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?