Final and Practical

We did the exam first - as I said for Thursday, luckily he had reviewed every question. I was exhausted Friday.

Then we moved on to making one pastry cream tart and 6 buttermilk bisquits. I was upset with my products Friday. I just know I could have done better but I just didn't have the energy to start over.
I got a 75/90 on the tart - my topping was overwhipped and there was too much cornstarch in my filling so it wasn't smooth enough. But my crust was well-baked. Chef could tell I was upset (I am so quick to tears these days since I am so tired all the time), and he asked me if I thought his products turn out perfect all the time. They don't - we've seen him get really pissed off at himself when he screws up his demos - usually he is so jokey with us, but when he screws up his demos (usually due to the heat of the classroom and how it destroys products quickly) he snaps at us a lot.

I got a 90/90 on the bisquits. 20/20 on overall kitchen behavior. I earned a 95% in the class.

But. I found this a little laughable - I got a 45/50 on the paper. I have a graduate school education - and my paper is not considered good enough? I just wanted to know why I didn't do better, since there was nothing marked on the paper, but all he could tell me was that I didn't give enough detail. Apparently, other people had written 4-5 pages. And then he said I used double-spacing (according to the grading criteria, this was required), and I used too large a font (12point Arial, again, required). I pointed out that I followed the directions, and there were no page requirements, and he just looked at me and told me he still loved me and it had not impacted my grade in any way. I also pointed out that the cupcake shop I went to was about 10 feet big, so there really wasn't that much to describe further, but I don't even know why I was kind-of arguing since I didn't really care. I know I hadn't made much of an effort with the paper. I didn't remember to write it until I woke up from my nap at 4:15 Tuesday, the night it was due. I guess I just think it's weird that my writing wouldn't be considered good enough with all my education - I've read other student's papers when they've shown them to me, and they have grammatical and punctuation errors everywhere, and they did better. Maybe because it's a technical school rather than the educational background I come from?
Rico was taking pretty long to finish, and the rest of us were at our table just standing around eithe after being graded or waiting to be graded. Irish took the piece Chef has sliced to see the inside of the tart and taste it, and pushed it into Rico's face. It was really funny. I was too slow to catch the actual cream on the face though. Later, she said she was wondering why we were all watching her pipe, and then she noticed Irish very close to her but she was concentrating so much on piping that she wasn't quick enough to stop the tart from being pushed into her face. She laughed it off, but the rest of the night she said she kept smelling whipped cream because it got up her nose. Oh, the fun we get into late at night...

Final thoughts/Lessons Learned:
Chef C was great. He told us he will either have us for B&P 2, or definitely the restaurant. He said that he doesn't really see more of us dropping - we lost a few this class - but the other class will lose a lot (he aided in there for Meat Fab) and we will end up combined into one class. He said we all seem very dedicated, whereas students in the other class just sometimes don't show up for class. Interesting. Next up is Garde Manger. We've heard good things about the Chef, but then again, we also hear it's a class that is the breaking point for students. Should be interesting for me given how stressed I already am. Boy stresses aren't helping. It's time for me to state what I need, and I have never been good at that, even if a lot of people have the impression that this would be easy for me. It never has been, but it's the worst when it comes to boys. Sometimes I think it's amazing that I'm a psychologist given all my own issues. Those who can't do, teach, right?

Off to bed - I was up until after 4 both nights this weekend, and though I took a 3 hour nap this afternoon/evening, I think I need to try to fall asleep again. Full week of work ahead - goody. Can you sense the excitement?

Practical 2

Today we had our quick breads and cookie practical: make six muffins, 12 chocolate chip cookies, and 6 macaroon sandwiches.

I got a 191/200 (58 muffins, 55 cookies, 58 macaroons, 20 kitchen behavior).

Here's what my mistakes were:

As you can see, my muffins are a little off in shape. I was being just a bit lazy, and instead of just pouring the extra batter to make a tiny seventh, I topped off two of the six. That was stupid since consistency matters in grading. Oh well, he said they tasted good.

Similar problems with consistency for the chocolate chip cookies. I knew that walking up there. I lost 5 points for it because it was so obvious. I need to buy a scoop instead of using my measuring spoons - getting all the batter out of the spoons is a mess. And they're darker than I wanted, but he said it still falls in the acceptable range. And they tasted right too.

No surprise here, but also problems with consistency for the macaroons. I am still frustrated with this process, but at least I'm closer now, so give me a reason to practice whipping eggs and sugar people... throw a party or something! I got the meringue exactly right, but I must be messing something up with my folding technique. I think it's also because it's an intricate process, and I don't have the best attention span or focus - I get bored pretty easily and just want things to be done, especially when I'm tired. I'm not the most dedicated person you'll meet, not even close... So I was disappointed, and even though they didn't spread as much as yesterday, I thought they would get marked down a lot, but he said they tasted fine, and the color is good. Cool.

Then we took a test, which, he's so nice, he found an all multiple choice version instead of fill-in-the-blank. Thank goodness. I still definitely missed some, but at least I have a chance to guess correctly!

I got a 94/100 on the written part of the first exam, and 23/25 on the vocabulary.

Lessons learned:

When you get soaked in the dishroom in an attempt to clear another few feet of dishes, you don't dry very quickly. But getting out at 11pm makes up for it! On that note, I'm off to bed to catch an extra hour of sleep - maybe then I can work out tomorrow afternoon instead of napping for 1.5 hours. And go out tomorrow... Tennessee's sister is visiting and she wants me to meet her. Then possibly Jazz Fest and out again. Mostly, I'm just excited about the fact that I will have time to work out and do laundry. And sleep until I feel like waking up. Here's to three-day weekends!

Meat and Seafood Fabrication Practical

Thursday we had our final and practical for meat fab. We had to truss a chicken, then cut it into quarter pieces, cut another into sixths, filet a flat fish and skin one filet, filet a round fish, and clean half a tenderloin. Oh yeah, and take a final. Making it more hectic, you have to bag, clean and sanitize between every different protein in order to avoid cross-contamination. whew!
I missed 7 points on the final, but earned 3 extra credit, so I really only missed 4 points. The first third was questions from previous quizzes, so I got all those. Then there was true/false, where you had to correct the false statements. Then fill-in-the-blank.
Grades on practical as follows:
truss 4/5
1/4 technical 23/25 portion 23/25
1/6 technical 24 portion 25
flat technical 23 portion 24
round technical 23 portion 22
tenderloin technical 23 portion 24
organization/sanitation 48/50

I got a 93% in the class! Currently on the road to honor roll, people - woohoo!

I actually really liked Chef B today - yesterday too, actually. He and I joked around and chatted. He teased me about how small I write, so he made a tiny box for me on my grade sheet to see if i could fit my name in - which i totally did. And I made him admire what a nice job i did skinning the filet, because, people, it was amazing - I left no flesh at all on the skin. I think if I had super-sharp knives, i would be near perfect at fish. The grading on technical for the round fish - well, I was right in the middle, but the people who scrambled at the end before the time was up got better grades than me even though they left more flesh on the bone. I think he wanted his break.

So final analysis on the class/Chef. When he told us our grades, I told him twice that I had learned a lot. I meant it - he's tough, but boy do I really feel like I understand how to handle meat (ha! dirty!). And in the end...yeah, he has an ego, yeah, he likes to boss people around, and, yeah, he doesn't have the best teaching skills. But, if you show him you tried first and want help correcting your mistake, he was very good at showing you how. Plus, he was actually really interesting to talk to when there was down time. Turns out, he was a psych major in college. And, he ended class by saying he was very impressed by how well we all work together, and that we should never lose sight of that. And that should we need anything in the future, no matter the class or where we are, he's available to us. Which I thought was really nice.

I didn't go out last night because i had to go back to work again today. Next up: intro to baking. Yay!

Finals

Two finals Friday - Sanitation and Culinary Skills I.
Here's the thing: I have never been good at studying. oh, I know exactly how I should set up the environment, and different techniques because of my training, but I am not very good at applying them to myself. I'm just not very motivated to study. Kind of ever.
Anyway. Sanitation was 90 questions for state certification. There were some things that had probably been in the book, that I never bothered to read past the first day... But I felt like I knew most of what was on the test.
Culinary - 36 questions. T/F, Fill-in-the-blank, Short answer, and slightly longer answer. Ha. There were so many things I had no idea. Luckily, one of the students had taken the test earlier in the day and was kind enough to share that we had to know the different parts of an egg - or I wouldn't have gotten any of those points. I guessed on some things, and found out later they were right. I might have managed to pull off a B. That's fine with me - Tennessee said it was only worth 5% of the grade.

Then the practical: 2 French omelets, 1 over easy, 1 poached, and fettucine.
Look, I did it! I actually managed to correctly make the egg dishes!! Yay me! Doesn't it look pretty?

My second, when I flipped it, all the uncooked center fell onto the tabletop, which was a lot easier for me to clean than getting it off the plate before I presented it to Chef K...

I forgot to take photos of the other eggs. My over easy was good, but it took two tries - the first yolk cracked badly when I flipped it, so I tried again. Similar thing happened, but not as bad, but time was up. I asked Chef why it happened, and he says I flipped the egg too high. I think I do that because I'm afraid the egg will miss my pan and drop on the stove.

My first poached egg - wow, that was really weird. My water turned a very strange dark grey! Chef couldn't explain it, but I told him I thought it was a bad egg and asked for two extra minutes. I got marked down on the second one because I didn't cut off the strings, but I was out of time. Oh well. I'm glad I learned how to make this - it's really good on an English muffin and pretty easy. I don't care if mine at home have the stringiness...

It must have been a slightly off night for me in terms of completion, because my fettucine erred at the last minute too. My dough was perfectly rolled out, but when I went to cut it into fettucine, because I did it by myself instead of getting help like I done for about four others, it stretched in the machine and got too thin. So ten minutes before it was due, I had to put it back through the machine from the beginning. Which I probably rushed through, and apparently should have gone to level 7 instead of stopping at 6, because Chef said the error was that it was too thick. One more run through would have fixed that.

A group of us went out to a drag show after class - it was really fun! Although there was a really mean one who harassed me because I was sitting in the front row and didn't tip him/her. Wrong move, buddy - as a psychologist, I cannot reinforce negative behavior that way! But I was told that she's been doing this for 40 years, and that's just how she is - she chooses one customer each show to treat that way. More hilariously, Nemo was loved by the singers! He was sung directly to, asked what his name was, and told how cute he was... can't say any of us disagree, he is a cutie, and since he's so laidback, he handled it really well. And Irish is so generous - she covered the required first two rounds for everyone!


Lessons learned:
Sometimes, quitting for a time period is the best option - I think the break on egg day helped. Because, look, once I was calm, I was able to cook properly!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Grains/Vegetable Practical

I think I got 18/20. I don't really pay attention because I tend to be more focused on eating.

There were no green beans, so we made the sauteed spinach instead, which I really like.

We also made the risotto. He said mine was al dente, but I still don't like it, so I just threw it out. Chef K. says it's an acquired taste and I don't like it because I like the pilaf so much (ha. see below).

And we also made ratatouille. Mine was underdone. I don't know why. I think it was the eggplant, but he wasn't specific. I just couldn't get it right this time. Oh well. That's what learning is.

Here's another picture of the Riz au Pilaf. Because I'm totally obsessed with it. Seriously. Make it. It's awesome. If you need more detailed instructions, let me know. I'm happy to share.

We had a lot of time to spare for this practical. It went 9:00 Pilaf 10:00 Risotto 10:30 Spinach 11:00 Ratatouille. And we started at 8:00! Once I had cut all the vegetables for the Ratatouille while my Pilaf was cooking, I just kind of stood there. Chatting, of course, but I was restless. It wasn't Chef's fault - he was trying to give us plenty of time for the Risotto. Oh, but I did talk to Chef about how he was a food scientist for a week - he recommended I put my resume on Monster after I complete the program. He said corporations are always looking on there. So, I can do that, and if I get the chance to change my career....hey, I'd think about it!

We were supposed to have a quiz on Vocab 4 (types of cooking), but he moved it to tomorrow. Which was good, because I hadn't studied. I've kind of lost my interest in studying for anything. I figure I'll learn those terms as we use them...

Lessons learned:

Point out that people cut in line in front of you, and that's why your dish is not as warm as it should be. And, fine chopping parsley can be your best friend. Look how pretty it makes a dish!

Knife Cuts Practical

Let's see if I remember all the cuts we did:


I'm describing them the order they are on the baking sheet.

Onion: Medium dice Large dice Small dice Emincer (fine slice)
Tomato: Concasse (rough chop)
Muschroom: Fine chop Julienne
Lettuce: Chiffonade (this is one of my favorite cuts)
Celery: honestly cannot remember what this is called
Potato: Large dice Julienne Small dice Bruinoisse (tiny dice) Batonnet
Carrot: Bruinoisse Rondelles Small dice Medium dice Large dice Julienne Batonnet
Orange: Supreme

I think Chef might have either been tired or playing favorites, because my cuts were definitely not as even as he gave me points for - I wasn't in the mood for details tonight, which obviously made the practical a little irritating to me. My juliennes and batonnets were definitely not even on all sides - they kind of splayed out at the bottom. Oh well. I'll take the points!
But the Supreme...that I love. I am glad I learned this, not just because it allowed me to eat really tasty oranges every night we worked on it. Basically, you cut off all the rind and pith, so you end up with a clean round orange. Then you gently cut out individual segments, which are presented to the customers. I should have taken a picture of how the remaining orange stands up on it's own, but I definitely stuffed it in my mouth as soon as Chef graded me. Apparently people pay a lot of money just for those little segments.

Lessons learned:
All that money we pay as customers for those tiny cuts - they're really not that hard to learn. But, hey, if you want to pay me to cut your oranges, I'll happily do it for you! The potato and carrots? No thanks, they're too irritating.

The Adventure Begins...

It's pretty simple, really. I love being a psychologist, but I needed something outside of work since I get out at 3 pm. So, naturally, I take on the totally insane idea of attending culinary school Monday through Friday nights, from 6-11:45. Awesome. Once work starts up again in August, I should be a barrel of fun to be around!
One week in, I am so far glad I made this decision. I'm in a state sanitation class, which seems to make some people terrified of food, but kind of like the documentary about McDonald's or the book Fast Food Nation, it just doesn't bother me. I will still leave the classroom hungry. I'm also taking Introduction to Culinary Skills, which is basically a knife skills class, and basic introduction to simple foods.
This week, we learned how to cook potatoes in many different ways. We had our first practical Friday - I didn't plan properly for the timing of the dishes, which had to be served hot - I was ready way too early.

Pommes Tournees au Vapeur - Boiled Potatoes with Parsley
Make little potato balls with a melon baller. Boil. Season. Really not that interesting, but apparently people will pay lots of money for small things!

Pommes Duchess - Duchesse Potatoes
These require piping, which I have never done before, and found really difficult to control. Luckily, Chef K. decided last-minute to not have them as part of the practical, because I would not have done well.





Pommes Croquettes
These I wish had included on the practical, because I did really well on them. They tasted fantastic. Imagine mozzarella sticks, only with potato instead. We used the same food-milled potatoes from the Puree.

Gratin Dauphinois - Potatoes au Gratin
I was pretty surprised with how much I liked these, considering they use heavy cream. The lesson here, I think, is both learning to layer evenly and how to brown and cook evenly without burning the bottom. Apparently, they looked so good that a tablemate accidentally ate mine instead of his...

Pommes Roties - Herb Roasted Potatoes

I thought these looked overdone, but Chef K liked them, and they did taste pretty good the next day for lunch after staying up until 7:30...but that's a story of another day. Take new potatoes (generally smaller) and quarter. Cover with olive oil, and stick in the oven.





Pommes Purees (aka Mashed Potatoes)

We also made these, and I really liked my final product - the seasoning was right on. But I forgot to take a photo because I was so hungry and I had been licking my plating spoon...

Pommes Rissolees
I had trouble with these. You have to cut the five even sides into each potato half. That is really hard. And then I couldn't get them to brown properly. And while I was trying to brown them, Chef K. discovered the 3-foot high stack of unwashed dishes (not mine - I swear! I follow the mantra of clean as you go) and made everyone go to the dish room and fix it. Which I was glad he did, becaue it really irritates me when people dump and run...it's unfair to everyone else.
Lessons learned:

They don't give cooking times in their recipes. "Until done." And the ovens don't come with windows since they're professional ranges, so it'll be a lot of guessing and checking until we get more practice.

Also, a Sharpie is your best friend - otherwise, people steal your food.