Wednesday, 4/28/10 – Level 3 Day 6 (Poissonnier)

We were all standing around the front of the classroom watching our fill-in Chef for the night - an Italian woman who is a foot shorter and 20 pounds lighter than me yet looks like she could bring a jail of murderers to tears – demonstrate the particulars of the lemon tart dough. There was no laughing, no smiling and absolutely no breathing; we were all on our best behavior, standing straight up with our arms crossed behind our backs listening intently. All of a sudden, the door opens and one of my classmates walks in…30 minutes late. "Are you in this class?" she asked him. "Yes Chef, I'm sorry I'm late." "Stand there and shut up…you and I are going to have a conversation later." Ohhhhhh snaaaapppppp. There was a collective sharp intake of breath, and when she dismissed us to our stations to get started we all miraculously found something to do to stick around the front of the room and witness the carnage. As I was unnecessarily inspecting a leek, I kept thanking my stars that I had been on time (unlike last Friday…)

We started our first dish, grilled salmon fillets with a white wine sauce, served with sautéed spinach and roasted mixed mushrooms. My partner handled the fish this time, so I started the sauce. It was going beautifully; Chef even came around, tasted it and said it was "delicious." Soon enough, it was done cooking so I kept it warm in a water bath. I sautéed each of the three types of mushrooms separately: oyster, domestic and shitake, then stuck them in the oven to roast. The last stop was the spinach, which was quick and easy: high heat, smashed garlic and a little oil/butter mix, throw them in and take them out when they're starting to wilt. Chef also tasted my spinach, and made an "mmm" face, slowly nodding her head. Ok, she's loving it, good start. By this time, we were down to the wire, with only minutes until presentation time. We got our plates nice and warm, my partner seared the salmon on the grill and we began to plate: a pile of spinach, a pile of mixed mushrooms, a salmon fillet. We grabbed the warm sauce, still shimmering in its delicious glory, and at the last second poured a nice channel around the plate and over the fish. It was beautiful, and we were so proud to present it (and couldn't wait to eat it). Wait a minute…something's wrong…very wrong. As Chef was walking around checking out our dishes, she screamed at us, "You're missing your herbs!" Oh s*$@, we forgot to put the minced parsley, chervil and chives in the sauce and finish it with a few squirts of lemon juice. We hadn't even gotten the herbs out of the fridge yet, nevertheless cut them down into tiny specs to throw into our sauce BEFORE plating it. We frantically ran to the refrigerator, grabbed the herbs and chopped them haphazardly, sprinkling them on as much of the sauce on our plate as possible. We both knew we had ruined it – the flavor of the herbs makes the sauce what it is, and the lemon juice neutralizes the flavor. It was too late, so we had to just let it go. She took out her fork, took a piece of salmon and dipped it in the sauce, placing it slowly in her mouth with a look of complete dissatisfaction. She swallowed the whole thing, which is more than I expected, and was silent…then it started. "No. This isn't right, you've ruined it." Oh crap. "I'm not even going to taste this, it's terrible. I'm not going to lie to you…" she paused, and then she walked away. We were bruised, big time. My partner took three of the plates (I guarded one of them) and they went straight into the compost bin. All of that work, the great encouragement along the way, the perfectly seasoned spinach and the roasted and browned mushrooms. It was all ruined because of a moment of brief forgetfulness. It hurt, oh how it hurt. I felt such a need to impress this miniature Chef, I was longing for her approval, and she wouldn't even look me in the eyes.

We had a short pow wow, vowing to leave this behind and concentrate on making our next dish, bass cooked en papillote (in paper), the best we've ever made. Since we had about 20 minutes, we had already made the tomato fondue, the mushroom duxelle and the meticulously julienned celery, carrots and leeks, cooked a l'etuvee. (We had done all of this as we were ruining our salmon…) We prepared the parchment paper, and placed a pile of tomato and a pile of mushrooms, covered it with a fillet and draped the julienned vegetables over the top. It is finished with a splash of white wine and a thyme sprig and then sealed and folded with an egg wash. After a few minutes, our bags were puffed nicely, meaning the fish had cooked, so we took them out and threw the whole thing onto plates as fast as possible. Chef approached us, gave us a look like, "I should just skip you" and broke open one of the bags. I detected a hint of change in her face, yet she still wasn't saying anything. She took another bite, gathering up as many of the fillings as she could fit on her fork. She opened another bag, and poked around some more. Finally, she looked at us. "It's good. It's very good." Oh. My. God. My partner and I smiled at each other, and I felt a relief like none I have ever felt since starting school. Apparently my partner was feeling a little bold, because he said what we were all thinking. "Have we redeemed ourselves?" he asked quickly. She snorted, shrugged and said, "Yes, I'd say you have." As she walked away, assistant Chef Janet gave us a smile and a wink.

I decided that I really, really like this new Chef. She was tough, like a drill sergeant, but the desire inside of me to impress her drove me to make one of my best dishes ever. I honest-to-God witnessed her stick her finger into a pot of boiling water, taste it and say, "This is not salted enough….did you even taste this water?!" As she walked around the room, yelling at various groups, "You're doing that wrong," "Why are you doing that?" and "Stop that right now," I also noticed something I hadn't before – for every criticism she doled out, she had about three positive comments to make as well. I remembered that she had come to me, looked inside my pan of mushrooms and said, "Those have a great color on them, good job." Or how she watched Garde Manger cut their vegetables, commending them on their knife skills. Her strict personality and demeanor had caused me to only remember the negative and assume the worst, making me nervous and fidgety. I didn't realize, however, that she is actually incredibly supportive and helpful; she just doesn't put up with any antics (or someone not following directions). In fact, I'd like to think she's like the smaller, older and wiser version of the Chef I hope to be some day.

For now, we say goodbye to fish. Next, it's on to Saucier, where we'll make Julie Child's favorite: Beef Bourguignon. Chef gave us a lecture about how we're no longer students, we're cooks - no more following recipes exactly and down to the minute; we're expected to adjust, add and change until we're happy with the result. Isn't that a valuable life lesson? If you're not happy with the result, just adjust, add and change. But never forget the herbs…God help you if you forget the herbs.

Monday, 4/27/10 – Level 3 Day 5 (Poissonnier)

Our first day in the fish station (pwa-sahn-yay) went surprisingly well. I'm not going to lie - it was actually really fun, and we were pretty ahead of ourselves for a good amount of the time. I butchered two fish that I have never even touched before, which was COOL. It almost felt like a scary science experiment, but I find I'm experiencing new things every day at school that blow my mind.

The first creature, a standard round fish called barramundi, was pretty straightforward. We've butchered these types of fish multiple times now, so it didn't take long for me to nip out the gills, chop off the head, make some slits and work out the fillets, one on each side of the body. I put the fillets aside, de-bearded a bunch of mussels and de-veined a handful of shrimp. The recipe called for us to make a lobster stock for the base of the sauce, which was not surprising at all and wouldn't be too complicated. It was, however, the majority of steps in the recipe, so we gathered our mise en place for the stock and got ready to start. I couldn't find the tomato paste, so I asked Chef where it was stored in this new kitchen. "Oh, the lobster stock is already made for you, it's simmering over in the corner." Now, these were words I thought I'd never hear, as stocks are usually our responsibility for our own dishes (with the exception of veal and beef stock, which take about 8 hours to make). This notion didn't seem to sink in, so I said, "Ok, well is the tomato paste in the refrigerator or the cabinet?" "You don't need tomato, it's already made for you…it's the big pot simmering in the corner marked 'lobster stock'." Hmm, now that's strange, I could have sworn I heard Chef say the lobster stock was already made for us…that's so silly, ha ha ha. I must be dehydrated. Sure enough, the big pot simmering in the corner did in fact hold lobster stock, which made our dish unbelievably easy. We reduced it to full flavor, added it to some sweated shallots and mixed in a little double cream. We pureed the mix to make it super soft and silky, put it back on the fire and poached the barramundi fillets, shrimp and mussels in the sauce. When each piece was cooked we removed it and placed it prettily in a warm bowl, doused the whole thing with the pink/red sauce and garnished it with some cooked potatoes and parsley. Delicious! It almost tastes like lobster bisque with mixed seafood, and having the lobster stock already done made it unbelievable easy.

The next dish involved a pan-fried skate wing. Skate is…scary and gross. It looks like a smaller cousin to the stingray, and the slime that comes off of that thing is out of a horror movie. As I was handling the wing (the skate was split down the middle, so each team got a half), I kept hearing a quartet playing an ominous and macabre tune, like the audience knew something I didn't, and I half expected the thing to come alive and spear me with its razor sharp spikes. It didn't even look God-made, nevertheless edible. Its skin was so rubbery and slick, my sharp fillet knife wouldn't even cut through it. I ended up cutting the perimeter with my kitchen shears, and slowly working my way down its ribcage to release the fillet. Every few minutes or so I felt a spike attempt to spear through my palm; thank goodness there was a layer of brown-slimed rubber glove in between.

Seriously - this is Skate (Image courtesy of Kathy Sosebee of the NEFSC)

The skate wing produces a feathered, fingerlike fillet that fans out like an accordion. We portioned four pieces, floured one side and pan-fried it in clarified butter. We served it with a classic Grenobloise, a brown butter sauce with capers, lemon juice, lemon slices and parsley. We also threw a large potato football on the plate, with each side dipped in minced parsley. Kind of hilarious looking, but it brought a fancy touch to the plate.

After the whole skate experience, I'm a little weary of the unknown creatures of the sea. Like I said, always new experiences at the French Culinary Institute…some are slimey, some are salty, some are bloody and some are just plain gross.

Friday, 4/23/10 – Level 3 Day 4 (Garde Manger)

Garde manger is finally over…even though we'll be back at it in a few weeks anyways. Who ever thought soups and salads would be so hard?? In my defense, I think the hard part was that we were always the first to present, and therefore had to high-tail it around the kitchen, throwing vegetable peels and salad spinners in our wake.

We made a vegetable soup called Potage Cultivateur, which includes many many carrots, turnips and potatoes cut into tiny tile shapes. We cooked a vegetable stock with the scraps, sweated some leeks and celery in butter and poured in the stock. Then we added cabbage and our potato tiles, cranking the heat so that the potato would semi-dissolve and bind the soup into a thicker consistency. We served it with some baguette slices and grated gruyere, and got it to Chef right on time. Phew! The taste was fantastic, and he even commented on our perfect taillage, or knife skills, while cutting the little tiles. Dish one down, one salad left.

We then got started on our Salade Nicoise, the classic French composed salad with tuna, olives, anchovies, tomatoes, green peppers, hard-boiled eggs and potatoes. Sounds easy enough, but each item has to be cooked separately, seasoned and cooled, and we had about 15 minutes and two burners to do everything. Unfortunately, our potatoes were still a little raw, but that may or may not have been what we intended…you don't know me!! I was actually just really happy to have made it to class that day, as my afternoon had been a little nuts, to say the least…

I decided to take a temporary receptionist job on Friday that ended at 5pm. I like to get to school around 5:15 to get dressed and ready, so in order to make it on time would simply need to hop in a cab, New York City's fastest mode of transportation from areas not close to a subway, and zoom down Broadway to be dropped off at school. Seems simple enough, of course this will work! I got out to Park Avenue at about 5:10, already running a little late. Can you drive 60 blocks in 5 minutes? I sure hope so! It was rush hour on a Friday evening, and although a million cabs kept zooming past me they were all occupied or off duty. Ok, I'll just walk to Lexington Avenue, which is a one-way downtown street, where I will surely catch a cab. Not so much; it put me on an emotional rollercoaster, calling Steve every five minutes sobbing telling him I was just forgetting it all and coming home. No, I'm going to stick it out, a cab will come eventually. No, I am not putting up with this I would rather not go than be embarrassingly late. Oh crap, we have a test today…TAXI!!! No, I'm coming home I need a drink. I have to get to school, I can't skip it!!

It was taking a huge toll on me; I yelled at a tourist mother and daughter troupe because they were also trying to get a cab. "Do you see me here?? DO. YOU. SEE. ME. HERE??" (They'll never come back to New York.) I finally got a cab…at 5:45 pm, the exact time that class was starting. I was now on my way…slowly. The kind and understanding driver (not) decided that driving out of his way to go through Times Square would be the ideal route…on a Friday evening. While it inflated the fare, it added about 20 minutes onto the trip…a lose-lose situation for me. We finally pulled up to school at 6:25pm, a full 40 minutes into class. I was so apathetic at this point, I didn't even care. I swiped my credit card and gathered my things to get out. What's that, an error message? Ok, I'll swipe it again. He claimed that the machine didn't have a signal, so he'd have to drive around the block. To make a long story short, after three credit cards and seven blocks, the machine still wasn't working. We got in a little tiff because he told me my cards were bad and I had overdrawn my account…and I kindly informed him that his machine was obviously broken and that he would need to take me to a bank if he wanted his fare. He agreed to do so, because I think he saw the foam starting to form in the corners of my mouth, but then tried to charge me again for the ride back to school. Keep in mind that at this point we were in the heart of Chinatown, fighting tourists clamoring for their knock-off designer goods and fish markets piling more ice onto their rotten fish, so it would be about another $6 to get back to school. Nope, not on my watch. I explained to him that the police man standing on the corner would LOVE to get involved in this mess (by mess I mean - My Life in Song), and as I started to roll down my window and call to the cop the driver turned off his fare machine. Ok, small victory. He pulled in front of school, I threw him some cash (but made him give me $1 change ha…ha…ha) and ran into school. I got changed and walked in the kitchen…at the exact moment they were wrapping up lecture. I didn't miss a single minute of cooking - what are the odds?? I got incredibly lucky, and although I missed a good amount of lecture it won't be hard to copy someone else's notes. And the test? Postponed…unbelievable. Looking back on the fiasco, I was obviously not meant to get to class on time with all of those ridiculous obstacles. Imagine my surprise when we checked our online accounts and found that each of those card swipes had in fact worked…and we're being charged multiple times to each of our cards. Don't worry, Steve has already put a call into the bank and I will be alerting the local news as soon as the charges clear. Dear Yellow Cab: I may look sweet, but I pack a big bite.

I love you, New York.

Wednesday, 4/21/10 – Level 3 Day 3 (Garde Manger)

It was a hard night in the world of simulated-restaurant-situation appetizers and salads. So hard, in fact, that we threw in the towel…several times. Seriously, we literally threw in the towel that was used to wipe up the massive spills and mess that we created in such a short time. Our station looked like a war zone – there was cheesecloth soaked in an unidentified brown liquid stuck to the flat top, tomato scraps and seeds shoved under my cutting board and a pile of metal bowls taller than my hair con
bump-it. We were late on both dishes, which was very disappointing because we were doing so well all night up until the last five frantic minutes. Sure, it is only our third day, but the two dishes seemed so easy at first.

Our first dish was a consommé made with veal stock. A consommé, if you remember from Level 1, (Eh? Eh?) is a clarified and fortified stock soup that is served with miniature cubes of mixed vegetables. The process of clarification kind of sounds like a joke: 1. Hand-mix ground beef, egg whites, chopped tomatoes and raw julienned leeks, carrots and celery in a bowl. 2. Slowly add the warm veal stock, then put it all back into a large stockpot and bring to a slow simmer, stirring. 3. A "raft" of the cooked meat and eggs will form on the top, and you help to form it into a doughnut with a wooden spoon and ladle. 4. After simmering for an hour, ladle the clear soup through the middle of the raft and strain through cheesecloth. Wow, that is gross. Consommé has such a rich and warm flavor, though, and it's perfectly clear from the extensive clarification process, making the little vegetable cubes stick out. It is served incredibly hot, often in a side pitcher (in those fancy establishments) and poured over the vegetables in front of the diner. Our dish was seasoned well and overall pretty good except that the green beans were undercooked. Not the end of the world, but hearing that criticism out of a tall French man's mouth (Chef Marc again) makes it seem life-ending.

Our second dish was not as great. Sure, a poached egg on a bed of vegetable cubes covered in hollandaise sounds easy. Piece of cake! We'll just take our time poaching eggs, arranging vegetables onto the plates like little obnoxious round pillows. We've got all the time in the world to make the hollandaise! Go, grab a drink and use the restroom, we're walkin' on sunshine here. WRONG. The dream sequence ends here. Before we knew it, we were 10 minutes from go-time, hadn't yet reheated the eggs and hadn't even started the hollandaise, therefore losing all possibility of it being the creamy, runny, warm delicacy it's supposed to be. We ran out of time, understandably so, and…I'll just say this – when we presented, Chef rolled his eyes and said, "Oh yum, cold poached eggs with mayonnaise." Ouch. I ate a little bit of it – he was being kind.

It's the curse of garde manger, I swear! The last group in our position got verbally reamed in front of everyone, and the station behind us had to re-do their consommé two times! What is it about appetizers and salads that stress us out? We've survived organ meats, finicky pastries, precisely cut carrot cubes and killing innocent crustaceans*, yet we cannot serve a complete hollandaise or a hot poached egg? It's like we're regressing from the progress and ladder-climbing we've been doing over the past 3 months. I only hope we can pull it together before our midterm. But hey, you can't be too hard on yourself; maybe we're letting the pressure take hold of us, and we should just relax and get to work. Easier said than done, but I plan on showing that Salade Nicoise who's boss on Friday.

*among many other untold tales of love and loss

Monday, 4/19/10 – Level 3 Day 2 (Pastry)

Monday was my second and last day in pastry before moving on to the next section of the kitchen. We finally got to meet our real live Level 3 Chef, who made it clear to us that he'd be "tightening the belt" very soon. He was much more understanding, though, and had many positive and encouraging remarks for our delicious desserts. Since learning my lesson last week and starving to death in the 3^rd floor stairwell, I packed a snack and had the energy to make it through the frantic evening. I miss having family meal and the opportunity to take a 30-minute break to chat with my classmates. Real world schmeal world.

We made a delicious lemon tart in a shortbread crust and topped it with sugared raspberries – YUM! It was definitely bartering gold with my classmates, and I got a delicious piece of grilled salmon and half of a seared pork chop for one of those little lemon goodies. The crust was beautifully browned and the custard was just right – perfection. We used the cutest little tart molds (Miss Ginger probably has a million) which made the perfect dessert size that would probably cost $18 in a fancy restaurant. If only…

We also made the classic dessert Pots de Crème, a baked vanilla custard much like Crème Brulee without the caramel crust. We baked them in little ceramic ramekins and served them with a single chocolate cigarette. The chocolate was a last-minute addition from Chef, and starts with a batter that is very similar in taste/consistency to brownie batter. It is spread into shallow round molds, baked for a few minutes and rolled over a pencil while still warm. While there are many things about pastry and I that don't mix (get it? Mix?), my main issue with the desserts are that their ingredients are always very messy. Whether it's icing, flour, egg yolks or chocolate, I always always find a way to ruin a perfectly dry-cleaned uniform or smear something messy across my face. Case in point: I spilled a small amount of cocoa powder on my apron, and after 5 minutes of shaking and rubbing I had a massive brown spot the size of my head down the front of me. Thank goodness I didn't SIT in cocoa powder…awkward! The very nice lady at Sun Cleaners & Laundry probably judges me and my messy piles, but I'm sure she's seen some interesting stuff.

I'm finding that school is starting to take a toll on the health of my sleep schedule (big surprise). I usually have the opportunity to blabber about school gossip and rattle off the night's activities to my adoring husband when I get home late at night, way past his bedtime. Understandably so, since he gets up very early in the morning, he had already fallen asleep by the time I got home Monday night. I tried talking to the cat, who just got confused and thought she was being fed, so I pried her off my bare leg and went to bed with many things unsaid. I had a terribly hard time falling asleep, and kept tossing and turning with visions of fruit tarts and serrated knives dancing through my head. I finally fell sleep after a while, but I'm luckily I didn't have to be anywhere in the morning. I'm just nervous for the next chicken recipe I make…that'll be an interesting night.