The last two days prior to Thanksgiving break, I was on saucier, which meant doing short ribs and racks of lamb. I don't know what happened to me on Wednesday but I could not cook a rack of lamb to save my life. What makes that ridiculous is that, generally, the one meat I've had …
Continue reading Days 103, 104 and 105, plus a trip home to Hawaii and Thanksgiving on the beach
There's no argument that I'm not the most patient person in the world. But, I was losing my patience today and I think it could have been avoided. I appreciate that the-powers-that-be at FCI decided to have our class try a new menu and apparently a more complicated one (I appreciate the confidence in …
Continue reading Day 102: More dessert and bumbling through a new menu
Today was our last day of level 5. Since David was gone, I was officially sous chef as well as 1 of 2 on dessert. Thankfully, I had Ian's pork and mushroom ravioli in the fridge from the day before for the "scoobie snack", and all I had to do was make a mushroom broth …
Continue reading Day 100: Last day of Level 5, a new menu tomorrow, and stuffed pork leg for dinner
Tomorrow, I get to play sous chef again and start prepping for a new menu. I'll be glad to get away from the rabbit and osso buco. Tonight, it's another "all in" dinner night, in an attempt to use the last of last week's CSA box: romanesco (the green cauliflower looking thing in the picture …
Continue reading Day 99: Last day on rabbit and osso buco – yeah!
What a fun tour of Love Apple Farms on Thursday (see http://www.growbetterveggies.com/)! FCI put together a special tour for our class of 9 with the owner of the farm and Chef David Kinch, who is also a dean of FCI. We spent about an hour touring the gardens and picking and eating fresh vegetables. Then, …
Continue reading Days 95 and 96: More dessert and a trip to Love Apple Farms
Aside from almost breaking the $5000 ice cream machine, today was a successful day! I made vanilla ice cream, which was delicious. The secret in the recipe is adding creme fraiche after the custard has cooled and right before you put it in the ice cream machine. It gave it a really nice mouth feel …
It was fun having Chef Peter back in the kitchen and also expediting. He has a ton of stories from his time in restaurant kitchens. Not preachy; just life lessons. I like that way of teaching. Tomorrow I move onto patissier with Tomas - that should be fun. I get to pull some sugar, make …
Last week we moved downstairs to the restaurant kitchen and changed instructors from Chef Tim to Chef Udo. Bobby and I finished on poisonnier (fish station) on Thursday, which was our first day actually serving customers, and then everyone changed stations when Chef Udo came in on Friday. Friday I played sous chef which meant …
Continue reading Days 87-92: Menu Project, The Restaurant: poisonnier to saucier, and Chef Udo
Okay, I'm lame. I have not posted in 8 school days - yikes. I'd like to say it's because I'm busy - and I am - but I think most people are these days, so I'm just going to say I'm lame. So, what have I been up to? Family meals have been pretty fun, …
Today was the big day - Day 10 of Level 4, which means our big charcuterie buffet. We made several different items from the pig we butchered, a salmon we cold smoked and several different condiments and breads to accompany the foregoing. Pictured at top is one of our featured charcuterie platters. Starting from the …
Salty Apron 