Today was a day off so rather than try and go back and do every day of last week that I missed, here’s the synopsis:

June 23, 2008: Day 11, CS2:  This was station round day.  We had 15 minutes at each station to prepare and present the following:  saute chicken, saute asparagus, pan fry pork cutlet, pan fry eggplant, grill chicken, deep fry onion rings and bake a potato.  Obviously we were practicing all the dry heat methods of cooking.  This was one of the funnest days.  And everything was done well under the 15 minute time frame.

June 24, 2008:  Day 12, CS2:  Today we had to roast a cornish game hen and braise chicken Chausseur, which include the sauce.  I was scrambling today (not eggs, in the kitchen) and with 30 seconds left, presented my chicken dish.  A bit stressed.

June 25, 2008:  Day 13, CS2:  In the kitchen we had to do braised red cabbage and cauliflower au Gratin.  It was an easy day in the kitchen compared to the day before.  And we had our egg demo for the next day on how to do all the different methods of egg cookery.  When i was done with my cauliflower dish, Chef Winter told me to take it down to Chef Ron in his class.  She knows he hates cauliflower so the look on his face was perfect.  He did laugh and he actually tried it.

June 26, 2008:  Day 14, CS2:  Knife cutting final and egg cookery day.  To me, the hardest day of the week.  Eggs are not the easiest thing to cook that’s for sure!  There were eggs everywhere.  The overhard was the hardest, then came scrambled, sunnyside up, poached, basted, over easy, and an omelet.  I never did get to my overeasy and had to do my omelet in open lab.  During the knife final, I was totally in a zone.  I was so happy with the way I had turned in my cuts I just knew I had done well.

June 27, 2008:  Day 15, CS2:  Last day!  Found out that morning that I had gotten 59.5 out of 60 on my cutting final.  It set the day right.  We had our buffet in kitchen that day and each group had to prepare something different.  We were in charge of the 40 tournedos of beef, wrapped in bacon with a Bordelaise sauce.  Then we plated all of the food and got to enjoy a big meal at 8:30 am!  We had our 5 page written final and our product ID final and then we were done!  All went well.

I just finished with finals all last week so I haven’t posted any updates in a while.  We luckily have a 3 day weekend this weekend and one again next weekend for the 4th of July.

Finals went well….I ended up getting a 59.5 out of 60 points on my knife skills final.  I was obviously very very pleased.

I just went to see IronMan tonight and loved it.  Great movie.  I’m taking Brendon to go see Wall-E tomorrow, even though he saw it last night with Lisa.  I had my school picnic yesterday and couldn’t go to the movie because I was so tired. 

I will get all my updates for last week up by tomorrow!  

Today is a day I have been dreading.  And the only reason is I have to deal with Salmon.  I haven’t touched or ate salmon in over 7 years because I got such bad food poisoning from it all those years ago.  So I hold a special aversion to it.

In the kitchen we had to make our poaching liquid, poach 2 pieces of cod, par-boil asparagus for use next week, steam broccolini and steam salmon.  For the presentation of the 2 fish, we had to make a sauce for each.  We did Lemon Beurre Blanc for the cod, which turned out really well! And we had to do a brown butter for the salmon.  This one was a bit more difficult because you have to brown butter just to the right coloring otherwise about 5 seconds longer and it burns.  Guess who’s first attempt burned?  Mine….

It was a bit frustrating because my salmon had just come out of the steamer and was a good consistency.  So chef made me try it…..she didn’t “make me” really, because she knew how much I hated it, but I decided it was time to work on liking salmon again.  So I tried a bite before the sauce, then a bit after the sauce.  It was okay…..and I’m by no means ready to order it again when out at a restaurant.

Today in demo and lecture we got our test back on stocks.  I got 20/20.  Then we did our sauce test and graded it in class and I got 26/31 i think.  2 of the missed one’s I had scratched out the right answer and 2nd guessed myself.   

I’m almost done with my farm paper and hope to have it finished by Saturday to hand in by Monday.  I think this weekend we are going to the farmer’s market and picking for strawberries.  I might hang out with some of the boys from school tonight over at Phil’s house.  

Have you ever forgotten to salt and pepper something?  Ya, we did today….but i’ll get to that in a minute.  So on our schedule for this morning in the kitchen was Cream of Potato and Leek soup individually, and then as a group we had to do a white bean soup.  We got that going first and everything was running smoothly.  Then, we heard….”10 minutes to plate.”  I WAS STILL SIMMERING MY POTATO SOUP!!!  Immediately there was a panic among all of us.  Not only did we have to plate our own soup, but we had not even gotten to the white bean soup.  We each had to blend the soup, then sift it, then plate it at 180 degrees with a garnish.  So, i get my potato soup done, get it plated with this cool garnish of dill oil, deep fried leeks and creme fraiche and call chef over to taste it…..IT’S TOO COLD…..so i have to get the garnish off, get some of it back in the pot, get it back on the stove…..i get it back up to 180, and actually show chef the thermometer, get it garnished and tasted.  All good….except she asked me what I thought and I said “not enough salt.”  She agreed, but she wants me to know my palate and know that I KNOW my palate.  There is no way to say to someone “it’s perfect” when they can clearly taste the difference.

Now on to the white bean.  We had to get 5 plated for our group and we had it all queued up and we were all doing our garnish when chef came over with about 2 minutes to spare and we all taste…..we forgot the seasoning…..no salt or pepper….so we had to scurry and season our individual bowls……laughing, kind of as we did so.  ”What do you think?” said Chef.  ”This time it’s too salty.”  

I went from not enough salt to too much salt in the course of 10 minutes.  But, i learned the difference, we all passed today and got checked off for completion of our tasks and chef knows I know my palate.  At 9:00 am, we were sweating, thirsty, hungry and happy….

6 more days left in this class which I can’t believe.  Next Friday, i’ll be done with Culinary Skills 2.  It seems like I just started 2 weeks ago.  Oh right, I did.  

Tomorrow is Friday.  Brendon got home tonight from his trip to Sacramento!  Yeah…

Hi MOM!

Today was a crazy one in the kitchen.  I got there again at 6:10 this morning and started right away getting everything ready for the day.  On tap today was:

French Onion Soup, which consists of carmelizing 20 oz. of julienned onions for about 30 minutes then adding the stock to let it simmer for another 30 minutes or so to really get the onion flavor in the broth.  To plate it, we had to make little crostini’s toasted in the oven that go on top then smothered in gruyere cheese and browned for about 5 seconds in the salamander (a fancy schmancy open broiler).

Next we had to fine mince 12 1/2 oz of mushrooms and mince a shallot and then sautee them in butter to create almost a paste like consistency.  Then came the Creme Fraiche and the Dill Oil.  For the oil, we had to mince fresh dill, boil it for 5-10 seconds then shock it and add it to the oil and blend it all together.  It creates a really pretty green oil used for garnishing.

So we had those 4 things to prepare and finish, but then we also had to prep for what we do the next day, as is usual.  We had to get everything ready for our white bean soup and cream of potato and leek soup.  This means assembling all the ingredients and having them ready to go on our tray that stays in the walkin overnight.  First thing tomorrow morning, we grab all that stuff and get to cookin.

Needless to say it was a crazy day and all things had to be done in 2 hours.  Our group ROCKED today and we got done with it all with 10 minutes to spare.  We really well together as a team.  If one person is chopping 2 oz of onion for tomorrow, they do it times 5 for all 5 of us in the group.  Same with all the ingredients.  We were totally organized and on it today.  And it’s going to have to be that way for the next 7 days as we have about 5 things to prepare each day and then also prep for the next day.  Again, all in 2 hours.

Aside from that, i’m enjoying living vicariously through all my pals who are celebrating all the gay marriages in California.  Of course when I move away, they finally make it legal.  The supreme court finally overturned it and said it was unconstitutional to just deem marriage as between a man and a woman.  Happy times in California that’s for sure.  Here in Portland, I’m just enjoying all the sunshine I’ve been promised.  I made it through the winter and the rain and the organic garden in the back is flourishing.  We have 8 tomato plants, 2 basil, lavender, rosemary, 3 pepper plants, and sweet corn.  I can’t wait to make fried green tomatoes.

Speaking of gardens, we have a paper due Monday on farms, focusing on the farms here in Oregon that are supplying restaurants and the public with fresh ingredients.  We have to identify what’s in season, talk about them, create a recipe for each group of veggies, fruit, herbs and starch.  Which means I have to end this now and get to work on it!  My research is done, just have to write it up.  

This post today is dedicated to my dear friend Mary, my parent’s neighbor back home in Smithton, IL.  Apparently, she called my mother today and told her that she had become a religious reader of my blog and noticed that I hadn’t updated it since the 10th.  (thus all the posts today in catching up).  So Mary….I’m still here, haven’t cut all my fingers off so I couldn’t type.  I was just busy and studying and tired from getting up at 5:20am.  No excuse and I promise to get back on it daily just for you.

Today was crazy in the kitchen.  I got in at 6:10am and immediately started getting my mise en place done (which is basically setting up your station).  We have to sanitize our big steel areas, get cutting boards, get our prep out of the walkin from the day before, get the pots and pans we need and be ready to go at 7 am.  And today was Hollandaise sauce.  Can I just tell you the my right bicep and shoulder are going to be RIPPED after this.  Who needs the gym?  Just go cook somewhere….we had to whisk that sauce today for at least a half hour….everyone had red faces and sweating.  

From the Hollandaise you have to do the Maltaise and Mousseline, which are the small sauces off this main sauce.  The Maltaise was my favorite.  It’s simply the Hollandaise with a blood orange puree.  The Mousseline you have to whip in cream that has been itself whipped til it’s stiff.

We had to present our sauces with steamed asparagus drizzled with the Hollandaise, the sauteed shrimp with the Maltaise and Mousseline.  This all took us til about 8:45 am.  AND our group was on dish duty today.  So imagine 28 people each using 3+ pots, 3+ bowls and all the goopy sauces to wash….it was hilarious.

Today in demo Chef Winter did the French Onion Soup, as we are getting into soups the rest of this week.  This is one of my favorites so I was all to eager to go up and taste it after class…..and once everyone had a taste, I finished it off.  It was so good!

So there Mary…..you’re all caught up!

Oh and Happy Father’s Day to my daddy…he was all to happy to spend it watching Tiger Woods in the US Open play amazing golf.

Another Monday….after a busy weekend with Pride in Portland.  And it was gorgeous here and I got some good tan lines on my arms.  I look like a farmer…..

Today we work on our tomato sauce….think pasta.  Your basic to all red pasta sauces mostly.  I so wanted some pasta noodles to just throw in with it this morning at 9 am when I was starving.

Remember how we cook one thing and prep for the next day that same morning?  It’s starting to get busy this week because we have lots to do and now only a week and a half left of CS2.  Kind of crazy that i’ll have 3 classes under my belt in just another week.

Today is the Espagnole Sauce in the kitchen.  This is the mirepoix (carrots, onions, celery), brown stock, tomato puree, flour and butter.  It’s quite tasty actually!

Practiced my cuts again and my sauce turned out well.

We had our stock test today too.  I think I did pretty good!

Today was the Veloute Sauce.  This is a basic white sauce that ultimately can become the basis for a curry.  We were also introduced to the potato cocotte cut.  Which if you remember in Culinary 1, we had to do the chateau of the potato for our cutting final.  Well this one….is a 7 sided potato cut and has to be exactly 1 1/2″ in length.  Really?  After 10 near misses, i quite on the cutting for the day.  Practice makes perfect apparently with this one.  And this isn’t even the smallest of these type of cuts!

Oh, and I got a really nice cut on my left index finger.  I was reaching down into my knife roll to get out my pastry brush and as I was pulling it out, my finger just sliced right up my filet knife which was underneath the brush.  Stupid thing bled for 15 minutes!  Mind you, I have NOT cut myself while cutting….only peeling and pulling things out of my knife roll.  I have GOT to get knife guards for those things.

Today was an interesting day for me because during lecture, it was all about wine.  As you know, I love wine.  And ultimately, I would like to be working at a winery/vineyard with my culinary skills.  We’ll get back to this….

In the kitchen today, we had to make a white roux, which is basically butter and flour and becomes the base for most sauces.  There are variations on the roux, which I won’t go into depth and bore you, but it’s pretty essential to getting the right consistency and color.  Also, when it’s right, it smells like popcorn.  True….the kitchen smelled like everyone had just popped old fashioned popcorn on the stove like your mom used to.

From the white roux, we had to make a bechamel sauce.  Today was the start of the first of 5 days of making the “mother sauces”, which consist of the bechamel, veloute, espagnole, tomato and Hollandaise sauces.  From these mother sauces, there are smaller sauces, which we also get to work on in class.  

Okay, back to wine…

The lecture was on understanding some wine basics, how to make wine, the fermentation process and then a tasting of wines that would be used in the front of the house (for customers) and wines that would be used in the back of the house (in the kitchen).  It was very basic, but also very interesting because I have never taken a wine class before.  We tasted 2 different Pinot Grigio’s, and we were able to see the difference in clarity, taste the difference in its depth and why you would use one for cooking and not.