Friday, 9/10/10 – Level 6 Day 1 (Saucier)

First official day of Level 6! It's finally fall here in the great City of New York, and I find it hard to believe that I started at FCI back at the very beginning of January, as the Christmas high was wearing off and the few dreary months of blizzards and bitter cold still lay ahead. I've now been through a beautiful spring, where the flowers bloomed pink and yellow up and down Park Avenue, and a miserably hot summer, when I went through so much iced coffee it was sinful and spent spare weekends lounging by the city pool. The year is coming full-circle, and it's hard to believe that next month I will be leaving what has become my home-away-from-home to forge off into the culinary world with a fresh degree in my hands. In fact, just a year ago I was unmarried, professionally miserable and hadn't even considered the possibilities of culinary school. How beautiful life is sometimes.

We're already feeling comfortable in our new level, searing off lamb loins and duck breasts like crazy. One thing I know for sure, though, is that the Level 5 students are going to have a loooong five weeks. It's not my place to assume or discuss what happens over there at their station, right next to ours, but all I know is that as their chef was screaming at them at the top of his lungs, the kitchen was so quiet I could hear the seam splitting open on the back of the three shrimp searing on the burner over in Poissonnier. I could also hear the liquid boiling inside the veins popping out of his forehead and simultaneously exploding out both ears like a teapot. It was bad. Then again, some of them aren't the brightest bulbs in the box. For example, we share one long counter top with the Level 5 Entremetier and Saucier, and the boundaries of each are clearly distinguishable. One particularly dim light went through his station (Entremetier), through his class's Saucier station and over to ours to plug in his blender and prepare a sauce on our countertop.

"Hey dude, could you please take your blender back to your station? We need our counter space."

-silence-

"Hey, how's it going? Cool. Um, yea, I'm going to have to ask you to move your blender back to your station. This is our counter space."

"I'm ignoring you because your sh*t is filling up the entire counter, and I had nowhere to place my blender."

Oh no he didn't. "Do you realize that I'm in Level 6, and you are now encroaching on our space? Therefore, take your blender back to Level 5 and resolve that issue with your own classmates."

"Oh…….ok." (Right foot is slowly raised then inserted into mouth.)

For realsies, buddy, open your eyes. I mean, no one deserves to be screamed at by a hot-tempered older gentleman (or a hot-tempered, pale, 20-something hellcat), but sometimes you have to learn a little respect, humility and responsibility, and if it takes having your mistakes pointed out to you over and over again then maybe that's the solution. Then again, it's easy for me to say because now we're BFF with our chef (usually), but I've been yelled at in the kitchen and told I don't know what I'm doing and hey – I turned out just fine! (*your opinions on this subject are not welcome)

We had our first lecture about the upcoming final exam, and of course chef made it seem like it's going to be the hardest, worst day of our lives. It's formatted similarly to the midterm, where we must cook either an appetizer and a meat dish or a fish dish and a dessert…by memory. We will present them to a panel of real judges, usually famous chefs and restaurateurs, and be judged not only on our kitchen presence but final dish taste, accuracy and presentation. We were cautioned to think of the final constantly, with every step we take over the next five weeks, so of course I've turned that into all-around obsession. Unlike Level 3, where we cooked each dish at least ten times before being responsible for it on the midterm, we will only have a crack at each recipe TWICE this time around, and must be constantly vigilant and aware of what the other groups are doing as well. Now might be a good time for me to just take my knife kit and run…far, far away.

The good news is that I found a new mecca this weekend – Eataly by Mario Batali, Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Joe Bastianich. It's not only an Italian marketplace but a collection of restaurants and all-around teleportation to Italy, in the center of Manhattan! I was in absolute heaven walking around the 50,000-square feet of salami, espresso, gelato, fresh pastas and produce unlike anything I've ever seen. In fact, there were several items I've never actually seen in person (such as the topic of one of my favorite Louis Prima songs – the cucuzza), yet also some veggies I'd never even heard of! Cranberry beans, lobster mushrooms, pous-pide sea beans…where does it end? They also had mini corn IN THE HUSK…how freaking cool is that!! I took the opportunity to buy a little of everything – some sea beans, cranberry beans, zucchini flowers and heirloom tomatoes and used the weekend to conduct a series of tasting experiments. I did a lot of Googling – how is this cooked, what is its origin, etc. – yet made a few misjudgments and mistakes. In a past life I was a biologist and have always loved the creative freedom a laboratory can inspire, so my kitchen has become my own little experiment. The nice lady at the checkout counter sarcastically pointed out that our $8.00 bill made us a few spontaneous big spenders livin' large, but we were happy to just take in the experience and enjoy all Eataly had to offer. I'll have to wait a few months to visit the real Italy, so I think I'll be frequenting this new spot to get my googootz fix.

Wednesday, 9/8/10 – Level 5 Day 20 (Saucier)

And so it begins…the final stretch of my time at the French Culinary Institute. On our last day of Level 5, we moved up a level so that the graduating students could take their final upstairs. It's known as the "cross-over" day, when we learn our new recipes and meet-and-greet the new kids. Well, I seem to be the only one meeting and greeting, but I'm always about 35% cornier than the average person so it doesn't really surprise me all that much. "Hey dudes…ya ready? Getting' excited??" I asked the Level 5 Saucier students working right next to us. Had it been a movie, there would have been crickets. Lots of them. Along with someone yelling, "You suck!" out of the silence.

Our usual chef is on vacation, so we had the pleasure of being led by a kind and skilled chef who often bounces around to different classes. He also happens to be the one who taught us the sous vide lesson in Level 3, and if you'll remember, he's incredibly hard to understand. I wanted so hard to follow his orders and impress him, but it took my non-French brain approximately 10 seconds to decipher every word he said. "Coo zee lah teel meed rah." Ok, I can do this. He's heating up a pan and grabbing a lamb loin; lamb is usually served at medium rare, so…he wants us to cook the lamb until its medium rare! "Yes chef." I couldn't tell if his confused look was because I answered him wrong or because I stared at him, eyes glossy and brain elsewhere, for a few seconds longer than is socially acceptable. "Don, blah-nch zee kay." Blanche the kale. "Saw-tee ze cham-piy-no." Saute the mushrooms. We made some good headway, but there was a ton of prep to do. Our recipes are pretty complicated, and they require days of preparation to pull off one night of service, so we must not only plan for the night, but we must also plan for the next night and the night after that. I know it will get easier, but the first night in Saucier was borderline overwhelming, with two brand new recipes and a whole slew of new techniques and things to keep in mind.

One of our dishes, Duck Breast with Duck Leg Confit and Kale and a Sweet and Sour Sauce with Shiitake Mushrooms, requires a duck stock to be made in advance. We were preparing for next week's service and decided to make our duck stock, roasting the bones in the oven first. It was my job to pry the sticky, steaming brown carcasses off the pan to cool, so I started carefully jiggling them loose with my tongs and placing them nicely and neatly, all lined up like a macabre fairy tale, in another pan. They weren't fitting properly, perhaps because I was treating the little duckies too tenderly. Chef came by and, seeing my obvious hesitation, took a side towel, laid it on top of the skeletons and leaned his entire weight down onto them. The crushing, crumbling and (imaginary?) screeching was almost too hard to stand.

We had about three different things on the stove, along with one water bath that was on a quick track to boiling over. I was manning a sauté pan and reached down to adjust the temperature…and there was no knob. The problem was that we only had one knob to control six burners, so I had to play an arcade game all night jumping from burner to burner with our one knob. When you're rushing, you're not always careful with minute details, and since the knob has a flat side that must be lined up in order to be fit there were a few close calls. I did get compliments for a perfect medium rare lamb that I cooked as a demo for chef…so maybe that sweaty time at the grill paid off. Or the sweaty time at the oven. Then again, it could have been the sweaty time at the sink.

It's exciting to be on the last leg of school. I'm definitely ready to get my life back to normal…if there is such a thing.

Friday, 9/3/10 – Level 5 Day 19 (Garde Manger)

As the city of New York braced for Hurricane Earl (and then watched it pass by…), I was busy completing my last class in Level 5. It was strange, sharing the kitchen with the Level 6 students who are mere days away from graduation, juggling their cameras as I took pictures of them posing with various chefs, teammates and kitchen equipment. We had about 70 covers, which is a good night that will keep you moving enough to prevent your leg from falling asleep but definitely not enough to cause you to do any significant sweating (unless you're me). We have our dishes down by now and can almost do them on autopilot, so it was smooth sailing.

We're finally coming together as a group and letting our individual personalities show, which is unfortunate because after five weeks of high stress and anxiety we're just now really getting to know each other. We got our group assignments for Level 6, and I couldn't be happier; I'll be with a good friend with whom I haven't yet had a chance to work, an old friend with whom I haven't worked since Level 1 and someone from my current group. I'm hoping we will work together better than my current group, but judging from the names on the list we won't have a problem with organization. I'm starting off in Saucier, which means I'll end in Poissonnier…great practice for our final (which is fast approaching…eeps!).

I decided to live large and grab a beer with a few classmates after school on Friday night. I know…calm down Jackie! We went to the neighborhood joint, and I got to spend some quality time with classmates with whom I don't normally get to socialize. For example, one of my classmates is actually a very accomplished professional cook. I knew he'd recently appeared on two very highly watched food programs: "Grill it! With Bobby Flay" and "Throwdown! With Bobby Flay," but had no idea he had established himself as such an authority. Check out his website, The Food Experiments, where he organizes and runs amateur cooking competitions. Fascinating, right?? Maybe someday I'll gather up enough cajones to enter one of his competitions. Or I could just pretend I'm competing in my own kitchen…that's fun too. Sometimes.

I don't know about your neck of the woods, but here on the East Coast hurricane Earl sure brought in some gorgeous weather! It was about 75˚F and sunny all weekend, and we took every opportunity possible to take advantage of the fresh, cool air. We took a long walk up the East River and over to Ward's Island, home to a huge mental institution. I was afraid Steve was going to leave me there, but we quickly took in the sights and headed back to Manhattan. On Labor Day, we rented a car and drove out to the New Jersey side of the Delaware Water Gap, a gorgeous and serene retreat just an hour and a half away from the city. We hiked to the ragged top of the great Mount Tammany, approximately 4 miles up and 1,300 feet in the sky. Even though my brother just hiked Mount Rainier, which is about 14x the size of the trail we did this weekend, it still felt like a great accomplishment. We found our reward at the top of the mountain – a huge natural lake called Sunfish Pond, where we unpacked our lunch sack and enjoyed a few idle minutes of mountain breeze in the peaceful shade. I had read the warnings on the website before going: "WARNING: BEARS! Don't leave food, cross their paths or mention forest fires" blah blah blah, but I never thought much of it. A few fellow hikers told us they saw FIVE bears on their hike, yet we didn't see a single one! I did almost step on a tree snake, though…so that was pretty dangerous I guess. I kept searching for these supposed bears, yet kept tripping on the jagged path so decided to just keep my head down and my mouth shut. It was such a wonderful day, and we'll definitely find ourselves on the Appalachian Trail again. Maybe I'll finally see some bears this time. Then again…nevermind.

Wednesday, 9/1/10 – Level 5 Day 18 (Garde Manger)

So, it was our second-to-last day in Level 5, and it went almost as smoothly as the others in Garde Manger. I got excited at the beginning of class and declared, "Happy Last Day of Level 6!" to our kitchen mates. "…it's not our last day." Oh, gee, sorry. My bad. Friday is the last day of the current menu in the restaurant, so we were advised not to prepare too much food – only enough to get us through service on Friday evening. We were pretty conservative with our prep, and of course on a night when we made 20 tomato tarts, 25 were ordered. It's not too hard of a fix, but since I was on the dish it just added extra stress to my job. It's a fantastic dish – the word must be getting around!

I've been working pretty steadily for the past few weeks, and was extended on my current project until the end of September. That means great things for our bank account, yet bad things for my sanity and personal awareness (see Example). I had just finished a long day at work, the third in succession, and was facing a long night of school ahead. I may or may not have mentioned this before, but I'm a big reader (you can give me a wedgie later) and can almost always be found with a book in hand. I just started a new novel, got a seat on the subway and settled in for the long ride. Hmm…this book is great. Deep story lines, creative character development and intriguing plot twists…I'm greatly enjoying this. Then all of a sudden…"Next stop – 86^th Street." That's weird, since when does the downtown train go uptown to stop at 86^th Street, then back down to SoHo for school? "Please stand clear of the closing doors." Oh crap…wait a minute…CRAP! I'm on the wrong train!! Eeps! "GETTING OFF!" I grabbed my stuff and powered through the crowd, barely making it out as the closing door clipped my heels. I now had to walk through to the downtown platform, wait for the train and backtrack 30 blocks, only to find myself where I first started twenty minutes later. The sad part is that this is not the first time I've done this…I once ended up in New Jersey. That's a whole different transit line. Granted, I was a Freshman New Yorker, but for some reason I have way too much faith in my subconscious to lead me towards the right train. I was a few minutes late for school, but hey, it could have been worse…like New Jersey worse.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Steve usually cooks dinner to allow me some time to relax and update my blog. I kept having the nagging need to fill my stomach with risotto NOW, so I decided to take action and create. Enjoy!

THREE MUSHROOM RISOTTO WITH CRUNCHY GARLIC SPINACH AND SEARED PORK TENDERLOIN

Serves 4

You Will Need:

½ cup White onion, diced

3 T butter, room temperature

2 cups Arborio Rice

¾ cup White wine

6 cups Chicken stock (not broth)

3 T Mascarpone cheese

Salt and Pepper to taste

9 T Oil (Canola or Vegetable work well here)

5 medium-sized Cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced

1 large Portobello mushroom, stems removed, thinly sliced and halved, if necessary

4 large Shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, thinly sliced

4 Pork tenderloin medallions (or, accidentally, Canadian bacon in my case…hey, everything looks the same when it's unmarked and frozen)

2 Garlic cloves, minced

1 large bunch Spinach, rinsed, stems removed, dried

Procedure:

Heat oven to 350˚F.

Bring the chicken stock to a boil and keep it warm. Sweat the onions in a large saucepan until they are translucent and aromatic. Add the butter and the rice to the pan, and mix well until all of the rice is well-covered with fat and beginning to cook. Do not get any color on the rice! Pour in the white wine and let it reduce until the pan is almost dry. Add the chicken stock two ladles at a time – allowing the rice to soak up the liquid completely before adding more. Let it cook slowly, and remember to stir often so that the bottom doesn't brown.

The mushrooms must be cooked separately. Heat 3 T oil in a sauté pan until very hot. Add one kind of mushrooms and sauté until the edges start to crisp, moving constantly. Continue with the other types of mushrooms, setting each aside.

In an oven-safe pan, heat 2 T oil until very hot. Season both sides of the pork with a generous amount of salt and pepper, and add to the pan. Once one side develops a nice brown, flip. Place the whole pan, uncovered, in the oven and cook until the center of the pork reaches 140˚F.

Once the risotto is cooked (make sure you taste it! If crunchy…keep adding stock), stir in the mascarpone and a generous amount of salt and pepper. Risotto by itself is pretty bland, so seasoning is incredibly important. Stir in the mushrooms, as well as any juices that have dripped out of them.

Using the same pan you used for the mushrooms, heat oil and get it very hot. Throw in half the garlic and cook very briefly until aromatic (about 30 seconds). Throw in half of the spinach (don't overcrowd the pan) and cook just until half of the leaves are wilting. Place in a colander. Cook the other half of the garlic/spinach.

Serve a scoop of risotto in a bowl, covered with the spinach and pork. Yum!

Monday, 8/30/10 – Level 5 Day 17 (Garde Manger)

Good news: I didn't insult my new chef's intelligence by spurting some pseudo-English sentence like, "Me fine, do good" when greeted with his heavy Southern French accent. He's actually incredibly nice, and I spent the rest of the night peppering him (get it?) with questions about procedures, ingredients and dishes. I finally feel like I have a chef who's willing to teach and encourage, and it definitely helps that we have a lot of down time in Garde Manger. We were done with prep by 7:15pm again on Monday…and with only 40 customers total in the restaurant all night there were a lot of random yet engaging conversations amongst us – the Level 5 students who are preparing to become the Big (Wo)Men On Campus – and the Level 6 students – counting down the hours until they graduate. It was a great night, and things went incredibly smooth. We even bartered with the Level 6 students to trade a plate of Fluke Carpaccio with their Chicken and Beef Consommé…mmm.

We house the large walk-in refrigerator for the entire restaurant in our Garde Manger kitchen. Each group within each level stores their proteins and leftovers, clearly labeled and organized, in the walk-in refrigerator, which is usually kept at a degree in the low-40s. With the current heat wave, combined with the fact that the door is opened (and often not properly latched shut) hundreds of times per night, the temperature slowly rises and rises, bringing the food closer to the danger zone and threatening one large ticket from the Health Department and thousands of dollars in spoiled food. The temperature got so bad on Monday that the chefs had to do an emergency "evacuation" of the most important things – stocks, fresh fish and meat – into a nearby refrigerator for overnight storage. It was my job, naturally, to make sure the large metal door was closed and latched shut after each visitor, so I spent the night throwing my weight against the door and pushing hard…only to have it opened five minutes later. My backside is a little tender today, but public safety and proper food storage techniques are my number one priority (hi Health Department, thanks for reading my blog).

I've always known I have a rare social problem, I've just never been willing to admit it. Through countless awkward interactions, blank stares and watch-glances, I just continue on, oblivious and ignorant. My problem, that I now acknowledge, is only exacerbated by anxiousness, stress and heat. Here it is: I am an over-talker. I hate awkward silences, so I will find any reason, or any subject, to fill the gap. Junk mail, trees, pencils, nail polish – no subject is off limits. I often don't take my audience into consideration (strange, considering I was in public relations…) and will simply just chat into open air. I distinctly remember a peaceful elevator ride on the first night of school with two new classmates that was ruined by my nervous laughing and obsession over that fact that the other girl was named Jackie. "Ha…ha…hee…hee…Jackie and Jackie! What are the odds! Hee…Ha…wow…I mean, it's Jackie…and Jackie!" Let's put it this way – it took me a while to break down the barriers that I built that night with my own words and obnoxiousness.

There's one more thing I didn't mention. For whatever reason – whether it's because of the Powers Above or just my own lack of self awareness, I also do a lot of air quotes. I can't help it. I see myself doing it – raising one arm slowly, the other following just a second behind while the thumbs, ring fingers and pinkies curl toward my palms; the remaining pointer finger and middle finger join together to bob once…twice into a simulated double apostrophe. It happens, I know it happens yet I can't stop it from happening. I once counted, in a recent interview, four instances of air quotes. Four. That's probably four clear reasons why I didn't get the job…

I guess that's the beauty of having your own personal blog. I can ramble on and on in the form of the typed word, and no one can say a single darn thing. I can also edit myself after-the-fact…a pill I'm still hoping scientists will develop for the spoken word.