I love Fridays. In whatever job, situation or city I have been, Fridays always take on a special quality, an air of excitement and anticipation. In a past career, when Friday would finally come I would pack up my things, quietly sneak through the hallways and leave the miserable atmosphere of that office, and the minute I stepped outside, no matter how terrible the week had been, I was happy. The same holds true these days, although my Friday Freedom starts around 11pm and I am in a completely different state emotionally and am thrilled and fulfilled with my life.
Since completing our Level 2 practical exam last Wednesday, we knew we'd be leaving the comfortable world and kitchen we had come to know only to be thrown into a stressful, unsure and unwelcoming environment. So on Friday we approached the Level 3 kitchens, tucked away down a long hallway across from the bread kitchens, with much trepidation. It was a very different set-up, and we spent the first few minutes checking each cabinet, closet and refrigerator for the items and tools we needed to bring back to our noticeably smaller work stations.
Level 3 is all about timing and consistency. We are given 16 recipes to memorize, and will practice them over and over and over, each time being expected to complete them faster and better. We are split into the four main sections of a kitchen: Garde Manger (appetizers and salads), Poissonnier (fish), Saucier (meats) and Patissier (pastry). Within each of the four sections, there are three pairs working on two different recipes per night. We get two nights in each section, then move on to the next for two nights, and so on.
My partner and I started off in pastry. Of course. So there I was, measuring out flour to the exact gram and whipping heavy cream again…my two favorite things. I had the benefit of being semi-familiar with the night's two recipes: Apple Tart and Cream Puffs with a chocolate sauce, but was still unsure of the format and flow of the evening. To top it all off, we were graced with Chef Marc's presence, the very kind yet intimidating Chef who won a competition on Food Network a few weeks ago and would be filling in for our regular Chef on this Friday, our very first night in Level 3. There were very specific times on the board next to each recipe/section, and we were expected to present four plates of the recipe, all perfect and identical, to Chef at the specified time – no earlier and no later. The problem was that the times next to our two recipes were scarily close to each other, so we had to think very far ahead and basically complete the cream puffs before even presenting our apple tart. I did some quick math in my head, calculating risk vs. stress vs. sweat level and got to work.
The dough was beautiful. It rolled out nicely, we filled it with a yummy apple compote and spread out the little slices in a pinwheel design around the top of the tart, creating a little rosette in the middle. Lovely. It got brushed with butter and thrown into the oven, and it was on to the cream puff dough. About an hour later, our tart was looking nicely browned and tender, so I decided to play it safe and enlist the advice of Chef before crossing the burn point of no return and ruining the entire thing. The interaction went a little something like this:
Me: Chef, how might we know the exact point at which to take our tart out of the oven? (a.k.a. Can you tell me if my tart needs to come out of the oven?)
Chef: Ah oui, zis all about ze feel.
Me: Hmm?
Chef: You must know ze feel.
Me: Yea…
Chef: Ze feel.
Me: >blank stare<
Chef: Ze feel!
Me: Um…
Chef: ZE FEEL!!
Me: I have no idea what you're trying to say to me.
Chef: >walks away<
Yea, he must really like me after that. Apparently his advice was that we will just have a feeling when it's done. That doesn't work in the Life of Jackie, as my cautious ways would have had the tart out too soon and raw. We took the tart out anyways and it ended up being great, so we cut four even slices and placed them on small plates. We gave each plate a star of vanilla whipped cream and a mint leaf and presented all four at the exact requested time. Phew! It was now 8:51 in the evening, and my partner and I were starving. The smells of beef bourguignon and chicken Grand Mere had been swirling around us for the past 3 hours, and the only thing I had eaten was a "reject" cream puff, an apple scrap and a few animal cookies. As Chef was visually judging our tarts, I was busy staring like a rabid dog at the beautiful chicken that had been presented before us. I quietly commented to my partner "Oh man, that looks so good." All of a sudden, Chef looks up and says, "Good? You teenk zat smells good? Nuzzing I have tasted tonight ees good! Zis ees sheet…get zis out of my face!" And he pushed the chicken plate towards me. "Fantastic," I thought, "more food for me!"
As each savory dish was tasted and judged immediately, the pastries were kept until the end to show the class. Apple tarts and cream puffs are pretty straightforward taste-wise, and very very hard to mess up too terribly, so we were scored on presentation instead of taste. Apparently the apples on our tart looked rubbery, and we were "stingy" with the whipped cream. Fair enough, although every single recipe since starting school has been presented in a minimalist and elegant fashion. We even count out vegetables when plating a dish for goodness' sake. Next time I will just slop a pile of whipped cream the size of Texas on that plate and call it Fannie Mae's Blue Plate Apple Pie Special. Lesson learned.
With the cream puffs, we made a nice and neat zig-zag design on the warm plate with the chocolate cream sauce and placed three confectioner's sugar-dusted puffs in the middle. Lovely, again. Yet again we were "stingy" with the chocolate sauce. Next time: Sallie Jo's Lunch Buffet Chocolate Cream Puff All-You-Can Eat Special. If thee wants it, thee shall get it. The "stingy" remark was nothing compared to some of the comments received by other groups who had made the night's savory dishes, though. There were a lot of embarrassed groans and sheepish "ouch"es, but the best way to perfect yourself is by hearing the awful truth. I'm used to being told that my dish needs more salt, but being told that the soup is tasteless and the vegetables look like crap might be hard to swallow when the time comes. (Ha ha…get it?? That food is hard to swallow?? Nevermind.)
I ended up trading some cream puffs for a bowl of beef bourguignon and a half-eaten chicken Grand Mere, which I sucked down while scraping flour out from underneath my fingernails. This new level is going to be rough, emotionally and physically. They say never trust a skinny chef, but you should never trust a hungry chef either!
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