Friday, May 23, 2008

TGIF.  This was a rough week.  We have a different teacher and he is tough.  He gave us a test the other day.  All fill in the blanks.  He is not a fan of multiple choice, I hate to say.  I studied but not hard enough, I know I didn't make an  A on that test.  Well, if I did, it had to be a LOOOOOW "A".

We have been studying the parts of a pig, cow, and all the different types of poultry.  We have prepared chickens, lambs, pigs, ribs, veal, adult beef, short ribs.  Next week we will be cooking prime cuts of beef such as ribeyes, sirloin steaks etc.  Before taking this class, I was looking forward to learning about the different cuts of meat and what part of the animal they are from but now I am not so sure.  Yes, the next time I go to the grocery store and see beef shanks, short ribs and pork loin, I will know exactly what body part and how to best cook the cut of meat, but it also personalizes it.  It gets me thinking about those baby calves that are under 5 weeks old (veal) and how they take them away from their mothers.  Oh, Jesus, I better just change the subject.

We started out with seven in our class but now we are down to five and two out of the the five only show up about 80% of the time.  Today, we only had three people.  We were busting our balls to make every dish.  We had to make short ribs with a brown sauce, Beef bourguinnane, grill flank steak that was marinated for 24 hours with a mushroom brown sauce, wild rice pilaf with shitake mushrooms, meat loaf made with ground pork, veal and beef, a tomato sauce, green beans, garlic potatoes, and a  cauliflower, broccoli medley.  Since there were only three of us cooking, we had plenty of food to split between us to take home.  There were eight or nine meat loafs alone.   We had to also do all the clean up and when you have just three people to split the work in an industrial kitchen, it is more work for everybody.  We got through it and our teacher was proud of us even though we were an hour late getting out of lab.  I am just so thankful that we have a long weekend.  It is getting harder and harder and more exhausting every day but I am learning so much.  I know so much more than I did just two weeks ago.  I can feel myself being more confident and am still excited to be exposed to new knowledge.  I just have to keep reminding myself of that when I get overwhelmed in class. 

Friday, May 16, 2008

It is getting tougher now.  This was a long, tough week.  Finals and Practicals.  Midweek, we had a clean up kitchen day. Thursday and Friday were hustle and learn in our new intermediate class.  We have had two to three people out the past two days.  That means more prep and cook and clean up for those of us who are there.  My teacher said the past two days were easy labs and that we will be preparing eight or nine dishes a day from here on out.  These dishes have several ingredients and several steps of cooking.  Sometimes, blanching veggies separately before sauteing them and adding them to sauces to be braised at the end with meat.  I have had to cut up three chickens in the past two days and am already sick of chicken.  I happen to be nauseated as I write this.  Ugh.  I ate one of my chicken breast with a salad when I got home tonight.

I am cooking enough food now to bring home to my family.  I was actually able to take some to my parents tonight and let them taste test different recipes.  It will be worth the money and hard work if I can bring home food to my parents and my own home as well.  I hope to be able to bring home food every night next week. 

I can't wait till we start cooking shellfish and fish.  I love fresh seafood.  I hope I don't get sick of seafood like I think I am with chicken.  Something about the raw chicken smell getting it on my hands.  I can't seem to get the smell off even after washing my hands ten times.

This fast track program is still in its infancy.  They have only been offering the 9 month program since fall of 2007.  I am starting to feel that they are rushing us too much.  There is so much to learn in such a short amount of time.  Believe it or not, five hours a day is not enough for us to cook and learn all we need for that lab.  It is crazy fast and furious.  You have got to study every night and keep up with all the terms and visualize your recipes for the next day.  Writing the recipes is not enough, you have to study them so you can get in there and get your mis en place together asap.  You can't miss a class and know what is going on the next day.

Our servsafe classes are still two days a week.  We will have a midterm, our final and then we have to pass a National ServSafe Test for our certification.  We have to pass all three in order to pass the class and move on to our third unit in July, which I think will be baking.

Oh yea, I got the sweetest, most thoughtful Mothers Day gift from my son and his wife.  They are in Germany so they usually send me German crystal vases and trays etc.  Absolutely beautiful crystal that I will treasure forever.  I kept flowers in my large crystal vase but my cat, Monty (a dumb blonde) kept rubbing up against it and knocking it over on the kitchen table.  Getting back to what I got for Mothers Day... my son has read my blog and he and his wife decided to get me a black full apron and chefs hat with my blog name, Chef Joanie Maccaroni , monogrammed on the front of my apron and hat.  I wished I could wear it to school but they make us wear these half aprons,that one size fits all (meaning it is way too big for me) . I can't get mine to stay on my waste, of course.   I am glad I have my Chef Joanie Maccaroni  one to wear in my own kitchen.  I thought that was such a thoughtful gesture.  It was a nice ending to a truly stressful day at school.

Well, I got to get to reading tonight. . . Read, Read, Read.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Wow, new class, new teacher.  Found out this morning that our chef teacher we had before was switched at the last minute.  I was afraid of this new chef at first because I heard he is the hardest grader during Practicals.  He is quiet, soft spoken, more of an "all business" kind of teacher.  He also gives out more homework.  Oh well, I knew I would have to get used to a new teacher eventually any way.  Why not let it be now. 

He taught us how to cut a whole chicken into eight pieces.  We also quarter a chicken and deboned the leg thigh piece.  It has been stuffed and will be cooked tomorrow.  We didn't have time to cook it today because the President, called a meeting with all the Chefs during our class time.  That is not cool.  I might have to speak my mind on this one.  We only have five hours to make all these dishes and it is not like we can make it up the next day.  It is getting faster and faster and he is expecting us to be smarter and quicker with everything, plus keep up all our dishwashing in the process.  It is tough.  I never I thought I would be a dishwasher but we do it all in this class.  Oh, I guess I should say "never say never".  If you told me when I was working at Bellshouth (AT&T) that I would one day be a dishwasher and in cooking school, I would say, never, no way.  Ha, Ha, the laugh is on me.  When you are following a dream, you have to do the grunt work along with the fun, challenging stuff.  That is all there is to it.  It is humbling!

I am excited and still anxious but so far I have taken one day at a time and have done well, so I am going to keep doing what works.  Tomorrow is Friday, we have several chicken dishes to do tomorrow, so I should have dinner to take home.  Yea!!!

I have got to go.  Study ... Study ... Study .... I'm a student.  Tee Hee

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

I apologize for my last blog.  I was in the middle of writing and my computer froze.  I had time to blog but my computer wouldn't let me.  I wished I could remember that day and try to capture it but it is too late now. 

Well, we start our new classes tomorrow, Thursday.  This school doesn't fool around.  They would not even give us Thursday and Friday off and start our new class on Monday.  Today, was clean the kitchen day.  You have to clean the walls, every pan, stoves, sinks, stations, you name it and it gets cleaned and sanitized.  The new fundamentals class will start in our old lab tomorrow.

This past Monday was ServSafe finals and our Practical, you know, the one where you have to cook several dishes in a short period of time.  I finished mine, but barely.  Tuesday, we had our written final on our fundamentals class.  It was great, yesterday, because as soon as we finished our written test, we were free to go.  It felt great having the day off.

I am happy to say that our teacher is moving up with us and is going to teach the intermediate class.  We start deboning chickens tomorrow.  I think we are going to stuff some chicken and braise and roast.  I am bringing plenty of plastic containers.  I expect to bring home some chicken goodies tomorrow.

I have some great news ... I don't have to make hollandaise sauce anymore.  I had to make it again for my practical on Monday.  That was my last one.  YES!  I will never order Hollandaise sauce again in my life.  My eggs benedict will have to be minus the hollandaise sauce.  Yuck.  If you knew how much butter was in that sauce, you wouldn't order it either.

I was so stressed during my practical Monday that I almost walked out and got in my car and just drove away.  This little Joanie was on my shoulder saying, "YOU ARE NOT CUT OUT FOR THIS CLASS, YOU NEED TO JUST WALK OUT RIGHT NOW AND GET IN YOUR CAR AND DON'T LOOK BACK.  THINK OF ALL THE MONEY YOU WILL BE SAVING."  I said, "NO, I am finishing this test, even if I flunk it.   Little did I know that one of my classmates confided in me after it was over, that he came close to walking out in the middle of the exam.  This guy, always seems so calm and cool.  I guess I wasn't the only one entertaining those thoughts.  We had so much to get done in such a short amount of time.  Of course, our chef wasn't grading us.  They always have a different chef grading our Practical.  Our chef doesn't care if we don't go exactly by the recipe.  Especially, if there are extra steps in the recipe that you can skip or combine.  This chef, however, wanted us to follow the recipe to the letter.  It was a good thing I asked him before I started changing up the steps in my stew recipe.  He took off points with my other classmates who didn't strictly go by the recipe.  I was so happy for Monday to end.  I actually made a high B on my test.  The chef says my biggest problem is my frustration level.  At one point , when the chef came in and yelled that we had less than thirty minutes left, I slammed a pot down on my cutting board.  I let my frustration get the better of me.  He told me I just need to stay calm and I will stay on track and do better.  I know this but it is easier said than done.  I also have a bad habit of telling on myself.  Every time I showed my dish to the chef, I would tell him what was wrong with it before he could taste it.  He kept saying.  Stop telling on yourself.  I just wanted him to know that I knew how to make the dish but this or that happened.  I was sauteeing a chicken breast.  You have to make a pan chasseur sauce(wine, mushrooms, stock) to go with it.  There was only three minutes on the clock.  It wasn't enough time to reduce the liquid into a sauce consistency so I poured the liquidy sauce over my chicken breast and just presented it to him before the time was up.  I told him my sauce wasn't the right consistency, didn't have enough time.  If you finish all the dishes, you will get some points.  If you don't finish a dish, then you get a zero for that grade.  He just kept telling me, stop telling on yourself.  I have got to learn to keep my mouth shut.

During the practical, I was blanching some pearl onions for my stew when my usual partner, asked me if she could put her pearl onions in my pot of boiling water.  I said yes, not thinking that it would be a problem.  That would be just one less pot for us to wash at the end of the day.  She and I knew how many onions we each had.  When the onions were ready to come out, I told her they were ready and to come and get them.  The chef was standing beside me and heard me.  He said that it was not acceptable for me to be helping her.  We do it in our class all the time, so I didn't think anything of it.  He explained that it is considered cheating and not to do it again.  We could have both got in trouble but he let it slide this time.  It won't happen again.  I will think twice before I help out anyone else.

I am happy to have survived the Fundamentals class.  It is going to get harder and harder but I am going to take one day at a time.  We will be busy cooking tomorrow and learning all sorts of new things about chicken, beef, pork, lamb etc ... 

I have some reading to do tonight to prepare for tomorrows class.  Gotta go, I'm a student .... tee hee.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

It's 11:00 PM and I just kissed my husband good bye.  He is off to work.  Now, I finally have the computer to myself... just put my daughter to bed too.

I took a night off tonight.  We had a family movie night instead.  It was a scary, haunting type of movie called "The Orphanage", everyone spoke in Spanish, so we read English subtitles.  My daughter says she likes foreign films where she can read the subtitles.  I  learn something new about her everyday. 

That is all for now.  I'll catch up later.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Wow, time is going by fast.  Our finals are next week, I have a ServSafe final and my cooking practical next Monday.  I also found out my paper is due next Monday after our teacher told us we didn't have to turn it in until the ninth week.  He made a mistake so I've got to hustle to get it written this week.  I have a externship this Saturday night at the Donnelly House.  It is a gorgeous antebellum home on Birmingham's Southside.  I hope I can get some experience there because my last externship was a bust.  I showed up at the Pelham Civic Center and nobody was there.  Come to find out, they had the wrong date (typo) on the externship calendar.  I was upset to say the least.  I did a little complaining about it when I got back to school.  Apparently, these externships have the reputation for being a waste of time.  We have to do these, because they are part of our curriculum, (100 points).  The chefs at the school don't have anything positive to say about these orientation externships.  The big externship at the end is when we will be able to get our feet wet.

Been researching for my paper.  I am doing it on the History of the Hamburger.  Oh my God, there are so many people that claim to be the inventor of the hamburger.  Ground meat patties have been dated back to the Egyptians.  Back in the 1200's, the Mongols would stash raw beef and sometimes lamb in between the saddle and their horse and ride all day without stopping to make camp.  At the end of the day the meat would be tenderized enough to eat. Kublai Khan later brought it to Russia.  They called it "Steak Tartare'.    The Russians called the Mongols, Tartars, hence the name "Steak Tartare".

Then again, the Roman army was known to eat ground meat in between two buns, eating and marching at the same time.  Sounds like they invented food on the go way before the Americans did.

Our teacher knows so much about the history of food.  He has a food history story just about every day in his lectures.  He is so amazing to me.  There is so much to learn about food that you could never stop learning and know it all.  No way!

These classes are getting harder and more challenging but I am learning so much more than I thought I would.  I guess I didn't  know what to expect from these classes.  I just wanted to learn about food.  Food is such a broad term to me now.  It is all about the history and how all these foods have evolved into what we are eating now.  When humans evolve so does the food we eat.  The way we prepare it, the convenience of food, the demands of the changing consumer.  It is so fascinating to me.  I could go on.

I am getting tired and it is now midnight as I close this blog.  As I close this, I am reminded that my husband is on his computer downstairs.  I think I will go get him and make him come to bed too.  He is actually off tonight so we can be snug as a bug in a rug together.  See ya. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.