School's Out

I've been very anxious this month. Can't seem to catch a deep breath. You know, once you start worrying about catching a deep breath, you can't seem to do it. I thought it was because of the kitchen remodel but once that finished the anxiety didn't go away. My kids are actually being fairly delightful (I know, right?) so that doesn't seem to be it. A huge amount of the anxiety went away after my soup/sauce final and low and behold started to build again right before the pastry final. I think it is starting to abate now but I think it may take a day to come down from last night.

If you'll remember we had last week to prepare all of our doughs for the big test yesterday. After a tricky written final about all sorts of crazy details related to pastry, we headed into the kitchen. All the groups seemed really organized. Even the dream team was hoofing it. When I was studying for my test it came to my attention that perhaps I had over folded and over worked my puff pastry and danish dough. I warned my team that this could be a full on disaster but there was nothing I could do about it now. I had never made the egg, bacon, cheese pockets I had planned to wing either. This was my entire group of items I was in charge of. No safety net whatsoever. The other groups were having their series of failures as well. Poor Bob the Anesthesiologist. He had these lovely financiers that were baked perfectly and someone shoved a tray in on his rack and they popped out the other side--face-down on the floor. Luckily for Bob he had extra dough. Unluckily for Bob it happened again. A girl in our team ruined this batch. At that point he just picked them up, dusted them off, and presented them anyway. Good for Bob. I would have done the same thing.

My egg, bacon, cheese hot pockets turned out splendidly. The baked up all golden and lovely. I don't eat eggs but I was told they tasted great too. I had a ton of danish dough so I made a lemon and blueberry braid. It was really pretty so I made two of them. I whipped out some pinwheels which came out looking a little crazy but it is amazing what you can do with blackberries and glaze. We had a huge grouping of really tasty desserts all laid out in a big spread for grading. Overall we did well. My danish dough turned out awesome and the folks were impressed. Not bad for the second time I'd ever made it. Nothing was perfect but I'd have given us a solid B+. I'm pretty proud given that we started out in the dumper.

I can't say I'm going to miss this class but I learned a lot. I learned that I really like making Danish dough. It is very physical and really fascinating. I don't think I will ever be in a class with so many kooky personalities. I will miss Nick's ascot and furry driving goggles that he wears for his moped. Frankie's singing even grew on me. She says it has been a problem in her other classes. Cocoa Carol dropped at some point but I appreciated her physical comedy. Bob was always enjoyable to chat with across the table. I'm sure the dream team has another class in mind to take next quarter. They are good hearted and loved to bring us little presents. I like presents.

I'm looking forward to having a break. I know I'll be chomping at the bit to get back once the summer is over. I'm ready for the pool and the lake and maybe singing lessons?

Time

So, my birthday was yesterday. A fairly insignificant one (41) but I got to thinking about what has happened since the last one. A year ago I was newly unemployed from a job I dearly loved and at a bit of a crossroads. I was turning 40, my kids were fairly settled, and we were in our home for just about a year at that point. I had been working in the art gallery with gorgeous jewelry and paintings all around me for the past few years. I loved who I worked with and the customers I worked for. Not all the customers, there were some real bitches that came in that store but for the most part it was positive. The idea of going to culinary school had always been in the back of my head. I had attended some classes and really enjoyed them but they seemed "home chef" speed. I wanted to know how to really debone a chicken. For real--not just the grunt and pull garden variety deboning. The real deal. Why? I don't have a clue. I wanted to really know how to make all those fancy desserts. Not just the Wilton class at the craft store. So I went for it. I had success in the intro classes but I haven't learned a ton up until this quarter. This quarter kicked my ass. I felt stupid for the first time in one of these courses. Both of the courses. I learned a lot.

My soup/sauce class finished up last Thursday and I am still processing that final. We were stagger-started so that we all weren't showing up with our finished products at once. The best part? We were given a commis. I know, what's a commis...A commis is a fancy term for kitchen bitch. We had a student that started later than us to assist. Then we, in turn, kitchen bitched for him. Thankfully I got Kevin who knows his way around a kitchen really well. He anticipated everything I needed. We had to start with the sauce we made the previous week and bring it back to life. I kinda forgot about that so I didn't get mine warmed up as well as I'd liked. It tasted good though. Then we had 2 hours to make a caramel sauce, chile oil (took me 2 tries--the first attempt looked like burned crap at the bottom of some red oil), and put two plates on the table. Each had to consist of a meat, starch, veggie, and a sauce that we'd made from the pan. We were completely in the dark as to what the vegetables and meat would be so I had to drum up several scenarios in my head. I went with a summer salad as the protein was steak but the veggies were slim pickins. Luckily I was in the first group so I got a half a pepper, some brussels sprouts, and a potato. I roasted the potato, pan seared the meat, yummified the veggies and served it all with a too-warm vinaigrette. I really wanted everything to be room temperature but I ran out of time. It looked really pretty though. All pinwheeled beneath the meat. I was slightly impressed with myself. After my evaluation, I went to work for Kevin. He hardly needed any help so I ended up in the dish pit. That damn dish pit.

Tomorrow is my last final of the school year. I am taking the summer off. Next fall I'll take protein fabrication and artisan breads. I know I said I would never take another baking class but I like the idea of all that yeast and kneading. This summer has such a different feel to it. I think it is because of this new direction of mine. Last summer I was at a crossroads but this birthday I have a plan. Albeit a loose one with no end game but I look forward to the journey.

Floating

You know that place somewhere between sleep and being awake? Usually happens when a cold is on the horizon? That was me last night. Even though I was pretty convinced I had not been asleep last night I'm also pretty sure that I wasn't in a kitchen making sauces either. Especially given that the baker supreme in our class was next to me all night frantically making chocolate sauce to go with her meat. She was convinced it would be great. That leads me to my classes this week. Pastries was extremely relaxing for a change. We did meringues. I think they are a waste of good sugar and lots of eggs. They are fun to make however. I did find myself getting into the batter because it tastes like frosting. Once baked though they are a bummer. The ovens at school are really large pizza-like ovens. So when you bake a meringue at a temperature that is too high they kind of ooze sugar bubbles. Or their insides ooze to the outside. It was fascinating. We made oeufs de la neige. Snow eggs. These are meringue blobs that you poach in milk and serve with creme anglaise. Basically it looks and kind of tasted like melted ice cream with a weird lump in the middle. Personally the texture made me throw up a little in my mouth. For real, I had to spit it out. Like a toddler. Our big worry is this huge final we have coming up in two weeks. Each team or 2 or 3 people has to prepare 12 desserts as if they operated a bakery. Some of these teams are full on freaking out. They are meeting this weekend to try things and do a practice run. Chef kept stressing that perhaps we were all getting a little worked up so my team is taking the casual route. We split up the work and are trusting that each of us can get it done. We have 3 hours on Wednesday to prep and 5 hours the day of the final to get done. It sounds daunting but I think 8 hours is plenty of time.

Soup/sauce is a completely different approach. We had a practice run yesterday. The final entails preparing a sauce that has to hold for one week, then has to be brought back to life and still taste good. Yes, it is refrigerated in a safe place. I really don't do leftovers so this is a real leap of faith for me. Then we have to make a dessert sauce and a flavored oil. We will not know which ones until we walk in. Finally, 2 plates need to be prepared with a protein, starch, and veggie. These need to be presented to chef within two hours. You have to use an intregral sauce with the dish and make sure it is plated well. I'm trying very hard to put myself outside my comfort zone so I went in yesterday with no plan. None. Usually I already know pretty much what I'm going to cook but I went in blind. I had some shrimp at my station so I started there. Then I went to the fridge and started digging around and grabbing things I liked. There is a lot I don't like. Carrots. Turnips. Green peppers. Root veggies. So I grabbed red peppers, zucchini, a yellow squash, mustard, my favorite herbs, a lemon, and cream. Always got to have some cream. I ended up grilling the squash and zucchini, cooked the shrimp in garlic and butter, roasted the pepper, and made a yummy mustard cream sauce. I topped it on pasta and fanned the green and yellow vegetables around. It was really tasty. I thought it looked good too but chef gave it the kiss of death. She used the words "olive garden" when she described the plating. I wouldn't have gone quite that far. I only served 4 shrimp and a tiny bit of pasta--not the vat that I see on the commercials. And certainly no breadsticks and never ending salad! She is very hard to please, I tell you. I hung around afterward for a little while and helped my neighbor with her polenta. Next week I might go in with a little more of a plan but probably not much. I'm thinking maybe summer salad. Sounds good right now actually. Anybody up for lunch?

We've Reached the Finish Line!!

Many of you have asked how my kitchen remodel is going. We're done. Finis. Thanks be to God. I thought it would be fun to see some before and after pictures. There are very few landmarks left so you'll have to keep your eye on the white marble counter top. It is about the only thing that hasn't changed. Remember, we took two rooms and made it into one. Well, it was really two spaces, not rooms. The long white marble counter top spanned the laundry and kitchen. The sink and ovens did not move so those are the only landmarks that essentially remain. These people who built this house had planned on having servants. The new laundry room is her old bedroom. Lucky her...

The old:





Now the new:

Monkeys at the Zoo

Wednesday was lamination day. Which would be fine, I'm sure, if I knew what that meant. We were supposed to learn this in our Baking Basics class but my chef instructor chose to skip that lesson. Everyone else in our class was talking excitedly about using "the sheeter". I was told we were never to touch that thing. After explaining my shortcomings and those of my partner (she was also in my basics class) to our instructor we proceeded to lab. So, although super intimitading sounding, laminating in just making a dough, pounding a big block of butter, laying it on half the top, and start rolling. Then, fold it and roll it again. After about 5 folds it's off to the sheeter. This is like a giant pasta machine and makes your dough into wonderful thin sheets. When this proceedure is finished you have a dough that has thin little layers of dough and butter. This is how you get puffed pastry and if you add yeast, danish dough. Even though we had never done this before, somehow we got done first. Shocking, i know. We made bear claws, a giant warrior princess necklace (not its technical name), big pinwheels, and big braids. We were really having fun making all these crazy shapes. We borrowed pastry cream from the across the table neighbors. He is the anesthesiologist and his partner is the singer (she hums constantly through class). I joined in today in a chorus of some song. I think it shocked her because I was quite loud. I completely cracked myself up. We cooked down some cherries and sugar to add to these creations. I mean cooked down--I forgot about it on the stove but it ended up delicious. We popped these babies in the oven with a sense of pride. First in the oven! What was taking these morons so long? Being newbies no one told us that the dough had to be nearly frozen before it went into the oven. No one mentioned that the butter melts to the bottom leaving a mutant layered crazy looking warrior princess necklace. The pinwheels were not spinning a happy dance. They looked like melted starfish.

We were careful with the puffed pastry. We had learned our lesson. We shaped it into little swirly cookies filled with cinnamon sugar. They were lovely. And really hot. That did not occur to Captian Obvious when they came out of the oven and I jammed one in my mouth. Well, I promptly spit it out into my hand after making a huge fool of myself. To make matters worse a tour had come by and watched the whole thing through the big plate glass windows. We are like monkeys in the zoo when those tours come by. I was laughing so hard at my complete imcompetence that I then made a bigger fool of myself. Just then my partner put her tray on a cooling rack but unknowingly pushed out a tray of baclava face down on the floor. Can anyone say "morons"? We are quickly becoming the go-to pair for what not to do in class. Somehow though our teacher still really likes us. Everyone needs a little comedy relief now and then, I guess.

It was dessert sauce day in Soup/Sauce class day. We rocked out chocolate syrup, ganache, caramel, butterscotch. We knocked out a bunch of stuff plus a batch of awesome sugar cookies by noon. We were all very punch drunk from all the sugar. Everyone was like a menopausal women--hot flashes, flushed cheeks, and bordering on very edgy by the day's end. But the day's end was at 3. Worth the sugar crash for sure!

Stream of Thought

So usually when I post an entry to this blog I have a great beginning sentence and for sure a funny story to tell. Today, not so much. Plenty of things this week made me laugh. The singing girl from my pastry class injured herself in a collision with the back of a chair while nodding off in class. She snapped her head back so far that she hit the back of her chair and made a huge banging noise. I laughed out loud during lecture and got a dirty look from chef. How could you not laugh? The female part of the dream team brought May day baskets with little bottles of flavoring for baking. I was super excited at first because it looked like bottles of airplane liquor. I was semi-dissapointed when I realized it was rose water flavoring. It was an extremely nice gesture on her part. Class was fairly uneventful. I made a wicked savarin. Okay, I didn't know what that was either so I'll explain. Then you, too, can spout some fancy pastry words and look that much more intelligent. It is a yeasted dough that when baked, is soaked in rum and filled with pastry cream. I don't like rum--yes, there is a liquor I don't care for--so I soaked mine in lemon simple syrup and served it with lemon pastry cream. Chef said my presentation was lovely--shocker! I actually can't wait to make it again. We also made strudel. This is an impressive thing to bake. The crazy church ladies who make this on a regular basis have their work cut out for them. The dough is stretched and stretched and then rolled with the yummy filling. Ours was a strudel with carmelized onions and potato. It was mighty tasty. We got out on time as well. Everyone did dishes. I don't know if chef had a chat with everyone or perhaps the class was possessed but I sure appreciated not doing everyone's dirty work.

Sauce class was extremely interesting. It was finishing sauce day. We made basil oil, red pepper coulis, pepper cream sauce, and several other red pepper sauces that I can't even remember the names of. The tricky part of this class was putting together a plate that looked and tasted great. Chef thinks I'm stuck in a rut. I always turn to the same old stuff to prepare. She's right. I think I'm in such a mode of cooking every night that I is really hard to come up with something new and inventive. These young childless students are whipping up crazy crap that would never even occur to me. I always go to my safety place. So, I learned how to take apart an artichoke which I then pan-seared in butter and garlic. Yummy in my tummy. I used the red pepper cream sauce and the basil oil with grilled chicken, roasted potatoes, and the artichoke. I would really like to know who the first person was that decided that an artichoke was edible. How hungry must they have been? Those things are like eating cactus. You have to dig so far into the thing to get anything you can chew through. Goodness. It was really fun to see everyone's creations. It looked like the cover of Bon Appetit--or close to it.

This weekend Bob was out of town this weekend chasing the elusive turkey. I probably put 200 miles on my car on Saturday driving kidlets around. I got most of my planting done and am geared up for the big party I'm hosting in June. It's a benefit for the Ronald Mcdonald House and we could have 200+ here for dinner and cocktails. I find myself checking every room for flaws and then end up scubbing walls, recovering chairs and generally worring that someone will notice my shortcomings. I don't know why I'm so worried. The guests will get dog hair in their food no matter how much I clean. Some things just can't be prevented...more on that later...