The Food Camp

The Dishes. The Guests. The Sauciade...

2010-04-12T19:48:00.008-04:00

To Central Park,

I have not written much and I've only visited slightly more frequently, but I promise, it is not for lack of desire. Now that the weather is beautiful and sunny, I know you are filled with people biking, walking, picnic-ing and playing. I envy them on my busy days. but most days, I am perfectly happy to spend my time in the kitchen of the Food Camp.

I've been cooking in the professional kitchen for a month and a half almost and it has been some of my best camp days yet. Despite often cooking dishes two or three days in a row, every day is different. We rotate through the kitchen in four or five person groups, moving through Entremetier, Garde Manger, Possionier, Saucier, and Pastry. Entremetier makes the specials of the day: Level 5 students make the daily special and the vegetarian special, while Level 6 makes the sandwich of the day and the amuse bouche. Garde Manger makes all of the appetizers, such as salads, consomme, and cold seafood plates. Possionier makes the fish and hot seafood entrees and saucier makes the meat entrees. Pastry, of course, is the dessert station, Where Chef Mimi oversees all things pastry.

In Level 5, I loved Garde Manger because we had an amazing chef and he taught us much more about food, cooking, and sourcing than just necessary. Unfortunately, he took a job in a restaurant in Las Vegas and so he was not with us when we rotated through again in Level 6. I should explain, the menu changed to the Spring menu when we shifted to Level 6. but Levels 5 & 6 make different dishes anyway, diving the menu in half.

I generally arrive in the kitchen 30 minutes before the start of class to set up my station, check our order for the day's dish and start some of the prep before attendance. Now that we are in Level 6, we have our morning meeting in the dining room, where everyday, the Chefs remind us of what we need to do to prepare for our final. When that day comes, we will choose two Level two Level 6 dishes out of a hat and then make and plate them from scratch at the proper time in front of a panel of chef judges. So here are the dishes we are currently making and their required plating:

Tuna Tartare with Pickled Daikon and Smoked Sea Urchin Cream

(I personally designed this plating, woo!)

Country Pâté with Foie Gras and Truffles

(not on the final, but on the menu)

Chicken Consommé with Chicken Herb Dumplings and Spring Vegetables

Pan Roasted Striped Bass with Scallion and Potato Pancake, Wild Mushrooms

and Kaffir Lime & Oyster Cream

(bottom streak corrected)

Scallop and Lobster Stew with Asparagus and Sunchoke Velouté

Seared Rack of Lamb with Artichoke and Goat Cheese Sauce

Hanger Steak with Baby Bok Choy and Thai Basil Sauce

Fresh Strawberry Tart with Balsamic Crème Fraiche, Basil Emulsion Sauce and

Crème Fraiche Ice Cream

Chocolate Orange Parfait

I must tell you about those who have come in to enjoy these dishes! First, my parents, brother and his girlfriend all came to enjoy a nice leisurely lunch while I was in Level 5. I was sure to have Chef send extra dishes each course as they do for our VIP tables. I was on entremetier station that week and my brother was able to see me through the kitchen window while I cooked.

Then on our first day of Level 6 and the new spring menu, my friend Jess and Brad's friend Jay came in for lunch and we had them sit together as we spoiled them with lots of extra plates and tastes.

Just last week, two women of the families for whom I cook came in for a "mothers' day out" lunch. I am very pleased to say that they praised our student kitchen, noting that it was the best restaurant meal they have had in ages. I was very proud to show them what I have been learning for the past five and half months and to thank them for their support by sending out dishes that I thought they might like me to cook for them in the future. They adored the tasting and promised to come back more regularly.

Having guests come in outside of the usual crowd is really fun because we know for whom we are cooking. Although, there was one really fun day of which we knew no one in the dining room. We had a party of twenty-eight come in the day that I was on the fire for the striped bass (that means I was cooking the dish and my partner plated). Well of that party of twenty-eight, fourteen people ordered the bass. All of which came in ordered at the same time and all fired at the same time. On top of that, six other orders of bass were ordered and fired in conjunction with the party's orders. Therefoooooore, we fired and plated twenty bass orders all within a six minute period. Whew! And following the feat... modest we were not.

Then some days, we have to create our own pressure to work quickly and add a twist or two. Last Friday, I finished my prep and set up my mise en place with time to spare so I made a citrus fruit drink for everyone, which I named, Sauiciade! It was a perfect little blend of lime juice, lemon juice, muddled strawberries and kiwis, orange juice, and club soda. Our Saucier station served the Sauciade to the rest of the kitchen throughout service and then we took the remainder to the bar for a student's birthday and gave it a try with various alcoholic additions. It was a great welcome to Spring and the warm weather to come. Perhaps next time, we will make some and share it in the park. How would you like that?

I hope to come find you soon. I know you can't get away for a lunch in L'ecole this time of year, but maybe some of us will make an equally delicious picnic and bring it to you.

Cheers to Spring,

The College Cook

Back in Action

2010-03-01T16:38:00.002-05:00

Family & Friends,

I apologize for slacking on my letters of late. I promise it is not due to a decrease in excitement at school or that I don't have much to say, it is purely due to the fact that I have worked every day since my last letter and it has completely consumed my time and energy. I will try my best to fill in the large gap.

After our Pig Buffet, I moved on to Family Meal, where we prepared lunch for 300-350 people each day. It was a lot of work and resulted in what is probably my least favorite type of cooking. Family Meal is a necessity, and therefore, the food is served as a necessity, not as a product of craftsmanship. Yes, it takes skills, planning, and experience to produce enough food on time for that many people, but a lot potential quality is lost in the process of creating quantity. For example, it took six people a full hour to prep a huge bin of green beans. Then those green beans were overcooked and looked terrible at the time of service. Green beans have to be cooked in water that is about 10 times the volume of the beans in order to keep them green, otherwise they turn a dark army green color that looks unattractive. In the end, there was not difference between those and canned green beans, except the cost and 6 hours of labor that went into prepping them. That's kind of the story of family meal. Somethings turn out great, even in mass, and somethings are left best to individual plating. Family meal is not about garnish or presentation, it's about functional, clean cooking.

After family meal, we moved to production, where we made chicken and veal stock everyday and butchered fish and meat. Making stock in production is not a typical operation. Each batch produces about 60 gallons of stock, which requires straining and proper cooling and then needs to be transported upstairs to a walk-in fridge (aka- I now have biceps due to a week of stock making). The meat butchering ranges from quartering chickens, breaking down rabbit, duck, racks of lamb, trimming beef, or butchering a whole pig. All of which is for dishes served in the restaurant. We also filleted salmon, Arctic char, trout, and cod. In addition to these daily duties, we made very fancy hot dogs, andouille sausage, Italian sausage, learned how to make bacon and prosciutto, and how to cold smoke. Even though Production nearly killed my back, I think it was a really important section of Level IV.

Friday, we had a lot of snow here in NYC, so two-thirds of the class did not come to school and it happened to also be the busiest day for Family Meal, a Buffet day, and the day that we were learning new processes in Production. Somehow, we all helped each other out and everything got done even with just our small groups, but it was exhausting.

Today was a big day. It was our first day in the restaurant kitchen. I am starting in a group in Pastry for the first four days. I was responsible for the chocolate souffles and making cookies for canape platters that are used for graduation. The chocolate souffles made me a bit nervous because if anything is off, they don't rise and everything is scratched. Thank goodness I did it right and all of them turned out great. Well, actually I had one "refire" because one souffle's top fell off when it came out of the oven. Not too bad though. We also made peanut butter cookies and macaroons for the canape platters. It was pretty cool to know that we are finally producing dishes that go straight to paying customers.

There was a practical today in which the students had to supreme oranges, so we are going to use those supremes tomorrow for a dessert special. Chef Mimi, the Pastry Chef, is amazing and I am already learning a lot from her, so maybe there is hope for pastry and me after all. Stay posted.

I think that about sums it up. If any of you come into the restaurant between now and April 28th, I will be making some aspect of your lunch. If you let me know you are coming or that you are there, you will be tagged VIP status and receive all sorts of fun extras! I hope to see you soon!

Finally,

The College Cook

Piggy Buffet

2010-02-08T21:31:00.003-05:00

Dear Buffet Guests,

I hope you enjoyed our menu today. We had quite an extensive selection of pig dishes and I am certain there must have been more than you could carry on one plate. Actually, we were lucky you had anything on your plate at all. We had so many dishes that it took over an hour to plate them all and transfer them to the buffet. Here is the full menu (my dishes marked with an "*"):

Pork Cheek Chili

Herbed Rice Dolmades

Ham & Cheese Buttermilk Biscuit*

Confit Pork Belly

BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich

Frisee with Crispy Pork Belly Croutons and Poached Quail Egg

Citrus & Avocado Salad with Microgreens and Balsamic Reduction

Pork & Spinach Wontons with a Thai Peanut Dipping Sauce

Brunois of Ham Hock, Bacon, Spare Ribs, & Foamed Split Pea Soup

Lemongrass Head Cheese*

Blood Sausage Crostini

Pork Pate

Rilettes

Spicy Sausage Pitas*

Pickled Baby Beets, Radishes, Pearl Onions & Dill Pickles

Suckling Pig, aka-Wilbur

Pork Stuffed Cabbage

Pork Filled Sweet Potato Raviolis

Short Ribs

Andrew’s Ribs

Mushroom Medley*

Fried Brussels -This is the one dish that was scratched due to time

Apple Chestnut Cornbread*

Roasted Root Vegetables*

Molton Chocolate Cupcakes with Candied Bacon & Caramel Sauce

Citrus Lemon Cup with Pomegranate Syrup*

Doughnut Glazed with Maple Candied Bacon

Wilbur the Suckling Pig

Yes, twenty-seven dishes in all for 60 of you and only about 3 days to do it. I don't know how we did it, but we did and hope we did not sacrifice quality in an attempt to have a wide selection of pork featured dishes. I think we all worked really well together prepping for this day, but there was definitely a sense of nervousness and overwhelm in the kitchen this morning. So much that some people lost their track and I was trying to pick up the pieces and get dishes plated and out the door on time. Luckily, I had simple dishes, so I was available and another teammate and I cracked the whip on plating dishes. In the end, it all worked out, but I think there is a lot that we would do differently next time.

Pork Buns, Ribs, & Short Ribs

Well, I hope you didn't go home hungry or displease with the food. It took a lot of blood, sweat and even tears to make it happen. We very much appreciated your applause at the opening of the buffet, we desperately needed it. Thank you!

Pig Plater,

The College Cook

Our Charcuterie Platter & Pickled Condiments

2010-02-04T16:15:00.004-05:00

Dear O & P,

It is crazy how quickly you kiddies are growing into little people. Phoebe, the fact that you were potty-trained so quickly is amazing and Owen, I can't believe how well you rock out on your guitar like there is a crowd of 50,000 watching. I love watching you two talk to each other and look out for the other. You guys have come such a long way since the day I met you, when you were only crawling. It's hard to even remember how you were almost two years ago.

Though, I do remember last summer when I gave you the Charlotte's Web DVD and you both loved it. I'm not sure if you fully understand the storyline (in part because we have to fast forward through the scary night time scenes), but perhaps I shall explain. You see, Wilbur is a pig on a farm, as you know. But as you may not understand, the farmer's intention is to get Wilbur nice and fat so that he will provide more meat when he is slaughtered. We do this with just about every animal we eat. I think it's important that you know that the food I cook for you came from somewhere before it came from the grocery store. I know you have seen live chickens, goats, and pigs at your petting zoo and at farms, but did you know that is the same thing that ends up on your plate? Wilbur is an anomaly (I'll explain this word later) because Charlotte makes him seem different than any other pig in order to prevent him from being slaughtered. It's a great movie whether you understand the plot or not, but there is just one hole in the story: why didn't Charlotte, the extremely talented spinner and writer, receive the recognition instead of Wilbur?

Anyway, I am explaining this to you because we are making all sorts of dishes out of pig for our Buffet on Monday and we have named our suckling pig, Wilbur. Yes, it is cruel, but this the real story behind Charlotte's Web. We are also making head cheese, which utilizes a part of the pig that is not used as often as others. By slowly cooking the pig's head, we soften the meat and we will make it into a terrine to serve as an appetizer on Monday. It gives further use of a life that is already being taken for other purposes. We also use the pig's intestines as sausage casing.

Here's a picture of one half of the pig's head that was brined before being cooked for the head cheese:

So, I'm guessing we are not having any pork for dinner tonight. Can't wait to hang with you kiddies and read Pale Green Pants, The Girl with the Little Curl, and Goodnight Moon!

XOXO,

The College Cook

Dog Tired

2010-02-03T20:39:00.003-05:00

Gravlax (front left), Pommes Souffle (right), Steak Tartar (above gravlax)

Beef Wellington on the Carving Station and the Rabbit Stew to the right

Dear Oliver,

How's it going, Mister Man? Are you holding down the fort in Colorado? A friend in class today was talking about taking leftover meatloaf home for her dog and it made me so sad because I wish I could bring my leftovers home to you. I bet you would enjoy the things we make and I'm sure you'd give me your honest critique. In the meantime, enjoy that natural dog food.

I know you live an exhausting life between pestering Lucy, knocking Mom over, and barking at cars that drive by, but I am pretty darn tired. Today, we served our mini-buffet and I think it went pretty well for our first run of things. Our paella wasn't all that great, but the beef wellington was amaaaazing. We spent the first half of the day preparing the buffet and then we spent the afternoon working on our mise en place and prep for Monday's buffet.

One of my dishes to prepare is a citrus sorbet with pistachio whip cream, so I made the juice mixture today with grapefruit juice, orange juice, lemon juice, lime juice, sugar, infusion of mint, and gin. I had lots of volunteer taste testers and we all decided that it was pretty darn good. I can't wait to finish it on Monday and see what everyone else thinks. We also stared all our dry rubs for our bbq ribs and pulled pork sandwiches. Yummmm!

Paella above Bread Pudding, Ratatouille Tarts above that

So tomorrow is going to be a jammed packed day with lots to do. I'm gonna take a nice long nap to be ready and fresh for tomorrow. Miss you!

XOXO,

The College Cook

Bourbon Chocolate Bread Pudding w/ Bourbon Raisin Ice Creme (Left)

Coconut Panna Cotta (right)

Settling In

2010-02-02T21:45:00.002-05:00

Dear Little Buffet Kitchen,

I have unpacked my things, met your burners, ovens, hidden cabinets, locked refrigerators, huuuuge mixers, broken sink, working sink, always full sink, stored spices, granite counter tops, nooks, and crannies. I am starting to settle in and get nice and cozy in your little space for our Buffet team. We run our own show, we keep the peace, and we stay out of others' way so that they may feed the school and provide it with prepared ingredients. We are actually quite snobby about our ways and our space in your nook of the Level 4 kitchen.

Today we worked on our mini-buffet for tomorrow's lunch. We prepared ratatouille tarts, pommes souffle (think 3D potato chips, puffy), the components of Beef Wellington, the whole rabbits (eyes and all) for the apple rabbit stew, the shrimp for the shrimp and clam paella, coconut panna cotta, bourbon chocolate bread pudding, the creme anglaise for the bourbon raisin ice cream, and puff pastry in which the stew will be served. We prepared nothing for Monday's buffet, but we have almost everything complete for tomorrow's. The coconut panna cotta is AMAAAAAZING, as you witnessed our reactions, especially with the toasted hazelnut and coconut bits on top.

I really like how our team works together. I have heard quite a bit in the last few months of classes that fight a lot, but we are in our 4th month and no one really fights. Yes, we all have very different opinions sometimes, but no one crosses the line of unprofessionalism in this regard. Our Buffet team especially looks our for each other. We are all packed fairly tightly into your space, so we must maintain communication so that no one gets injured and so we are productive. I am very proud about the way today went and I hope that tomorrow goes as smoothly. Don't get me wrong, we weren't perfect. Actually, I burned some hazelnuts to a crisp and I made a little extra of our ice cream. Oh well.

Oh and I don't know if you can be my witness, but who came in our kitchen and threw out our prized ingredient, bourbon? I know it was no one from our kitchen, because everyone on our team knew about that cup. Also, there were people from Production and Family Meal coming in to use our mixer, which is right next to where that cup was resting. It looked a lot like the tea that was served at lunch, but in fact, it was very nice bourbon. I found the emptied cup in the trash and the entire trash bin smelled like bourbon, so I see the easy mistake here, but no one took the blame for the crime. Hmmmm...

Tomorrow we will put together our buffet and serve it and then we will get ready for our big pig buffet for Monday. We started soaking the whole pig head today in a brine in order to start making the head cheese out of it tomorrow. Muaha, don't eat breakfast tomorrow, Kitchen. See you in the morning! Save me a spot!

The One Who Made You Smell Like Burnt Nuts,

The College Cook

four=more

2010-02-01T21:39:00.003-05:00

Dear Ole Dad,

I had my Culinary Midterm on Friday, which required me to complete a written exam and make a dish consisting of barramundi, mussels, shrimp and a lobster sauce as well as pate choux. These dishes had to be completed, plated for four, and served to a jury panel. All the while, chefs judged our technique, sanitation, organization, professionalism, and knife skills.

I drew my dishes out of a hat along with a time slot. Unfortunately, I pulled one of the last time slots, so I had far too much time to complete these dishes than I found necessary. After completing my prep work of building the lobster stock, cleaning the shrimp and mussels, steaming the mussels, and preparing my pate choux dough, I had nearly 2 hours to kill. I despise this kind of cooking because it doesn't keep your mind sharp knowing that you have to wait hours until the next step. I would have much rather pulled the first time slot and been under pressure to finish on time.

I piped my pate choux dough into the little dollops and brushed them with an egg wash before putting them in the convection oven. I baked them until the perfect color and then pulled them out to check the inside of the little pastry shells. Pate choux is supposed to by dry on the inside, but mine were still fairly "bready." So, I cut off the tops and put them back in, turning off the heat and just leaving the fans on to dry them. I almost forgot about them and came back 15 minutes later to find them completely dry, almost crispy, perhaps too crispy. I had just thrown away my extra pate choux dough and so I had to count on these little crispy cups as not being considered too dry in the eye of the judges. Well, turns out that the chantilly cream (whipped cream) that is piped into them helped with the texture and my pate choux were the judges favorite! YAY!

My barramundi was not quite as well received, but I did receive high marks and my total midterm exam grade was a 96.4! I find this too high, because for the first time since I can remember, I forgot to devein my shrimp. I thought they would have taken off more points for this, but apparently my lobster sauce and well cooked fish made up for it. Or maybe they were just forgiving because they liked my pate choux so much. Who knows?

Today was the the first day of Level 4. This means we are now downstairs, on the main floor, as part of the professional kitchen. We are considered an extension of the restaurant and must be extra certain to follow all sanitation codes in addition to our special attention to detail and care with product. Level 4 is divided into three groups: Buffet, Production, and Family Meal. I am in Buffet for the next 7 days, which means we will do a mini-buffet on Wednesday and a full buffet on Monday for the Chefs, administrators of the school, and Level 4, 5 & 6 students. Production is responsible for preparing ingredients that are distributed throughout the school and restaurant. So, today they broke down chickens and in general they are primarily making stocks, butchering or filleting. Family Meal is responsible for preparing lunch for 350 people everyday (almost everyone in the school). This is definitely an intense section of Level 4 because of the pressing time to serve lunch and deliver it to the correct levels each day.

For our full buffet, we decided to do a theme based on one ingredient: the pig. We are serving just about any way you can imagine a pig to be served, including head cheese and a whole suckling pig. It should be very interesting and of course, delicious! I'll give you the full menu rundown later in the week.

Basically, the best parts of Level 3, are standard in Level 4. We get to be creative, learn new dishes, do something different everyday, produce dishes that are served to people outside our kitchen, and contribute to the restaurant. I love it already!

Oh yeah and also, we also do little canapes for special events like graduations and orientations. So today we made four platters of them and they looked great. I meant to get a picture, but we were pressed for time, so I couldn't. Instead, here is a picture of one of my amuse bouche ideas from Level 3. It was a Cauliflower & parsnip soup with a sauteed beet with an enoki mushroom on top.

I hope you and Mom have a great week! I can't wait until you guys come visit in March! Let me know where you would like to eat when you visit and we'll make sure to hit all the best little spots. Can't wait!

Love,

The College Cook

Amuse, We Did.

2010-01-28T20:02:00.003-05:00

Dear Johnny Boy,

How's it going frat boy? I'm so excited for you and your bid, I hope pledging goes just as easily. Have you nailed down those summer plans yet? Hopefully we can all get away to Florida in the first bit of time after you and Joseph finish exams.

You would have been proud of me today, and your soon to be frat brothers would have probably been too. So for our amuse bouche, our secret ingredient was tofu. Pretty lame for a lot of meat lovers in our classroom, but our team of three (the 4th person in our island has decided to not really work with us) created a very satisfying dish.

First, we decided that we would tempura the tofu. So I insisted that we use Uncle Guy's trick of putting vodka in the batter. Since we had already requested vodka from the store room, we decided to do a little shot of infused vodka. So we took some cranberries, juniper berries and mint and sous vide it in our vodka. Later, we muddled it all together, added a bit of club soda and served it as part of our amuse bouche. In addition to the tofu that was served on a bit of cranberry chutney, we had a napolean salad of asian pear and cucuber dressed with a lemon cranberry viniagrette. It was all delicious! Well actually, the vodka was a little too strong and Chef required us to only serve half shots to our student judges.

Here's what it looked like:

Well, I just had to let you know that our schools do have something in common, except my instructors keep a much closer eye on us. Speaking of which, big midterm tomorrow! If this is the last letter you ever receive regarding food camp, it means that I failed and can't move on to Level 4. I'm going to bed now like a nerd. Stop Facebooking/hulu watching/rockbanding, go to bed and let your body rest before pledging. You'll need it.

Later Juanton!

The College Cook

Cooking Battles

2010-01-27T20:26:00.003-05:00

Dear Citrus Tart,

It seems as though you have won the battles thus far, but I am in good position to win the war. Word was out today that you will NOT be on the midterm exam. Therefore, you cannot single handedly doom me!

Because you have failed me on three separate occasions, and I have yet to perfect you, I was quite nervous that I would draw your name on Friday. Au contraire mon ami desole! Impossible! Instead, I may choose the fate of pate choux, apple tart, or pot de creme, anything but you! I may choose consomme and the pork dish or I may choose barramundi and a dessert other than you. Either way, I am confident going into Friday, primarily because I know you won't be around.

Yesterday and today, we spent our afternoons learning about sous vide and cooking in a circulator. For an oven baked tart, perhaps I should explain. "Sous vide" means "under vacuum" in French. This is much like what the Foodsaver does in home kitchens. By removing the air, food products can be stored for longer periods of time because almost no air comes in contact with the product. For example, when doing prep work in a kitchen, for it allows a chef to prepare vegetables that oxidize, like avocados and artichokes, well in advance and then store until needed. It also comes in handy when you want to remove the air from a product that you have pureed in a blender, returning the liquid to a truer color and consistency. The possibilities with a sous vide machine have yet to be expended. Sous vide does not cook anything, it just removes the air and forms a tight seal for bagged product.

Cooking with a circulator is an entirely different process, but using sous vide bagged product is often cleaner, safer, and more efficient than using regular Ziplock bags. Each has its purpose at one time or another. A circulator is a machine that keeps a liquid in a container at an exact temperature while keeping the liquid constantly in circulation. Because of the mechanics of this process, tougher cuts of meats can be cooked at low temperatures for longer periods of time, making the meat tender and moist. Cooking in a circulator also ensures almost no evaporation of the sauce or marinade in which the product is cooked, a plus. Eggs can be poached, in their shell, at 63 degrees Celsius for one hour and then be cracked when needed, resulting in the PERFECT poached egg, every single time. Cooking in a circulator is consistent and far more reliable than cooking in an oven or on the stove top, which makes it very appealing to professional kitchens.

My only issue is, where is the craft in that? No, I am terrible at making you, but I do enjoy that it is challenging and that there is some craft in doing it right and less in doing it wrong. If cooking was easy, everyone would do it and a lot less people would do it for a living, because it would take half the fun out of it. Yes, it can be more efficient, but setting up a circulator and the bagged product after prepping its contents can be more trouble than cooking the product in the traditional ways. Annnnnd, whatever is cooked slowing in a circulator, is generally finished on the stove anyway in order to establish some texture, like the nice crispy char on the outside of a steak.

Anyway, these two days of sous vide and circulator cooking happen to coincide with the Dave Arnold/Nils Noren demonstration yesterday. These two guys are like the mad scientists of cooking. They literally spend all day everyday testing different recipes and creating new ways to use sous vide, circulators, crazy ingredients and machinery to enhance cooking. There is nothing "classic" about what they do, but the food is fun to eat when you know what went into making it. Today we made creme anglaise using sous vide, the circulator, and liquid nitrogen (in different steps, of course). This is definitely a practical use of these techniques because the sous vide removes the air from the creme anglaise after blending it. The circulator brings it to exactly the correct temperature, pasteurizing it, but not over cooking it. And the liquid nitrogen provides quick cooling so that the ice cream can be made within three minutes of pulling the reserved creme anglaise out of the refrigerator. And it tasted great!

Dave Arnold making ice cream with liquid nitrogen

So that's the scoop (no pun intended). Don't worry, I have not given up on you or conventional cooking. I am just very relieved that I can sleep better at night knowing that I will not have a curdled, over cooked, hot, tough crusted, leaky, soggy, or burned YOU on Friday. And with any luck, I will pass level 3 and move on to level 4.

Au Revoir Mon Petit Tarte,

The College Cook

The Kitchen People

2010-01-26T21:29:00.003-05:00

Dear Kitchen Outsiders,

I am currently reading a book written by someone who went to the Culinary Institute of America to write about what it is like to go through culinary school. This author's more recent book is an inside look at the Certified Master Chef exam and various restaurants. The author nailed a series of thoughts that have been subconsciously reoccurring in my head as I have progressed through culinary school.

"Learning to cook at that level changes how I behave and how I perceive the world. I changed. I learned efficiency of movement to minimize wasted energy and time, and the idea of efficiency of movement extended to intellectual work. I began to value speed of movement more than ever before. Also, precision of movement. Speed without precision is harmful, especially when knives and hot steel and scalding oil are involved. I've learned mental flexibility." -Michael Ruhlman

I am in my last week of Level 3, of which, I must complete by passing my midterm on Friday. I will draw two dishes out of a hat and a service time. I will have five minutes to take notes from my book. I will collect all my mise en place at once and do so with proper care to temperatures, sanitation, and product care. I will prep my ingredients with my greatest precision, speed, efficiency and organization. I will be sure to form sucs when needed, heat pans to the proper temperature, season carefully, have my hot plates hot and my cold plates cold, and follow the classical guidelines appropriate to each dish. And in the time allotted, I will have to think like a chef, for I will not just be judged by my final plates, but the way in which I produce those plates.

Learning to cook is about conditioning. From day one, we were conditioned to always have sanitation buckets prepared, to preheat and triple check our ovens, to organize our stations, to use a compost bowl when peeling vegetables, and to throw away as little as possible. The conditioning of such things grew more expansive each day until now, if conditioned correctly, it has become habit and second nature. For some, they fought the conditioning, thinking they could take short cuts, and therefore they have not formed the expectations of a kitchen as habit. I had heard of this prior to the start of school, so thankfully, I allowed the process to condition me into a person of the kitchen. Not yet a chef, but a person of the kitchen.

In the kitchen, we must say "Behind you," as you come close to someone or in their blind spots. This is to ensure that they do not whip around and run into, forcing a collision of flying produce, hot oil, or sharp knives. Specifying "Sharp!" is also necessary when walking through the kitchen with scissor or knives (or anything sharp). As is "Hot pan/hot oil/hot!" for anything that is still hot (obvious, yes, but very important). These are all standard safety precautions that are necessary to ensure both efficiency and safety. A person of the kitchen can move about sure of their steps because if danger is near them, another person of the kitchen will notify them. This is just how it works. Well, I now find myself saying "behind you" in grocery stores to complete strangers who are not conditioned to this standard. In a kitchen, when a chef speaks to you, you respond with "yes, Chef" or "No, Chef." In when my yoga instructor asks my class of yoga students if we understand her, it is inappropriate to respond with "yes, Chef," but I must catch myself every time.

I find that I cook less at home now than I did before school, not because I enjoy it less or that I am too tired to after the 6 hours of cooking at school, but because it bothers me how inefficient home cooking is. I was always a person who thought function is as important as appearance, but more than ever, I expect functionality first and foremost. Home kitchens simply don't function like a professional kitchen, and perhaps they don't need to. But why not? If so many people today are cooking at home and designing beautiful kitchens, why not design a functional one. No, not one with all the ridiculous unnecessary gadgets, but one with only what you need and have it placed where you need it? Make it beautiful, but make function its real purpose. Like the food, it should look good, but more importantly, it should taste good. That is the food's function. It's simple, and good food is simple. Great cooking appears to be simple.

Again, here I am on a tangent of food, function and efficiency. Being in a kitchen everyday for three months, even for just six hours, is enough to make someone be a person of the kitchen. And once you are a person of the kitchen, I don't think there is any going back. Yes, certain habits will fade away, but being a person of the kitchen changes the way you think about things forever. If you can do something with precision and efficiency in 30 minutes, why take 45 minutes to do it? Why not use that 15 minutes to do something else productive? Sounds a little crazy, I know, at some point we must rest and relax, I get it. But when you feel yourself getting really good at something, you don't allow yourself to continue at a skill level you long ago surpassed. Why shouldn't I cook to my abilities? Because it isn't as fun. The rush of pushing yourself and creating something better than its original form is what makes cooking fun. Strangely enough, the kitchen standards make that fun possible, but it drives you crazy when you aren't in a kitchen.

So now I am in this place in my life where I see things a differently and I am constantly thinking of efficiency and precision. If every business was run like a kitchen, how much more efficient and precise would our world be? We sometimes strive for this by reading the paper, watching TV and talking to someone at the same time. Multi-tasking neither equates to precision nor efficiency. Maybe kitchen work can't be translated to other industries, maybe it's a craft that is solely reserved for the one thing that we need throughout our day and throughout our lives: food.

Your Person of the Kitchen,

The College Cook

PS- All this precision and efficiency is especially helpful when one of your teammates calls in sick and you must do her dish for her. And do it perfectly.

Among Us

2010-01-25T20:46:00.002-05:00

Deaf Chef Alain,

Thank you so much for arranging dinner at Citronelle. It was such an amazing food experience and you and your friends certainly know how to dine. We passed on your message through Michele Richard's brother-in-law and I he treated us like family. Thank you for your generous restaurant suggestion.

Also, I think it is amazing that you come through the classes every day and check in on the students and our progress. I am sure that a chef of your stature could very easily come and go to work as you please, but you put so much time in to being with the students and making yourself available at school. It has already been a great addition to my time at FCI. I know you have mentioned retiring soon, so I feel very lucky that I have assisted you in a demo, had you taste countless dishes, and gotten to know you as a person and chef. It has been a great honor for all of us.

I hope my apple tart and amuse bouche today lived up to your standards. The amuse bouche was created with the secret ingredients of artichoke, beets, cauliflower, and enoki mushrooms. First, I cooked the artichoke and made vegetable stock. I steamed and sauteed the cauliflower in the veg stock and then pureed it with the artichoke, adding some additional veg stock and a touch of cream. Then with a few adjustments and seasoning, we plated the soup in asian soup spoons and placed a sauteed beet coin on top with a single enoki mushroom across the beet. I hope you enjoyed the presentation and flavors.

My apple tart appeared to be as good as it was last time, but I must admit, my crust was a little tougher than I like. It should melt in your mouth, but I over worked my dough and so it did not melt at all.

I was a judge today in class and so I had to evaluate everyone's dishes. This is fun because you get to taste all the amuse bouches, but it is not fun because you must explain to someone why they have not completed dishes correctly, and giving criticism is even less fun than hearing it. So anyway, there were some great dishes and some dishes that were pretty far off. I hope everyone pulls it together before Friday, when we have our midterm.

Well, great seeing you in class again today! Tomorrow, I will be making poached eggs on a bed of macedoine vegetables if you get hungry around noon.

Best,

The College Cook

Birthday Worthy Food

2010-01-24T23:26:00.008-05:00

Dear Mama,

Happy Birthday! I hope you had a wonderful birthday and I wish I could have shared it with you. I trust that Oliver sent you my love and birthday hugs. I know he was a little disappointed that he was not invited inside the Broadmoor for brunch, but I'm sure he enjoyed riding along, nonetheless. Well you asked for me to get back on the horse and write again after my long period of absence due to my schedule and lack of sleep, so here I am, attempting to catch up with the info flow.

First of all, I had my mock midterm a few days back and I think it went fairly well. Actually, it went nothing like I hope it does on the real midterm, but I think I learned a lot that day. I pulled lemon tart and barramundi with sauce americaine as my dishes. The fish dish composed of mussels, shrimp, barramundi and the lobster sauce went off without a hitch. Everything was cooked properly and my only criticism was that the sauce was not quite reduced enough. The lemon tart on the other hand, was a not so great. As I slipped my tart dough into the oven to blind bake it, I apparently let the ring shift and so it was not completely flat on the pan. Well in the end, in combination with not taking the extra step to egg wash, caused a leaky spot in my tart. And by "leaky," I mean not only was the tart crust leaking, but it was leaking so much that it overflowed from the pan and was leaking on to the oven floor, which then leaked from the oven on to the kitchen floor. It was the puddle that gave me a hint to my error. Anyway, I was lucky that things did not turn out even worse than they did, because somehow my tart looked pretty darn good on the plate. It was just the soggy crust that gave it away. I have since made this tart two more times, each time finding new, creative ways to fail. Ugh.

Speaking of which, since the mock exam, we have been working as a "kitchen," still rotating positions each day, but within our island. So I work with the same three people each day to produce one dish each (consomme, skate, chicken grand-mere, and lemon tart), plus an amuse bouche based on the day's secret ingredient. The first day, it was my responsibility to create the amuse and the secret ingredient was sea urchin roe. Don't ask me how, but this was my idea and final dish: a twist on the BLT sandwich. I made mayonnaise out of the sea urchin roe and added some chopped scallions to play the part of the lettuce. Then I piped this urchin herbed mayo into hallowed cherry tomatoes, sprinkled bits of crispy bacon and then topped with a small square of filo as the bread, served with a small side of fries. It was well received, the only complaint being that the sea urchin roe flavor was a little lost (thank God for that).

BLT with a side of fries

The next day it was someone else's turn to execute the amuse, but I happen to come up with the group concept again. Our secret ingredient was salmon and there were additional ingredients brought up such as: parsnip, brussel sprouts, and fennel. So the dish was a salmon cake, binded with a puree of parsnip, potato and fennel; topped with a single sprout pedal filled with the smokey fennel cream sauce that we made. It was delicious. A top pick! Yay!

The third amuse day was chorizo and quail egg. I had another good idea, but the person in our group responsible for the dish that day wasn't taking any suggestions. So she decided on french toast with chorizo and a fried quail egg on top. In theory, this works, but it wasn't executed well and the result was a very bland bite of dry bread over flavored with brandy syrup with an overcooked egg on top. The chorizo was lost in the mix, unfortunately. Thankfully, Friday's amuse went better.

Well I have to say that I had nothing to do with the creative concept of Friday's amuse bouche. Largely due to the fact that I woke up at exactly 9:00am on Friday morning. As you might recall, class begins at 9:00am sharp. You may also recall that it takes me 30 minutes to get to school and I must change once I arrive there (not before, it's against health code). So after emailing chef, gathering my things, tidying my room and zipping up my suitcase, I ran out the door and eventually walked into the kitchen around 9:55am. See, the thing is, if a student is more than 15 minutes late for class, they receive no points for the day and it counts as an absence. So I knew that I was going simply for the practice and to not leave my team shorthanded, needing to produce my dish whether I was there or not.

Somehow, I was able to come in an hour late, quickly grab a chicken and truss it, brown it, and put it in the oven. I grabbed my mise en place haphazardly and start on my garniture. As you said, you have put me in some time constraint situations before with food and I think it helped me pull through on this particular day. My chicken dish was on time, my garniture was perfect, my flavors were spot on, but I dropped a piece of chicken in the process of plating, so it ended in the compost. I definitely felt the self-punishment of that, but I deserved it for waltzing in an hour late. Thankfully our amuse bouche of scallop ceviche on a avocado puree was a success, thanks to our very own Panamanian teammate who is a genius with seafood.

This past week also boasted some pretty fine dining. Actually, I was treated as a VIP guest twice in the past few days. At Dan Barber's Blue Hill in NYC, a classmate and I were given the royal treatment, showered with canapes and invited into the kitchen. I was even invited to "trail," for a chance to intern at Blue Hill.

Then Friday night in DC, we were amazed and in awe of the service and special dishes brought out to us, thanks to Chef Alain Sailhac, who is friends with Citronelle's Michele Richard. Here are the pics that you wanted of some of the dishes we had:

Crab cake, shrimp wrap, salmon, mini taco

"Egg Symphony"- nothing you see here is actually egg except for the egg shells

Mosiac of raw filet mignon, halibut, eel, tuna, bell peppers, cucumbers, and salmon

Ice cream filled meringue snowman

Various homemade ice creams

Food Euphoria

2010-01-21T01:17:00.002-05:00

Dear Food Camp,

Remember me? No, have not been ditching class and MLK day was only Monday. I have been slacking when it comes to writing because I have been overly concerned with the cooking and food. I have eaten some amazing food this past week and tonight was the icing on the cake. I am going to continue to savor this feeling of food perfection for the night and officially reinstate the writing tomorrow, now that I am back to my computer and accessible to the site. Stay tuned for the juicy details.

The College Cook

Chicken, Wine and Smoke.

2010-01-13T21:57:00.004-05:00

Dear Monsieur,

Congratulations on the birth of your first child. He is such a beautiful baby and I am so glad that he is so healthy. Since you have a lot going on in your life right now, I am going to give you the run down of what I did today for the Chicken Grand-mere so that you can do it properly tomorrow, while I make the consomme that you made today.

First, I chopped my mirepoix and set some of it aside for later. I stuffed my chicken with the remaining mirepoix and parsley (also seasoning the inside cavity) and then trussed it. While trussing, I put my large saute pan on the heat, then added oil to coat the bottom and browned the chicken on each side. While browning, I quartered my mushrooms and cut my bacon. I also browned the breast a little bit and then flipped it back on to its side and put it in a 425 oven.

While the chicken cooked, I blanched the bacon while trimming my pearl onions. Then I rendered the bacon in a saute pan and crisped it a little. Then I removed the bacon and seared the mushrooms in the bacon fat. When those were finished, I set them aside along with the bacon. By then, I had trimmed all my onions and then I cooked them glacer a brun while turning my potatoes into cocottes.

By this point, my chicken was coming out of the oven, so I placed it on a cooling rack and set it aside. I started rissoler-ing my potatoes by putting them in cold water and bringing them to a boil. Then I dried them and then gently sauteed them in oil until evenly golden brown. Then I drained them and put them in the oven for ten minutes.

At this point, I started browning my sucs in the chicken pan and then deglazed with white wine. The recipe calls for 500ml of veal stock, but I find that it is too strong for this chicken dish, so I would do half stock/half water. Bring that to a simmer and let it concentrate a little while you butcher your chicken. Be sure to fully machonner your bones. I did not, and Chef corrected me. Then strain your sauce in a chinois and reduce a little, not to napant, still the consistency of a jus. Season (needs lots of salt) and then prepare your chopped parsley. Warm your garniture quickly and saute the potatoes in a bit of butter and season.

Plate one piece with the bone in with a boneless piece, creating as much height as you can by propping one piece against the other. Add the mushrooms, bacon, onions and potatoes around the meat and ladle a good amount of jus on top of the chicken. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and make it before the clock!

I hope you can do better than I did. I felt great about it and I was on time, but my onions and mushrooms both needed more color. Overall, I was happy with the solo assignment and I think that you will have fun with it.

What did you think of the wine course today that we had with Chef Annete? I enjoyed it a lot and found it very well presented, but I could hear you saying things under your breath, so I couldn't tell if you were cursing her for not knowing French wines well enough or if you were just talking to the wine. Oh well, I guess we can chat more about this tomorrow in Wine Lesson #2.

Good luck to you tomorrow! Any tips on the consomme?

Sante,

The College Cook

PS- You should have come along to the Forager Club outing with Dave Arnold. We went to this amazing shop with every spice, flour, crazy ingredient and international cooking items that you could possibly imagine.

Chef Dave Arnold showing us how this rare crazing spice can be burned in a smoker to smoke foods

Note to Self

2010-01-12T22:14:00.003-05:00

Dear Self in Two Weeks,

Do not rush through the delicate process of making the citrus tart dough during your midterm. Perfect everything before putting it in the oven for blind baking. Brush the dough with an egg wash just to be sure that all cracks are sealed. Do not allow the filling to leak all over the pan and throughout the oven and even on the floor. That is not good, as you know. Also, know that even if all this happens, you can still push through and produce a decent plate. Have confidence in yourself and your ability to "fix" a citrus tart.

Also, if you mess up the pot de creme the first time, save those and chill them as if they are your only pot de creme, because your second batch may not have enough time to cook and fully set. Make sure you skim the top of each carefully and be sure to cover the ramekins gently with foil so that they do not form a crust. Learn from your mistakes.

Remember the last day of patissier and make the adjustments so that you will improve for the day of the midterm (and all other days when the dishes did not turn out perfectly).

That's all for now, I'm sure more to come soon!

Your Youthful Self,

The College Cook

Happiness in a Tart

2010-01-11T21:48:00.005-05:00

Dear Pi Phi Beauties,

I am so happy I got to see all of you this weekend! My ho hum Sunday turned into one of my favorite days in the city since I've moved here, thanks to all of you! Brunch was amazing and so much fun. Coffee and SoHo shop hopping and foraging for funky little places was exactly why I love being in the city. And then family dinner with some non-pi phis was icing on the cake, given I just love to cook for people, especially hungry people who bring wine.

So Friday my partner came back to school after a four-day absence and things were a little shaky. Today she was back on her game and so was I, woooo!

We were on the Pastry line today and were each required to make a classic apple tart and also four plates of pate choux, which are little cream puffs. We started by making our sabler dough and putting it in the fridge to rest while we gathered the remaining of our mise en place. Then we rolled out the dough and lined our tart pans before putting them back in the fridge to set for a bit longer. In the meantime, we each made our apple compotes. Unfortunately, my partner burned hers a little bit and while she redid it, I made the paste for the pate choux dough.

The pate choux turns into this sticky, pasty dough that it piped into these little Hershey Kiss shaped drops and then brushed with egg wash and baked until puffy and golden brown. While those were in the oven, I started slicing my apples for the top of my tart, which I am much better at now than I was in Level 2, thank God. So, I made my tart look pretty damn close to perfect and popped it in the oven with a good amount of cooking time and cooling time allowed.

I think everyone else got theirs in a bit late, because mine came out with the perfect amount of color and it had time to cool to room temp. This is the trick to making an impressive apple tart, and impressive it was. Chef Roger is rather picky and by "picky," I mean he neverrrr seems satisfied with anything we produce in class. Well, he said mine was PERFECT! And he had everyone come up and look at it and then when Chef Alain Sailhac came in, he sent him for a piece of my tart and he said it was perfect too! I think I am much better off in pastry dishes when I go into the day with lots of happiness leftover from the day before. So thank you.

The Tart.

The pate choux went off without a hitch as well. It was a great day in the kitchen! Oh and my first partner in school, who is French and I call Monsieur, had his baby yesterday (well his wife did). They named him Marco, so cute. And he sent a beautiful picture to us of the three of them. I can't even imagine jumping into this city and going to school and having a family all within three months and on top of that he wants to rule the restaurant world.

Anyway, thank you all for the joy of yesterday that went into my food today! It was absolutely perfect to see you all and for those who are here, I hope to make it more regular! Have a great week, where ever you are!

PPL,

The College Cook

Another One Bites the Dust

2010-01-07T21:09:00.002-05:00

Dear Diary,

So it was the fourth day in a row that my partner did not show up. If she does not come tomorrow, she will have to retake this level. Apparently she has a fever, but no one has really heard much despite her frequent facebook activity, and she has yet to respond to any of my communication methods. Word on the street is that she is coming tomorrow.

Unfortunately, she will not be the same person in the kitchen had she returned on Monday. Being in the kitchen is a lot like being in shape for running, the longer you are away, the slower it takes you to get up to speed.

Today I survived purely on the kindness of my classmates. I had one pair keeping the boiling water ready for my pasta. My pastry neighbors keeping an eye on everything, straining, reducing and restraining my sauces. I had another classmate peel my pearl onions while I double checked every move with my old partner. The thing is, when you make a dish for the first time, no matter how much you go through the recipe, there is nothing like physical memory. That is what cooking is all about. And what's great about having a partner for a first time dish is that you can constantly check each other in terms of procedure. Well that's where I have been lacking. That and labor.

My dishes made it just in time today but they both had several issues. My mushrooms tasted a bit burned because the oil sparked in the pan. My bacon lardons were perfect. My glacer a brun onions were not even enough. My chicken should have been browned on the breast as well. My sauce was a good consistency and well seasoned. For my beef bourguignon, my beef was properly cooked and seasoned, but not covered with enough sauce. My homemade noodles were perfect! But my lack of sauce made it insufficient for a stew dish. ugh.

All in all, I was happy for the challenge the last few days, but I also wish that I could have produced better dishes. My problem with tomorrow is that I have two major dishes to worry about, while also coaching my partner through everything that she missed. I would almost rather go solo again and just know what I have to worry about, rather than checking in on my other person. Oh well.

So my friends say to give her a "to-do list" that I know she can't screw up, but then I just feel like a jerk. At the same time, she has missed all the critiques of peoples' dishes and has no idea how things are supposed to be done. So what do I do? Learn from the day as best as I can, despite having been sick all week.... or help this girl catch up with all the things she missed and try to turn out two acceptable dishes?

Hopefully, I can do both, which will make tomorrow the most challenging day of the week. Wish me luck!

Yours Truly,

The College Cook

PS- I love that Chef Roger (Rojaaaay) is no joke when it comes to critique. He catches every little mistake, even if it isn't visible on the plate but he witnessed it in the process. He is making me better every day.

From Failure to Pepin in One Day

2010-01-06T22:49:00.007-05:00

Dear Level 3 Partner,

I am very sorry that you are feeling so ill, but could you please let me know if you will be attending class tomorrow? Things were going well until today and I got in a time crunch and things started going out the window. In fact, "In the weeds" was how Chef described it. Great huh? I could use an extra hand or two.

So here's what you missed today (I have no pictures because it has been too crazy). I immediately got going on my bass papillote, which involved leeks, carrots, and celery julienned and cooked separately. Meanwhile, I was also making a tomato compote and mushroom duxelles. And oh yeah, I cut myself in like the first 5 mins while cross-slicing a shallot, sweet, lots of blood and even though nothing appeared to get in the food, I had to scrape my board. Awesome. So things were going well until the guy at the station next to ours thinks he's helping me and pokes at my carrots and says, "I think these are done," while breaking them with his wooden spatula. Sooooo they were no longer julienned carrots and I felt that I had no choice to redo them, which put me behind on time.

It got to the point when I was supposed to serve in like 40 mins and I hadn't even started the first dish: salmon with rice pilaf and sauteed spinach with a beurre blanc sauce. So I quickly got my rice going and put it in the oven to finish and grabbed a grill plate, prepped my salmon and started a sauce. In the meantime, I burned some of the carrots (second batch) and realized they would have to make do.

So then I was scrambling trying to put the papillotes together and had to leave them to start the spinach (like 10 mins before time to serve), reduce my sauce, and sear my salmon with grill marks and get it in the oven. It was insane and I was all over the place and lucky I didn't really mess something up by burning or dropping key ingredients. So eventually I got everything plated, 2 minutes late and I was in such a rush that I didn't check my spinach for seasoning, or my rice or finish my sauce with herbs. My salmon was just slightly overcooked and so, nothing on the plate was as it should be, except it looked nice. Ugh.

So round two, I had to clean up my disaster zone before I could move on and I had to finish making those damn papillotes. I literally finished them just in time to put them in the oven. Thinking that I needed an extra 2 minutes to plate, I put mine in the kitchen's convection oven 2 minutes before the other two pairs. Well, little did I know that I put them in the oven set for the pastry dishes, not the one preheated for our fish.

Sooooo after 9 minutes when I went to snip a corner to help keep the little steamy pocket inflated, I realized that my papillotte was not only not puffed or the proper color, but the fish inside must still not be cooked. I checked the other oven (which was open and cool earlier, so I didn't think it was even in use for the day) and there are everyone elses papiolltes, colorful and puffy, as they should be. Yep. In the weeds with 3 minutes till service. So as everyone was pulling theirs out, I switched mine to the hotter oven (100 degrees makes a big difference for fish in 10 mins) and let it cook for another 2 minutes. It did no visible good, but it must have cooked the fish a little more.

I took my plates on time to the chefs and said, "I'm missing the thyme, they aren't puffed, and I would check the fish before you bite into it. I it is quite possibly undercooked." And so it was. And under seasoned too. The good news? My tomato fondue and mushroom duxelles were cooked and seasoned properly. Yes, two components out of like twenty today were done properly. I missed by an inch today, but missing by an inch in almost every aspect of two dishes is a lot of inches.

I thought it would be a good idea to go to Chef Jacques Pepin's demo today on basic technique so that I could get a few pointers and hope for a better day tomorrow. It turned out to be quite an impressive demo and Josh Lucas from "Sweet Home Alabama" was sitting in the front row. Don't ask me why, but you would have loved it, he's just as good looking in person.

Back of Mr. Sweet Home Alabama's head

Here are Jacques Pepin's best quotes from the demo:

"A lot of my friends jog or do yoga, I whip egg whites"

"Cook who you are, you cannot escape yourself"

Chef whipping egg whites

Anyway, that's the scoop. Please come tomorrow! Or let me know if you are going to be there or not so I can prepare myself and perhaps get there a little early. On top of everything today, chef made me Sous Chef, so I was definitely stressing. Today was a reminder just how far I am from being in the realm of any chef like Jacques Pepin. Oh well, another day of practice tomorrow.

Exhausted,

The College Cook

This is a design of 3 fish. In a mushroom cap. Crazy and not basic.

Against All Forces

2010-01-05T21:47:00.004-05:00

Dear Nyquil,

I hope you do wonders for me this evening. I need sleep. Good sleep. The kind of sleep that will kick this flu-ish thing I have to the curb and give me enough energy to face another day of Level 3.

You see, Level 3 is like Level 1 + Level 2 on crack. Level 3 is about making the perfect dishes, not as a student, but as a cook. It is about timing, organization, technique, precision and energy. It's the real deal.

Day 1 of Level 3 was the Wednesday before New Years, but I was so relieved to make it through the day barely scathed that I never wrote home to talk about it. I did, however, have a wonderfully fun new years. Unfortunately, kissing boys at midnight whom I've never met resulted catching whatever this bug is going around. Blah.

Anyway, Day 1 entailed making a consomme with not so perfect garniture and not so perfect vegetables with a poached egg and hollandaise sauce. Our vegetables were not even enough and our hollandaise was too cold/thick. But our eggs were perfectly cooked and everything was well seasoned.

Yesterday, I came into the kitchen and started collecting my ingredients and was a little annoyed that my partner was waiting until the last minute to arrive, but then she didn't arrive at all. So I did both dishes entirely on my own and believe it or not, actually fared better than I thought. I made Salad Nicoise and a vegetable soup. I knew I worked well under pressure and apparently the extra pressure of not feeling well kept me moving knowing that I would be able to collapse on the couches in the lounge upstairs as soon as I finished. And actually, Chef kept one of my vegetable soup (meaning it was the best of the 3 groups), yay!

Yesterday's and Tomorrow's dishes (my soup is top right)

Today I assumed that my partner would be back since I didn't hear from her and neither did her friend in our class. Nope. Home sick again. Perhaps I should have done the same. Well, today I prepared barramundi with sauce americaine (lobster sauce), mussels, and shrimp and then pan fried skate with a brown butter sauce with capers, lemon, and croutons. Chef liked both my dishes and kept them both! Wooo!

Working by myself turned out to be a good thing because on the midterm, we are working alone anyway. And it also forced me to be efficient and sure of everything I was doing, since no one was there to check what I was doing or reassure me of my seasoning, procedure, etc.

I think you are finally starting to kick in a little. Thank goodness. I need some sleep.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz,

The College Cook

Another Graduation Day

2009-12-29T19:30:00.004-05:00

Some Gourmet Magazine Covers (retired)

To Whom It May Concern:

I passed Level 2. I supreme'd the orange, concotte'd the potato, piped the chantilly cream and curdled the creme anglaise. No, the creme anglaise should not be curdled, but that's what I did to it and end of story (well, actually I have more to say). The chef deducted points, but I thought it should have been more detrimental to my final grade.

Oh, well then I find out that the person who fully destroyed their creme anglaise AND threw it away in the compost only got two points less than I did. So what does that tell you about our grading? Yes, too easy and random. Come on, Chef! Grade harder! I failed that section, so give me no more than a failing grade! No, I have never before curdled my creme anglaise, but history means nothing on test day. I cannot ride on the coattails of another day or week or level, so give me as I deserve. In the end, I received a 94.3 for the practical and a 93 for the final written exam. And really, I don't care so much about the grade as I do about that curdled creme anglaise and the fact that I would have never served it to anyone.

My favorite thing about cooking is the moment that I present it to someone else. Their reaction is the real grade and I assure you that my grainy creme anglaise deserved no excited reaction whatsoever. In fact, I would not have served it to anyone, period. My father has always taught me to do things right or don't do them at all, and so I find that my 'not doing it right' deserves nothing more than a failing grade.

So I passed Level 2, but I am very excited about the pressure and honesty of Level 3. It is in this level that we learn to master certain dishes and plate with professionalism and perform within the time frame and no more. From what I hear, everyday in Level 3 is test day. TBD. For now, we all just need a drink.

Santé,

The College Cook.

Just Another Critic

2009-12-28T21:06:00.004-05:00

Dear Disney/Pixar,

I am writing to inform you of a rather obvious mistake that you committed. Knowing that you spend months and even years on the making of digital films, I am surprised that such an error slipped by your screen writers and artists. I shall explain in full.

You see, I am a culinary student, a fairly novice one, in fact. However, today I learned how to make classic Ratatouille as well as Confit Bayaldi and I am certain that you have made a bit of a blunder in one of your hit films. As I am sure you could have guessed, the flop is in the climax of the movie, "Ratatouille."

As I said, I will explain. The dish ratatouille is a lot like a stew, in which eggplant, squash, tomato, onion, and bell peppers are melded together in balanced flavor with a thick, chunky stew consistency. The tomato juice is what helps disperse the flavors of the vegetables throughout the dish. As you mentioned in your film, it was originally a pauper or country dish due to its rustic nature.

In your film, the sweet little mouse and chef use a simple rustic dish to impress the city's toughest food critic by giving him the taste of comfort that he longed for since he was a child. The dish was perfect and presented quite nicely. Just one problem. The dish that was served in your film is a dish similar to the one you intended, but named "Confit Bayaldi." I'm guessing that film name did not do as well as "Ratatouille" in the test groups, nor did it have a connection to the main rodent character in the movie.

Bayaldi

Confit Bayaldi is not a stew, but rather an arrangement of cooked vegetables, like the one in the film. Given that I love your films, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, but my very French chef confirmed that the film's dish is far more depicted as Bayaldi than Ratatouille.

I have not checked the accuracy of your spice references in the film, but after today's game of "Guess the Spice" in class, I should be able to identify spices by sight alone.

So, in the future, if you plan to do a sequel of some sort, give me a call and I will share with you what I know about the classic French dishes. My knowledge is limited, but perhaps I could help you avoid such a blunder again.

Faithfully,

The College Cook

PS- I would love to chat more about your adorable movies, but I have a Level 2 practical and test tomorrow. Perhaps some other time.

Tough Break

2009-12-22T20:01:00.004-05:00

Snowy NYC

Dear Unsure Culinary School Prospect,

Let me tell you a little about my day at "school" and you tell me if you are interested in attending what I call "camp."

Ricotta we made from regular milk

Today we spent the day learning about how cheese is made, making it, tasting various cheeses, and talking about where to find the best cheeses. Following class, there was a wine tasting with the wine club. These were the chosen wines, they were all pretty damn good:

Cheese Tasting

Lucien Albrecht Cremant d'Alsace Rose- Pinot Noir

Hoffman-Simon, Piespoter Goldtropfchen- Riesling

Molner Family, Poseidon's Vineyard- Chardonnay

Merlin- Gamay (fav of the tasting)

Odfjell, Orzada- Camenere

Paul Jaboulet Aine, Le Chant de Girolles- Muscat

Ricotta Draining

I came home with half a bottle of the Merlin and decided to go ahead and make my duck confit for dinner that I have been saving. Oh, and I made some pasta with the mozzarella that we made in class.

Any questions? It's a rough life.

Yours Truly,

The College Cook

Intangibles, please!

2009-12-21T21:01:00.009-05:00

Dear Santa,

There isn't much I want this year other than the typical aspiring chef wish list and world peace. However, if you can work a little magic for me, please give me the gift of food knowledge.

Today was our first plating assignment in which we were given the following ingredients:

1 flounder

100g haricot verts

2 carrots

2 zucchini

4 plum tomatoes

4 domestic mushrooms

1/4 bunch of parsley

2 shallots OR 1 small onion

125 ml rice OR 1 potato- red bliss or Idaho

125ml heavy cream

125ml chicken stock

1 bay leaf

1 sprig of thyme

oil

butter

flour

1 egg

1 lemon

Pantry items: none, guaranteed.

Our assignment was to create a dish that used these ingredients that was visually appealing. When it comes to plating there are certain things that one must keep in mind, such as texture, color, balance, variety, height, space and flavors. I thought of so many things that I wanted to do with the flounder, but was limited because of the ingredients. Finally, I scratched that wish list and considered what I already was given. I fell asleep last night with some great ideas in my head, courtesy of family and friends, but when I woke up this morning, I decided to go with my gut and decide my plan upon seeing my ingredients.

Well the flounder were a little skimpy and so I moved forward knowing that I may only have one decent sized filet to work with for my dish. In the end, this is what I made: broiled flounder over rice, with julienned carrots, zucchini, and haricot verts, garnished with crispy shallots and served with a white wine shallot blush cream reduction and roasted mushrooms. My plating was more classic and less modern than the other winning dishes.

While I was not that happy with my presentation and wish that I had gone with less garnish around the fish, my plate made top five. Here is the beautiful winning dish:

So Santa, I am going to absorb as many of the books in the school library as quickly and best as I can, but if you can do anything to improve this process and infuse some extra culinary knowledge in my head and hands, I would very much appreciate it.

I'll be sure to have some cookies for you and some egg nog with brandy. Any other requests?

PS- Thank you for the snow, I adore the bit of frosting on all the trees and sidewalks. It makes this city even more interesting when you throw a curve ball at its residents.

PPS- These were the other top dishes, in case you were curious.

Float, Sink, or Swim

2009-12-17T22:00:00.007-05:00

Dear New Yorkers,

I love this little thing you've got going here doing things differently because you can. Your Christmas tree farms are actually sidewalk vendors, your coffee shops are in sporting good stores, and propensity to wear the color black is more like a citizen's uniform. Your hair salons look like boutiques, yet have full cafes and you are passed through no less than seven people throughout the endeavor. You drop your belongings in the Subway to dance romantically to the amazing jazz group that takes over the underground station. You hear things on Canal street as you walk by illegitimate vendors like, "Dude, the craziest thing that happened all day was that cop cruisin by, I want some action." You have shootings and stabbings and robberies, yet you attempt to give your 10 year olds enough freedom to walk to school alone. Everyday in this city is different than the day before, no matter how hard you try to keep a routine. Being in this city is like jumping into fast moving water of which you are either in or out, there is no in between. The city pushes you around the obstacles and sometimes you get on the wrong train and you get caught in an eddy. Eventually, the water will move you again.

It's easy to cruise down this river in an inner tube and just float through with your eyes closed, but it is so much more interesting to see the sights, the little things, like a father humming a Christmas tune to his daughter so she could dance while waiting for their train. I think eating food is a lot like being in the inner tube; you can either take the passive, easy, and chosen route down the river, including the bumps and bruises it may cause you, or you can be aware and actively seek a route. It seems that when it comes to food, it is less stressful to think about what we are eating rather than how much it is costing us.

American food is meant to be cheap above all else, but what makes it cheap? Well it's usually some form of corn. How many times a day do you eat something that your great great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food? Anything that comes from a vending machine, or anything with artificial sweetners, corn syrup, and fat replacements like modified peanut butter or margarine. So then the question is, how much of what you are eating is not food at all, but just chemicals? Well in this country and city that I adore, it requires an active and aware eater to avoid such false foods. Or you can just sink and intentionally eat nothing but these things.

This is essentially the basis of what we are learning in the nutrition segment of our Culinary 2 curriculum, in case you were wondering. Chefs need to be of the aware and active variety in this city and everywhere else. While they cannot make you eat a healthy diet, and nor are they responsible to do so, they can choose to provide or avoid real or fake ingredients that will eventually become part of your diet. Price is generally the number one reason any chef ever chooses the substitute ingredient over the whole food option.

In order to take our awareness to another level, our recipes today were entirely vegetarian, which gave us a glimpse of what we can do if we force ourselves to adjust ingredients a particular way. We made tabbouleh, babaganoush, hummus, falafel with a tzatziki sauce (I thought we needed a sauce for dipping, so I made enough for the class), spaghetti squash with sauce, and a fennel artichoke salad with grapefruit supremes and walnut oil. Surprisingly, these dishes were very filling.

Whether it be meat or sugar or carbs or fat, it seems as though all of you have something on your 'do not eat' list. Chefs have these things to consider because you are their market. But as a consumer, consider this: listen to Michael Pollan. If you don't know who he is, google him, understand his message, and try his 'diet' and school of thought. I have yet to find someone that better explains our relationship with the food products out there than he does. Just to warn you, it requires an ore and possibly even an engine compared to what most of us are used to, but I assure you that it will take you to much calmer waters.

Best of Luck,

The College Cook

The Homestretch

2009-12-16T21:23:00.007-05:00

Tuesday's "Nutritious" Bass and Lentils w/ Vegetables

Dear Mom,

Yaaaaaay! Another day of real cooking! I was so happy to make a dish that I have never officially made before today. We made bouillabaisse. As you know, it is much like a seafood stew. Ours had monk fish, bass, mussels, and shrimp.

The monkfish was really interesting to breakdown into filets because it is such a slimy strange creature. The second chef asked if anyone wanted to help clean one of the monkfish filets and given that I had never done this before, I immediately volunteered. Like he said it would, I spent about 20 minutes trying to get all the skin and slimy layers off that fish. We even pulled out worms. Monkfish are apparently full of them, yum huh?

So we spent all morning prepping and making our sauces and broth in order to finish our bouillabaisse in time to eat it for lunch. I was very happy with our final dish and the adjustments that we made in order to improve the direct recipe. I couldn't help but think that what the dish really needed was oysters instead of mussels and some andouille sausage. Then I realized I was actually just craving your seafood and sausage gumbo.

Bouillabaisse

After lunch, we had another nutrition lecture with Chef Tim. Today we pretty much just talked about fats. Good fats, bad fats and the stuff in between. I knew trans fats were bad and as you know, I am not afraid to eat fats in general. Well, what I didn't know was that the ratio of Omega 3's to Omega 6's is a major problem with our fat management in the US. So basically the healthiest ratio of fats between 3's and 6's is 1:3. Unfortunately, the ration for the average American diet is close to 1:20. So basically, we need to eat less corn, soy, peanuts, and eat more fish, flax, seaweed, etc.

We talked quite a bit about fish farming and how exactly that works. I paid close attention because I know Joseph has mentioned his interest in the industry. Well here's the scoop. So farm raised salmon is great in theory because so much of our wild salmon is depleted. The boys have their salmon fishing trips in Alaska because the areas are much better protected up there and the salmon are not caught commercially as they were in other areas. So anyway, if you want to raise salmon in a pond farm, you have to feed it. What do these fish farmers feed their omnivore fish? Anchovies? Seaweed? No, corn. Now what wild salmon would ever come across corn? None point none none. Yet that's primarily what they eat at these farms. So given that corn provides Omega 6's instead of 3's that a wild salmon's diet provides, farm raised salmon doesn't even have the healthy fats that we seek in choosing salmon. Oh and the color of farm raised salmon is that way because of the dye in their food pellets.

On top of that whole mess, farm raised salmon are also fed the previous generation's bones and guts after filleting, which increases the levels of mercury generation after generation, building up more and more. So why not do it right and feed the fish what they should eat? Because it's too expensive and food is expected to be cheap in the US. First and foremost. So I got to thinking, if Joseph ever sets up a fish farm, he should do it right and sell his farm raised "right" fish to high end restaurants. Chefs are looking for this because it is socially and nutritiously responsible, even at a higher cost. So anyway, in the meantime, don't buy farm raised salmon unless you can find out the name of the farm, like you can at Whole Foods.

After class, I rushed down to the theatre kitchen to start helping with the prep for Chef Alain Sailhac's demonstration of Lobster Bisque, Foie Gras with a pear and cranberry sauce, drunken quail with a blueberry sauce, and a bouche noel. Unfortunately, I did not do much actual cooking because I was Chef Alain's right hand person during the demo and just helped him with his mise en place and helping with the plating. Next time that I volunteer for a demo, I hope to spend more time in the kitchen than on the stage.

Anyway, it was a pleasure and privilege to be able to work with him at all and for him to know me by name, because he will surely retire soon and the opportunity would have been lost forever. The funny thing is that he always speaks to me in French and I do my best to understand, but as you know, I don't know French. Italian, sure. Spanish, I can follow. But French, not a single phrase. So when Chef Alain speaks to me in French, I am always having to say "English please, Chef." And then he says something in French like a joke between us and I remind him that I don't know French. He always says, ooooooh I thought you spoke French, how silly of me. hahaha. How well does that Rosetta Stone thing work?

Anyway, it was a really great experience and I would be happy to work for him again. He is a very good Chef demonstrator and the crowd loved him. I found it much more user friendly than yesterday's demo of filleting and skinning a fish while it was still alive as the Japanese sushi chef did.

I can't wait to come home to your cooking and to be back with the boys. Tell Oliver, Joseph, John & Dad that I will be home shortly! I week from tonight to be exact!

Love You All!

The College Cook

Down with Dessert

2009-12-14T21:25:00.004-05:00

To Desserts Everywhere,

I am going on strike. No dessert for me until I have had at least a month of savory cooking. Today was the last day of our pastry section of Level 2 at food camp and I must say, good riddance.

My perspective of pastry seems to be the same as it was before I started, but in fact, it has changed. I understand pastry better now, I appreciate the detail and patience that goes into pastry, and I find it easier than I originally believed, I just don't find it all that skillful. Now, granted we did not do any sugar work or chocolate molding or anything of that sort, of which I do believe requires a great deal of creativity and skill. However, the pastry that we learned in the past two weeks was very basic and very by the book and frankly, blah.

Today was souffle day, which was fairly eventful. We began with a chocolate mousse that is made very similarly to a souffle. As I was putting it in the fridge to set, Chef said, "Caaatrine! What happened here?" I said, "That's my chocolate mousse, Chef." And he proceeded to tell me how ugly it was, like oreos. He said it should be smooth and all one color, no specs of chocolate. I explained that my partner and I followed the instructions to a T and I asked what could have caused the difference in texture. He realized a couple other groups had the same problem and after doing a little detective work, we realized that our chocolate was not hot enough when we added our egg whites to it and therefore it cooled too quickly, sticking to the eggwhites, rather than blending. Mystery solved and now I know how to screw it up and how to make it right.

Cheese Souffle

The next recipe was for cheese souffle that pretty much just tasted like cheesy eggs. It was a nice breakfast and I appreciated the savory flavors of the cheese, egg and bread crumbs. Our cheese souffle somewhat failed as well because when we tempered the egg whites, we did not blend the tempered amount enough to lighten the batter to hold the whites. Again, mystery solve and now I know.

The next souffle was Grand Marnier flavored. It was a bit sweet for my tastes and apparently my partner over folded the mixture (I swear he didn't), because our souffle did not rise as much as it should have. Again, another mistake that can result in the ultimate failure of an a la minute dessert that takes 30 minutes to make (you can't make them in advance, it must be to order).

GM Souffle (clearly not ours with that kind of volume)

For lunch today, my wishes came true and we had a great Italian salad with a sausage pasta and broccoli with Parmesan that hit the spot. I needed savory and spicy.

Chocolate Souffle

After lunch, we of course went back to souffles making a chocolate souffle that turned out pretty perfectly and a fruit souffle that despite not adding the dry egg whites, also turned out perfectly. Well depending on the definition of perfect. The rising volume was fine, but I found the fruit souffle far too sweet with a strange after taste that I believe came from the pectin, which is a natural stabilizer that comes from the skin of apples and other fruits. It tasted synthetic. So again, we were off by the recipe, but this time it did not destruct our souffle.

Fruit Souffle

I left the class happy for my day to come, with knives, open flame and an expansive list of ingredients. I shall avoid flour, sugar, and eggs for as long as possible. I have a pastry test tomorrow morning and then I am free to learn nutrition and "healthy cooking." It will definitely be a turn in the curriculum.

Take note, my strike starts now. I need no further accessories for my meals unless they come prior and are in the realm of an appetizer or amuse bouche. If you are icky and sweet, you are safe with me.

Regards,

The College Cook

Some memories just don't fade...

2009-12-13T21:14:00.003-05:00

Dear S&B,

I hope that this message is delivered, I am not sure where to send it since you have tragically closed your doors after so many amazing years of real soul food and southern cooking on that little corner in San Mateo, CA. I will always remember the smell that overcame me every time I walked in those screen double doors.

You probably don't remember me, but I was the little blond ballerina who always came in after dance class at Kirkpatrick's, and I have parents from Mississippi who spoke your language of southern food fluently, a rarity in Northern California. I adored your fried chicken, green beans, perfect scoop of macaroni & cheese, corn bread muffins, and black eyed peas. We were regulars and I remember crying when I found out that the two of you were closing. The tears were for the euphoric homemade vanilla ice cream.

I used to savor every little drop of that ice cream and always beg for more, but I think your "1 scoop per person" rule is in part what always left me wanting more. Looking back, I am not sure if that was your rule or the rule my parents asked you to enforce with us. Either way, I remember thinking about that one scoop all the way home over the hill to Half Moon Bay and I still think about that scoop every time I hear "homemade ice cream."

I am in culinary school now and I find that it is a lot like going to camp. It is exactly where I want to be everyday, but had you remained open, I think I would often rather be in your restaurant begging Ms. Betty or Mr. Skip for another scoop.

This is me now in front of our school restaurant.

Friday was our ice cream day and of course the grapefruit sorbet, the coffee ice cream, the strawberry ice cream, and the rich creamy vanilla ice cream all fell pretty short of my standards for a perfect scoop of ice cream. We made our custards and the gelato machine did the rest of the work. I am pretty sure it would have been much better had we used an old fashioned hand or even motor-cranked ice cream bucket. I'm guessing that was one part of your ice cream magic.

We also put together some nice fruit tarts that I later took to a friend's party along with the meringues we had. Did you know that the French, the Swiss, and the Italians all make their meringues differently? Well they do, and I couldn't care less. I wanna know how the Mississippians make their vanilla ice cream and petit fours. It's gotta be in my blood, right?

I think if I ever opened a restaurant, it would have to be something that gave homage to my southern blood and I would do my best to make you proud. In the meantime, I am going to learn everything the "French" way and dream about the "southern way."

I've included a picture of my fruit tart that doesn't hold a candle to your cobblers. I'm too embarrassed to show you a picture of the ice creams we made. When I get it right, you will be the first to know.

Best Wishes,

The College Cook

PS- I hope you are looking for some fresh young blood with whom you want to open a restaurant. Pick me!

Knife Vacay

2009-12-10T23:07:00.003-05:00

Dear Knives,

I am starting to miss you. I sharpened you yesterday primarily so you wouldn't get dusty just sitting in my bag. How's it going in there? Lonely, huh? Well if I could find more use for you in pastry, I would definitely take advantage, however I am mostly in need of my whisks and spatulas. Here is what you missed today:

First, we made a Bavarois. Yeah, that makes two of us. It is a gelatin creme anglaise that is used as a filling. So anyway, we made this mixture and we took the lady fingers from Monday and lined the Genois pan with them. The mixture filled the pan and then we topped it with more of the baked meringue. This whole bit went into the fridge until the end of the day when we flipped it onto a plate and sprinkled it with melted chocolate. I did mine Jackson Pollack style, it's too bad you missed it. Here's a snapshot:

Jackson Pollack Bavarois

So the next thing we made was Creme Renversee, which is Creme Caramel, aka- flan. So I made the caramel by heating sugar and water over the stove and then poured it into the little ramekins to coat the bottom of each one. My partner and I then made the custard and filled each one. Unfortunately things didn't go so well and after over cooking the custard, my partner forgot to flag the hot pan with a towel (standard procedure) and I burnt the hell out of my left hand. Ugh, be glad you missed it. Oh well, it didn't look too bad and it tasted great.

Creme Renversee

We made Creme Anglaise for the ice cream that we are going to make tomorrow and we made pastry cream that we are saving for another day. Today was really about custards, which really just don't involve knives at all.

After class, I went to Andre Soultner's demo of a vegetarian terrine, monkfish with red wine sauce and spatzle, and a pear cake. It was all so good! I couldn't believe how evenly cooked and light the terrine was. I was so amazed.

Well other than the cutting and arranging of the puff pastry, which you saw, that is pretty much all that happened today. Hopefully we will find some use for you tomorrow. Stay sharp and ready to be called to duty.

Sincerely,

The College Cook

PS- Chef John had his baby this morning and she is beautiful!

How the professionals do it in Pastry

Bakery Boy

2009-12-09T21:16:00.004-05:00

Dear Johnny Boy,

How's it goin brotha? I had so much fun hangin with you over Thanksgiving, I can't wait to see you again in a couple weeks for Christmas. You better send me your wish list or you are going to get a very nice reindeer sweater with matching booties and mittens. Yep, you heard me.

Today's class reminded me of you and your love for pastries, mostly because we did puff pastry and pate choux. Translation: eclairs, cream puffs, and beignets. All that was missing were "custard thangs" that you always favored at the little bakery in Half Moon Bay. Maybe those will be on the schedule for Friday.

So puff pastry is probably going to be a lost art soon because it is so easy to buy it already made and in easy sheets. But just in case you were wondering, it involves preparing a dough that is then formed with butter, folded into a pouch, and then rolled out in a very specific manner and time. Oh and the humidity and temperature of the room also plays a big part in the results. We'll truly see how I did when we use the puff pastry dough in an upcoming recipe.

Cream puffs with Chantilly Cream

I much more enjoyed making pate choux, which is a mixture of water and butter heated together until the butter is melted, then flour is incorporated, followed by eggs one at a time until the right consistency is achieved. Pate choux can then be used to pipe eclairs, cream puff shells, or can be fried to make beignets. Actually, there are many more uses, but that's all we did for today.

Orange Zest Beignets

I brought quite a few home to share with friends and I wish I could give one or five to you to sample. I know that you know pastry better than I do, but I have to say that I am learning to appreciate it more and more each day.

After class I attended a very cool demo on sous vide cooking. It was definitely interesting to hear a head chef talk about how he incorporates sous vide into his entire menu. You should check out this video from their restaurant website when you get a chance. Go to film and click on each video, pretty crazy stuff. http://www.elevenmadisonpark.com

Hollandaise sauce is a very finicky sauce that breaks easily and then can never return to the proper consistency, unless you use their tactics. The chef showed how easily he mixed whole ingredients all at once, vacuum sealed them in a bag and cooked them in the circulator on low heat and then dispensed the still broken sauce through a whip cream canister to form a light and almost foamy Hollandaise sauce. Who knew, huh?

Well anyway, that was my day, write or call me to tell me about yours! Miss you lots and hope you are not asleep in the library.

Love,

The College Cook

Pastry Report

2009-12-08T19:38:00.006-05:00

Beignets aux Pommes

Dear Food Camp,

Although you have continued, my letter writing has been on a short hiatus due to a certain sister of mine taking a certain computer charger of mine to the opposite coast, leaving me without a computer. Well I am back and I have a bone to pick with you. More about that later.

First, I absolutely adored Friday's class. I never thought of myself as a huge fan of quiche, but in fact, I am. I very much enjoyed my mushroom, onion, bacon & Gruyere cheese quiche all weekend long. It was a fantastic breakfast and an even better late night bite. I think I will make one once a month or even every other week to have in the refrigerator as a fulfilling snack. I was less excited about the apple tart and the pear tart, but they were good as well and still remain in my fridge.

La Genoise with Coffee Buttercream

Yesterday's class was a bit slow for my taste. I realize that you have us in pastry for two weeks and the pace is a little different from culinary, but please, give me more material. We had so much extra time yesterday after making our Genoise cakes. Baking the egg foam batter and baking the cakes was rather quick. Then cutting layers and dousing with orange liqueur only took a few minutes. Other than doing the butter cream icing and decorations, it was a pretty fast process.

Meringue

I am curious to find out what the meringue shapes will be used for this week. Any hints? Please, do share. I find that Chef Henri has become rather mysterious in his antics. I would like more information, history, and explanations of why we are doing certain procedures or using certain ingredients. I am a nerd and I am more hungry for pastry knowledge than I am for the sweet pastries themselves. Savory ones, well that may be another story.

Today was a bit better, as we did have the chance to do some cooking and we made one of my favorite french dishes of all! Crepes! I did find it a bit odd to make the Crepes Suzette first and the Crepes au Jambon et Aux Champignons second, given that the former is a sweet dessert and the later is a savory ham and mushroom dish. Oh well. The Crepes Suzette were fabulous, as to be expected. Oh you wouldn't believe what this partner of mine did today (not Monsieur).

I was very careful to make beautiful, even crepes that would look nice when plated. My partner was very interested in experimenting on making them on the bottom side of a rondoux. Well none of his worked, except for maybe two and the rest of them ended up in the compost. Unfortunately, he was messing up faster than I could produce decent ones, so we ran out of batter before we had the minimum needed to plate properly. I scavenged around the kitchen and collected some more batter from people, a scoop here and a scoop there and I was able to finish and he had his as well. So I leave to go across the room to grab an ingredient (Note: despite being known as one of the better cooks in the class, this guy was a lousy/lazy partner and I did all the mise en place/ingredient collecting).

Upon my return to our station, I see that he has not only taken three of my crepes for his plate of six (!), but he has taken my best three. Well given that we only needed to plate three, I was rather annoyed that he took the liberty to help himself to my little masterpieces. Yes, I take food very personally. I know. When I asked him why he took my crepes, he said it didn't matter, we were in a kitchen with ingredients and I could make more. Hmmm, then why didn't he do so himself? Because we actually did not have the time, especially given that the batter must rest for 30 minutes, and in a crunch he stole mine! I love to share and make other people happy, but sneaking food from me never bodes well. FYI.

Well he knew how I felt and he picked up the effort a little more in the second crepe dish. I made the filling and he practiced his crepe making with the buckwheat batter. In the end, we all put our crepes in one pan and Chef topped them with Gruyere and finished them in the oven. We ate these for lunch, but they were extremely heavy, so I mostly had the catfish, rice, bean & corn, and salad for lunch that Level 4 sent.

Apple Rings Frying

Our last recipe of beer battered apple rings seemed rather American. Are you sure that is a french dish? I preferred my bite size fried apples to the large heavy rings. Perhaps the whole dish would have been improved with some homemade vanilla ice cream, ya know, to add some calories to the already heavy dish. I guess I'll have to wait until Ice Cream Friday for that.

Apple bites

Because we had an hour remaining after the end of class, we spent 45 minutes turning potatoes. I thought it was pretty good practice and something that I definitely need to work on before the Level 2 practical.

Now like I said, there has been something bothering me since we began Level 2. I realize that we had a shuffle of chefs, but I want to be challenged. Yes, pastry is not what I consider "my thing," but honestly, I don't feel pressured to stretch myself right now. Perhaps it's not the time for that, but I feel as though everyday should be. Maybe I am at a plateau in the learning curve for a little while and I must just push through it, but please, make me do more!

I still love coming to camp everyday and it is never boring, but I know that I work better under pressure, so please, expect more of me and I will give you more. Add a couple of recipes or variations and I promise I will not regret asking for more work. Thank you for fulfilling my request for turning vegetables today, I never thought I would ask for that, but it improved my knife skills at least a degree.

Thank you so much for all that you have taught me so far! I can't wait for more!

Yours Faithfully,

The College Cook

Eggs Your Way

2009-12-03T20:19:00.005-05:00

Dear Z,

I hope you are having fun preparing for your dinner party! That feeling you get when everything turns out well and you see your guests enjoying what you created is exactly what I love most about cooking. It is such a fulfilling feeling and I hope you get a full serving of it tomorrow night.

Oeufs Poches

Today was egg day at food camp and we made eggs in just about every shape and form. The biggest challenge of the day reminded me of one of the first lunches I cooked for you, which was an vegetable omelette. At the time, two summers ago, I wasn't quite sure how to ask how you like your omelette in part because I had not learned the proper terminology of omelette making. In fact, I couldn't stand eggs at the time so I didn't have a lot of practice in making them. Of course after that initial attempt that seemed fairly successful, I did some research and learned the proper technique from a book. Well today I completed the conceptual grasp of French omelettes through demonstrations and practice.

Rolled Omelette

Note: I did not master omelette making. We did however make one with peppers, onions and a little tomato fondue (simmered tomatoes) and I bet you would love it! This particular style is called omelette Basquaise, which I hope you have a craving for soon so that I can show you my new egg skills.

Omelette Basquaise

I'm sure you probably know the French terms, but we also made Oeufs Poches (poached eggs), Oeufs Brouilles (scrambled eggs), Oeufs en Conque (hard boiled eggs), Oeufs Cocotte a la Creme (boiled eggs in cream), and Oeufs Farcis Chimay (stuffed eggs with Mornay sauce and mushroom duxelles).

I thought I knew the best way to hard boil eggs, but today we learned an even better way. I will have to pass this along to EPR. You put the eggs in a pot, cover with cold water, bring to a boil, and then turn off the heat and cover with a lid for 15 minutes. Flashing them in ice water will help as always, but then tapping and gently rolling the shell helps remove it easier. They turn out perfectly every time and there is not as small a window of cooking time as there is with the boiling for exactly 9-10 min procedure.

Oeufs Farcis Chimay

I think I am done eating eggs for a few days, but you let me know if you get a craving for something eggy, I'm on it.

You would have loved the demonstration this afternoon. Jacques Torres was the demo chef and he is amazing. In France, the most skilled craftsmen in each field is awarded the designation of Meilleurs Ouvriers de France. So not only is he the best in the United States, he is amongst the best in all fields of craftsmanship in France. This is a very rare feat and he happens to have been the youngest ever given this distinction. It takes at least ten years to train for the evaluation and this charming guy did it by the age of twenty-seven. Unreal.

Jacques Torres

So anyway, he made a yule log cake that had the most amazing chocolate and a butter cream frosting and the base sponge cake. He made all the little decor and mergues right in front of us, he's amazing and clearly so skilled. So no, this did not help with my baking insecurities, but it was really fun to watch. Next time he has a demonstration, I might have to pull you away for a couple hours so you can see him.

Yule Log Cake

Well time to face the music. Tomorrow is day one of our pastry segment and it'll last about a week. If it isn't disastrous, it could be fruitful for you and perhaps I can make better desserts than just cookies. We'll see, wish me luck!

Can't wait to try your apple crisp, see you tomorrow!

Enjoy,

The College Cook

Organ Talk

2009-12-02T23:47:00.006-05:00

Dear God,

Before today, I was rather unsure of my position on the controversial topic of organ donation. I am not quite sure where you fall on the subject, but I thought I would let you know what I decided today.

Kidneys

So it was organ day at food camp (which you know, of course), and even though I had tried all these particular organs a month ago when the then Level 2 students sent their dishes to us, it was much different to see and handle the organs in their raw form. It was too "life-like" to seem like food. So often we are used to seeing meat in certain cuts and most people aren't aware of from where those cuts come or what they look like when on the animal. For example, when one buys filet mignon, where was that originally on the cow? Well, of course you know it's part of the tenderloin along the cow's back, but even something as simple as that is not first on our minds when we consume meat. Actually, it is generally more pleasant for us to not think of it as eating animal parts at all.

Raw, whole cow's liver.

Well making kidneys, thymus gland, tongue, and liver today made it pretty hard to forget that what we were cooking was once part of an animal. We made the kidneys first, which can sometimes taste like urine. Nice, huh? When cooked and sliced, they kind of look like mushrooms, which is what we told the new Level 1 students they were. See, it's easier for someone to try something if they think it's something with which they are mentally comfortable.

Sweetbreads with turned vegetables.

Meanwhile, we had our tongue simmering in a pot of court bouillon for three hours while we made our veal sweetbreads. God, why is it that you call them sweetbreads? Is it purely so that people are not reminded that they are eating thymus gland? They are neither sweet nor a type of bread, so that must be it. We fried them, which infuriated Monsieur because he said we destroyed their natural flavor.

Lamb's Tongue, during cooking.

After our organ lunch, we made liver and onions, which was rather uneventful because by then I had eaten enough rich foods for the day. We finished with our tongue dish and I was rather unhappy with our sauce. It was too acidic and really didn't compliment the fatty texture of the tongue very well. Monsieur and I were really not interested in eating any more at that point, but we plated and tasted our dish all the same.

Liver & Onions

Some students in our class could not handle the collection of organ meats in the raw and they lost their breakfasts fairly quickly. How is eating muscle less gross? Or even pure animal fat? Or skin? We eat the skin of chickens all the time. Skin is an organ, right?

Lamb's Tongue, plated.

We also tasted "head cheese" today. Yes, another oddity to most Americans. It is basically like jello with chunks of meat that come from the head of an animal. Why not, right? If it is edible, why should we not eat it if it tastes good?

Well that is my reasoning about organ donation. So if in my lifetime I have been responsible for thousands of animals dying in order to nourish my own body, shouldn't I be responsible for not just the most desired parts of the animal, but also the less desired that are perfectly good to eat? In other words, if I am going to take an animal's life, I should be willing to eat all that the animal has to offer and not just take little bits and pieces. We kill whole chickens just for the breasts, while many cultures eat even the feet. Nearly the entire body of a pig is edible, yet why do we eat mostly just the bacon or meat around the "ham" bone?

So, given that I have required so many animals to give up their life to nourish my body, I feel as though the least I can do is give up my organs to others to nourish their minds. No they will not eat my organs, but maybe they can learn something the way that I learned from working with the animal organs today. Why waste more organs than I have already wasted all my life?

Your Thoughts?

The College Cook

Regular ole turned vegetables.

Forced Meat Day

2009-12-01T23:13:00.004-05:00

To Whom It May Concern:

If Chef is away on vacation, then so am I. No one is around to keep us on point or even taste our dishes. We might as well be playing with fireworks and having food fights in the camp dining hall. I think we made sausage stuffed beef and mushroom stuffed vegetables today, along with pate and mousseline. I say, "I think," because cooking was kinda on the back burner today. I was super entertained by our Spanish chef's food story telling and the kitchen events amongst the stations. Monsieur and I joked with our food and have never been less serious, it was definitely a vacation. Irresponsible? Perhaps. But cooking is fun and it is refreshing to have it be purely fun and not stressful worrying about following recipes. Here is what I learned today and a video of my funny chef talking about chicken gallbladders being disgusting:

Yours Truly,

The College Cook

While the cat is away...

2009-11-30T16:16:00.007-05:00

Dear Chef Henri,

If I have attended food camp for the last month, then today was equivalent to the camp director leaving the grounds and the young rebellious camp counselor being left in charge. I hope you are enjoying your vacation, but I fear that when you return, we will all have developed a new, lackadaisical style. Now I know why your last words to us were, "don't fall out of line," haha.

Chef Tim is great and clearly knows a lot about food safety as well as cooking, however, he is not very concerned with having a regimented kitchen or even whether or not we follow the recipes. I am sure you knew all this and that is why we were warned, but I have to say, that it was a little confidence booster today without having you yell at me.

Monsieur was my partner again today and I am very happy that we have reunited and that Chef Tim later said we will keep these partners for the whole week. As you know, Monsieur is a funny guy and he is great cooking partner, so hopefully he keeps me in line while you are away and I still get my daily dose of a Frenchman's opinionated commentary.

First, we made Navarin Prinanier D'agneau, which Chef Tim explained is Lamb Stew with Spring Vegetables. I never realized that the proper way to make a stew is actually in separate cooking vessels, instead of just throwing all the ingredients into one pot. Anyway, I liked this dish very much and I especially liked the sauce. I must tell you that we were reprimanded (which was a smirk and eye brow raise) for "overcooking" our haricot vert. You would have loved them, no crunch at all! Don't worry, I will not under cook the vegetables when you return, I know better than to disappoint you with something so important and simple.

It was actually kind of ironic that you were not there today because we made Coq au Vin, which I believe is your signature dish downstairs at L'ecole. I braised the meat and made the sauce while Monsieur made the spaztle, which I guess is just shredded egg noodles. I liked the garniture of bacon, mushrooms, and sauteed spatzle much more than I did the chicken. From what I understand, proper Coq au Vin must be made from older hens or roosters, which are not easy to find in the United States. I think I would have enjoyed the chicken more, but the fact that I knew that it marinated over the entire break of four days, kind of threw off my mental taste buds.

We had some additional time at the end of class and so we also made our Pate Brisee for our quiches on Friday. This was the same dough I made for the onion tart that I served for Thanksgiving. I learned it from Chef Andre Soultner and my family loved it. I think I found something pastry related that I am pretty confident in making. We'll see if you approve.

Well Chef, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you are enjoying your time off from being our camp director. I think we all know that we have to follow the rules even when you are away and we'll try to keep our stations clean. Wear sunscreen and see you next week!

Faithfully,

The College Cook

PS- Thank you for my 96 on my practical, although I think I would have given myself a much lower grade.

A Testing Day

2009-11-30T07:41:00.002-05:00

Dear T5,

Oh, how good it is to see you! I attempted the subway route from the city in order to avoid the holiday rush of traffic, however, I think it would have been faster than the route I took. Apparently the A train splits and I took the wrong fork in the road.

Thankfully, whether it was in the spirit of the holiday season or just the spirit of helping a pathetic looking traveler with too much luggage, a very nice girl in the subway station guessed my train mishap and directed me to the cab drivers outside the station. Well, they were asking for four times what she said they should charge and I was determined to not give in to the taxi route. Even more fortunate was that a young guy wearing a jetblue coat asked if I was going to JFK and directed me to a bus that would take me there. Oh how I adore jetblue!

So finally, I have arrived in your terminal, which I must say, is nothing short of accomodating. I love the restaurant options and selection of stores that always have exactly what I'm looking for to take on my flight. Nothing tastes like airport food and it's just so clean. T5, you are my favorite terminal in the country.

I must say, you are the icing on the cake to my best exam day ever. I finished my written exam, on which I scored 100! Wooo! Then came the drama...

Part 1 of the practical was definitely the most difficult for me. I spent the first half of the exam on my damn turnips making them perfect. I chopped and sliced my onion as fast as possible and then I tackled the carrot.

The carrot and I did not get along so well, considering I had 6 minutes to julienne the stubborn thing. Well let's just say I julienned about half of it and then quickly wiped the board as the buzzer rang. I was really disappointed, but the julienned pieces I had were perfectly even, so I was hoping that is where the chefs would focus their attention.

We all met out in the hallway as the chefs went to each station and evaluated our work and cleanliness. This is the point like leaving a college final and you say to yourself, "Why didn't I study x more than I did y?" Oh well, the worst of it was over.

The second section began and I filleted my fish pretty quickly, although it was slower than usual, because I wanted it to be perfect. I sanitized my board and knives and made sure everything was in place. Then we went back out into the hall again.

For the third section, I grabbed my chicken and went over the steps in my head. When chef said go, I flew. After removing the wishbone, dislocating the wings in the second joint, removing the legs and thighs then the spine, cutting out the breast plate, halving the breasts, and machonnering the wing and leg bones, I stood there for a full minute thinking of what I could have missed. Nothing. Clean. Present. Hallway.

Finally, the last section was to cook our turnips. When Chef said 'start,' I got water in my pan and put it right on the stove with my turnips, hoping to be finished before too many people were at the stove. Well my plan worked for awhile but then it was packed. I had chosen a side back burner so that I could stand next to it and so that nobody would accidentally think it was theirs. Well, it turned out that it wasn't a great spot, because when things got crowded, I couldn't get to my pan and I ended up giving them too much color. Just slightly, but enough to notice that they were no longer purely white. I blotted the excess butter off of them and presented them on my plate. Then waited in the hallway.

Chef excused us for lunch and then we spent the afternoon learning more food safety with Chef Tim in the second floor classroom. Chef let us leave early and finally, the bar that everyone had been talking about all day was in sight. I ran home to get my luggage and then met everyone there before attempting my subway trek to you, T5.

Well, now my flight is boarding and I can't wait to be home in Colorado and see Oliver and my family. I say this just about every holiday, but this one is my favorite. Thank you for the delicious pasta and for making it so easy to fly home. When I return, I will be sure to head straight to the taxi line rather than the Airtrain/subway route.

Happy Thanksgiving,

The College Cook

Lax Rat in the Kitchen

2009-11-24T20:50:00.006-05:00

Dear Squad,

It's playoff time and tomorrow is the championship, well, in terms of Food Camp it is. You guys might be finishing up your fall scrimmage season, but it's full field pressure here this week.

Yesterday was that game you just need to have in order to work out the kinks before the bigger, more important match ups. You hit a low just in time to be hungry for the big games to come. Today was the game when you start to "make it make sense" and things fall into place. It wasn't perfect, but I did well enough to know I have a pretty good shot of coming out with a win in the championship. Tomorrow is championship day.

Today definitely went better than yesterday. There was a minor dip in the game that let to Coach, I mean Chef Henri, yelling at my partner and me, but in the end we came out with a win when he tasted our sauce and was pleasantly surprised. I was pretty much ecstatic. And to top if off, this was my favorite chicken dish we have made so far. After all the chicken dishes, I didn't think I would even want to taste this one, but I did and ate every bite. It is a lot like chicken pot pie with a thinner, more flavorful sauce and no crust. It was delicious!

The second half was smooth sailing and we plated our braised lamb shanks with couscous before the buzzer. It was a really rich dish and so I packed up most of it and took it to go. We spent our post-game talk time going over what to expect tomorrow and running through the game plan. We will have 20 minutes to julienne a carrot, cisler 1/2 onion, emincer 1/2 onion, and jardinere one turnip. Then we have 20 minutes to quarter a chicken and then 20 minutes to fillet a flounder. Our last 20 minutes is to cook the turnips a l'etuvee style (which is with a little water, butter, and seasoning at a simmer until the liquid evaporates). So that's the plan, it's all about execution tomorrow and each quarter period of 20 minutes counts the same.

After class I went to Chinatown and picked up a flounder to use for more practice. I came home and did a full test. This is a lot like playing wall ball or practicing ground ball pick ups the day before a really big game. It probably doesn't do that much good in terms of skills, but it helps you find your rhythm and release some nerves. My practice run went pretty well, but I know I am saving the best for tomorrow, knowing that there will be more pressure and 23 other people to work around who are all trying to accomplish the same thing.

I have my pre-game regimen down pat and I'll be there a little early tomorrow to make sure I don't forgot anything. You see, this is what you have to look forward to when you run out of college lax years. You find other pressure times in your life that seem to send you back to old habits of the glory days. Savour it while you have it, the real thing only lasts so long and then you'll compare just about everything to it and you will write nerdy letters and make yourself sound all washed up. Ok, maybe that just happens to me.

Good luck in your preparation for the spring season, I can't wait to see you all play! In the meantime, the rest of the alumni and I will be fighting little battles in our own playing fields. Miss you guys!

Lax Love,

The College Cook

PS- Speaking of rats, I saw the biggest one ever scurrying around in the subway station this morning. Like RAT, not just a little mouse like we'd find in the basement of 1515, a monstarrrrr.

Swing And A Miss.

2009-11-23T19:09:00.007-05:00

Dear New York Sky,

You have clearly been trying your best to create a snowy city all day. You started out with an extra chill in the air and made heavy colorless clouds that eventually melded together to form a huge white canvas. We all knew what you were trying to do, but your results were somewhat lacking. You obtained the white night sky, the kind that reflects every light in the city and illuminates even the dark sidewalks in the park. You threw in the wind and little bits of precipitation, but you just couldn't get your temperature right or find a way to make those snow flakes form and drop as you intended. I know you must be frustrated.

I had a similar day today. It started out on the right track when I completed my test and earned a perfect score! Well theory only means so much when it comes to cooking. As you know, you gotta walk the walk, not just talk the talk as the weathermen often do. Well I started my veal stew by blanching the veal shoulder pieces and then poaching it with the vegetables and aromatic garniture, but it was very textbook. Everything I did, I had to double check to make sure it was following the recipe. I was forcing the procedure.

We started on our chicken dish while our veal was cooking and I did just fine quartering the blanched bird. But then you see, I had to turn vegetables and my partner and I ended up with very different turned vegetables from each other and I was quite perturbed about what Chef Henri would say about our variation.

I made the sauce for our chicken, which was a veloute with horseradish. I liked it a lot, because it had a little kick to it. In the end, I thought the dish was pretty bland and a little awkward with a thick cream sauce floating around in something similar to chicken and vegetable soup. In the spirit of the chilling weather, I added a bit of black pepper and shredded the chicken off the bone, blended the sauce with the stock and ate it as if it was soup. It was much more comforting, despite the awkwardness of the turned vegetables.

We finished our veal dish by making another veloute; this one much milder than the first. We also needed to make a rice pilaf for this dish. I volunteered to handle this bit, while my partner made the sauce. Well again, I forced the issue and got too technical following my note cards and didn't just make the rice like I normally would and as a result, I gave the grains too much color while waiting for the "opaqueness" that the recipe described. Of course Chef noticed, of course he gave me a hard time about it, and of course he said "What the hell is wrong with you today? What did you do last night?" I responded, "I'm sorry Chef, I'm not sure. I cooked last night, it turned out great, no mistakes!" He laughed and said he didn't recognize me today. I guess I'll take that as a back handed compliment and know that today is as bad as I want it to get. Oh, and then he said not to plate our rice, take some from someone else. Youch.

What a coincidence it is that I could not create the white opaque rice and you could not do the same for snow! Well in the end, we both ended with a pale finish, which was quite lackluster.

It's just so frustrating when you prepare and plan and know exactly what you want the result to be and you just get too focused that nothing comes naturally. Maybe you and I should not have focused so much today on the details, but just let nature take its course and follow the instincts that come with stewing a dish or a wintry storm.

Tomorrow is our last class day before the section final and Level 2. But I have finished my note cards and put tomorrow out of my head, knowing that what happens... happens. I will hope for snow, but I can't force it and neither can you. But I would like you to know that I am fully on your side, bundled up in my flannel shirt, waffle long-underwear, red slippers and hovering over my leftovers of the warm veal stew with (my bronzy "toss out") rice. It is the ultimate comfort food, yet a little reminder that we can't control our bad rhythm days much more than we can control the weather.

Well while I'm going to call it a night and watch a bit of Gossip Girl, I know you'll still be out there, hard at work, trying to make some snow fall. Best of luck to you!

I'll Be Thinking About You,

The College Cook

PS- I apologize for the smoggy pictures, I didn't bring my memory card again today, hence the phone pics.

Test Prep

2009-11-22T08:00:00.004-05:00

Dear Mom & Dad,

This feeling of relaxation the weekend before Thanksgiving is another clear sign that I am in fact, away at camp, not school. This time last year, I was furiously editing papers, starting new ones, studying for midterms, and trying to attend the annual holiday traditions at UVA (which I still miss).

This year, I spent my Friday class making filet mignon for lunch and breaded chicken cutlets with a jus for my after school snack. Neither of these dishes were new to me, so it was really much a like a review day. The kind of day a student longs for when holiday break is in sight. We spent a good hour talking about our upcoming tests and practical and about moving up to Level Two. Chef Henri showed us a picture of his school class when he was 13 years old and we all picked him out immediately. It's is crazy to think that he started in a professional kitchen a year later and hasn't left the kitchen since. He's the one in the very front, closest to the camera.

After school, I did not rush to practice or to the library or study session, I went with my class for a four hour happy hour. It is amazing how close we have all gotten in such a short amount of time, yet it is even more amazing that no one has gotten in a serious fight in the kitchen. We have a lot of strong personalities and they often conflict outside the kitchen, which makes it entertaining when you give each of them a little alcohol and the debates/arguments begin. Thank goodness cooking gives us all a some peace so that our kitchen is not a madhouse.

Yesterday, I woke up at six and made my way back to school to get my things from my locker that I did not want to haul with me to happy hour. I leisurely enjoyed a deli bagel and cream cheese in this little park square and it was nearly silent in that dot in Soho until a fire truck passed and then it was quiet again. I know NYC is the city that never sleeps, but I can tell you, the city sleeps in on Saturdays. I guess I will have to learn to adjust or continue to enjoy quiet mornings.

I took my things home and thought about Thanksgiving dinner for awhile, so I emailed the Kids Club with my ideas for our feast. I'm so sorry Johnny Boy lost his football game, but I am very happy that we will all be together on Thanksgiving this year. I know Joseph is excited about all of us to come home and start the old home video watching, has he chosen his selection yet? I can't wait for Armie to see how we do holidays/food and for Elizabeth to make her Waldorf Salad.

Thinking about all this food made me hungry again, so I headed to the West side to one of the city's Greenmarket farmers' markets. The first tent was selling duck. Now usually I would tear up at the sight of an entire ice chest full of duck meat, but I guess I have learned to appreciate its place through a culinary perspective, because I did not shed a single tear. Actually, I checked out their vacuum packed products like duck confit, duck prosciutto, duck breasts, etc. and everything was so overpriced from what I now know what it would cost me to do the same. This supports what I have always thought, cooking is knowledge about food, and I am far more educated than I was a month ago. Amen.

In the end, I bought some onions to practice chopping for my practical, a hot cider, a pound of spicy Italian turkey sausage that was made on Thursday (I am sure I will reach a point when I no longer buy sausage), a half dozen eggs, two pears, and a pound of freshly made pasta. I wasn't completely satisfied with my assortment, so I walked ten blocks south to another Greenmarket and bought some brussel sprouts and garlic. By that point, I was a block away from Whole Foods, so I headed there for some whole flounder and chickens that I could use to practice filleting and butchering, respectively.

I should have known the place would be packed. They didn't have any whole flounder or any other type of flat fish, so I guess I will have to go to Chinatown to find that. They did have whole chickens, so I got three different types of birds: a Cornish game hen, an organic chicken, and small young chicken. All of them have the same anatomy, so if I can quarter one, I can quarter them all. I picked up some other things as well and hauled them out with the birds into one of the nicest fall evenings I can remember.

I walked through the park lugging my bags and it was a beautiful golden hour in the city. Of course the park was packed with people, but New Yorkers are different when they get into the park and no one has the 'I'm in a hurry, don't talk to me' look on their face. There were tons of kids running around, climbing rocks, and refusing to wear their coats. It could have been a romance movie with the number of young couples going for a stroll with hands or arms locked and just about every dog in the city was there too. I walked by the skating rink, did you see the picture I sent you? Even though I only stopped to take that picture and one other time to help a mom get her stroller down some stairs, it was a perfect evening in the park. It is amazing how many different lives you can see just walking home from the grocery store. That is one of the reasons I love it here.

I came home and watched tv for the first time all week and opted not to go out, but to stay in and enjoy the lack of schedule or places to be and just make dinner. I made one of the many versions of my favorite college comfort food. I started by sweating an onion that I timed myself chopping, then cooked some of my turkey sausage, added some chanterelle mushrooms, then some red sauce, mozzarella beads and fresh basil. I put this on my fresh pasta and made a little garlic bread with the baguette I picked up and some compound butter. It was my idea of a perfect home dinner and it's always easy to make for one. It goes even better with Iron Chef and thankfully it was on last night.

So today I am going to Chinatown to find my whole flounder and then some friends from class and I are meeting at one of their apartments for timed practice runs. This is definitely the best version of studying for an exam that I have ever experienced, which is why I love camp.

I can't wait to see you all on Wednesday night and hopefully it is with news that I am moving on to Level Two. I'll text you with my flight info and tell Oliver to wait up for me!

Love,

The College Cook

The First Thanksgiving

2009-11-19T23:15:00.004-05:00

Dear 1515,

Happy Thanksgiving! Yes, it's that time that only comes but twice a year, Turkey Day! It is so sad that we are not all gathered 'round the beer pong tables this Thursday before the official Thanksgiving, as we have the previous four years. I miss Jen and Blair's stuffing and mashed potatoes. I would love to have stayed up till 3am this morning making edible little turkey and pilgrim treats with Ash. Hack does green bean casserole right, which I am sure is still very possible in Costa Rica or Panama, as long as you can find canned green beans. And KS generally whipped up something new each year while Whit supplied us endlessly with New England tapped maple syrup. Hairfield, followed in her parents' footsteps, and never fell short of amazing with her comfort food dish and I seem to remember Jenny supplying something sweet and of course, the music. The dishes could all be mixed up, because we usually made them within a 5ft radius of each other or shuttled them from other squad kitchens since I pretty much hogged the oven for the bird.

Our plates were plastic, our silverware was not silver (or even matching), not a single person sat in a respectable chair, and I'm pretty sure those sneaky 2nd years bought their dessert at Harris Teeter. Yet there is no replacement for our yearly Thanksgiving before Thanksgiving celebration and I definitely missed sitting in that back room tonight with all of you. Instead, I ate leftovers from class today.

Camp today was about grilling. We made a Bearnaise sauce (like the one I made for those crepes that one time), fries, and then grilled our shell steak. Let's just say, it was a little more professional than grilling in the back/front porch, but definitely not as fun. Chef asked at the beginning of class if all of us had grilled before, and thankfully, as grill master of 1515, I was able to say "Yes, Chef" confidently. Hot dog anyone? Cheese on that burger?

The second dish we made was grilled and roasted chicken served with grilled tomatoes, thin fries, mushrooms, and grilled bacon. Which got me thinking about our breakfast mornings and making the house smell like bacon. Mmmmm, my favorite!

Today, Chef Henri talked about his apprentice days when he was 14 in France and had to turn the meats on the grill with his bare hands because it was fastest. Well as a result he now has no feeling in his fingertips. Sound familiar? Probably, because we never had clean utensils with which to flip things. Who knew we were being so Francy at the time instead of so very "college?"

I miss that old house and I hope we can have some kind of reunion soon. I have time trials, I mean a practical, next week before break. We have to prep vegetables a certain way, fillet a fish, butcher a chicken, and cook it all within the allotted time. Kinda like that Top Chef episode we watched in Kendall's room 3rd year. Kinda like timed running, lifting, and such, but much easier and less painful (as long as no one cuts or burns themselves).

Anyway, that's the news here, just wanted to let you all know that I was thinking about you on this Thanksgiving night and missed our toasts of giving thanks! KS, perhaps I'll see you this weekend!

Love and Miss You ALL,

The College Cook

PS- Lighting of the Lawn is next and I am even more distraught about missing that. I hope the new 1515 at least puts up porch lights.

Lesson Learned

2009-11-18T18:56:00.006-05:00

Dear Future College Cook,

When you own your own farm one day. I ask that you give the pigs figs and acorns to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Let them roam freely in the meadows and only sell them to those who you know will enjoy their sweetness as a result of their perfect diet. If you have ducks, as I am sure you will, please refrain from eating them unless it is a special occasion. If you have chickens, which you must, let them eat grass and grains, not corn. Give them ample space and sunlight and shelter. Give all your animals care and consider what they eat before you consider what you eat. This is the only way to ensure the quality of ingredients and really, quality of life when it comes to food.

Waste nothing when it comes time to slaughter. Every portion of the pig can be used for something. Do not be careless, for it is a life you are taking to enrich your own. Serve smaller portions so that those who consume those animals have no choice but to savor each bite.

When you grow your vegetables, do so naturally, spraying sparingly and only if absolutely necessary. Harvest as much by hand as you possibly can so that you will appreciate each piece individually.

Grow your herbs in places where your animals can find them, and grow those with which you intend to cook out of reach. Grow your own apples, it is easy to do. Grow your own berries. Grow your own garlic.

If you do these things, you will enhance your cooking before you slice or heat anything. Remember these things and practice what you preached years ago and then you will certainly not allow your mirepoix to burn, haphazardly butcher your chicken, and under season your pork, as you did on November 18th, 2009.

It was a rough day, even with a good partner. You had fun and it was all brought to peace with a slice of birthday cake that Pastry delivered by the request of Chef, but it was not a day of which you should be proud. Do better each day than you did that day and you will not be so far off from your goal. But remember, first and foremost, take care of what you eat eats before you think about eating. In the end, you will undoubtedly have great pork and chicken that others will appreciate.

Let's learn from this day so that years from now, you are in a better place. Let's hope.

Your Youth,

The College Cook

PS- It may have been a different dish than planned, but at least you had fun. Don't forget that bit either.

Tomorrow Is A New Day

2009-11-17T20:40:00.005-05:00

Dear 4th Floor Pastry Classes,

We have enjoyed your ice creams, tarts, cakes, pastries, breads, and confection delights every day that I can remember since I started Food Camp. I have NEVER skipped a tasting of the treats that you drop off in our kitchen. I often take a bite of each plate you leave, just so that none of you feel as though you are allowing a dish to go to waste. Fear not, I have never even let others throw out your masterpieces. I envy you, for I am not a baker or a pastry person much at all. I run from measuring cups and come over with a strange claustrophobic feeling when I cannot adjust a dish as I go. Pastry Camp and I would mix like oil and water, which doesn't mix so well over in the West Kitchen (aka- the Best Kitchen).

So I wanted to thank you for the many times you have thought of us after enjoying the carefully constructed dishes that we have sent over to you to devour. It is always nice to have a little something sweet after our heavy savory dishes, so I find that this relationship of trade has faired pretty well for everyone involved.

Did you enjoy the Supreme de Caneton Saute et Cuisee Braisee a l'Orange? We butchered those ducks ourselves and we seasoned them with care. We seared the skin to a nice crispiness that we thought that you would enjoy as a contrast to the braised breast and leg meat. Oh and did the presentation of the watercress and wild rice with the duck please you? Did you find the orange sauce to your liking? I hope so, we put extra brandy, white wine, and Grand Marnier in it just for you.

I know you had already enjoyed your lunch, but I hope that you were pleasantly surprised when we sent over Poulet Saute Chasseur. That dish is known as the Hunter's Chicken, and while we did not hunt it, we did butcher it ourselves. Don't you think that mushroom sauce was just perfect for the lightness of the meat that had been so attentively braised? That sauce is no snap of the finger. We made the stock ever so carefully and enriched it so that you would know the flavors of the dish through aromas before even tasting it. I hope you took some home with you. We sent plenty, so I am sure you could have if you wished.

We are so happy to share the fruits of our labor with you, as we know you especially enjoyed tastes of our lobster bisque today. We heard your ooohs and ahhhs from down the hall. We know you liked it.

So, I must finally ask, as it is the purpose of this letter, what it is that we in Culinary 1 have done to offend you? Yes, naturally we are a bit arrogant, because we are culinary students and that is generally our nature, but that has never strained our relationship before. Did you find the duck too rare? You know that is how we are expected to serve it. Perhaps the chicken dishes were switched in transit. As according to food etiquette, the breast pieces were supposed to be served to the ladies and the leg pieces to the men. Was there some sort of mix-up? I do apologize, if so. Or perhaps you had a bit of shell or something in your lobster bisque. I know we strained it numerous times and none of us experienced any abnormalities. Hmm, what could it be?

Well, I am just going to say it. Why on earth did you not send a single pastry dish to our kitchen all day? I waited and waited with fork and spoon in hand and nothing ever came. I double checked with the prep chef to make sure there had been chance of me missing something slip in while I was cooking for you, but he assured me that nothing had arrived. I heard through the grapevine/Italian students that you were making wedding cakes today. I would have been happy to taste test the cakes for you. I have actually gotten quite a bit of practice at this with an engaged sister on the prowl for the proper cake. I would have not turned you away.

I hope that we go come back to our compromise of passing dishes from kitchen to kitchen. If you have requests or complaints regarding what we send you, please let me know personally. For I seem to be the only one distraught about the lacking Pastry deliveries today. Tomorrow we will be sending pork and chicken. I will await your reply in the form of something sweet.

Most Sincerely,

The College Cook

PS- I love ice cream or dishes with fruit best. Oh and my classmate needs a birthday cake for a friend of his on Friday. It would be a nice gesture to make up for the little slip up today, as he typically enjoys the daily pastry deliveries as well. Mmk, thanks!

Crustacean Memory Lane

2009-11-16T19:47:00.006-05:00

Dear Uncle Guy,

I hope business is good on the Texas coast and that you have had some time to relax (if that combination of events is even possible). I have been thinking about you a lot since I started culinary school, feeling as though I am following in family footsteps. I always wonder who taught you the techniques that we learn in class, whether it was Da or from a mentor or if you just read about it and figured it out yourself. I have learned so much about the reasons and uses for things that I always saw in your restaurants, but never thought to question. I know I always asked a lot of questions, but I didn't ask "Why?" often enough. Well, better late than never, because now I am rediscovering restaurant kitchen life and finally I know why you took such care with the ingredients and meticulous procedures.

Today, at what I call "Food Camp," especially reminded me of you. It was crustacean day. Given that I only ate seafood for the first fifteen years of my life if it was in one of your restaurants, I couldn't help but think of Beaulah's, The Other Guys, and The Pelican Club. As you always taught us, we learned how to determine the freshness of fish and crustaceans and choose the very best.

The first dish we made today was Moules a la Marinere, which you probably know is mussels in a wine white butter sauce. Eating mussels at 10am also reminded me of you, given that you've never seemed to have an internal food clock. They were pretty good, but I wish I had been sitting on your harbor porch to eating them rather than standing at my station.

The next dish we made was Coquilles Saint-Jacq

ues and Coulis au Persil. First, we made our short broth, I mean Court Bouillon, and then we made our coulis of mushrooms, shallots, parsley. We just barely seared our scallops, which I thought you would appreciate, because Chef Henri is just as particular about not overcooking seafood as you are. I think we should have reduced our coulis a bit more though, because the final dish was definitely missing something. This is what it looked like, which seemed kinda blah in comparison to the plates that come out of your kitchen:

Before lunch, we had a lesson on opening clams and oysters. Thanks to you and my oyster loving family, I knew pretty well how to open those stubborn little suckers. So basically our class stood around practicing opening oysters and clams and trying them with varying accoutrement like lemon, mignonette (pepper red wine sauce), and hot sauce. Yes, school is so rough, but I'm surviving. Actually, one student didn't want to eat the clams he opened so he gave it to me. Little did I know how much shell he had mixed in with the clam juice in the process of trying to pry it open. I got a mouth full of sandy water along with the clam meat; something that has never happened to me before in an Uncle Guy restaurant.

For lunch, we each had a whole lobster that was cooked in Court Bouillon au Vinagre. Like I said, school is rough. Different teams made sauces for our lunch, like butter with garlic and parsley or buerre blanc. We had baked potatoes and salads as well. I would be just fine with everyday being crustacean day like it is for you.

The last dish we made was actually not finished today. It was Sauce Americaine. I learned that Chefs in Paris used to make this dish for American Tourists and that is how it got its name. But basically it was a lobster sauce (that involved some flambe-ing) and then every team put theirs in the large marmite and I got to use the huuuuge immersion blender that Chef calls "Rambo." I had no idea that the lobster shells were blended with the liquid for lobster sauce. I was a little concerned, but after several steps of straining, the sauce came out smooth and shell free in the end. We are going to use the sauce tomorrow to make lobster bisque. I can't wait!

So you see, I am surviving without eating at your restaurants, but I had to sign up for a six-month course in order to do so. And while I love school, I miss sitting at the bar to watch you slurp down oysters. Or watch David make sushi with the freshest raw ingredients. Or the kitchen crew prep shrimp and crayfish for the gumbo. Thank goodness I grew up with high expectations for seafood, or I may not have appreciated today as much as I did. Thank goodness for you!

I am trying to read as much as I can, as I know you would if you were in my position. I have learned what a great part of your skills as a storyteller have gone into creating your food. I hope that I can one day do the same.

Tomorrow I have another test, so I am going to go brush up on my recipes and leave the crustacean section to childhood memories in Port Aransas.

Hope to see you soon for Thanksgiving! I am so thankful to all of which you have exposed me in the realm of restaurants and especially crustaceans. Hopefully, I will now be a better student and you can teach me more for our holiday feasts.

Eternally Grateful,

The College Cook

PS- This is one garnish I have not seen on any of your plates. Chef called it a dragonfly. haha!

Call me Catfish

2009-11-13T19:48:00.004-05:00

Dear Baby Brother,

How is school treating you? You've got to be psyched about your undefeated season thus far with your last reg game tomorrow! Do you still love it just as much? I hope so, and I hope you are tending to your senatorial duties as well. It's been a pretty good first semester, huh? I'm so proud of you, Johnny boy.

So today at Food Camp, we did two different recipes with flounder. Which of course, reminded me of you. Aside from wanting to be called "Catfish" when you were little, I feel like flounder is your fish. I remember you and Joebro would always claim to be going flounder spearing with odd sharp objects and flashlights. I could be wrong, but I don't recall you ever bringing one home on the end of a stick, a line perhaps, but not a spear of any sort.

Well it turns out they are easier to clean anyway without having a gaping hole in it from being speared. We learned how to clean and filet the flounder and remove the skin. Thanks to you and Joseph's long history of fishing success, I pretty much knew what I was doing. So maybe you guys will want to drag me along on your fishing trips now.

My partner today is one of my friends in the class and he reminds me a lot of you. You used to get kinda squirmy when you were little and it was time to gut the catch. Well that's kinda what happened with him today. I must say though, gutting these flounder was quite messy business. We finally got our decent fillets and started our prep work. We worked pretty well together, despite our constant chatting and visits from Monseiur. You would like this guy a lot, he used to work for a brewery and knows a lot about beer and food and is super nice.

So the first dish we made was flounder fish sticks. We cut the fillets and breaded them, then deep fried them. We plated them with a mesh potato basket, our super good tarter sauce, and a fire-y red pepper sauce. It was pretty fun and the fish sticks were delicious! This would have def been your menu choice at age 5.

The second dish we made was braised flounder with a creamy mushroom sauce that is glazed under the broiler. It was pretty good, but by then I had eaten and seen too much fish for the day so we gave our dishes to the Italian kitchen in exchange for a fresh mozzerella and basil pizza. That, I loved! And you would have definitely loved it and asked "Budroooo, por favoraaaay" like you always did in Italy.

We got our first evaluations today and I was a little disappointed at first because I got points marked down for things like "Incomplete toolkit" when I always have all my tools and knives. I later find out that for the first evaluation they shave off points in random categories because they don't want anyone getting over a 92%. As you used to say, "My teacher is such a brat and took points off." Well, the good news is that I got a 92 a long with a few other students in the class. So I'm pretty happy, but now I have to really step it up in order to get more points on the next evaluation in order to be ready for my Level 1 Practical. Which means I also need to practice my vegetable turning and knife skills more at home.

We finished a little early today and so we played this kitchen trivia game with Chef Henri and he pretty much just cracks me up. He has such a devilish sense of humor and loves joking around with us. This week really changed our class for the better. It was less serious and a lot more fun now that we have all bonded a little bit. It really is like week two at any other kind of camp, where now there are crushes, frienemies, practical jokes, and everyone is more involved in the group. I hope you can come visit and see what it is like.

Well Catfish, I hope you crush Randolph Macon tomorrow and finish out your undefeated season! I can't wait to see you in two weeks for Thanksgiving. I heard it's gonna be you and me cooking, kid. So let's talk turkey menu when you get a minute.

Fried Fish Love,

The College Cook

PS- This is Jacques Pepin's dog joke: "Ok, so I have a poodle named Paco and he doesn't really look like a poodle because I don't do the pom poms or anything. Well actually, I trim his hair myself. So I take Paco with me places all the time. In fact, I took him to an event at FCI last year and he barked for my applause at the end of my speech, it was quite nice, actually. So anyway, I was going out with a friend to a bar for drinks and brought Paco along. My friend said, 'They won't let you take a dog in this place, leave him.' So I tell him I am just going to pretend that he is my seeing eye dog and they have to let me. So my friend laughs and says, 'okay.' So we walk into this bar and the bartender says, 'You cannot bring that dog in here, we don't allow it.' And I responded, 'Well it's my seeing eye dog and I need him here.' And the bartender said, 'Sir, a poodle is not a seeing eye dog.' And I said curiously, 'Oh that's what they gave me?'"

Haha, okay so he told it a little better in his French accent.