BOH lingo!

It's been a week of back of the house saute station action for me. Its kinda fun going to school and not having formal classes anymore, i am thrown into a real cooking environment. Its like when i was in high school, i always sat in my boring pre-calculus class, and thought, "I god, when i am i ever going to use the practicality of this seriously! i mean i know how to add and subtract!". But here, we are put in the real world, shown that what we learn IS valuable in real life. I must say i was lucky to be in the back of the house, my peers that got in the front of the house told me its kinda boring, and that there are sick of smiling at people and getting them their lattes. And apparently, the saute station is the most sought out for because the chef asked who wanted to work next week and everyone jumped to it. As hard as it was on busy nights, i must say it was fun. I think the chef put me as a runner next week which i am not to happy about, but we'll see, at least its not front of the house (or FOH). speaking of which (pun intended), theres a whole set of words i picked up this week. If any of you have ever worked in a restaurant or cafe kitchen, you may be familiar with the terms. I don't like them all, but here they are (Merriam Webster, shame on you for making EVOO an official word):
-"all day": i got yelled this a lot from the sous chef who was expediting. when i got slammed with orders he'd yell out, "yo, you got 4 Alfredo's all day". Its basically how many dishes i needed to get out total. So if table 12 orders two orders of salmon and table 19 orders four orders of salmon, that's "six salmon, all day."
-"on the fly": usually, yelled not by the sous chef but by the chef. This could be a special order, or maybe an order that got messed up and needs to be replaced ASAP. When i did orders, i did them in the order they were issued, but "on the fly" had first priority to get made.
-making a dish "sexy": this term is relative, sometimes it means to make it look really nice by adding s nice garnish like chopped parsley, this was the case in my station. but sometime, people use it when they add some kind of really indulgent product like extra cheese, bacon pieces, or truffles. hmm which is sexier bacon grease or parsley???
-"Mise en Place": Essentially, it means everything in its place, very crucial to have your mise set up so you have everything you need handy so you can bust out dishes as they get ordered.
-cambro: its a large plastic bin when i throw in used saute pans once i finished with them, the runners then bring the cambro to the dishwasher (yay, i dont have to do dishes!)

these are just SOME terms, i only listed those we actually used A LOT because some "official" terms are just not used, at least not in our kitchen.

Back of the House!

so the first day of my first rotation began. Each rotation is three weeks. So i was placed at the cafe. I was a little disappointed i was placed there becuase i figured it would be like working in any old joint or starbucks. Thankfully, its really not so bad. My chef put me at the saute station which is basically just the pasta station. there are three pastas on the menu: alfredo, mariniara, and grilled veggie penne. I wouldn't call what i do real cooking because the sauces are sort of alread made. I just need to reduce the cream and add cheese and seasonings to make alfredo, saute some garlic and heat up the marinara sauce, and caramelize the veggies for the veggie pasta. I thought i might need ten pans at most. Boy was I wrong. I must have went through 20. The cafe opens for dinner at 6:30pm and oddly enough, it got busy in my station right away. I must have gotten five different orders for pastas in a matter on seconds. I messed up a lot, i felt a bit like Lucy in that famous epissode where she boxes chocolates like in an assembly line. Because there were a lot of steps i needed to complete for each order. heat sauce, re-boil pasta (thankfully they are already part boiled and portioned), season the sauce, toast the barlic bread, heat up the plate (hot food must always be served on a hot plate), plate the pasta, add the garnish (cheese and parsley) and slice the garlic bread on a bias and place it on the side. To-go orders are a hell of a lot easier (no plate heating). At first, my chef asked me if i was ok at the station alone and i was like "o yea, i can handel it!". I wanted to seem all macho because i was already happy he put me, a girl, the cafe's most active part of the kitchen. But i just couldn't handel it alone, i got like ten orders in a matter on minutes, so another girl jumped in to help me. It was cool then, i think we worked together nicely. Which brings me to another thing, the people are not all from the class i was in before because the rotations are all mixed up. So i met some really nice people and most seem cool and collected. I had dinner with this one girl that said, "for so pretty, you should be on T.V." and "wow, your such a tiny person, but you have such a big ass personality". To be honest, i dont take complements well, and i haven't gotten one in a while, so i sorta shrugged it off and said, "are you kidding, i am in my ugly phase right now, i haven't done my eye brows, i am not wearing any makeup, my hair is greased up under the chefs cap we wear. But as i drove home, i thought, "why didn't i just say thank you". I dont think i am pretty, but i am glad i made an impression on someone, that she thought i had a true soul and personality. maybe i should give myself more credit, i could sure use the confidence boost because the lack of it can bring me down. So tomorrow, i am going to bust out those pastas and i'll now know how to handel seven or eight orders better, and i am going to thank that girl and say "thanks, you very pretty too!".

My fairy godparents

I know, this is a little unrelated to cooking school per se, but I was pondering this yesterday. There are some people i just feel inspire me but also give me a sense of safety and positive energy. Thinking of them brings my spirits up when i am down and really serve as sort of "fairy godmother" to my Cinderella side. heres the list:

-Julia Child: also one of my heroes, but whenever i mess up in the kitchen i think of Julia that despite her culinary brilliance, didn't take herself too seriously and embraced screw-ups. Plus, i think she actually COULD turn a pumpkin into something magical, maybe not a carriage, but soup perhaps???

-Carson Kressley: famous for being the fashion guru on "Queer eye for the straight guy" and his new show "How too look good naked", I truly this guy could get me out of a beauty/fashion/body slump. He's helped so many women learn to love the bodies they were born with and I think his efforts are revolutionary in the body acceptance movement. I also think every straight girl needs a bff of sorts. Tim Gunn (from "Project Runway") seems nice, but he always wears the same thing! I know Tim's got a good eye for fashion, but shouldn't he practice what he preaches? Carson always dresses different, and he seems like a genuinely nice guy. That, and I don't think Tim would like my enormous collection of sweats...

-Morgan Freeman: I dont know if he in genuinely i nice guy, but he's such a fantastic actor that he sure puts on a great, grandfatherly image. That and I am in love with his voice (as you may well know, he narrated numerous documentaries and books on tape). If he came out with a cd where he reads the dictionary, I'd probably buy it! Being Jewish, i never really had a memory of a Santa Clause type figure, but I'd imagine Morgan Freeman would suffice.

-Rivkah, my second grade Hebrew teacher: yes, i went to a Jewish elementary school so we had to take Hebrew and Jewish studies course. When i was in second grade i switched to a new school and was terrified. But from the first day of class this lovely, smiling woman welcomed me. She was more than a teacher, she really connected with her students. another girl in the class had a piano recital (not connected to the school) and Rivkah not only came to show support, she offered to take me. she had this cupboard in the class room where she held "prizes" for when you did well on a test or something. bizarre but cute prizes like alphabet soups, glitter tooth paste, and silly putty. kinda odd but practical, fun things. I don't know what she's doing now, we actually kept in contact but last i saw her was about a year after my mother died. she was fairly old, i hope she'd still alive, but my mom and I both loved her.

there you have it, my list of fairy godparents, who's yours?

The final!

I didn't talk much about the final, but this was a very simple one. I actually didn't do as well as I had hoped, given that it was a breeze compared to our other finals, but i ended up getting an A in the class which is all i really cared about in the end. I had a day of prep and an hour and a half to turn in a soup (mine was hot and sour soup), an appetizer (mine way chicken and peanut satay), and an entree with a starch and veggie (mine was osso bucco with risotto and rapini). Most everyone had a different menu combo, but i definitely thought i got a harder menu. Osso bucco is a "low and slow" type of Italian dish. I remember when i visited Italy when i was in ninth grade with my friend whose family was Italian (and in the mob mind u, but i didn't care, i wasn't on their hit list so they just fed me and were happy that i ate what they gave me!). anyhow, her grandmother spent all day tending to her osso bucco. we had only a day of prep and then an hour before service the day of. Hence i was left with a fairly over-braised veal shank in the end. The chef liked my peanut satay which completely strayed from the recipe, but that's what i liked about this class, you didn't necessarily needed to follow the rules, but it just had to simply taste good. It was really cute in the end, i needed to use cucumber and red onion as a garnish so i made a cup out of the cucumber and used it as a vessel for the satay. My soup was "good but too sour" according to the chef. I agree with him, i knew it was sour, i tasted it many times, but i honestly never had hot and sour soup very often so i figured it was supposed to taste like that. next time, i'll go easy on the vinegar. anyhow, i've been working on my resume for my externship search which is a bit strange. I begin to reflect about all my previous education and odd-ball job experiences. I've worked and interned nearly everywhere. I was a movie set P.A. (very cool actually, i met Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning), a fashion house assistant (a horrible experience, i was an intern and not paid, but you could say they basically fired me. i think they didn't like my outspoken-ness...but i still wonder why they asked me not to come back...), a barista, a baby/dog/house/fish/hamster sitter, etc. what odd ball jobs have you had? share them, i am sure some of you could out do the next. (BTW, the picture here is actually of the very first dish i made in this course, my "steak au poive" practical quiz which i actually did well on, i didn't post my final pictures because as you can imagine, i was too busy worrying about getting the dishes out on time).

Useful info picked up in my international class!

l.b. mentioned i should post some tips of the Latin cuisine i delved into last week, which got me thinking, i picked up a lot of useful info in this course and i'd be more than happy to spread the love! here's some key things i learned:
-most countries have their own "salt" medium. In the U.S., for example, salt is usually used to give items some taste. but say in south east Asia, they use fish sauce which is a good medium if your sick of using plain old NaCl (sodium chloride or salt, for those unchemistry oriented folk). Italians tend to use salty cheese like Parmesan or peccorino. The french like sea salt and items like capers. But try not to use too many salt sources in one dish. If you make a Parmesan risotto, don't add salt, or at least go easy on it. And i suggest trying sea salt. it might seem like a minor difference but don't think so, i think it gives this nice, fresh taste. Now that its summer, there really is nothing like biting into a fresh heirloom tomato with some sea salt (strange, but i swear, delicious!).
- just like every country has a preferred salt medium, they also have a preferred fat medium. In the U.S. (unfortunately) we tend to use a lot of criso and shortening. But in France they use really good quality butter, but they are also big on using the animal's own fat to cook a product (otherwise known as the "confit" method). In Greece, Spain, Italy and other Mediterranean countries, they use olive oil. In Mexico they use pork fat (aka, lard) and in Asian countries, they use nut oils like sesame or peanut oil. So when your making a dish, think about you fat medium. Don't think all oils are healthy. In South America they use Dende oil (or palm oil) which is actually very bad for you. I like flavorful fats, so i try to avoid bland ones like shortening. I prefer butter to crisco any day, even for the flakiest of pastries. Also, and i didn't really pick this up from class, i like to use naturally fat fill foods to substitute for stuff like butter. For example, i like to make cookies with 100% peanut butter or avocado.
- There are sooooo many ways to thicken sauces and soups! We made a very nice sauerbraten sauce when we did Germany and its made with prunes and thickened with ginger snap crumbs! for the Indian dishes, we used chickpea flour (mind you a very good substitute if you need a thickener and want something healthier than white flour). For my final menu, i need to make a hot and sour soup (although its also knows as egg drop soup) which is thickened with a slurry (a teaspoon of cornstarch and water poured in). So you see, thickeners can very so try a different thickener to give your dish another dimension.
-cooking methods really differ from region to region. I noticed a lot of the south east Asian dishes were made very quickly (e.g. pad Thai ). Most of the cooking time is just prepping the ingredients. Italians i think prefer the "low and slow", like osso bucco (also on my final menu) which requires a braise of a couple of hours. I think its pretty neat how Indians use the tandoor (a clay oven) to not only cook chicken but also their bread (naan which is actually pictured, its from the buffet so i didn't make it myself, but i can atest it was very tasty!) which they stick on the outside of the oven like a magnet.
-degreasing soups. ahh well i should have posted this in the beginning way back in intro I where i first learned how to make consomme. a good consomme is grease free and as we all know, water and fat are not friends, so when fat falls in the pool, its easy to spot. Although the method of making consomme does a good job of degreasing the broth and concentrating the flavor, sometimes grease still gets there. Even after to strain it through a coffee filter, you might still spot some grease so here's what i do when this happens: at this point, the soup is already nearly grease free so i would not recommend this if your soup is really greased out. take a couple strips of parchment and just run them through the soup very quickly. If you let it stay in the soup to long, the grease come off the parchment, initially, it sticks right to it so do this a few times very swiftly.

so those are some tidbits i picked up this term. I interviewed my chef so stay tuned for the quick Q and A i had with him!

catching you up...

i know, i haven't updated in a while, and so much has happened. too much to cover in one post, so real quick I'll just first explain that today was my last day at my International, the last day of the term where all we do is clean the lab (or kitchen as normal people might call it) and get our final grades and such. so yes, this was finals week, but you missed a hell of a week last week so I'll fill you in about that week now.
Our lovely chef had a family reunion and was out for all of last week. We knew this when we first started the class but didn't think much of it. We've had substitutes before and they've been nice enough. Hmm, maybe we got spoiled. The sub was the chef that teaches our class but on a different schedule (as you may remember i do the "c" schedule which runs from 6pm to 11pm, she teaches from 12pm-5pm). A friend of mine in class (yes, believe it or not even after the whole class finding out about my blog, some people apparently still think i am cool enough to talk to) told me her boyfriend had that particular teacher and that she was scary. how bad could it be???
I guess bad, real bad. On the surface, she was quite friendly. But she ran the class in such a way that EVERYONE was getting upset and angry. and angry and negative atmosphere is terrible for an effective. She was super strict, which i suppose is good, but I've had strict chefs before and there was this unfriendly aura about the way she followed "the rules". She spent a lot of class time lecturing about the recipes which really didn't need it so we got out very late. She would not let us really venture out of the recipe. Our regular chef told us before, i don't care how you make it, but make it taste good. This is our last formal class in the program so we're fairly advanced, this should be our time to glance at recipes to get an idea, and sort of build our dishes on our own. Everyone, and i do mean EVERY student in the class was very unhappy with this teacher. the class seemed like work or a boot camp and the joy of cooking that we had before was gone. As a result, people started to get snappy, no one was relaxed and everyone could have used some Prozac (me included). I didn't actually go on the last day she was teaching (last Thursday) which is rare because I've never missed a day of class throughout the whole program. Apparently, people got so on edge that there was a actually a physical fight between the students! i wasn't there thank god, bu i know enough simply from this blog not to get into peoples business so i am forever going to stay on the sidelines when it comes to personalities clashing.
The animosity aside, the theme of the week was south America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. this is my dish from our south American day, its a achiote marinated pork chop (which the chef referred to as so overcooked that it was "dead")with grilled cactus (not so bad tasting, and apparently very rich in vitamins!), and rice. the one good thing she said about my dish was that the rice was nice. And i suppose that was good enough for me. If you may remember, rice was the first dishes we learned way back in our Intro I class and people forget how to do it right. And its fundamental, i think every eatery serves rice of some sort. anyhow, more about finals week in my next post. thanks guys, for those still reading this!

South East Asian!

There are quite a few South East Asian students in my class, actually they make up about half the class i think. this is cool, but when we did South East Asia last week, i was so freaked out because clearly, they were in familiar territory. Case in point, the lumpia. its a egg roll, of sorts, but i asked a few of my classmates to show me how to roll it properly because once i hit the fryer, it sort of came apart on me. Actually, its quite simple to make, but i suppose there is a magic "southeast Asian" touch i lack. I served it with a hot sweet and sour sauce. I dont think my chef actually tried all of them, thats a lot of lumpias to try, but he said mine ok. I have loads more to dish about this week, it was a whirlwind like no other!

China!

so after Japan, which we did on Monday, we went over to china. Japan was a buffet style day so i volunteered to make desserts. My friend and i went online to try to make those mochi cakes. we did a few batches and needless to say, they were not very pleasant tasting. Not to mention, a total pain to clean, the gummi-goey-ness was stuck on all the pots which we had to scrub for about an hour and then try to boil down. Anyhow, we still needed a dessert so at the last second, we simple chopped some berries and wrapped them in won ton wrappers and fried them up. then we served it with wonderful fruit infuse gastrique (a sugar vinegar reduction which is actually used more for savory foods). Anyhow, we all had individual work when we did china. We needed to do two appetizers and an entree. So here's my won ton soup. There are some Asian kids in my class that folded their won tons impeccably, i asked one of them to show me, but still, mine looked a bit pathetic next to their little cute pockets of pork. They were very easy to make and i am wondering why people dont make these more often at home? seriously, try it, used group chicken, pork, beef, turkey, hell even tofu or veggies. Season in with some soy sauce and herbs like coriander or scallions, wrap them in won ton skins and boil in a good broth. tadah! no need for greasy American Chinese takeout!

Middle East? if you say so...

I apologize for not updating you about last week. After doing Great Britain, we did Russia (lots of Borscht, caviar, and blinis), and then Middle Eastern, or at least what's middle eastern in Le cordon Bleu's Book. My mom being Israeli and visiting Israel and parts of Egypt, i can tell you they might snub their noses at some of this Middle Eastern recipes we were given. What was cool about this day though was that we did something called an "order fire exercise". For those not in the restaurant biz, this means its basically simulating a restaurant situation. Threes an expediter (in our case, the sous chef) who calls out down the line for orders as tickets keep coming in. So for our "simulation" our chef would give an order to the sous chef, like say, two kabob plates, one moussaka, and three desserts. Then our class (most of which were working in different stations down the line) would have to get those meals out, all looking beautiful, identical, on hot plates (if its a hot dish), and FAST. ten minuets in the kitchen is like a hour to the customer. My friend an I made the desserts which was baklava (this is not that middle eastern if you ask me...). To make look pretty, we decided to make two different colored sauces, a pistachio creme anglaise and a yogurt honey sauce (My friend and i couldn't stop snacking on the yogurt sauce! we dipped all this fruit that we used as garnish in it and it was divine. anyhow, the baklava was a little over baked, so to compensate, we agreed the plate really needed to at least look magnificent. so we made about 16 caramel cages (very time consuming, but we had help thanks to some awesome peers that risked their fingers to work to make these cages (because hot sugar burns are terrible, and lord knows i left with a few battle scars that night). Our chef was impressed and it was overall a fun exercise. The one of the quickest hours of my life. It was stressful, but in a good way, kind of like working out, icky when your actually doing it, but the adrenaline is awesome and you don't regret doing it.

London Calling!

Wow am i sorry for not updating, and A LOT has happend. I've been very busy with work and school and not to mention had to deal with some personal stuff this week so its been a bit of a whirlwind. Anyhow, let me fill you in on this last week. We covered England of Tuesday and each student needed to present a beef wellington a cottage pie or pastie (pronounced pah-s-tee, not PAY-s-tee). I did the cottage pie (FYI, its a Shepard's pie not made with deer meat) and the wellington (that's the wellington pictured). Thank the lord we didn't need to make our own puff pastry! We were allowed to do whatever design we wanted and we needed to present it with tourneed potatoes and haricot vert. I was so proud of my sauce! it was reduced enough that it was super rich (you can tell by it's dark color) and it didn't break down on me (you know, when the fat and water separates..yea, no very pleasing on a fine dining plate). I thought my design was cute, but i saw some stuff the other students made and was a bit humbled, they really went all out and churned out some pretty neat wellingtons. I think that's the most expensive meal I've cooked, you know, it being a fillet Mignon, topped with mushroom duxelle, and foie gras. I should have pawned it! hey, i could use the money!

Gambas!

I made this dish with another classmate. I needed the help peeling all those shrimp which was murder for my fingers since the package they came in was frozen. they were simple to make, sauted in olive oil, chili flakes, and a spanish paprika. We had a little lecture about spain afterward with a whole break-down of the way they eat their meals. Actually, they eat a lot like me. they have a light breakfast or sometimes no real breakfast because they like to wake up late (like me). then they have a light lunch around 2, followed by a nap. then a little tea break around 4 or 5pm. then a little light dinner around 7 pm (like tapas and little appetizer sized portions) and then a real full course grand meal around 9 or 10pm. It seems like they must eat so much that they must face some obesity problem but not that what they do it is wholesome and fresh. They have wonderful local produce, wines, olive oils, seafood, etc. I've been to most of Europe but not Spain so i really hope to visit sometime in the near future. I'd also love to see more Spanish resturants. i only know of two "semi-decent" ones in LA and i know of a few in New York, but i think its a very tasty cuisine thats a bit underrated.

Paella!

We did a whole spanish buffet/banquet spread on tuesday. This reminded me a lot of my Garde Manger class because it was everyone in class kind of working together towards a big buffet, its not like individual plated dishes. However, the banquet was supposed to be for 16 people and we henceforth needed to make little tapas plates that all look indetical. The paella was the exception (because no one eats an individual paella, its meant to be a communal dish). Its gorgeous (and yummy!) but sadly i cant take credit for it because other people in the class made it. I did make the shrimp "gambas" which will be in the next post...

Aww, poor thumper!

ok so this is the rabbit. Its actually a rabbit roullade (with the leg/thigh meat) and rabbit loin which was crusted with bread crumbs (i know its a bit hard to tell). After the frogs legs, i was hesitant about try anymore out of the ordinary proteins, but i was pleasantly surprised. i actually am not to keen on duck, but i actually really enjoyed this, i am ashamed to admit. I fabricated poor bugs or thumper on Tuesday and it just looked so much like a rabbit, that it freaked me out a bit. But oddly enough, and not to sound too cliche, its a lot like chicken, maybe a little "meatier" perhaps leaner although i am not sure. Actually, i think its maybe more comparable to pork, hmm maybe a cross between the too. There is a fava and mushroom ragu with i think came out nicely beside it, with fried sage as a garnish, because anything fried is better, right?
Anyhows, I am really digging this class. Since there are little to no cooking demos we (the students) are really getting our chance to execute creative control and as the chef said "we're letting you fly". Garde Manger and baking were ok and the lessons were invaluable, but i really enjoyed my intro II class and i feel like this is like a big, grown-up, up-grade from that class. Next week we do Spanish, German, Belgian (my dad's Belgian, we'll see what HE has to say about the authenticity), Swiss, and Italian cuisine. I am lucky to have visited most the countries so we'll see how "authentic" they really are.

Frogs legs!

bleh, apparently a delicacy right? i know some people who actually like them, but they look too much like human muscles, and they taste like overcooked fish (or maybe i just overcooked mine?). We needed to serve it with a starch and veggie (like most entrees) so i chose polenta and baby carrots, still, I couldn't manage to make this look appetizing....

Bouillanbaise

Here's my Bouillabaisse, a provincial south of France fish stew. I've actually had some in Cannes and it was way better. Our recipe was a bit different because the end result did not have a lot of vegtables left and i remember the loads of stewed veggies in the Bouillabaisse i had in France. My Chef said it needed more salt, i am not going to argue, the truth is, i made a big batch so didn't realize i might need a lot more salt for the individual bowl to taste ok. I could have done better but i don't think it was a total disaster.

Welcome to International!

I apologize for not updating daily, its been a jam packed week. Anyhow, Garde Manger is over and on to the last formal cooking class because after this class i start to do a rotation where i work at the school's cafe, res truant, receiving, etc. I must say though, this was the class i was most physicked about when i heard about the whole program. Of course, every class gets harder and harder, and yes, this class is challenging and a lot of work (besides cooking) but its interesting to learn about different cuisines and we cover about 30 countries! Everyday is usually a different country, with this week being the except. This week was a lot about French food although some days we primarily focused on classical dishes and while other were provincial. I have loads of pics to share so with each picture of the dishes i made this week, I'll share some info about the class and the feelings that brewed in me. This was the first dish we had to make, nothing fancy but this was actually a practical quiz, we needed to make steak au poive with three tourneed potatoes with beans. I am not sure how i did. my sauce could have been darker but i think i did ok on the doneness which was supposed to be medium rare. I freaked out a bit because i thought initially it was overdone because i got a very thin piece compared to the others around me, but i think it turned out ok, i saw the color inside and it look medium.

my final buffet!

so i ditched my Dr. Seuss idea (sorry leslie, i know you were into that after the whole Horton who pancake fiasco) and went with "garden of eden". That tree there in the background is the tree of life made out of salt dough. Its not my proudest achievement but at least i made it through and it looks decent. I did the best i could, given the circumstances. My next class, International cuisines. This should be fun since i love to travel and have been almost everywhere. let see how authentic a french culinary school can be....

Final Freakout!!

You may have noticed how i haven't been posting lately here or over at Nutritious Junk, but that's because I've been super stressed with finals!!! I can finally breathe a little now that i get an hour and a half break while my buffet is being graded (btw, my chef knows about this blog so if he's reading, please be gentle, this was a tough one). For those of you who aren't in my class (because since now the word is out about my blog, i suspect people check it to see if i wrote any nasty things about them), let me break it down how the Garde Manger finals work. We had a written final on Monday, then we have to prep for a buffet of our very own (individual, NO TEAMS like before) with 3 different canapes with 12 of each and a chicken galantine. With four and a half days of prep, you'd think this is easy, right? well thats not all. On tuesday, we drew out of a hat two assinged salads and needed to present two appetizer portions of each at the alloted time. On Wednsday, we drew a sandwich and needed to present 12 tea sandwiches of our choice (i went with egg salad, i felt if i went for something too simple like cucumber or watercress, i'd be graded more harshly). I am sure you guys think sandwiches are super simpel and they are! but not when you have to make your own mayo, grill/roast your veggies, cook your bacon, make you spread etc. and today (thursday) we need to be clean and present our themed buffet at 8:30. I chose my theme to be "The Garden of Eden". I had the tree of life (sans apples, i guess eve ate them all) made out of salt dough (which is the culinary term for play dough, now i know why play dough tastes so salty, and yes, i was the adventuerous child who actually tried play-dough). O yes, and of course we need to present 10 vegtable carvings and a melon carving. I feel like i am about to collapse. tomorrow i also am just loaded with personal stuff i need to take care of (two doctors appointments, 1 job interview, laundry, groceries, etc) and i still need to go to school to help clean the lab before the next term and recieve my final grade. Gahh! i will take a picture when i can get back into the lab in about an hour and you guys can give me feed back. Not my best work, but lord knows i tried the best i could and given the circumstances, i am not completely dissatisfied, at least all my components are there (i hope?). anyhow, i am going to get some grub, strange this is all really about food and i forget to feed i have a growling stomach.

All about my mother

Happy mothers day, Ive had a terrible/stressful weekend but I'll carve (haha no pun intended) out a little non culinary face time to talk about my mother. I haven't celebrated mother's day with her in for nearly a decade. She died in 2000 when i was just entering my teen years, a fragile time to loose a mother. She had cancer since i was in her womb. Her doctors told her once i came out, she should start chemo on her breast and forgo breast feeding. but my mom was no match, she was like, "no way will me daughter grow up on formula! I'll breast feed her until she's ready to eat on her own!". And so she did, and completed a round of chemo successfully after she breast fed me for nine months. My mother was a bit of an astronaut, as my dad called her. Loving to explore new places and meeting new people. Its amazing how many friends she knew! very different from my dad who was a bit of an extrovert and less social. She told me she always wanted to be a flight attendant, she loved flying (i totally didn't get THAT gene, i hate flights!) and loved traveling. But she actually had a masters in urban planning although never really did that. She bounced around doing marketing for various companies. She was in no way a housewife, she always worked even when she had chemo again when i was in their grade when her breast cancer came back. She lost her hair completely the second time around. In that time, cancer wasn't very chic like it is today with Melissa Ethridge proudly shaking her bald head at the Grammy's. So she was very shy and upset about being bald. But it was fun going with her to the wig shop (note, i should NEVER be platinum blond!) and trying on crazy wigs. she was very healthy about it though, she ate well and exercised every morning. and I honestly never remember her in pain of i bed a lot. she wasn't "sick" to me. She was so cool in that as healthy as she was, she would take me every so often McDonald's and order a Big Mac, one of her prized foods. she knew this wasn't healthy, and mind you, she did take off the third bun on it (which is perfectly good to do, who needs three buns!). Anyhow, she did have a great appetite. she never restricted junk food at all, but she also wasn't inclined to buy unhealthy snacks like sugary cereals and those kiddie fruit by the foot stuff. That's why my lunches in school were so odd. I had stuff like pita with hummus or a tuna and corn salad (a very good salad, mind you!) with literally a hunk of chocolate for dessert! how weird, right? Its strange though because i found all these diet books on her book case (old diet books, like "fit or fat" and Susan powder books) but i never remember her following them. Anyhow, fast forward to when i was about 12 when the cancer came back again. This time it was breast cancer cells in the lung. This time, it took her life about a year and half later. She was only bed ridden about a month before she died, and i don't even think she thought she was dying. So when she did die, it was a bit of a shock to everyone, despite the fact that people knew breast cancer and her were on a on/off relationship for a while. I cried i a lot before she died, but no so much after, strangely enough. It was like a weight was lifted. We buried her near where she grew up in Israel. Its actually a lovely cemetery with only about 20 graves, not like a death row most cemetery's resemble. Its in the outskirt hills of Jerusalem, and it looks more like a hidden cove than a cemetery. I hated the funeral, simply because i didn't want to see people cry and get all sappy because i find that contagious and it made me that way too. My mother's absence has unfortunately stirred up some problems with my mental health. For a while, i was so scarred for my dad's life because i was afraid to be an orphan. I think loosing a mother before you enter high school can be daunting. I didn't have a mother primp me for prom or "lunch" with, or go bra shopping. I dragged my dad, poor thing, but he's been awesome, he's had women around him all his life so he's in the know with female issues as opposed to most fathers. I actually usually give my dad a gift on mother's day because i think he's been great at trying to be mom. This is getting long and i to be honest, i am beginning to tear up writing this so I'll wrap this up. Have a wonderful mothers day everybody!

Galantines, Pates, and Terrines: french Jell-O

so this week was fairly easy going (although still for me, pretty harsh, i think there must be some hex that the classmates put upon me). we made chicken galantines which is a chicken forcemeat mixture that covers a carrot, spinach, and mushroom inlay, wraped boned chicken breast, wraped in its own casing (as in, chicken skin), and the THAT is covered in edible chaud froid, which is basically a bechemel sauce with gelatin so it hardens up. sounds delicious, doesn't it!? well no, even the chef told us he'd pay to NOT eat it. This is very classical french and really for the sake of presentation. Its like taking meatloaf and giving it a Jell-O coat (scarry thought). Needless to say, mine was horrible. My inlays were alll different sizes and got all mushed when i poached them. Finals are next week so I am a bit stressed, but i must get this gallantine right for th final (i did terribly on the last quiz, i think my lowest grade in my whole culinary school career). Finals are crazy hard, and i thought the baking II finals were stressful! I have to make my own buffet (no more groups) and have 10 vegtable carvings plus a melon carving. the thing is, i suck (i'd use a nicer word but, i plainly just "suck") at carving. maybe my fingers are deformed. Its weird cause i thought i might be good at it cause i knit a lot but i suppose being "handy" has nothing to do with your veggie carving skills. I still think i cook veggies, as opposed to making them look like roses. I wonder which lasts longer? anyhow, yesterday we had a test run for next week cause we had a little mini buffet (with only three items though)and my theme was my mother, for mothers day. speaking of which, my next post will be about my mother, she was such an amazing person, i would love to share with you her story.