We are penalized pretty severely if we miss class. Not only do we have to make up the class, but we lose the $300-or-so that we paid in advance for the privilege to show up…and then didn't show up. We also get major points off of our evaluation for each absence, which highly affects your grade for each level, which affects your overall grade. Needless to say, I've never missed a class (although I was thisclose that one fateful Friday night a few months ago when I suddenly found myself sobbing on a Midtown East street corner begging for a taxi, any taxi, to pick me up. That was a low point…) and the only class I plan on missing is in October when one of my best friends from college gets married back in Indiana. For some freakish reason, the stars aligned on Wednesday and 1/3 of my class was M.I.A.! What was the deal with that…was there a sale at Sur La Table of which I somehow failed to be informed? I sure as heck hope not, God help them if they had a sale and didn't tell me. Was there a memo about school being cancelled due to the hot weather that got lost in my inbox? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…that was hilarious. Cancelled for hot weather?? When piglets fly. So then I came to the only reasonable and practical solution – they were having a secret party to which 2/3 of us were not invited. They are probably grilling cheeseburgers and drinking Blue Moon on someone's rooftop as we speak…this is BULLCRAP! However, I refuse to believe that if my classmates threw a party I wouldn't be invited…I'm the best party guest ever!! Just wait till you hear my karaoke rendition of Technotronic's "Pump Up the Jam"…you'll be sorry you didn't invite me to your mid-afternoon cookout. I can also do anything by Kenny Loggins. Perfectly.
We all tried to recover and fill in the gaps that were missing amongst our classmates, which was unfortunate because we had a particularly busy night in buffet. I got started preparing the marinade for the leg of lamb that will be grilled and sliced for gyros. The leg was massive, so I doubled the recipe – meaning that I had to chop endless bunches of parsley, rosemary, mint and basil and peel and crush tons of garlic cloves. I forgot to sharpen my knife before class, and there is nothing worse than a dull knife when you're chopping fresh herbs. It leaves little bruises on the small chops, and bleeds a deep green into the crevices of your cutting board. I saw chef eyeing my disastrous cutting board out of the corner of his eye, so I picked up the pace and moved on as quickly as possible. After about 45 minutes of measuring, chopping, smashing and bruising I was finally done. I zested and juiced a few lemons, added olive oil and other dried items and before I knew it my beautiful marinade was done. The leg had to be deboned and butterflied, so I started working out the bones and peeling away the tendons and flesh. This puppy was huge, but I didn't think it would yield enough meat to fill 50 gyros so I asked chef to order another leg of lamb. "Sure thing, it'll be in on Friday so you can repeat the process." Wait, that's not part of the deal…you mean I'm going to have to chop all those darn herbs again?? At least I'll be faster at breaking down the leg and hopefully will get the whole thing done as soon as possible. The leg I had (of the lamb variety, not my personal limbs) got rubbed with the marinade and split in two; the pieces were put into two bags and sealed in the Cryovac machine to cook at another time.
With the lamb done, I moved on to preparing the syrup for the White Wine Italian Ice (yummm….). Since the process requires several hours of freezing and refreezing, I'll have to complete everything on Friday. P.S. there is nothing more delicious than the smell of white wine, sugar and water boiling on the stove.
Finally, I toasted a 3-pound can of pecans to start the spiced nuts. During cold New York City winters, Nuts 4 Nuts vendors can be found on any corner in the city. The most delicious and intoxicating aromas come from their small, dirty carts, seducing tourists and natives alike. We decided that we absolutely had to serve some sort of roasted nut, so we decided on a savory spiced pecan and a sweet walnut. I toasted the pecans in the oven for a few minutes, and then threw them into a big bowl to begin the seasoning. I initially followed the recipe's amounts of salt and Spanish paprika, but this yielded almost no flavor. Chef sensed my predicament, told me to hold on a second and ran to the storeroom. He returned with a handful of bright red powders: smoked paprika, chipotle powder and cayenne. He started shaking and pouring each onto the pile of nuts, and soon the small room was filled with a sneezy red cloud. We shook the whole thing up again, but it still needed something. Hmm…something sweet and sticky…honey! We poured copious amounts of honey on the pile of nuts, and sure enough they were delicious. We spread them out on a large sheet pan, covered them and will let them rest at room temperature until the buffet.
We're definitely making progress on our buffet, but my OCDness is really starting to engage when I think about how unorganized we seem to be. I know that chef has everything under control, but it seems like we're just making random stuff and putting it in random refrigerators around the school…freaking out here. I just need to sit back and execute on the orders I'm given, but it's getting a little hard. My anxiety (or was it the chai tea latte and large iced coffee I had between 5 and 8pm?) kept me up pretty late reading my latest book obsession after I got home. I don't think Steve appreciates the book light shining on his closed eye lids, but maybe he'd prefer that I rattle off a full minute-by-minute breakdown of my school activities at midnight three nights a week. Remind me to wake him up and ask him on Friday night…
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