Salt

After learning so much about seasoning and flavoring last week, I had to check what Harold McGee said about salt.  Jennifer and I have a copy of On Food And Cooking, and anymore we like to check it whenever we hear of something interesting, when something doesn't go as planned in the kitchen, when we buy a new veggie from the farmer's market and have no idea how to optimally prepare it.  Given how much Chef Porter hyped up salt, and how I realized I'd completely taken salt for granted, I knew McGee would have something interesting to say.

Turns out he has a lot to say, with about a half dozen pages dedicated to salt.  I don't know if beef gets a half dozen pages.

My favorite passage on salt from On Food And Cooking:

Salt is like no other substance we eat.  Sodium chloride is a simple, inorganic material: it comes not from plants or animals or microbes, but from the oceans, and ultimately from the rocks that erode into them.  It's an essential nutrient, a chemical that our bodies can't do without.  It's the only natural source of one of our handful of basic tastes, and we therefore add it to most of our foods to fill out their flavor.  Salt is also a taste enhancer and taste modifier: it strengthens the impression of aromas that accompany it, and it suppresses the sensation of bitterness.  It's one of the very few ingredients that we keep in pure form at the table, to be added to individual taste as we eat.

My baby's gettin redic in the kitchen

Week Three gettin underway

We're off Monday, so just four more days of these two desk-based classes and I'll have my manager's servsafe certificate and we'll be on to another class.  Right now we're in two classes that run from 5:30-10:10; starting next week it'll just be one class that goes 5:30-10:52 (except for one Thursday that gets out at 10:44.  A whole 8 minute break, booyaa).  So it's about to get even more intensive. 

We'll be in a lab too.  No one's really sure if we're starting with knife cuts, or mother sauces, stocks, or what...but it'll be something ground level like that. 

The class is starting to coalesce.  Most of us are warming up to each other, swapping email addresses, learning more about our lives.  Everyone is curious to learn why we've all come to this point, why culinary school.  Skills range, experience and age range.  Right now my two closest friends are a 50-something man who's done a bit of everything in the world and a 21-year old woman fresh out of the University of Michigan, who's done some traveling, has some catering experience, and has a sarcastic sense of wit.

Actually, I don't remember it on the application but sarcasm must've been an admission requirement.  We're all pretty jaded and everyone - tiny women, old men, everyone in between - everyone swears like sailors.  I love it.  When's the last time you met three dozen diverse adults who were totally at ease with you dropping some shits and some fucks as part of your first impressions?

Someone thinks she's being persuasive

Midterm! Over and done

We had a midterm last night in CA 100, the Culinary Arts 101ish course.  And it was hard, all over the map.  It had some history questions, about Alice Waters, haute cuisine, Escoffier, the de Medicis, the formal names in the kitchen brigade system, nouvelle cuisine.

Questions about tools, pots, and pans: like what's a sauteuse, what's a sautoir, a rondeau, name the three standard floor mixer attachments.

The differences between braising, roasting, steaming, sauteeing, dry heat cooking, moist heat cooking, poaching, how heat conducts and transfers to the foods in each method, what happens to proteins when heated down at the amino acid level, what happens to fiber in veggies when heated, what's al dente, a la minute, au sec.  Names of the pigments in green veggies, white veg, red veg, orange veg.

Converting recipes, how to calculate the recipe quantities from an 8 portion recipe to a 35 portion recipe, calculating food cost, basic P&L cost to revenue algebra.

Taste, flavor profiles, primary and secondary flavors, seasoning v flavoring, what happens to veggies x, y, and z when you add an acid, when you add an alkali, when you cook quick, when you cook slow.

When I finished the test, I left the classroom to go call Marcel.  In the hallway was a random guy with a tray of bite sized food, so I asked him what he had.  "It's uhh...fucking risotto crab cakes.  Grab one."

I did.  They had a squiggle of mustard on them too.  Tasted wonderful.  I think I love fucking risotto crab cakes.

Porterism

Corn syrup never dies, god.  Our bodies...are examples of that.  People are often one big...blob...of corn syrup.

Thought of the day

Reading about achieving balance in menu composition, textures in particular.  One tip on menu textures from my textbook:

"Don't serve too many mashed or pureed foods unless you are running a baby-food restaurant."

Thanks.  I'll remember that.

Seasoning and flavoring

Last night we concentrated on the difference between seasoning and flavoring.  Seasoning is an addition to the dish that brings out the natural flavors of the dish.  Salt is perhaps the most common seasoning.  Seasonings should generally be added to dishes late in preparation, especially salt, which if added early into a dish that reduces down could damage the taste of a dish.

Interesting point here: when a chef says a dish could use more salt, what that actually means is that the flavors of the dish's components still have room to pop.  It doesn't mean the dish isn't salty.  Its not saying, make it taste like a potato chip.  Its saying, I know what a consomme should taste like, and this is close but not quite there, and if you added a wee bit more salt all the component flavors could pop a bit more.

Flavorings on the other hand, create complements and/or contrasts alongside the flavors of the dish's components.  Flavors should be added early to the dish, to give the tastes time to develop and harmonize into it's own profile.

With both seasonings and flavorings, tasting your dish as it develops is key.  With flavorings though, its generally better to taste early on.  If I'm adding flavor to rice, I'm going to flavor the water before adding the rice, and I'll taste the water to make sure it's what I'm after.  If I'm adding black pepper to my flour dredging mix, I'll taste my flour to make sure it's right.

Seasonings is more of a taste when the dish is just about done thing.  Taste before the dish goes out, add a bit more salt if needed.

We also discussed white pepper; most people find white pepper to be too bold, too abrasive and spicy.  According to Chef Porter that's because nobody knows how to goddamn cook with white pepper.  "Just a dash...just a dash...it's not spicy because white pepper tastes bad.  No.  No.  Don't blame the pepper.  Don't use that black ashy powder that most people call pepper just because you don't understand white pepper.  If white pepper is overpowering, you're not tasting bad pepper, you're tasting an ignorant cook."

Snow in Austin!

 

 It snowed in Austin yesterday -- like, snow snow.  Not Austin snow.  Real snow.  It did turn a few of my fellow culinary students into giant sissies who wanted nothing more than to get home, causing Chef Porter to let us out early.  Which wasn't so awesome.  

But the snow, the snow was definitely awesome. 

Photo via statesman.com

Staging plans

Staging (pronounced stahhj-ing) is an aspect of a culinary education, where essentially a chef agrees to let you work in his kitchen in exchange for the experience.  It's unpaid, and you might do some sexy tasks, or you might do some not so sexy.  I'm thinking most lean towards the unsexy side of things.  And that's fine, because it's for the experience.  I don't need to do the sexy.  (Emmanuel Lewis is sexy.)

Cooks and chefs at different skill levels, they all stage.  If I'm a great chef, and I'm friends on Twitter with a chef in a different city, I could arrange a stage in his kitchen the next time I'm in St. Louis, say.  So it's very cool and probably a collaborative element of cooking dating back to guilds and extended apprenticeships.

I'll pursue stages while I'm in school.  They'll lead up to my externship (paid or unpaid extended labor in a local kitchen), and give me great exposure to high quality local kitchens.  The two biggest questions have been Where and When.  Gotta be the right place, so that I'm aiming high.  Gotta be the right time, so my family doesn't go bananas with me always gone.

So what I'm thinking right now is to shoot for a stage once a month over April, May, June.  (More if possible, see 'When' above.)  I'd like to stage at Olivia on South Lamar, The Carillon, Chef Josh Watkin's restaurant on UT campus, and Four Seasons (to get the hotel vibe too).  There a a million places I'd like to stage, as there's a learning experience everywhere you go.  But these are the three I'm focusing on right now.

Then, with stages under my belt, I can then shift my focus in June, July over to my externship, which extends over August and September.

Shepherd's pie

(Tonight's pastry class -- the chef is making a stunning fresh fruit tart, shown in the screen above.  This photo does it no justice whatsoever.  Trust me, it was gorgeous and I wish I could have eaten the whole damn thing.  Fingers crossed that I get to try to make something like that.)

Last night two students in my class were talking about the food they made over the weekend -- we're all talking more about our own cooking, as well as bringing food and snacks representative of our own tastes and preferences, it's really getting interesting -- but they were talking about food they made over the weekend, and one had made some great stir fry and another made shepherd's pie. 

Shepherd's pie girl was proud of her shepherd's pie.  She was all set to describe her shepherd's pie at length, obviously proud of the dish, and stir fry girl cuts her off and asks her whether the pie was made of real shepherds.  "Because if so that could be a real problem.  Stringy beard hair...grinding up the shepherd's feet..." 

Heard the girls scout cookie joke a million times but the shepherd's pie is a first.  Poor girl, I bet she does make a good shepherd's pie.  But I like this story, as it's a good example of how we're all slowly going insane.

CA 200, making forcemeats

CA 200's production menu tonight:

Chicken Liver Pate
Rabbit Rillettes
Country Style Pork Pate Forcemeat
Pate Dough
Present Gravlax

Someones making stock...

Perfect example

This is a perfect example of why I'm going to culinary school.  There's no way in hell I can do this for the rest of my life.  Because make no mistake, this comic strip is a true depiction of my world:

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DilbertDailyStrip/~3/PfTTDfxArzY/

Rollerskating Jam!

One of the funkiest jams of all time.  Play it right now, then grab a friend and couples skate!

 

My first time skating in over 20 years.  I only fell once, hot dogging for Marcel and his friend.

Marcel having a Flavor Flav moment.

Rolllllll, bounce! (I hope you've got the song playing.)

My son, the Tony Hawk of roller skates.

Pasta risotto-style

Cooking up some pasta for tomorrow's dinner at school.  Cool it tonight, then prepare it with wee blobs of chevre.  Om nom.

Freeway blends mixtape

My friend on Twitter, DJ Critical Hype, recently put out a kick ass mixtape of Freeway blends.

 

I loooove driving to this mixtape.  It's about 25 minutes from culinary school to home each night, and I've been filling that drive with this mixtape.  Track 5, Diesel, is just amazing, as is track 11, Fast Forward.  Fast Forward blends Freeway's lyrics over a break beat from Public Enemy's song "By The Time I Get To (Arizona)", and it's just about perfect.  Starts off hard too, with Freeway vs. Mars.  Download it and check this mix out.  If you're feeling what Critical does, go for the Clipse blends mixtape next.  Critical Hype's my boy - dude's crazy talented.

Sam was robbed

Class is getting awesome.  At the end of the first week, we've covered culinary history, commercial kitchen tools, foodborne illness, types of ovens, and what seems like a helluvalot more. 

Tonight though marked the beginning of some genuine food-being-cooked chemical composition materials, focusing first and foremost on what happens when food is heated.

Chef Porter apparently has strong feelings about Ilian and Marcel from Top Chef a few years ago.  Tonight she called them rookies, newbies, shoemakers, hacks.  Reason being is that Sam, who got kicked off the show after their Hawaii cooking, prepared an entire challenge without ever applying heat to his dishes.  Collichio felt strongly that Sam did not cook his food because he never heated his food, and that led to Sam being kicked off.  Chef Porter does not believe that 'cooking' food should have to involve heat, because there are chemical qualities a cook can depend on to prepare food for him.  Chef Porter says the whole reason we cook is to make food A) palatable and B) digestible, and if a technique can achieve these standards, it should not matter if heat is involved or not.

So, Sam aside, we talked at length about heating proteins, heating carbohydrates, and the slight chemical reactions that each will bring about.  Caramelizing onions and other vegetables is a process of browning the sugars in the carbohydrates.  Same reason bread crust is brown and delicious.

We discussed the different cuts in beef, pork, and chickens, and the difference in muscle quality from static muscles and locomotive muscles.  Static muscles will be more like your tenderloins -- muscles and cuts with a fine muscular sinew.  Locomotive muscles, the muscles used to move the animal's body or to support the animal's weight, will exhibit more general toughness and white tissue for the collagen present in the muscle.  Slow cooking will alter the collagen and turn it into gelatin, softening the meat considerably.

After the first week, it's bizarre to look back at what we've learned and been tested on.  The school is blowing up, just getting started, and it's rad to be part of it.

Tonight I contacted Chef Josh at The Carillon, to see if he needed and culinary students to come stage for him, because I'd love to work with Chef John Watkins.  Additionally, I'd like to stage at Olivia.

Saturday at the park

This is what too much fun at the farmer's market looks like

Jen and I bought baby carrots to roast, some chevre, basil-feta spread, garlic salsa.  Today is a day for snacking!

Handwashing

This class here was churning out the chocolate cherry bread tonight.  Walking past the bake shop smelled awesome, and for a while we were openly loitering by the bake shop hoping to catch a fresh warm piece of bread.  Like some shit out of Emile Zola or Victor Hugo.  Then I give up on the handout and go back to class, and like 90 seconds later my friends Scott and Caroline come in, each with a fat chunk of chocolate cherry bread in their hands, hollering out "BREAD!  BREAD!".  The class cranes heads and checks them out, and I'm like "ASS!  ASS!"  Where's my piece?  I hate them now.  Scott and Caroline are dead to me.

Anyhoo, I guess washing your hands is important or something, because no lie tonight we dedicated a full two hours to talking about washing your hands.  Not about hygiene, not about general safety.  About washing your hands.  Doctors studying to perform heart transplants don't spend that much time going on about clean hands. 

But it does make sense when you look at it this way: yesterday chef drilled home the point that our hands are our most valuable, most versatile tools we have.  More than any number of commercial choppers and blenders and mixers and dicers, more than grills and broilers and bain-maries and convection ovens.  Our hands.  So then it makes sense to fully articulate every step necessary to keep them completely clean and safe for your customers.  And it was helpful, but not without some duhhh moments.  The funniest part was how self-conscious Chef seemed when she was walking us through the exhaustive hands-washing tactics and methods.  Poor girl.

Examples of beautiful plating

The Ironic Chef blog has posted some very nice examples of their recent dishes.  Some creative plating, mos def.

http://theironicchef.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/so-about-that-as-well-as-winter-cuisine-2009-2010/

Another class, doing their thing

Day three, Laundry list of info

Day three has been all about the tools and equipment found in a commercial kitchen.  (It has also been about my Filipino deskmate mumbling about tequila and mangos de Manila.)

So far, we've covered many different ovens, convection, salamanders, grills, griddles, flat tops, steam tables, bain-maries, broilers, warmers, rotisserie, stack ovens, combi ovens. 

Different commercial size kitchen choppers, dicers, mixers, slicers, processors, blenders, kneaders, steamers, pressure cookers, fryers.

We've spent time focusing on different types of metal for your pans and pots.  Aluminum (most common pan), copper (great heat conductor, also can make food toxic), stainless steel (poor heat conductor, used in hotel pans and holding containers), cast iron (must be cured against rust, breaks if dropped, heavy, versatile), and five or six others I can't remember offhand.

We've exhaustively covered pathogens and foodborne illness, or 'the microworld' as the book calls it (sounds like a theme park).  Viruses, bacteria, parasites.  Worms, diarrhea, vomiting, amnesia, miscarriage, vertigo, death.  Contagion, coughing up worms.  Food handlers with dirty hands, most of the time from their poop somehow.  Cross-contamination.  Seafood from bad sources.  Leaving food out too long.  Spores that form and can survive freezing.

There's so much I'm forgetting at the moment, too.  There's been a ton of info this week.  Tonight is a quiz, then we continue on identifying different types of pots and pans, then assorted tools.  I feel like the human version of the old school video game Frogger - hop to work, hop to school, hop home, repeat.  I'm tired as shit but can't stop smiling when I walk through the school.  Last night I watched a different class preparing ganache, then walked down the hall and there's a class rolling baguette.  It didn't look like pale student bread to me.  I mean, life is pretty damn tiring anyway.  Nobody I know - single people, parents, other - feels like they've neccessarily got a whole shit ton of energy.  At least I'm tired while learning about culinary arts.

Some collected Chef Porterisms

I gotta tell you guys.  Mixers are the bomb!  Well...I guess everything's the bomb.

It was awesome.  It was awesome, and I had the worst times I've ever had.

I'm not a doctor...I just wanted to tell you that.

Why are there still roaches?  They must have some reason.  And hey!  Snakes!

I'm growing pathogens at 85% humidity...boy.

The rainbow sheen on ham...the pink or blue hanging out on the sour cream...that's awesome.

Porter: What do we think of when we think of e.Coli?
Guy in back of class: Moo.

Chicken salad

At break time, a fellow student walked around the classroom and offered to share her chicken salad.  I took some and it was delicious.  She gave me a cracker and said "Here you go, boo."  Then she gave Randy a cracker and said "Here you go, boo."

I like her.

GBD.

 

 

 Pic from houseboat eats

The damn cravat

Finally home...dammit where's that cravat...gotta be around here somewhere...

Deep fat frying

Chef Porter makes me want to deep fat fry something.

We're talking through an extensive list of kitchen equipment, and digressions are popping up for every tool.  Chef loves a certain type of griddle and tells us why.  Randy, a student with self-professed people problems, loves this one salamander.  And so on.

The deep fat fryer though -  Chef Porter goes into how cooking with fat is like this epic battle, and how everything is an enemy of the fat: air is an enemy of fat, food is an enemy of fat, heat is an enemy of fat, moisture of any kind, an enemy.  She goes on to paint this wild, suspenseful picture of how frying is not only a race against time (because it's basically a process of torturing the fat to death), it's an art of precision: frying must occur at temperature X to achieve desired results.  Too high and this happens, too low and this happens, but blanch and cool, then fry at higher, exact temperature and it is perfect.  Just perfect.

I've fried a million donuts, I've changed grease, cleaned fryers, probably took a year off my life breathing that gnarly detergent (which the book calls mild...mild like fiberglass is mild), but after talking about the common fryer with our chef, I want to work a fry station.

As Chef puts it: "...then you cook them at 375 until they're golden brown and delicious.  GBD.  GBD.  Awesome."

Big Dilla

I've been listening to this Big Pun/Dilla mixtape nonstop for the past week.  Free download, you gotta get on it.  Apparently Big Pun died on Dilla's birthday, and of course Dilla's dead too, so it makes Feb 7th kind of a big deal.  This year, we got us a new mixtape to commemorate the occasion.   

And yep, Twinz (Deep Cover) is on it:

Ready for war Joe, how you wanna blow they spot
I know these dirty cops that'll get us in if we murder some wop
Hop in your Hummer, the Punisher's ready; meet me at Vito's
with Noodles, we'll do this dude while he's slurping spaghetti
Everybody kiss the fucking floor, Joey Crack, buck em all
If they move, Noodles shoot that fucking whore
Dead in the middle of Little Italy little did we know
that we riddled some middleman who didn't do diddily

It's great to run to - get up on it.

The Basics

So last night Chef Porter was talking about The Basics.  As in do not try to hot dog and be Keller until you have mastered The Basics.  And she drifted on a tangent to give an example - which will clearly be some of the best moments in class - and told a story about a class making cream of mushroom soup.  One student seasoned it with some sage, unorthodox but still complementary to the flavor profile.  Then she garnished it with a broccoli floret.  A big chunk of broccoli, right on top of her soup.

If steam could come out of people's ears, it would've happened right then with Chef.  "YOU GARNISH YOUR FOOD...WITH INGREDIENTS ALREADY IN THE FOOD.  HOW ABOUT A FRIED SAGE LEAF?!"

Another good one is the class making half racks of lamb, a $$$ protein...not a stew meat by a long shot.  Apparently three students turned in braised racks, and one jackass deep fat fried his half rack of lamb.  Chef Porter looked like she wanted to choke someone while crying tears of disappointment.  And I bet she could choke the life out of a grown man.  She's got paws.

Chef Porter

About this cravat.  I'm not a tie guy, never been, so the cravat (a triangular cloth with an 18 step folding/ironing process) is a riot.  And we have five of them, one for each night of the week.  I steamed and ironed all five down to the right size, then followed the folding directions a few (10) times until I got it right.  Damn thing.

I got to school, there's uniformed students everywhere on campus, most of them looking like me, not quite sure I brought the right supplies for the first night.  There's a tray of fresh yeast rolls outside the bakery class, apparently free for takers although Chef Porter (more on her soon) says they suck.  "Pale, never crusty.  Student rolls."

I meet a few peers - Liz, Mike, Melissa - and instantly forget what they look like; I'm too busy checking out their cravats.  Or lack thereof; only Liz has one on, which makes sense because I heard her say on Saturday that she's Air Force so she's got the whole uniform thing wired.  But no one else has one.  So far so good, feeling superior about the cravat.

Our classroom is small and unassuming, more ACC than CIA.  It fills up and we kill about 20 minutes before chef shows up...everyone has cravat paranoia.  The whole room is either trying to fold a cravat, getting pissed about their cravat, or feeling superior and reading Twitter.  (Okay that was just me.)  Air Force Liz was offered 5$ a week to do a guy's cravat.

Then a chef rolls a cart messy with papers, introduces herself as Chef Porter, and calls us out for the collective cravat paranoia.  The first 30 minutes of class is cravat 101.  She gives us a tutorial, and nobody gets it, so she explains further, and then everybody's even more confused, and on and on. 

So Chef Porter's a complete riot.  Super smart, passionate about our profession, and obviously a complete nut.  Some Chef quotes:

-I dedicated a leg to sour cream at age 20.  The rest of the body to butter, cream, and pork fat.

-Sanitation class will consist of -- did I take my meds?  I didn't.

-[concerning initials] I'm the only E.L.P.  Emerson, Lake and Palmer were AFTER me.

-[about book author] This guy Wayne, also went to CIA...apparently didn't smoke a joint after every break...like I did...because he wrote a book.

-This career tears you up.  I'm a wreck.  Could I get a skeletal and muscular implant?

-How many ways are there to fold a piece of paper, or open a car door?  Well, I guess there's only one way to open a car door.

Most of class tonight was dedicated to the origins of modern cuisine, from "table d'hote", la Varenne, Boulanger, Careme and haute cuisine, Escoffier, and more Escoffier, and more Escoffier.  He's hot shit, that one.

Tired as hell but stoked!  Chef Porter mentioned knowing someone at Olivia, I'm going to talk to her about maybe staging there.

Day One

Class one kicks off in an hour.

Looking forward to being taught by chefs.  As I've counted down the days for culinary school to start, I've had a chance to think about teachers and how generally speaking I've hated all the ones I've ever had. 

The Accounting teacher from my MBA program, who would consistently give us 2/3 of the info in the case study, then drill us on the remaining 1/3, the part that used accounting terms we'd never heard of.

The Business Writing teacher who insisted on writing memos circa Coolidge era format.

Many/most have been nice people but horrible teachers.  The only good teacher I've ever had was Steve Jones from my 3D design class.  He let us build anything as long as we had a good case it.  He let me build a room-sized installation that involved lard, stinky stuff, darkness, static, and Crazy John the street poet's recorded poetry.  But he was also a cool guy who taught by action and state of being, not by title.  He concentrated with you and seldom knew the answer until we arrived at it together.  Steve was on some zen shit.  (And he knew Jim Carroll.)

But anyway I think of the chefs I've worked for - Barry, Robert, Paul - and others I've worked with in the food service industry over the years and that's where some real instruction has come from.  And they were some scumbags - Barry flat out lying to get his exec chef gig, saying he'd ran food service on some Brando/Depp movie, which worked for him until the restaurant owners watched the flick and checked the credits and no Barry.  But they could cook, and they would always wash a pan.

For me I think 99.9% of leadership is whether or not your boss is willing to wash a pan.

200 Food T-Shirts (I want 167 of them, maybe 168)

Check out this hongo-sized list of awesome shirts, each having something to do with food.

A couple of my favorites:

 

* * * 

 

10 things I remember from today's marathon

1. Seeing this guy.
2. Our beautiful, insane city in all its charm and fun-to-look-at glory.
3. The hills on Exposition Blvd, which will always remind me of running with Jen on Saturdays when Marcel was younger.  We'd drop him off at the Tops (his daycare TreeTops) and take hard but relaxing long runs on Mount Bonnell and down Exposition.
4. Giving Marcel a sweaty hug at mile 17.
5. Seeing Taylor chilling at mile 17, maxing in a chair like the pimp she is.
6. Having a lil GI issue at mile 22, where this harsh deuce appeared in my innards and was all "You can drop me in your shorts, or you can drop me somewhere outside your shorts...but I'm coming out."  One mile 23 pitstop later...
7. Totally stealing an Ozarka bottle right out of a spectator's hand, I think she was trying to give it to her friend behind me.  It was cold and refreshing.  Thanks Ozarka girl, wherever you are.
8. The bands at every mile.  So awesome when a band was all bass-heavy and you could feel them before you heard them.
9. The last three miles, which were cake and had tons of energetic spectators.
10. The whole goddam thing!  My family, my city, my race.  I hope all my loved ones get to experience something that awesome.  
    

Piper trying on my beanie

Marcel liked the knives in my toolkit, but Piper was more interested in the hats.

Marathon dream

I dreamt that I ran the marathon and afterwards had no memory of it.  Jen had to convince me that it had happened.

I am the Regarding Henry of the Austin Marathon.

lunch at La Boite

Here's the family enjoying lunch at La Boite.  The weather is wonderful today.  I hope we get something like this for tomorrow's marathon.  (I love the day before a marathon, always such a chill family vibe.)

Some more pictures of La Boite.

The next time we've got a free afternoon, let's go to La Boite!

My Books

My textbooks -- I'm most looking forward to the garde manger book, because I am stoked to make terrines!  Now taking orders.

My new knives (and life)

Here's my new knives, 1/3 of my tool kit.  Piper said she'd help me unwrap them.

So class starts Monday, and here's the rundown.

First six weeks: Sanitation, then Basic Cookery, then Fundamentals of Culinary Arts. 

Next five weeks: Principles of Meat/Poultry/Fish, then Fundamentals of Baking/Pastry.

Next five weeks: Fundamentals of Garde Manger, then Fundamentals of Recipes/Menus.

Then one month of Restaurant Practical.

Then a month and a half of Externship in a fine local establishment.

Then I'm certified!

Culinary school vending machine

Mmm, gauze.

Bacon

Omelette comparison between the classic French omelette and the American omelette.

My new home away from home

For the next 5-odd months, I'll be spending most of my evenings here, at Texas Culinary Academy.  I'm kicking off a certification course that whips us through everything a chef needs to know: cost control, inventory, kitchen management, sauces, baking, proteins, and so on. 

So until right around my 35th birthday (in Sept) I'm basically Le Cordon Bleu's bitch.  Which I'm good with. 

Off to orientation.  More pics to follow.

(Oh and if you're the owner of the red car, sorry if I look like a stalker.)

At the Marathon Expo

Saw my dog Eyebrows, and my dog Dude Named Popcorn, and my dog Evil, and my dog Cameron getting him some special service up in VIP.

Life in progress

A couple more days until the orientation.

This has been an interesting week.

I'd say Jen and I are both excited, yet kinda freaked about what these changes will look like for our family.  I'm super stoked for class to start, yet I'm nervous about being there for the kiddos every step of the way.  Probably natural.  What's school gonna look like?

Tons of my work friends allude to my 'business plans', or my restaurant job, etc, but in reality I don't know what the hell I'm doing.  I get paid crazy good money to do work that's not strenuous at all.  I sit in meetings, I make powerpoints, I dial into conference calls.  And while some of my friends are very satisfied and stimulated by it, I am convinced I am not contributing to society.  Hrmm...

Loving the idea of orientation, learning how to dice vegetables, make a bechamel sauce, learn flavor profiles, solve problems on the fly.  Any problem solving at my job today requires slow, deliberate 'enrollment', 'alignment', and related torturous concepts.  I'm ready to be in a space where shit needs to be done, so you do dat shit.

Tomorrow I hit the marathon expo, then Sat I go to orientation, Sunday the marathon,  and Monday school officially kicks off.

Next stop, new life.

Bathroom names

When I own my own place, the bathrooms will be for Yetis and Betties. 

Still thinking I want the name to be 'bonita', in lowercase.  It doesn't evoke as much fun as if we called it Yetis and Betties, at least on the outside - but it does bring the character, the South, the design and flavor palette I'd like to have.

Name: bonita.

Piper's First Oreo

Why Culinary School?

I want to find a job where I get to use this culinary education, yet does not totally crater my family financially.

I want to challenge my skills and preconceptions of food.

I want to improve my technique, and overall understanding of flavors - to no longer be primarily reliant on a recipe, but to be more creative based on complementary ingredients.

I want to save money still, even through an employment transition, because we want to move to Ithaca.

I want to learn how to plan a menu and how to effectively order levels of inventory that permit a gorgeous menu, yet does not break the bank.  I don't want to go bankrupt because I tied up all the restaurant's $$ in mussels.

I want to open my own place in Ithaca, utilizing some of our favorite flavors and dishes from Austin, and offering reinterpretations of NY food too. 

I want to garden with my kids.

School Orientation next Saturday

The day before the marathon I'll be spending the morning at school, getting my tool kit and my set of five uniforms.  My advisor said there's another guy who is running the marathon, so if I don't meet him Saturday I'll look for a fellow limper on the first day of school.

Stoked to check out the other people in this certification course - it'll be hardcore at five days a week, I'm wondering how many others will be currently working in kitchens even, due to the 530-1030 effed up hours of the whole thing.  But then again they could be saying 'I wonder if there's any office job people in here, they might light their ties on fire...'  Not that I wear a tie, but I saw Spike Jonze wearing one in the new GQ so it did make me rethink them.

I'm busy not writing my cooking resume.

Got it down in longhand, but haven't typed it up yet.  My advisor said to write it for someone with a horrible attention span so I wrote it for a person who is falling down a cliff.  It's that bad, it's like five words and they're all bolded: cook...knife...hot...many...results-oriented.

Want to hire me for your kitchen?