October 2007
1 post
wow, long time
It’s been a long time since a post, so here goes. Intro Baking and Pastry wrapped up and my overall experience is that I won’t be turning into a baker, but I would like to learn more. After baking was 3 weeks of contemporary cuisine where we learned how to modify recipes so that they worked for special diets like DASH or vegan. I really liked that class, largely because there was so...
August 2007
5 posts
Piece of Cake
This week in baking & pastry, we made cookies and cakes. I must admit, it has been a lot more interesting than bread week. I got to choose the kind of cookie I made (caramel pecan bar), we were allowed some flexibility when we made eclairs and cream puffs. I put rosewater in my pastry cream and it turned out really good, I am really happy with how it tasted. Yesterday we baked cakes, today...
Intro to Baking and Pastry
Garde Manger is done, and I’m in Intro to Baking and Pastry now. So far we’ve made foccacia, challah, danishes, baguettes, epis, morning buns, and something with puff dough. I don’t really like the class very much. All we do is follow the recipes exactly and then the dough comes out. If you don’t follow the recipe, then your bread doesn’t come out. There just...
July 2007
11 posts
Long time no speak
The photos below are some of the food that I either made, or helped make in class last week. I am in Garde Manger now, which means ‘protector of the food’ or something like that. Tradtitionally it was the garde manger chef’s job to take the food that was going to go bad soon and stretch it out. Nowadays, garde manger cooks use fresh ingredients and quality matters. My station...
not about school
This one isn’t about school, per se. I got my first kitchen job! I’m working at Aziza (www.aziza-sf.com), fine-dining, Moroccan cuisine. It is really exciting! Right now I am working the Garde Manger station, making salads and that sort of thing. Chef said that I will get to work all the stations as well as some front of the house stuff. He also wanted to take me to visit his...
Butchery Day 9
So the end of week two in butchery. It is turning out to be more fun than I had originally anticipated. I have 9/11 competencies done, and the last two are pretty easy: semi-boneless leg of lamb, and beef tenderloin. Not too hard. We are done with demos now, which means more production time which is nice. It means I got through 2 comps today, and got production done for the Careme room. ...
Butchery Day 4
The picture below is what I cooked for dinner tonight. I had left over chicken from Monday (I bought a chicken monday to practice taking it apart), so I deboned the leg/thighs, stuffed then with a wild rice/rice pilaf blend that I made (also added cranberries for a little sweet and tart), seared the outside and threw it in the oven. I made a Sauce Supreme to go with it. Everything turned out...
Butchery Day 2
So last saturday was grill and sautee competency. I worked with the same guy as on the other competency and we did really well, 94/100. At the end of class, I overheard Chef critiquing the annoying woman’s food and at one point he said “I feel myself getting trychtinosis just looking at your pork”, that is how undercooked it was. He then went on to chew out her and this...
June 2007
9 posts
Day 29
Today was our poach and roast competency in the Skills kitchen, and my partner and I kicked ass. I am really happy with our final score, 96/100. The only thing that was wrong was not removing enough of the skin on a shallot. We got docked two points for being a couple minutes late too, but that was the stupid oven’s fault. The chicken should have taken 30 minutes, but took an hour...
Day 22?
I don’t know what day it is. Maybe 22. Today we learned how to grill. Steak and pork specifically. I discovered yesterday that working with the woman who is annoying and not a good cook is making me a better cook, so I am going to continue working with her despite her insufferable incompetency. I guess that makes it sufferable, right? So because she can’t cook her way out of a...
Day 20!
Today was frying day. I made some very nice fish and chips (great french fries!), vegetable and shrimp tempura, breaded chicken, tartar sauce, cocktail sauce, and sweet and sour sauce. It all turned out really well, and I am very happy with how it all worked out. In even more exciting news! A few weeks ago I volunteered to help at a thing called “Rising Chef Gala”. Some chefs have...
Oh yeah
And I got A’s on both the Skills mid-term and Science mid-term. They were easy. The science mid-term was even open notes, unfortunately I forgot my notes that day, so had to rely on my brain.
Day 17
Yesterday we made eggs. Omeletes, over easy/medium/hard, and poached. Today we did pasta. We are starting to team up in the kitchen, and the annoying woman keeps asking me to work with her.
Annoying woman is back in class today
Day 15
Soup and Sauce Competency day! Day 14 was a practice comp test and I only got 2/3 sauces done and only 1/2 soup. For the comp today I got all the sauces done, and the soups, but I went over the time limit allowed, so I lost 2 points. My Hollandaise kept breaking and I didn’t know at the time how to fix it, so I ended up making it 3 times from scratch. I got perfect scores on my Cream of...
Day 13
This week has been soup week. We’ve moved on from the mother sauces and now I can make New England Clam Chowder, Potato Leek Soup, Shrimp Bisque, Cream of Mushroom Soup (way better than the canned stuff), and Consomme. I am definitely getting better at managing my time and multiple pots at once. Friday is the soup and sauce competency test, which will be fun.
At school there is one 40...
Day 10
Today was the Safety and Sanitation final. I got a 94% which worked out to an A overall in the class. No surprise, it is pretty easy and commonsense. When in doubt, be overly cautious. Monday we start Food science for two weeks which I am looking forward to. I like the science of food. Yesterday we made Hollandaise and some other sauces. My comment meant that I think I make good tasting...
May 2007
6 posts
I’ve got talent. I just need to get faster
Day 6
Today we made our first mother sauce. Veloute. It is a pretty unexciting sauce. You take you stock (chicken, fish, or veal in our case), and add a roux to thicken it. That’s pretty much it. Then we took the veloute and turned it into Supreme, White Wine, and Allemande sauces. Those were much more interesting. My chicken supreme and veal allemande sauces came out very good according to...
Days 3-5
Sorry, very busy. Last week we learned more knife cuts (concasse, tourne, chopped garlic and parsley, and chiffonade). There was a practice knife competency test which I didn’t finish all my cuts, so I need to practice more and get faster. The exciting thing though was starting to actually cook things! We made fish stock and chicken stock. I thought both were too weak (especially the...
Day 2
Today we learned some basic knife cuts: battonet, julienne, small dice, and brunois. I bought some potatoes, carrots, and onions to practice my cutting. I think by the end of the week we will be applying fire to food! Cooking!
First day
Today was my first day of classes at CCA, and I can tell that I am going to have a great time. I have Chef Joseph for Skills and Safety and Sanitation. So far he seems like a good guy. His speaking style was easy to follow, he spoke with a passion for the subject, and really seems to know his shit. All we did today was talk about what to expect in terms of homework, class grading, uniform;...
April 2007
1 post
“We should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to...”
– Epicurus