Wednesday, 6/9/10 – Level 4 Day 3 (Production)

We're still trucking away in production, butchering the halibut, cod, hanger steaks, veal, squid, arctic char salmon and chickens for the restaurant's current menu. We're also handling the veal stocks, marmites, chicken stocks and fumets (fish stock) for the school/restaurant, which leads to a TON of carrot peeling and leek cleaning. Once this To-Do list is completed, usually by about 8:00pm, we're left to complete special projects and experimentations, all aided by our fearless leader Chef Janet. It was her idea to brine two pork bellies last week: we reserved one for bacon, then rolled one up and secured it in the drying cabinet to make pancetta. We also brined two large pork loins, keeping one as Canadian bacon. (I find that, in my new role as an FCI student, the frequency of "bacon" in my vocabulary has increased about 10-fold.)

We rigged one of the unused ovens to set up a cold-smoke system: a cold oven gets a pan of steaming coals and wood chips below a pan of ice, which sits right below the protein you're smoking. We stuffed everything in that oven: two whole chickens, two pork loins and the side of bacon (pancetta doesn't get smoked). Once everything had been smoked to our liking, it was all removed except for the two chickens. We turned the oven up to 400˚F and cooked them until they were safely done. Yum yum yum… It filled the entire kitchen with a campfire ambience, and left my jacket smelling like the woods (my poor chef's jackets!! They definitely get the brunt of the abuse. My neckerchiefs are second in line…)

The best special project, though, was one we began last night. Chef ordered an entire suckling pig! I have to admit, though…it was a bit sad. His little tongue was still sticking out, and it was so soft. Also, his little feet had been barely used, so they were still tender and pink. For those of you who don't know, a suckling pig is a piggy that is, well, still suckling milk from its mommy! I don't know their exact age, but they're still very small; and since they're young and solely milk fed, they don't have a lot of meat on their bones and have an interesting smell to them.

We've decided that we're going to de-bone the guy, then stuff it with one of the smoked pork loins, which will be stuffed with an herb medley. The whole thing makes for great presentation, but if you're squeamish it might not be very appetizing. I'm unfortunately one of those people that if I decide something grosses me out, it REALLY grosses me out. I can name a million instances when I've been mid-bite, thought of/smelled something gross and immediately gagged. I am then unable to finish my meal…how will this work when I become a chef??

While it was fascinating to see this animal, fresh from the factory at which it was killed, laying on the table in front of us like some surgery patient in for a heart transplant, it was just a little disturbing. Instead of healing it, we cracked it open and proceeded to scrape out every single bone in its body, including hips, legs and neck. We're normally not allowed to bring electronics into the kitchen, but I decided that this was too cool to follow the rules – I washed my hands, got my phone out and starting taking pictures.

As I walked to the subway after class, I found an unidentified piece of pig wedged in between the diamonds on my wedding ring. Sure, that's creepy; but the worst part? It didn't surprise me one bit. One bloody, sinewy bit.