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A few more stock pics, plus a brief report on a Monday!

Today was a busy day! I arrived early to print out my two school assignments I did this weekend in the school library, only to find out I was food steward, and so I was put to work immediately by the Chef Instructor and Sous Chef (who happened to be my seat neighbor and sauce partner, Jeff) getting the food ready for the tomato sauce demo today. Oops, no time to print. So I tried at the end of class, AFTER the whole kitchen was cleaned and the food put away after everyone was served pasta for the taste experience (veggie tomato sauce vs. the one cooked with bacon...yes delicious smoked bacon! Mmmmm....). I ran upstairs only to find out all personal email is cut off from the school computers, so my idea of sending it to my yahoo address wasn't going to work (argh!); instead I had to email it to one of the staff so she could print it out for me, and I was late to class. Note to self: do not like being treated like a child by not having full internet access, but then I guess I'm spoiled from all my years at MS and having my own laptop. I guess I won't take the data off my phone after all, since that might come in handy!

In any case, besides making two tomato sauces and having a lecture on that and pasta, the Chef Instructor also taught us how to truss a chicken. Apparently the famous chef Thomas Keller (of The French Laundry, in Napa) was humiliated at an early stage in his career and had a knife thrown at him by a French chef who couldn't believe that he had the gall to call himself a chef without knowing how to truss a chicken. Apparently every child in France knows how to truss a chicken by the age of four. :-) So, we all had a chance at it, and I thought I did great, and it looked reeaaalll pretty, even tied it with a bow...then our second Chef Instructor came by and yanked it up, and the string came right off and the chicken fell with a large plop on the sheet pan. He said with a grin, "Next time tight it tighter. It's already dead, it won't feel a thing." Ha, ha. Ok, lesson learned, thanks Chef. Good thing we're not graded on our first attempt. Oh, funny trivia of the day: the little nob on the butt of of a chicken has a name, called the "Pope's nose," because apparently awhile back there was a Pope who had a nose that looked just like that. So next time you have a whole raw chicken, take a good look at it's butt! Lol! Reminds me of the other day when our second Chef Instructor came strutting in, and had to interrupt the other instructor to teach us a new term he just learned: a buttload. It's a real term, they Googled it. It's 126 Fluid US Gallons. Gotta love it!

We were graded on our knife cuts today, and hopefully I did well enough to keep my 96% A-grade going! I know I was jill-on-the-spot with the food steward job, so I'm expecting to get full points out of that. I'd better, since that nearly made my paper late for the sanitation class, due to the printing snafu. Ok, signing off early as I need to do my reading homework and study for two quizzes tomorrow before dance class. I'm adding some pics of the Saturday evening chicken stock project, which took much less time than the veal (about 9 hours of simmering, probably an hour and a half total prep & procedure time pre/post cooking). Next I'll try my hand at a veggie stock, and see what I can come up with. :-)

Sauces, stock experiemnts, and inspired food!

So here we are again, another week in review. I just can't seem to get to it during the week, and now that I've finished my first two flex assignments (My Favorite Food, Food Borne Outbreak...I know, nice combo, huh?), I'm wide awake at 1 am, thinking about zabaglione and salmonella poisoning (unrelated, fortuntately). So, I figured I'd do a quick catch up, and post a few pics of my self-imposed homework of making stocks, as well as some yummy food I've been inspired to make.

I completed both a veal stock (a bit heavy on the tomato, but I like it) that took 24 hours plus to make. I didn't follow a standard recipie (what y'all are used to looking at, with specific quantities of ingredients, preparation and cooking times, and other assorted directions), but instead followed what's called an instructional recipie, which basically means they list the basic ingredients that can be used, but not in specific quantities, and mainly discuss the procedure of how to make it. It gives a student (or anyone) a chance to think about how it's made, and gives flexibility on the rest...Escoffier's first cookbook Le Guide Culinaire (one of the first cookbooks ever to be written) is mainly filled with these. He's also credited with coming up with what's known as the brigade system, a.k.a. kitchen job titles and rank (i.e. modern day: executive chef, sous chef, saucier, etc.). He's pretty much the father of modern day cooking, the world over. Oh, those Frenchmen, they've been obsessed with food for quite some time. :-) In any case, the veal stock turned out well, and is now bagged and frozen for future use in soups and sauces, and I moved on to a very successful chicken stock. Even better this time, perfect color, clarity and taste! I could practically taste the chicken soup et al that will come from it!

So this week we've been learning about the five "mother sauces," from which all other "small sauces" are made (makes me think of "the One Ring" in Lord of the Rings, but enough with the geek stuff), and we even were able to try our hand at making a couple. We witnessed our Chef Instructor's demo of Espagnole sauce, which is basically a brown sauce with added tomatoes, thanks to the Spanish bride of Louis XIII. This is one of the mother sauces, from which you get your demi-glace, that you make things like port wine mushroom sauce, Bordelaise, Robert or Charcutiere sauces. The other mother sauce we saw demoed was Veloute, essentially white veal stock combined with roux (clarified butter & flour). Thursday we got to make our first Bechamel, which I have to say, my cooking partner and I made an extremely nummy Mornay sauce from. Triva for you: Mornay is the original French sauce version of Alfredo, which isn't Italian at all but a corrupted American invention of the same sauce. I had my friend Maryam over that night for dinner, I put it over shell pasta and added some procuitto...delish!!! She said she's really liking this "Jen going to culinary school" thing. :-D I also made a caprese salad with fresh mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes, finished with olive oil, Mediteranean sea salt and aged cherry balsamic vinegar. Mmmmm...I may have to repeat that meal at some point.

Friday was all about emulsion. We made our own mayonaise (a condiment of which I'm not fond, but I do have to admit, homemade is MUCH better), and Hollandaise. The thing you have to watch out for is breaking the eggs, and I don't mean the shell. You can easily end up with curdled or scrambled eggs doing both these recipies, and as we were doing this with wire whips (no blenders!), I was glad to have a male partner to use his "brute force" as he put it. Yes, I let him do a lot of the whisking, but not until after I'd started and my arm started aching badly. Apparently, I'll need to go to the gym and lift some weights or something, or maybe I should invest in one of those Shake Weights. ;-) One of the most interesting things I found out about emulsion in mayonaise is that it creates a very stable, safe food, that doesn't have to be refrigerated. This is totally contradictory to what I thought before, I always avoided pasta, egg or potato salads at picnics (you know the ones that look like they've been sitting in the sun all day...ewww!) because I figured the mayo had gone bad. Our instructor corrected this falsehood, and said it's actually everything else in it that goes bad. Mayo does not have to be refrigerated, as the eggs chemically change in the process...the other ingredients (salad oil, vinegar, mustard) can all be stored in your cupboard without refrigeration, and once the eggs are emulsified with them, the whole kit & kaboodle is ok. Facinating!

Ok, enough with the food trivia, I've got to finish this post before 2 am...we're making tomato sauce (the last of the mother sauces) tomorrow! Until then, enjoy the pics of stocks in progress and inspired foods I've been making! I didn't get a picture of the flourless chocolate cake I made this evening for Trisha and Corina, as it wasn't pretty (time to get a new springform pan, mine leaks), but it tasted great! If I can find a good recipie for individual chocolate tortes/cakes, Chef Blanca might feature it on her new menu! :-D I met Chef Blanca and her business partner Hector (who will be in charge of front of the house) and they're both great! The restaurant looks fantastic, even in "construction mode," I can see their vision, and it's coming together nicely. Really looking forward where that might take me in my culinary education...

A week in review!

See, I told you I wouldn't be able to keep this up everyday. I thought about it every day though, so that's gotta count for something. :-) The trouble with this summary idea is I'm sure I'll miss something, but on the other hand, if I miss writing about it, it must not have been that important.

First off, I'm rockin' the Culinary 1 class! I've got a 95.5% and that's including the day when I found out I was sous chef with no clue as to what I was doing, so yea for me! Their grading sheets leave a little to be desired, and you can't hang onto them (they just let you glance at them and it goes into "the system" which I hope I'll be able to access online as some point), but bottom line is I'm feeling good about it so far. Brandi just sent me a text saying "It's easy to do well when you love what you are doing :-)" and I agree...and I really hope that holds to be true when things start getting more difficult! I'm doing well in the food safety class as well, but I have to admit I screwed up our take home test royally because I did it too fast and wasn't paying attention. Melissa and I had a conversation about being intelligent and resting on your laurels this weekend... ;-) Needless to say, I won't be doing that again!

So we did a lot with stocks this week, learning the foundation of French cooking, and really any base for all cuisines that have sauces, which is pretty much all food around the world. The foundation, or fond as they like to call it, is imperative to get right, because the "mother sauce" and "secondary sauces" come from the stock...so if you screw it up, you might as well throw it out, because it affects the taste and color of everything you make after that point. The perfect stock is graded on color, clarity and taste. Seems pretty simple, but it's amazing all the steps and time that it takes to get it right, which means there are plenty of places you can go oh-so-wrong. We did veal stock and chicken stock, so brown and white, one with a sachet and one with a bouquet of herbs for flavor. We learned the percentage of miropoix-10% (they refer to the standard ingredients as the "holy trinity" hee hee...50% onion, 25% celery, 25% carrots) to bones-50% (to be roasted or not, depending on the final result you desire), and water-100%. They teach it in percentages so you can know how to make stock in any amount, whether it's for a soup base at home or a vat for a huge hotel. They reminded us that they're here to teach us how to cook, not to give out recipies. Every chef has a slightly different variation on how he/she cooks their stock, and apparently if you ask one, they can pretty much do a short dissertation on stocks, how they make them and what they use different ones for. That's just for starters, literally. Kinda cool, I think. :-) Also a little nerve racking, as I'm pretty sure they're going to require us to make stock for our final in some weeks, so I'll have to practice one at home to make sure mine doesn't suck. That means a trip to the store for at least some cheesecloth, for straining, if not a Chinois. My colanders leave a lot to be desired when it comes to straining stock, I know this for a fact. None of them are fine enough.

We also are learning tasting, the four, no five senses of taste. Everyone knows the basic four: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. But they've proven another that comes from the Japanese cuisine originally (specifically seaweed broth), so therefore kept it's original name: umami. I can't translate directly, I'll allow my Japanese speaking friends to do that, but basically it's the "yum factor." Think of things that really make a dish savory, add the flavor, no matter where in the world the food is from...Worchestershire sauce, sundried tomatoes, fish or oyster sauce, even MSG (which is naturally occuring in stock btw, from the gluten in the bones) which is why so many restaurants used to use it in food. They used the stock to teach this further, get our palates used to really tasting things. First we tasted the straight stock with no seasoning (salt). Then they added salt, and it was amazing how it brought the flavors out that were already present; the human taste buds actually need a bit of salt to taste all of those four basic tastes. Then they brought out the industrial stocks for comparison (think of bullion cubes, but in a big jar), and holy cow were they terrible! Kind of like straight top ramen seasoning with a tiny bit of water. I'll admit, I've got ramen packs in my cupboard for "emergencies" when I feel extra lazy, but I'm not sure I can keep doing that after I tasted the real thing. Stock is labor intensive, but soooo worth it, now that I've tasted it the right way.

So, the other exciting thing that happened in school is what I mentioned on Facebook on Wednesday, July 14th (Bastille Day!). At least once a quarter, the Parisian campus sends a chef here to make sure the education is up to par with what's going on in Paris (very cool), and this week it was a Master Pastry Chef who spent the whole week with the pastry program students, and also offered a demo for anyone in the school to come see. It was freakin' amazing! He made a European Frambois Genoise layered cake,a wall of strawberries on the outside, marzipan roses made from scratch right before our eyes, and chocolate piping. The cake was soaked in simple syrup with Grand Marnier, yum! I was bummed that we couldn't try any, but he was running over and there was another class ready to start, so we had to leave. :-( He totally whipped it together in an hour and a half, and it looked gorgeous, like something you'd see in a fancy French bakery. It was a piece of art, to be sure, and what was so cook to watch was his economy of movement...everything he did had a purpose, and was so smooth it was like watching someone dance. He mentioned the Chef's Religion (mise en place!!!) several times, being a teacher, and I can see more and more how important it is. I keep thinking of how many times I'm cooking or baking something, and have to stop in the middle to go get something, usually to the detriment of whatever I'm in the middle of (boiling over, burning/scalding, over baking). It's really very simple, but if you think ahead of time about what you're doing and plan out what you need and have it on the ready in advance, it all goes very quickly and efficiently, with less opportunity for screw ups. I can't tell you how many times I've had to start over, or at the very least let out some explatives when I realized that I'd not thought about everything I needed, and (shit!) had to run to the grocery store for a main ingredient right in the middle of cooking something. Not ok for a professional cook, that's for sure.

I'll leave you with news of my two firsts: my first cut, and my first internship. :-D I had my first cut on Tuesday, when we were doing tourne cuts (7 sided football shaped vegetable, used for sides in hoity-toity restaurants). It is not true that you always cut away from yourself, especially in culinary school. Yes, I was being extremely careful, and no, I didn't feel it and there was no blood, as my knives are so incredibly sharp. I was using the tourne knife, aka "bird's beak" (looks like a paring knife with a curved end) and I only noticed after we were done and had started cleaning up that I had sliced my thumb. So I've included a picture of my first finger condom (aka finger cot, but that's much too boring) for your enjoyment. ;-) No, the picture is not blury because I was woozy, but because I had to take it with my left hand. Note to self: if you're gonna cut yourself, try to do it on the left hand. Ha! I also added pics of my practice cuts from last Sunday including, medium dice, large dice, batonnet, julienne, fine julienne, brunoise, fine brunoise, and two shapes of paysanne, aka confetti cuts. When I decide to try the tourne cut again, I'll get a picture of some decent ones...which will take A LOT of practice!

My first internship happened (or will be starting, that is, in about a month) thanks to my friend Hana from dance class. Her good friend Blanca is starting a new fine dining restaurant in Federal Way, and has agreed to take me on as a trainee! I am so excited and amazed at this opportunity, and I can hardly wait for the place to open! I couldn't have found a better opportunity if I'd tried, as training under an executive chef who's ready and willing to train a brand new cook while opening her own restaurant is unheard of. It turns out she was going to look at the culinary schools for a student anyway, and when Hana told her about me Friday night, she was completely thrilled and asked her to get us together. Wowee zowee! Seeing a place get started from the menu on up is just what I'd love most to do in an externship, besides maybe getting myself into a four or five star restaurant or hotel downtown. Our Head Chef Instructor recommended this, as you'll learn "in dog years" due to the quality and sheer volume of food produced, it will help the resume immensely to get possibly a sous chef job and a "nice restaurant" right out of school, and you're more likely to get a job at a high level restaurant or hotel getting hired out of that externship). This may work out to be a nice happy medium. Plus, as an added bonus, her place is down the hill from Grandma's house, so Leo can chill with her for a bit if it looks like it's going to be an extra long day...but that's just frosting on the cake. :-) I've included a picture of "Peppercorn," since I simply had to go see it, at least from the outside today. I'll meet Blanca and see the inside of her place later this week, I hope. Things are falling into place...as Kate mentioned, "Green lights from the Universe." :-)

Ok, signing off for now, have to get some review done for tomorrow, and it's already almost 12:30 am! Need to get back on that schedule again...

Practice, practice, practice...

After reading my entire knife book in about an hour and half on Sunday, I stayed up until midnight chopping onion and sweet potato. Anyone need some diced onions? I've got a liter sized ziploc full, and more to come. :-) Tonight I stopped by the grocery store to get a 10 lb bag of potatoes and 5 lb bag of carrots. Also about 6 bell peppers. I'm gonna make one heckuva veggie stew...or something. ;-)

Today was a little crazy. I got there early, but not super early due to some traffic on the West Seattle bridge. Today I learned that getting there 15 minutes early is not early enough. :-P Here I thought I was doing so well with being there early in the first place, but unfortunately, the Chef Instructor decided that it was my turn to be Sous Chef without any notice, probably because of being at the top of the class attendance list. That reminded me of being in grade school and hating to always having to go first because my last name started with A. In any case, being Sous Chef means setting up the Instructor's demo station, helping with their demos as needed, and being in charge of the whole kitchen for that class, which includes directing the food steward and the sanitation steward during cleanup. Also, the Sous Chef directs the entire class during cleanup to make sure it gets done quickly, so you have a mass of people running at you asking what needs to be done, how to do it, and where things go. Bottom line, this is Day 5 and I pretty much only have an inkling of what to tell anyone. Yes, I was graded on it. I'm hoping I did ok.

A few people have asked me about the grading, and why it counts. Everything we do (uniforms, attendance, professionalism, cleanup, teamwork and of course cooking) is all graded on a 10 point scale. While it's not an academic program (mostly), it's still a school that expects top quality in all skills aquired and we need to show it in production. After all, Julia Childs went here, and it was famous to the rest of the world for a long time before that. They have a reputation to uphold, and know that there will be high expectations for graduates of their program. Beside this school, the culinary profession has a high amount of pride in what they do, especially in the high end cuisine, which is what I'm learning, and it's seen as an art form as well as "just a trade." It's a profession that's steeped in history and tradition, and kind of like the Catholic church, there's a ton of pomp and circumstance put into cooking and how a kitchen is run, and it's expected that you will not only know every little detail, but perform everything with speed, agility, efficiency, quality...all while making it look super easy and keeping your whites spotless. It's more of a challenge than the average home cook is willing or able to take on, that's for sure. Like I said in the title, it takes practice, practice, practice. :-)

Anyway, I'm off to class, to learn some math...ick. Lots about measurements and how to scale out recipies today. We'll see how this goes...

One week down...

...which means I've officially passed the "leave with your money if you want to run now" point. The school gives everyone the opportunity to attend classes for a week to check it out, and I'm not going anywhere! I love it! :-D We watched a somewhat cheesy video today from the NRA (don't get too excited, mom and dad, it stands for the National Restaurant Association), but I do have to say it was kinda inspiring...so watch it from the link above if you like. :-)

We jumped right into more knife skills today, and had our first timed test of sorts. We did fine julienne (2" X 1/16" X 1/16"), which can be converted into fine brunoise (tiny little cubes that are 1/16" all the way around) both from carrots. Potatoes were cut into two sized cubes, or dice, medium (1/4") and large (1/2"), which are actually almost harder because if your knife goes sideways, or the cubes become more like rectangles which is much easier to see in bigger pieces, and you get points taken off for that. We also learned how to properly chop and chiffonade fresh herbs like Italian parsley, chop/mince/paste garlic cloves, dice onions without having them fall apart while you're chopping (always wanted to learn this!), and we blanched tomatoes, removed the skin and and seeds, and chopped them into squares. All of this had to be done in about 20 minutes, which is a ridiculously short amount of time when it's the first time you've done any of this.

Apparently I did well, because when I was judged by the Chef Instructor, he gave me props for all my cuts, especially my fine julienne and fine brunoise, yea! They actually did appear to be very square, and of course now I'll be inspecting all sorts of vegetables and garnishes when I go out to eat to see the quality of the knife cuts. :-) I scored a 9.5 out of 10, because I didn't do the chopped garlic, only the minced and paste, which is ironic, because the latter two start from the first one, so at some point I had it on the cutting board, I just forgot to set it aside before I kept going. Part of what we're graded on is "managing the board," which basically means you clean as you go, and never have more than one thing on the cutting board at a time. No little piles in the corner of this and that; compost, trim (food that can be used for other things, a.k.a. "free money") and final product go into side bowls and our presentation sheet. There are also rules about trim, which can't be mixed, and the potato has to be kept in water so that it doesn't oxidize, etc. etc. All the while you're trying to hold the knife properly (different for each cut), use the off-hand (a.k.a. the claw) properly as a guide without sticking your fingers or thumb out to get cut, and constantly cleaning your board so that your final product doesn't get messy or mixed up, like bits of parsely in the onion or tomatoes...all easy things individually, but difficult when you're under pressure to be perfect and fast. Oh, and you're expected to keep your whites clean too. A messy cook is somewhat frowned upon. As I was telling Chris and Brandon tonight, it's kind of a status thing to be able to keep your white cook's coat, white apron and white side towel completely clean from food stains while coming out with perfect product. So they grade you on that too of course.

I would have taken a picture of my grading sheet with my tiny little piles of food all cut up into perfect little squares and pieces, but I forgot I brought my camera, and didn't want to look like a dorky tourist either, especially when everyone was rushing around. The energy in the classroom was kind of frantic, especially when we were told we also had to completely clean the kitchen top to bottom as well, but altogether people were having fun too. I do believe a couple people suffered some cuts today, but no major blood was shed...just a few finger condoms used after bandages were applied. :-)

That was pretty much it for the Culinary section of the day, we moved on quickly to the Safety and Sanitation class, and had our first quiz, which I aced, yay for me. It really was not difficult at all, I was done in probably two minutes, but still, it was a nice ego boost, and a grand way to finish out my first week! We did watch another video from ServSafe, for our certification, this time all about contaminants. Yummy. :-P One of my new favorite acronyms was summed up by the guy sitting next to me, "FAT TOM ain't no joke!" Basically, it's a way to remember all the factors that make pathogens and contaminants worse, and what you have to watch in order to NOT make people sick and possibly die. Ok, no pressure.

So that's it, my first week down, and many more to go! I'm going to start thinking about my three flex assignments (papers to do outside of class), which are: my dreams (food career related, they actually felt the need to specify), my favorite cuisine/restaurant w/anecdotes and why, and a short example of a recent bad food event in the news (where people got food poisoning from a restaurant, etc.), what happened and how it could have been prevented. Are are due in about a week or so, so I'll have to get crack-a-lackin!

She's got KNIIIVES, and she knows how to UUUse them!

Yes, I stole that, but from my own Facebook status, so it's not plagerism. ;-) Plus, it's the best way to describe today. The only hitch was, we had a resume workshop this morning, and so in a last grab for my resume, and with my cook's coat/hat/cravat, three books, binder and backpack in hand...I forgot my freakin' tool kit! I set it down and forgot to pick it up, didn't realize it until I was already in the parking lot at school. DOH! Not much happened at the resume workshop, except the brand new career services guy stated some super obvious stuff (like dress up for interviews...he actually said "Dress for Success" to which I had to stiffle a giggle) and gave us a couple worksheets with websites and phrases that people can use in their resumes. Oh, and he said "a cover letter is important." Yikes, I hope they're not paying him a lot. I could have run that workshop with no prep and my hands tied behind my back. But then, that's not my job anymore, hasn't been in many years, so I'm moving on...but a bit irritated I forgot my knives so as not to miss that. I ended up having to use house knives, which are crap, of course, in comparison to the new ones. One of the Chef Instructors walked through to do a spot inspection during class, and I apparently was all sorts of "wrong" today. First I forgot to button my jacket all the way to the top (it was so hot driving in, I left the top button undone and the collar open, which is a no-no for style points, apparently. I was also wearing rhinestone studs, which I thought were ok since they're not hoops, but the rule is NO jewelry whatsoever. Oh, and anytime we have a production day (working with food) we must have our aprons. I didn't know it was going to be a production day so soon, and didn't think we'd need aprons for awhile. I was wrong. Also, my nails were too long (they were WAY shorter than what's usually described as "sports length"), and the Chef showed me his own fingers so I could see what I need to do...and they were pretty much down to the nub. It reminded me of when I was little and used to chew my nails completely off. Nice. I cut them for the 3rd time tonight, and I'm hoping that I can get away with a sliver of white at least. My fingers feel so naked! No polish, no rings, no nail even!

So, the Chef Instructor went through each and every item in the new tool kit, along with anecdotes from both Chefs on how to use them, and "there was this one time..." kind of stories about some of the tools. Many of those stories were about how they, or someone in a kitchen somewhere, had cut themselves badly. I'm getting a little nervous at this point. They reminded us about what to do when (not if, but when) we cut ourselves, and showed us the finger cots (a.k.a. finger condoms) again. Everyone giggles, of course, then they go on to talk about making sure to keep your hands clean and sanitized, with gloves if necessary, because your hands are your best tools...and if you're using your hands to stir a giant bowl of macaroni salad, you don't want to find out you lost your bandaid...ewwwwwww!!!! Here's a great segway to the safety and sanitation portion of class.

Ever go to a restaurant and find bandaids, hair, glass in food? They're called physical contaminants. Yeah, no kidding. There is also cross contamination (when someone uses a tool for raw meats, then using the same tool for already cooked foods) chemical contaminants (using cleaning supplies too close to the food), etc. etc. We have our first quiz tomorrow, and I'm sure I'll do well, mostly because it's impossible to forget the visual references that Chef Instructor showed us. He reminds me of a science teacher I had in middle school that got REALLY excited about the gross experiments. They were all pictures from his cousin who's a health inspector in Hawaii, pretty much all of them kinda made the whole room want to wretch. Kind of like the video we saw in yesterday's class that I forgot to mention, probably because I tried to block it out...a portion of it showed another selection of what NOT to do, and included a close up of a guy putting his hand down his pants, the front not the back (not sure which is worse), then continuing to prepare the food. O.M.G. When I have my own kitchen, if I see anyone do that, it's immediate dismissal. Seriously.

Ok, to end on a high, not completely disgusting note! We were shown our first two "knife cuts" today: batonnet and julienne, which can then each be diced respectively into small and mini cubes. I did pretty good on my first tries, although obviously I'm still in the slow-and-deliberate stage of cutting carrots and potatoes. ;-) I will say it's very difficult to get things perfectly square, which is the desired effect, and the Chef Instructor said we will all need a lot of practice, and we are expected to practice at home. Also we learned that special way of cutting the food with a large knife (a special grip, no "Conan the Barbarian" grips, he said) while using your other hand as a guide, making a "claw" so that you don't also cut your fingers off. That will take some practice as well. So I guess a trip to the grocery store for bags of carrots and potatoes is in my future! I'd have taken a picture of my very first cuts, as one of the Chefs suggested for later comparisons just for fun, but I forgot my camera along with apparently everything else this morning. (Note to self: bring EVERYTHING with you, EVERY time.) Ok, signing off again, really trying to get to bed/sleep before two a.m. tonight!!!

Day Two...the Tools of the Trade

Yay! We've now got all our books (six of them, plus two DVDs) and...drumroll please...our knife and tool kits! It comes in a fancy three compartment carrying case, and is heavy as a ton of bricks at least. Couldn't wait to get them home and check everything out, I'm adding pics so y'all can see the goods. :-) The kit's worth more than almost twice what I paid for my little POS VW Cabriolet I had in Napa that leaked like a sieve, so I'll have to keep close track of it. Part of that will be "mise en place" a French term for "everything in it's place," which they have informed us is pretty much our new religion. That goes for our tools, our uniforms, our job positions, cleaning supplies...pretty much anything. Apparently it bleeds over a lot into the rest of your life, which is great because I could really use a little more organization in my life. ;-) No, seriously. It's all about time is money and knowning where things are at is more efficient. Time management is key in the restaurant industry (y'all can stop laughing now) and it will be a struggle for me (ok, enough laughing already!), but it can be done (no really, I can do it, and you need to stop laughing)!

In any case, I'm going to keep this somewhat short since it's late, and I still have homework to do (read two first chapters of our two starter books). Mostly today we heard instructions on: how to wash our hands properly, how we'll be washing/sanitizing dishes, cleaning the kitchen, where everything is and where it goes (mise en place, mise en place...say it with me now). We'll be doing roll call and occaisionally have an inspection of our uniforms and personal hygiene, military style. Today, they actually walked through as a "practice run" and the Chef Instructor told people things like "I'd suggest that you wash your hair" (yes, the guy needed that suggestion) and "You're gonna need a hairnet or else tuck those braids into your hat" and "Black socks only, please." I'm not gonna pretend that it wasn't a little weird to get stared at for my personal hygiene and how I got dressed this morning, and I secretly wondered as I was waiting for my inspection if I'd missed something important that was apparent to everyone in the room but me. You know, something like I wore a black bra under my white t-shirt and cook's jacket that everyone can see when they keep going over "profesionalism" again and again. I am relieved to tell you Chef had nothing to suggest, but I did make a mental note to never, EVER give him a reason to suggest something. Apparently I will have to clip my nails super short, because they said if you can hear them tapping on the stainless steel tables, they're too long. So much for being girly. I guess that goes along with the super-butch lug soled non-slip steel toed lace up shoes I have to wear. Putting on the jacket with the Le Cordon Bleu emblem makes up for it all though (even the ugly polyester pants), because that feels pretty special.

Speaking of which, we got a bit of a history lesson on the school, and the name, etc. which was pretty interesting. Namely that both LCB (Le Cordon Bleu) and CIA (Culinary Art Institute) were both started as essentially worker retraining programs for military personnel after wartime. It suddenly makes more sense why this is such a male dominated profession. There were only 11 women in a 31 person class today, and I wonder if any will drop out before the week is out. I'm thinking all that time at Microsoft with a "heavy male influence" did me some good in that department. :-) One of the Chefs is incredibly talkative and funny, but also a little old school (very much a mid-west boy who's seen a lil' bit of the world, but not exactly worldly), and still leaves a little to be desired in the politically correct arena. No worries though, he's a pussycat and I've experienced oh-so-much-worse in the past over the years. He's very easy going and obviously good to have some verbal sparing with, if he were to ever get out of hand.

I'm starting to get to know at least the names of a few of my classmates, many of whom undoubtedly have some interesting stories on how they ended up here. People are coming from all over to do this, driving up from Olympia and down from Lynwood/Everett, so I feel fortunate I only have a 15 minute plus drive. Ok, thinking of that short drive that's a very short time away now, I'm signing off!

p.s. Attention Google blogger people, your formatting options for adding pictures really sucks! If anyone has any ideas how actual placement within the blog post works, I'm all ears! Right now, it just seems like it's "Right, left or center" and everything gets automatically put at the top of the post, with no other options or possibility to move it around. Has anyone ever done usability testing on these things?? Ok, geek moment over. :-P

The true beginning

Not a whole lot to report on the first day. I was issued my very own pair of ugly old-man steel toed shoes, I got to wear my uniform for the first time, including the cravat (which you tie in a Windsor, that I now know how to do), and it looks like I'll have to wear a hairnet once we start cooking, unless I go butch and shave my head like a Marine (not happening). Oh well, what's a Leo with a long curly mane to do, but have to tame it once in awhile? ;-) In other unfabulous news, we have to tone down pretty much any adornment, so no jewelry, watches, no dangly earrings, no nail polish (even clear is a no-no). Guess I'll be doing the "plain Jane" thing mid-day for awhile...not something this red head is terribly looking forward to (or good at), but c'est la vie, and not too much of a sacrifice for a fantastic new career. My extremely fashionable elastic waistband black and white checked pants (as in hurts your eyes if you look at them for too long) are waaayyy too long, and when I put them on this morning, I have to say that I had that commercial for toddler's pull-ups in my head, the jingle going something like, "I'm a big kid now!" If April ever reads this, she will understand this well. ;-)

Mostly today we received our syllabi for the first two classes, which are culinary basics, and saftey & sanitation. Lots of reading, lots of quizzes, a final and an optional proctored exam at the end to be nationally certified for something called SafeServ or ServSafe...you get the point. It's optional, but will help me get a job in the end, and is basically the same material as the Le Cordon Bleu final, so why not?

The three chef instructors that will be taking us through the first portion of culinary education are pretty cool, and each have their own distinct personalites. The same goes for the students around me; there were 26 in total (I think only about 7 were women, including myself), and there are already a couple that will be entertaining (the one that reminds me a bit of Anthony Bordain) and probably a little on the annoying side (the one who thinks he's auditioning for Hell's Kitchen and is trying waaay too hard to kiss up, yelling "YES, CHEF!" at any prompt)...but I digress. More to come on that I'm sure...but in short, they come from all walks of life, many years of life experience, and only one recent highschool grad who was sitting right next to me, who is a total sweetheart and seemed more mature than others twice his age. :-) Altogether, a pretty good group, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them and work along side them in the kitchen, once we get to that.

Our textbooks will come tomorrow, and hopefully the knife and tool kit will come soon after (not to mention the other two sets of uniforms they owe me). I ran to Target afterwards to get the rest of my supplies, a three-ring binder, notepads, Sharpies, pens, a mini calculator, etc. It was really fun to be in the school supply isle again; I actually got butterflies! To most of you who know me, I can be kind of a cheesy dork sometimes, so I snapped a couple pictures of the outside of the building for you (can't take the inside for safety reasons, sorry folks!) and of course, moi! Here's to the happy and budding new chef...a resounding CHEERS! everone! :-D


p.s. I only cried twice today, once in the shower while getting ready...kind of a "WTF am I doing?!" minor panic attack...then a happy little cry later in the car after school, more of a "Wow, I'm really, finally in the right place!" kind of affirmation cry, if you will. So that's not too bad, huh?

p.p.s. There is no guarantee or plan I will be blogging EVERY day (Christopher Parker, this means you :-P), so I apologize in advance if you're so riveted with my posting that you can't wait for the next installment. You're just gonna have to...well, wait. :-)

First day butterflies...

So tonight is a school night, the first one in many, many moons...and I can't sleep. I've tried an earlier dance class to get out the extra energy, a big meal (steak with my own marinade, yellow pepper and mushroom skewers basted with garlic olive oil, pepper and sea salt), dessert (Kristoffer's chocolate chip cookies with caramel squares in the middle...ok and a little slice of my red velvet cake) and Tension Tamer tea...and still no sleep coming. My mind is spinning with this new adventure, wondering what this new career will hold for my future...like will I enjoy it as much as I'm hoping I will, and can I pay my bills?! I still have to iron my new chef jacket, and although I'm not looking forward to the stylin' & profilin' elastic-waisted black and white checked pants and supportive grandpa-footwear, I'm excited to put on the uniform and make it official.

I'm saying goodbye to the corporate lifestlye with all of the financial perks, and saying hello to a creative career that I'm actually actively choosing (for a change), rather than falling into. Big stuff...