day three blues

Modern Banquets. Its a simple-sounding class. And, it is simple!

Although simple never, ever means easy. Okay, maybe it does in some circumstances. Like drawing cubes. That's pretty simple, and its pretty easy.

Day three of modern banquets, my team was responsible for a cabbage braise, sautéed apples, and some hash brown potatoes. Easy and simple!

Right? Right? That is, until you throw into the mix: a new chef, some unruly potatoes, and your own poor judgement. We're here to learn, right?

My teammate and I stare down into the pan of potatoes we cut yesterday. "Uh-oh" I say, cheekily but with all seriousness. "Yup" he replies back. The 10 lbs of potatoes we cooked, cut, and saved yesterday, have in some pieces turned a lovely deep purple-black on the tips; a mar against the pale yellow-white of the rest of the Russets sitting in the pan. We dig though them, snatching up all the ugly hash brown pieces like they are dollar bills on a game show. The loss of 5 lbs of potatoes is annoying, but not a total loss.

My sliced apples are not my ideal. I read the recipe posted online by my other chef, "Cut apples in to 1/8ths". I do so. However, this is before the morning lecture by the chef. Chef DePaula says, "No, not eighths, just thin slices!" for the apples. Trying to cut an already cut apple isn't the best situation, so my slices are tiny bit uneven. Okay, they're fairly uneven. WHATEVER I say. Chef disagrees, and I tell him sorry. He said, "I'm sure you didn't try and hurt my feelings with your apple slices, Courtney!" I say, "Well, Chef, they'll be perfect tomorrow!"

And then, I realize that the most important thing about cooking isn't what you're cooking. Its cooking whatever you are on, to the most, absolute best that you can. It doesn't matter that I think that sauteed apples are stupid on this menu. I want people to taste the apples and think, "Shit! These are like, the best apples EVER!"

Tomorrow you will be able to take a ruler to my apple slices.
Shouldn't we strive for perfect in every single slice? Do I want to take my apples and feed someone a sub-par apple? That's me on their plate! Why should I represent me with anything less than fantastic?

fish and intro to modern banquets

We enter into the new kitchen apprehensively.
I belt out, "Good morning, chef!" to Paul Delarose, in my most cheery, "its 6:30 am" voice I can manage. I pull behind me about 30 packages of cauliflower, pearl onions, peas, turnips (both yellow and white), parsnips, and other orders from the stockroom, down the tiled ramp that leads into the main area of our new, K15 kitchen. My roommate Victoria follows me, pulling down more baskets of food with my other classmate. The three of us throw the items onto the shiny stainless countertop that divides the space. I check items off the list, while the other two go down to the "Meat room" to grab turkey and beef brisket. I hurry, not knowing our new chef for "Modern Banquets". This man will dictate our attitude for the next three weeks, yet we have no clue who he is. I figure, I've been in class 10 minutes, and the chef hasn't said anything yet, so I can't be going in the wrong direction all that much...

Meat meat meat meat meat

So we have all just gotten back from summer break and its due time that I made another blog post...
from the title I bet you can guess what the photos will be. Just before break we finished our "Meat ID" class, which was fantastic because it was taught by Chef Scheneller, who is an amazing butcher and everyday he wow'd our whole class by his skills. It is really a lost art, and I hope it doens't go away, because even though our whole class did well, we all felt as if we really wanted to learn more, or, at least improve our skills.