School Week 4

This is my second chef, Tucker Bunch, which is the silliest name ever. I thought you could all use a picture of what someone named Tucker Bunch looks like.





First for the not-school news. The 13th is my parent’s anniversary! Dave and I celebrated by going to the French Laundry and dropping an insane amount of money that we don’t really have on dinner for two. The French Laundry is debated as being the best restaurant in America, and is super hard to get into, so it was really cool that we were able to get a table. Dinner was really good, although not what we expected. It was much simpler than we thought it was going to be, but it was delicious. In addition to our fancy dinner on Monday, we had our first guest to our apartment, and we have the same face. That’s right it was Wade, who was in Santa Rosa for business and came to hang out with us n Tuesday. Dave made an awesome dinner as always and it was fun to catch up. On Thursday I got to eat with Wade and mom and Dad, because David took my closing shift at work. What a nice guy.

In school everything went pretty well. I had one group member who I wanted to strangle the entire time but besides that it was ok. This group member is from India and is still under the impression that women should not carry heavy things or use dangerous things like knives or the stove so it’s a little education process for him. Our items that we made this week were real food, sautéed chicken breast with spinach and au gratin potatoes, grilled beef tenderloin, grilled salmon, grilled pork chops. We are actually making our lunch and our extras are put on the lunch buffet for the rest of the school, so that’s kind of fun. Next week I am a sanitor, which means that I need to be at school around 5:30 to help with the set up of everything for our class, which start at 7. Yikes.

School week 3

This week at school was pretty much devoted to getting ready for our first examinations. After each unit at school we will be tested in the same format. The first day of testing there is a knife test and a written test. The written test is pretty straightforward scantron, the knife test is pretty interesting though. We were given an hour to cut ½ cup potatoes into ¼ inch cubes, turn 6 potatoes (Which means to cut into 2 long footballs with seven equal sides) 6 turned celery pieces (2 inches long again with the top and bottom of the u shape removed so it becomes a flat piece) 6 fluted mushrooms, ½ chiffonade cabbage, ½ potatoes cubes 1/8 inch, and julienne of carrots 2 inches long 1/8 x 1/8 inch. It was a lot to get done in an hour. When we were done we were called to evaluate it with the chef. The evaluation was the chef grabbing a random handful of our vegetables and taking a ruler and evaluating the sides of out itty bitty cubes and sticks of vegetables. I got a 86% which I was happy with for three weeks of practice.

The next day was our cooking test. We had 3 hours to make cream of tomato soup, consommé, a sample plate of the different colors of roux, and a hollandaise. I got mine all done in plenty of time, and had the cleanest station in the class. I presented my stuff to my chef, and she said that everything was pretty much prefect. She knocked me off 2 points for my soup not being reduced enough (I hate tomato soup so it was hard to tell if mine was good tomato soup or not) , and my roux had a bit too much oil in it so she knocked .5 points off of that one. I got a 97.5, which not only was the highest grade in the class is pretty unheard of at the CIA for your first cooking test. So yay me!! I am feeling pretty good about everything and am excited for my next class skills 2 with a new teacher, Chef Tucker Bunch.

Photo 1 is of Turned potatoes (not mine, which are a little lumpy)
Photo 2 is of a fluted mushroom which is actually what mine look like.

Oo-ooh that smell...

Here they are...the long awaited, much anticipated Gilroy Garlic Festival pictures!

We decided to visit the festival on Sunday (July 29th) in the hopes that the crowds would be smaller toward the end of the weekend. (Ha!) We got directions and checked the weather forecast to see if we needed to bring warm clothes. (Yeah right!) We're about 1 1/2 hours from Gilroy, so we left around 11am thinking that we would be garlicked out after only a few hours. (That's the only thing we got right all day.) It turned out that there were so many people going that the highway was backed up the last 20 miles to Gilroy. Once we got through the back up and got off the highway, there were so many people that it took us another hour to get to the festival. We finally parked just in view of the entrance...


We were hoping that the entrance would show up in this picture, but it's just beyond those trees in the background. It's so far away that we could barely see the 12 foot long banner over the entrance. (We took this photo on our way out. Abby is holding the garlic braid that is now hanging in our kitchen.)

The weather was at least in the mid-90s without a cloud in the sky. (The heat index must have been at least 350 degrees.) We walked in and finally made it onto the grounds. It was a lot like a small county fair. It was laid out in a square with tons of food booths around three sides and a music stage on the fourth. There were a few rows of craft booths in the center, but they had regular fair-y crafts, not a bunch of stuff made out of garlic or made to look like garlic. Here are some of the food booths.

By the time we got in, we were both starving so we had garlic fries (with at least a head of garlic on them--maybe two), garlic kalamari, garlic bread, and crawfish etoufee. We tried to get a pepper steak sandwich (with garlic), but the line was too long.

As you can see, there wasn't much shade, so we stayed away from the garlic beverage options. We couldn't pass up the chance to eat garlic ice cream, though.


They didn't have just plain garlic, but they had the five flavors listed on the sign with garlic. We really debated what to get.





The garlic roasted almond sounded the least objectionable (since we both like garlic almonds) but we thought the garlic vanilla sounded like it would let the garlic come through the most. In the end we decided to go for the garlic vanilla.






Here is Abby "enjoying" some garlic vanilla ice cream. (Doesn't she look convincing!) She wasn't such a fan, but I didn't think it was too bad. I probably never have to have it again, but it wasn't horrible. When I took a bite, it tasted like plain vanilla ice cream, but after I swallowed it, all I could taste was garlic.

Anyway, we wandered around a bit, bought our garlic braid, and got some refreshing treats to eat on our way out. Abby had frozen strawberries and peaches on a stick dipped in chocolate and I had a shaved ice (I passed up the garlic flavor in favor of lime.) We walked out and made it back to the highway (the same route that took us an hour to get in) in under 10 minutes.

It was a once in a lifetime experience. (We're glad we did it, but we probably don't need to go again.) I'd recommend it, but try to go on a day when it's cooler or at least cloudy.

Cooking School week 2

This week at school we made consomme, and worked our way through the mother sauces. We made a veloute , which is a thickened stock, a bechamel, which is thickened milk, espagnole sauce, which is a brown sauce, and finally a hollandaise. Tomato (the last of the 5 mother sauces is Monday)

Friday was hollandaise day. We have a lecture every morning, and in our lecture we were reminded that all hot foods must be served and kept above 141 to be out of the temperature danger zone (the zone where bacteria and microbes multiply like crazy). So we all march into the kitchen confident that we can make this sauce. I make mine taste it and its perfect, I bring it to chef, she temps it and its at 90 degrees (our school issued thermometers are on back order so I didn't have one). She asks me if that is above, or below 141. I tell her below and she tells me to go and get it hotter. I go and put it on my pot of simmering water and 5 minutes later it breaks. The eggs and butter separate. I try to fix it. Start with new egg yolks, add the broken sauce...and it doesn't work. I try to blend it in the food processor. nothing. I try to add some water, another CIA approved method. nothing again. I make a new one. Its beautiful, and tasty. I try to make it hot enough, I put it into a heated bowl. Chef temps it, 111 degrees. not hot enough. I try to heat it up again, it breaks and get angry at my bowl which gets angry back and I burn every finger tip on my left hand when I try to fix that sauce. I make a new one and am convinced that I will just go and ask her about the flavor and tell her that I think its impossible to make it hot.

I walk my bowl of sauce over to Chef, she asks me if its hot. I say well its hot ish, but not 141. I also tell her that I think its impossible to make it hot without it breaking. She says "Oh really, you do do you?" I am terrified. She asks me what temperate eggs coagulate (which we learned in our consomme lecture) I say 120 and as soon as the words leave my mouth she smiles and says my sauce is great, and that its physically impossible to make a hollandaise above 120, because it will separate. I spent 2 hours making a sauce that was impossible because the book told me that it must be served and held at 141.

What Abby Learned -
+The even thought it is regarded as such, Th New Professional Chef book is not in fact the bible of cooking, and that common sense is good too.
+Although it is commonly known that the CIA of today is a more snuggly CIA than that of the 70's and 80's the chefs still like to mess with you to make a point.

Sooo this week was a little rough at the end, but this coming week will really test me. This next week is out test for our first unit. We have a timed knife test and written test on Thursday and a cooking test on Friday. Wish me luck and send good thoughts my way this week. yikes.

Lots of love
Abby

Consomme night!

Consomme!!

Last night I taught David how to make consomme. Consomme is a stock that is clarified by adding raw meat, egg whites, and ground up veggies and then simmering for 1-1.5 hours. Its pretty hard to do well because if you simmer it too hard the raft (raw meat and eggs and veggies) wont form into a solid mass, and then you stock wont be clear.
(Isn't David cute) :)




Here is step one, it is milky looking raw meat and eggs in stock. Pretty gross.










Now the raft (firm mass that raises to the surface) is starting to form and the chicken and eggs are starting to coagulate. Now we simmer for 1-1.5 hours so the impurities in the stock bubble over the raft and get stuck in it, leaving the stock clear.


The raft after we strained the consomme off of it.



The consomme! Crystal clean and amazing. We made this three times at school this week and I thought it would be right up David's alley. How weird that raw mean and egg whites, cooked in stock makes it crystal clear!

San Francisco Pictures

David and I went to San Fran the weekend before school started. Here are a few of our pictures.

The Golden Gate Bridge














In this one I have chocolate ice cream all over my face, but thank goodness it doesn't look like it.

My First Week of School

Hello Everyone!

I am done with my first week of school, which went by in the blink of an eye. I am now 1/30 done with school. Yay!!

The first real day was more than a little scattered and crazy but the second was a ton better, thanks to Joel and Andrew our Sous Chefs (a randomly assigned rotating position). They really took control and laid out for us exactly what was expected and when it was due. The rest of the week went really well, crazy and fast paced, but well.
This week I learned how to cut vegetables into a zillion crazy shapes. We, as a class made stock, white chicken and brown veal, french onion soup, and chicken and rice soup.

Next week is consommme (which is a stock that is clarified using egg whites, ground meat, and veggies which come together and form a raft which then traps all the impurities). The stock ends up crystal clear and will be part of our Skills I test at the end of our first 3 weeks. Its super complicated and finicky so that will be he hardest part of my test, Im sure.

Last night Dave and Doug (6'7" guy from Iowa in my class) and Caroline (from Minneapolis, by way of Madison) and I went to see Ratatouille and it was awesome! What a funny movie. Tonight we are going to a party at some of my classmates house, and then Sunday we are off to the Gillroy Garlic Festival in Gillroy CA. Hurray!

I love you all tons and thanks for the cards and phone calls of encouragement. It meant a ton during this crazy stressful week (The instructors call week one RUSH week or hell week).
Lots of love and hugs to all

Abby :)