Line Cooking

Did some practice for the actual service days today by letting 1st term students order off our menu. I was at the chicken station, which takes the longest to cook. So now we have some idea of when to fire the chicken when it's ordered at least. Not that I know when I'll be there again or anything. :P Wonder what my next station will be.. hopefully desserts. I love plating those things and I'm guessing it's the coldest station in the kitchen. ^_^ It is not pretty when it starts heating up in there, and of course the damn neck-kerchief is the first thing to heat up. D:
Service went... well enough, I guess? There was a lot of confusion on the servers end because it was there first time, and now and then we had trouble getting all of the entrees on one ticket done at the same time, but hopefully it'll smooth out.

Okay, picture time. xD



First picture are our three starter dishes. From right to left: Squash Soup, Pear Salad, and a fried Oyster appetizer. That's the order they get served in..
The second picture are the starters next to all of our entrees; A Vegan Garbanzo Pattie dish, Chicken with glazed carrots, mushrooms (chantrelle and button,) and potatoes, Steak with greens, blue cheese, corn, potatoes, and demi-glace, Salmon with mustard greens on top of a squash puree, and a Shrimp pasta dish. :)

Pies!

Today in Desserts, we made an apple pie and a pumpkin pie. :)
As exhausting as the Wednesday schedule is, it still feels worth it when you have a beautiful end product! Good thing I feel that way, too, or I'd never in a million years make it as a cook! haha

So, Pumpkin pies are actually annoying to make within a 3 1/2 hour time frame, because they take nearly an hour to bake, and a lifetime to cool. Chef Michelle nearly gagged when some groups gave her a slice that was not completely cooled. :S So warm pie was not an option. I stuck mine in the freezer after too long trying to cool it in the walk in and it did the trick. :) The apple pie was a pain in the butt. My teammate mostly worked on that, and it turned out pretty shoddy but I'm not going to pretend I could have done it any better because I've never made an apple pie before. :P
We both did things here and there for each other, as well, of course.

Okay, most satisfying part of the day was the very end! Every week, Chef will choose the best plating job that must be copied and used for actual service, and she chose my plating job on the pumpkin pie! :D Woot! She also chose my teammates plating for apple pie so I guess we were just rocking the plating this week. xD Okay, done boasting. Look at some adorable pies now!
I didn't get any of the apple, mainly because I wasn't the one plating it so it slipped my mind.

Oh, the middle is a little bit droopy because I've never cooked a pumpkin pie before, so it had just a few more minutes to go when I took it out. It tasted delicious anyhow.

Top: Before adding anything. Center: Overhead view. Bottom: View from "maple leaf" side.

If it's hard to see, click it for the original large size image. Basically it's surrounded by rosettes of hand-whipped cream, sprinkled very lightly with cinnamon (which shows up better off camera, but you can see it a bit in the pictures.) :)

A La Carte

Actually ended up doing a LOT yesterday, on A La Carte day. So much, in fact, that none of us got eat until 1:30. Besides being exhausting, it was really fun. We learned about all the stations, and practiced making our stations' dish. Started with prep, which in normal days we will always have to have done by 11:15. I was on the fish station with my classmate, D. All of the dishes were very gorgeous when plated, so it's a shame that I didn't have my camera on me! Most importantly, all of the things I tasted were DELICIOUS. :) I think that this is going to be a very fun class, and it'll be great to get some more realistic line cook experience.

Today was simply Food Service Nutrition class day. Looks like it's going to be an easy but fun class, at only 2 credits, so I'm happy for that. I volunteered for prep after class. We prepped food for a womans 95th birthday - she has donated quite a large amount of money to CCI, so on Sunday the culinary department is cooking her and a big group of her friends a nice dinner. Prep was fun for the most part, but I was pretty tired from the week and having some woman-troubles (cough*pms*cough) so it could have gone better for me. Fun enough though, just got a lot of things ready so they'll be easy for the cooks on Sunday. :)

Wont have anything until Wednesday. I decided that I cannot handle Tuesdays pig-corpse breakdown so I talked to Chef Thor and he'll let me go to lecture that day and make up for the lab another day.

Have to remember my camera for Wednesday and from now on to keep a record of all the beautiful things we are creating!

Desserts

Something I've realized today...
If you try to have anything resembling a life after a class that goes from 10:15a-4:30p, you will get no work done. :|
Not that I'm behind or anything. Really, I just would have hoped to get more... ahead. :P

Today... there was a REALLY long lecture. Seriously. Really long. Then we made lemon meringue tarts, and that was fun. There is a new girl in my class, because she had a baby two years ago during her third term in culinary, and I got to work with her. She's pretty cool, so it was all good. Messed up a few things, but hey... first week. :D Normally I prepare at least the night before by typing recipes in the order I want them done, printing those out, and making sure everything is just right and blah blah blah, but I wasn't able to do that this time around. Next week should go smoother.

Excited for this class because there is an emphasis on plating things, which I love! I'm pretty decent at it so far, and I'm happy to get more practice and become better at it. I think if I could get a job just plating desserts, I would. :D

Wont have anything to say tomorrow (most likely) because tomorrow is A La Carte service and there's no one to serve for the first week at least. Just going to have a lecture, and hopefully that'll only take a few hours and I'll have mucho time to do homework and read ahead some. :)

Charcuterie and Butchering

Survived my first day of meat class without puking! :D

What we did today...
Cut a chicken into eight pieces, did it the french style, just for practice. Then we de-boned them and made chicken apple sausage with it. The raw chicken smell kept churning my stomach every time it wafted up. >.<

We also cubed a giant slab of pork butt (pig shoulder cut) which was easier than chicken because t doesn't smell as strong or get all over the place as much. Still, pigs are much cuter and I like them better so it still wasn't any fun!

The day was pretty fun even though it was gross, too. Nice to have another class with Chef Thor. I don't remember what the reason is, but he did his really hilarious impression of the Little Caesars dancing sign lady in class today. xD It was pretty spot on, actually, so it was reaaallly funny! :P

Still waiting for my book for this class to arrive, probably going to get here next week, and then I'll have some reading to catch up on. :o

Almost

Almost time to get back in the swing of all this.

Schedule is a bit stranger this time, and also a bit easier thank goodness. :)

• Mon - Dining Room & Banquet Management-- 10:15A - 12:35P
• Tue - Charcuterie and Butchering------------------- 8:00A - 2:30P
• Wed - Custards, Creams & Desserts----------------- 10:15A - 4:30P
• Thu - A La Carte Cooking-------------------------------- 8:00A - 2:00P
• Fri - Food Service Nutrition----------------------------- 8:00A - 9:45P

The colors are because of the colors of the folders I use in those classes. Yep, super dorky. :D

I like that the week starts and ends on easy/short classes. :D Going to be especially nice on the first week, since I'm barely going to be used to waking up early at all.

The biggest difference is that, instead of Dining Room being a day that I always dreaded, it's now simply a lecture class! The first term students aren't going to have that luxury. >:D Now, on Thursdays; days that were usually Dining Room days, we'll be the ones in the kitchen cooking the meals. The only instructor we haven't yet worked with is on Thursdays as well.
Still 3 days of kitchen, but only two are strictly learning classes now, the third being service day. Really curious how that class works... kind of nervous that it doesn't actually work so well, judging from how rocky last term was in terms of communicating between dining room and kitchen.

Really dreading Charcuterie and Butchering, obviously. Looking forward to Desserts, though! Besides the whole getting out at 4:30PM part.. that doesn't sound so fun.
Also looking forward to Food Service Nutrition being only a 2 credit class as opposed to last term when Fridays were Food Service Management, a 4 credit class with a workload to match. D:

11 weeks and then I'm done with kitchen class stuffs! Then I just need to get rid of the 3-4 terms worth of other classes I need to get an AAS degree! Whoo! :D