Best Night So Far

Tonight was fantastic! We had a really short servesafe chapter, and then we got to do all the prep work since Chef's finger is still hurt. So we learned about grilling and frying tonight. For the frying portion we all cleaned and deveined five shrimp, dipped them in batter and dropped them into the deep fryer. DELICIOUS! Also, for the grilling part, we each got to grill our own five ounce piece of salmon. So we practiced making the diamond grill marks on both sides of the salmon. Then, one of my table buddies (Eric), asked Chef if his was cooked properly and Chef told him it was a little overdone. And then Chef looked at mine and said it was perfect! Voila! So I perfectly grilled a salmon, it's all about the guesswork lol. As a bonus, the baking and pastry class brought in these orange glazed crossaint type things and eclairs! The eclairs were sooooo good. Another bonus, I was on dishes tonight but everyone basically did their own, so I didn't have to do any. AND I got a 25/25 on the last quiz AND a 72/75 on my knife skills! BAM! I must be a natural :). So I got to eat deep fried shrimp, perfectly cooked salmon, eclairs and pastries, didn't have to do dishes and am getting an A in a class where the curriculum is written so that the average person gets a C? Sounds like a perfect night to me :).

It's all about GBD

So tonight was an interesting sort of night. It started out weird 'cause we started with production since the lamb and veal would take so long to cook. Also, we actually did all the prep work because Chef sliced his finger pretty bad the other night. Then we had the knife skills test (which I think I did awful on), that included paysanned carrots, tourned potatoes, brunoised potatoes and medium diced onions. Now tournes I'm fairly good at, and my carrots turned out fine. But my brunnoise potatoes were terrible. A brunoise is an 1/8 inch by 1/8 inch cube. Teeeeeny tiny. Then, during cleanup, we watched some youtube videos about AFL. AFL is Australian Football League. And no, it's not like the NFL sissy crap. Oh those poor NFL players who get to wear pads and helmets and take a break every 5 seconds. AFL is like a hardcore version of rugby. Now for those of you who have seen or played rugby, it's intense. AFL is more savage than rugby. It's ridiculous! Lol. But very entertaining. So if you want to see an AFL game, Chef says it comes on ESPN3 and that if you need a team to root for root for the Hawthorne Hawks. So we had a nice little end of the night bonus because one of the other classes brought in cassoulet. Which is like a french casserole of deliciousness! It was so good. Anywho, tomorrow I'm going to try to make Poulet Rote, Pommes Mignonettes. Sounds good right?

Cooking In Culinary School? Unheard Of.

So tonight we actually got to cook! And when I say we I mean the royal "we," which means Chef cooks and we all watch. Haha. I got to try Duck Confrit for the first time and it is sooooo delicious! "Confrit" means cooked in its own fat. So I had duck that was cooked in its own fat and it was yummy to my tummy. Anywho, tonight we roasted chicken and pan roasted game hen. Both were super fantastically delicious! Although I will admit I was partial to the game hen. It could be because it was accompanied by a amazing sauce and medley of mushrooms, pearl onions and tourned potatoes. Or maybe I'm just racist against chickens, who knows. Facebook is very distracting -_-. I'll get like halfway through a sentence and it'll be like, new message! new message! And I'm like, DANG IT! STOP INTERRUPTING! So yes, I finally cooked in cooking school lol. It only took 3 and a half weeks. And tomorrow I have a knife skills test O.o Wish me luck!

Heyo My Mayo

So I must've been so tired last night that when I got home I completely spaced on writing my blog. So here it is. Last night we made mayo, from scratch, without mixers (i.e. horrible wrist cramping). And mine turned out pretty good! I brought it home with me :). So last night we learned about HACCP plans, which are put in place to prevent foodborne illnesses and if an outbreak occurs, clean them up. HACCP plans were invented by NASA because they didn't want astronauts to get sick up in space and astro-puke all over the place. It'd be like puke floating in their helmets. ..ew. And word of advice, if you ever go to Australia don't assume that you can take your leftovers home. They won't let you lol. The reason why? Some idiot got pizza at a restaurant, left it in the trunk of his car for a few days and then ate it and got sick. He then sued the restaurant for making him sick and won! So now they don't let you take leftovers home because they are afraid that you'll sue them for storing your pizza in a trunk. Things like this are the reason why you can't rely on the government for anything. ..

"It Sucks To Be A Male Cow Born On A Dairy Farm"

So I totally thought today would suck because we weren't doing production but it actually turned out hella  fun because we had more lecture time that allowed Chef Ted to go off on random tangents. So today we learned that you "don't make stocks out of things that smell like farts when you cook them." We also learned that while there are stupid questions, there aren't stupid RELEVANT questions. So didn't do much in the way of work today, just learned about kitchen equipment, stocks and sauces. So if your wondering what my Chef looks like there's a video on youtube of him and a "little indiscriminate lobster murder." www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPNxXw71JxA So it's late, and I'm tired. I know I didn't really write much, sorry. It's not like people are really reading this lol.

A Night In The Life

Tonight started out slow, same old serve safe shenanigans, blah blah. But then we got into an interesting discussion about how to leave a tip for waiters that you hate. You know sometimes there's those waiters that are like total jerks, they mess up your order, then bring it to you cold, they're continuously rude, etc. And your thinking, "I'm not leaving this guy a tip." Don't think that! You should, in fact, leave this lovely waiter or waitress a tip. But what you do is this: You take a glass of water, put the tip inside, then use a laminated menu as a cover and out it on top, flip it over and then slide the glass onto the table. What you end up with (if you had a hard time following that) is a full cup, face down, with a tip inside. This means that the waiter or waitress will eventually have to remove the cup from the table which will result in getting water all over the place. Genius! Or horrible. Whichever stance you view that from. Another interesting tidbit for you curious kittens is that you can actually get high off of nutmeg. The slight problem with this is that although you get the nice high from it, you get a horrible hangover that follows. So in the words of my Chef, "there are plenty of other things to get high off of in California." Anywho, today we made bechamel and veloute, which are two of the mother sauces. There are five total. Mother sauces are like a basic sauce that alot of temporary sauces are derived from. Fortunately for me, bechamel can conveniently be used to make mac and cheese as well. Which is what I'm about to go do. ..

OH! And a p.s. I totally found an awesome way to make tourne's easier and so now I love doing them! Woo!

Nom Nom Nom

So nothing too interesting today, just the usual serve safe bit and then we had a quiz on conversions. Yikes! I thought I did horribly on it but during clean up Chef said I did pretty well, yay! So I scored well on the hardest test of the course, the math one lol. So because we had a quiz we had less time on demos so all we really worked with today were lemons. We learned how to crown them and make nifty little baskets out of them. I also learned something interesting, the white yucky part of citrus fruits is called pith. And pith is what creates that bitter taste, so if you remove it completely it tastes ten times better! So we also segmented the lemons, which is cutting out little slivers without the pith, which I think are called supremes. And we learned the art of zesting. Tomorrow we begin actual cooking! Not. Well, unless you consider watching water boil as cooking (were starting stocks tomorrow). So no funny stories, class went by really fast, either that or I totally zoned out the entire time. Well, it's off to bed for me!

"You Can Be Mad As A Hatter Before You Die"

So nothing too interesting today, just wrapping up other things we didn't finish throughout the week. Practicing knife cuts, learning about kitchen tools and equipment. When we were discussing safety and equipment Chef told us that some of the old mixers don't have safety bars to create a barrier between you and the mixer in which the mixer will "happily take your arm off and beat you with it." Right then and there I realized I never wanted to be beaten with my own arm. It was a life-changing moment. That was practically dripping with sarcasm, and if you missed it, you don't know me at all. So we had our first quiz on Monday I think. And I got a 21/25. Which might get bumped to a 22/25 because Chef mislead 23 out of 24 of the students in my class to picking the wrong answer. And my next quiz is on Monday and it's a math quiz about conversions and such. So I'm going to spend the whole weekend studying. NOT! It's my birthday, I gotta party it up lol. So hopefully Monday I won't be too worn out to study. Also, something I've forgotten to put in my blog so far, whenever something is done a certain way that makes no sense or has any culinary relevance, it's usually because it's made to be pretty. So when we ask, "Chef why are we doing this?" Chef Ted responds with, "Because it's pretty!" Because as we all know, half of how food tastes is how it looks. And everything has to be "pretty." It'd be much funnier if you heard it in person because he says it in a slightly gay voice. Also, I learned how to make butterflies out of carrots, in case you wanted a carrot butterfly. If you do, let me know lol. I feel like I'm leaving something out, I was totally going to write something and then forgot. Hmmm *thinking face* Nope! Can't think of it. Oh well, have a great weekend! I'm off to the kitchen to find a snack!

And Now You Know Why I Don't Eat At Quizno's

I actually don't like Quizno's because their food is overpriced and not very good. But now I have another reason not to eat there. Chef Ted went there and the lady that made his sandwich had gloves on. She made his sandwich and wrapped it and then took his cash and gave him his change. She then went back to the beginning of the line and started a new sandwich. Uhhhh hello?? Do you even know how nasty money is? And touching all that money and continuing to make sandwiches without washing your hands or changing gloves? Ew. So today we did more of the "tourne," I stand corrected. And technically there's supposed to be a little accent mark over the e. And I'm getting better at it, it just takes practice. Then we got into a lecture about menus. We looked at the menu of a restaurant called The French Laundry that's in the Napa area. Now get this, they change the menu everyday, and no ingredients are repeated twice on their menu. Also, there's a pre fee of about $275 dollars. Which means, at the beginning of the meal you pay $275 (per person) and you get a really really good five course meal. That's a ridiculous amount of money to pay for food I know. So due to our conversation on menu's we discussed secret menu's of restaurants such as In n Out. For those of you that didn't know that In n Out had a secret menu, your missing out on life. Because it's delicious! And last but not least, accident safety videos. Haha. Soooo this was one of those times when you watch something and then you bust up laughing and then you realize no one else is laughing. ..awkwaaaaard. So I watched this video www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cjy4ooOqQQ and laughed so hard I cried. It was that funny. And I have no idea why. Everyone else in my class just gasped really loud haha. Good times. ..

"The Cut That Was Made To Make Culinary Students Hate Life"

Ahhh the tournet. The most awful cut in the history of cooking. And the least used, unless of course, you live in France. It's basically this tiny little football with seven sides that's the most awful thing to try and cut with a paring knife. It really makes you want to kill yourself. Which is a bad feeling to have when your holding a knife. ..So today in food safety and sanitation that we must take certain precautions in the restaurant industry to protect our food from terrorists. Yes, terrorists. Because apparently they want to sneak in our kitchens and deliberately contaminate our food. ridiculous. So Chef Ted is excited that my birthday is Saturday so that next week he can say "were all adults here" without excluding me lol. So we had some extra time at the end of our lesson and someone asked Chef Ted to tell us some funny stories. WARNING: These stories will make you never want to eat at a buffet again. So if you enjoy buffets, please do not read this. Chef Ted was working at a buffet once and they had fried oysters out. He saw a woman walk up, pick up an oyster and try it, make a disgusted face (because yes, they are disgusting) and then put it back in the pile. But she didn't just leave it on top, she looked to make sure no one was looking and then buried it at the bottom of the pile of oysters! Sick, I know. Another guy was refilling his soda and as he walked back to his table he noticed there wasn't enough ice in his glass, so he stopped, looked back at the soda machine (which was only about 25 feet away), looked back at his glass, and then spotted some shrimp on ice. He then proceeded to scrape some of the ice into his cup. Shrimp flavored Dr. Pepper, yum.

"Such Is Life"

So today in the wonderful world of culinary arts, we learned the art of conversion. Oh yay. First of all, I hate math. Second of all, I suck at math. So converting teaspoons to tablespoons to ounces to cups to pints to quarts to gallons isn't really all that fun. And for those of you who were like, " Oh Karly, your so lucky your going to a culinary arts school you just get to cook all day." WRONG. I don't get to cook, I get to listen to lectures, and take notes and do homework just like the rest of you college people. The bonus to my college experience is, in six weeks, I will be cooking. In six weeks you'll still be listening to lectures and taking notes. I also get out in nine months. While you have 4+ years. Yeah, life sucks for you. Maybe I'll bring you some food to cheer you up. So I love my Chef Instructor, Chef Ted, but today he kept giving me these weird looks, so I'm assuming most people don't doodle on their notes. It's not like we turn them in. At least I don't think we do. If we do he's going to give me a really weird look for drawing a Gir dropping his cupcake and crying with the words "EPIC FAIL" in bold next to him lol. So now to the fun things that Chef Ted spewed in class today: "Who was the sorry SOB who cracked open a shellfish and ate it, he had to be starving to crack open a rock looking thing and drink the snot out of it." And since were going through all the bacteria and viruses you can get from lack of personal hygiene and undercooked food, some of the side effects can include "vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, oh and yeah MAYBE DEATH." But he says it all cheerfully like I actually want to die from eating shellfish, yuck. Oh, and his favorite foodborne illness is Anisakiasis. Which, if you get it, you have a tingling in the back of your throat, and then your coughing up worms. Super fun right? And last but not least we discussed the dangers of eating wild mushrooms which lead to a discussion on truffles, which in turn lead to Chef Ted discussing truffle salt. In my class we will get a chance to try truffle salt, which we will either hate or we will say "oh my god I want to rub this on my body." (That's a direct quote, I don't make this stuff up). We only get to try truffle salt because black truffles run about $200/pound and white truffles run about $1000/pound. So you see the difficulty in attaining those items. Anywho, Goodnight!

The Bacteria Made Me Do It!

So your body is made up of approximately 100 trillion cells. But it's also made up of ten times that many bacteria. So your basically like a walking petri dish, yum. Anywho, today we worked on a lot of cuts, pont nuef, batonnet, brunoise, ciseler, concasser, and of course, the famous julienne. Now I realize these mean nothing to you so I'll try to translate: steak fries, sliced bell pepper, minced, diced, minced tiny, and strips. That's a rough translation but basically that's kind of how things are. So, the worst thing about culinary arts school is working on cutting while smelling all the other classes cook amazing things and sitting there like staring. It's horrible. So now I'm going to tell you some weird interesting things you could live without knowing. First of all there is a dangerous infection called Listeriosis caused by eating the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes. One of the symptoms of Listeriosis is miscarriage, THE SYMPTOM! WHAT?! HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK?! Also, never eat food from swollen cans cause it could be a sign of botulism. How many different cows are in a hamburger that you eat? A hundred? A thousand? Who knows? At a slaughter house thousands of cows are ground together and a little piece of each one makes up that burger that you ate. Yum. So I'll end on a funny note, my instructor Chef Ted ate a habanero once, then later that day he went out drinking with friends. The problem with peppers is that the heat from them can stay attached to your fingers for awhile, even after you wash your hands. So he was drinking so much that he tried to take his contacts out, and you can imagine what that was like (if you can't it was basically like macing yourself). But that's not even the good part! Because he was so drunk that night, the next morning he totally forgot, and he put them back in! Ouch!

The Secret Behind The Coat

So the secret, I'm telling you all the secret. All what? Two of you? Haha. So a chefs coat is double buttoned like a pea coat, with two rows of buttons. But the secret behind that is that it also has two rows of button holes. Which means, you can button up your coat either way and if you spill something down the front you can switch sides so that the stain is hidden inside your coat. Why might this be helpful? In case your called into the dining area by a customer and you don't want to look like a sloth. Which brings me to my next point, if you see your chef walk out anytime during your meal and they look dirty and disgusting, stop eating lol. That is the person who just had their hands all over your food, the hands that looked like they haven't been washed in months? Yeah, those hands. If you don't see a chef the best way to check out a new restaurant is to look at the bathroom. If they don't take the time to clean a public restroom that they know everyone will see, then they certainly didn't take time to clean the kitchen that nobody sees. Anyways, enough with the serious stuff. How about a joke? How do you get a small fortune? You start with a large fortune and open your own restaurant. :P Horrible, I know. So here's a history lesson for the day, the history of the word "restaurant." Restaurant is derived from the French word "restaurer" which means to restore. Makes no sense right? But wait, there's more. In old France restaurants were rare, taverns however where plentiful. At some point a bartender at a tavern noticed that people could consume more alcohol if they had something to eat. So he started serving a "restorative soup" at his tavern. Some people didn't like this much and tried to sue him but he won, and so the birthplace of the restaurant. Restaurants were invented so people could spend more money on beer. Interesting right? So today we did some food safety, in which my chef referred to fungi as "creepy crawlers that live inside you." Which was a horrible metaphor, made me imagine spiders crawling around in my body. ..and ugggh *shudder* gross. So the main need for food safety and sanitation is CYA. Which stands for Cover Your Ass. In the food business this is something that you will always need to do or you will get shut down. And California? Strictest health laws in the U.S. So I've decided to get a job out of state. ..And now! Your Zombie Apocalypse advice for the day! In case of a zombie apocalypse, go directly to your nearest motorcycle shop and put on all the leather you can find plus a helmet, so that zombies can't take a bite out of you. And don't get ass less chaps, because that would be embarrassing if the zombies did find you. ..

Is it PEBCAK or PEBKAC?

I survived day number one! Woo! So today, on my excellent adventure (lol), I got a large stack of books and a case of knives lol. If you've stumbled upon this and are wondering what the heck is going on, I am Karly. And this is my excellent adventure. But seriously, I am chef in training. Today was my first day at Le Cordon Bleu of Sacramento, where my instructor Chef Ted did a very good job in keeping us entertained. There are 24 students in my class. And only about 8 of those are girls. I am the youngest but that doesn't seem to be a problem (unless you count constantly being made fun of by the head chef a problem). It turns out, mine is the only name he can remember so far because he likes to use the phrase "were all adults here. .." in which he uses his hand to shun me from that generalization. He also said the line, and I quote, "Are you prepared for the zombie apocalypse? I am." And I'm curious as to how exactly he's prepared. Chef Ted used to be a tech guy but got bored of doing the same thing over and over again and dealing with PEBKAC's which stands for "Problems Existing Between Keyboard And Chair (or Chair And Keyboard, I wasn't sure). If you didn't get what that meant it means that the computer wasn't the problem, the operator was. (You had to be there). So as Chef Ted was going through the syllabus he explained our fire exist strategy. He then continued to explain that if the doorway was the place on fire the two biggest guys in the class would be throwing a large mixer through the window haha. Speaking of fires, he also explained that if we needed to use the restroom to let him know because if that fire did happen he wouldn't know where we were. Except he decided to use the example, "if Karly went to the bathroom without telling me and there was a fire, she would just burn up in that stall." And I'm like, "gee, thanks." Interesting fact of the day, when forks were first invented people found them offensive. People thought that any food they had could be eaten with their hands and if you pierced it with a fork you offended God. Pretty random right? Anywho, had a good night, well now it's morning, I might post a few things tomorrow that my sleep lacking brain missed.