like I'm more artistic with a knife and food than I am with a pen and paper.
So school has been getting better. I think the decreased "lecture" times and more "labs" helps a lot. It's hard sitting in a classroom all day trying to stay awake- actually using our hand and creating stuff in the kitchen can keep anyone awake. This week we have Boys State over in Camp Dodge at the military base. There are three seperate kitchens and we are assigned two days in which we prepare 3 meals a day for hundreds of teenage boys. Each individual kitchen only serves about 100-200 so really it's not as bad as I originally thought. Today we had to go on site and finish cleaning the kitchens and then actually got to feed some of the counselors that are there already. It was short and quite fun actually. During one of our breaks we threw together a game of kickball. I'm hoping that my group and I later in the week can manage to get along and function at five in the morning and survive til eight at night.
Other interesting happenings at culinary school:
I sauteed and ate my very first foie gras. It was crazy because our professor showed us this graphic video of how the duck liver is acquired (let's just say forcefed and electricity) and then she wants us to go into the kitchen and eat it!? Everyone but me liked it. The taste I could handle, the texture was a whole other story.
We also made homemade mozzarella in this class and it was super good!
Unfortunately I haven't had baking since my last post. Of all the classes- why must the one I love most be delayed?
In Food Prep 2 we've been preparing for boys state. Made brownies last week and managed to get my chef's jacket covered in batter thanks to Cody. Needless to say- the stains still have not come out (yeah...not a happy camper). Made chicken stock in this last class and it was really fun though time consuming. Smoked up some pork to take to boys state for bbq sandwiches.
I decided to stay in my Menu Planning class. I am slightly behind the rest of the group at the moment though. I have a restaurant name, location, concept and all that good stuff. I even have a few recipes picked out. I have yet to decide which recipes I will really use, how to cost it all, and properly researching some of my basic concepts (i.e. trademarking my name, researching demographics of prospective location, etc). It is indeed a lot of work but I'm finding it very beneficial.
It may be another week before I blog again. With boys state going on, classes are cancelled. Woot woot.