First Day of Summer!

Today is the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. When I woke this morning, I was not necessarily looking forward to it being a long day, school wise, but it proved to be a relatively easy day. I do not have anything too exciting to share, but I thought I would write a post anyway; some faithful followers (JESS) get agitated when I do not post every day! Happy First Day of Summer, Jess; consider this an early Christmas present.

I finished my product specification on tangerines this morning. If you ever need to order tangerines from a supplier, I am your girl. Tangerines come in 43 pound 4/5 bushel crates with a minimum count of 64. Tangerines should be firm, evenly shaped, brightly colored fruits, and they should be heavy for their size. No soft spots should be accepted, but thorn scratches are okay. Tangerines are closely related to mandarins and should be stored in cool, humid conditions. Riveting stuff, right?

Chef Mattel is in Kansas City this week with the Skills USA competition, and therefore, he will miss Product Knowledge all week. Chef Mosher is teaching us instead. Today we reviewed mushrooms and talked about tubers and onions. Tubers are the reproductive part of the plant underground that stores starch and water. Potatoes (tubers) are mostly different from one another based on their moisture. For example, russet (baking or Idaho) potatoes are low moisture and are a good choice for fried potatoes (aka French fries). Did you know that the sweet potato and the yam are the same thing? Well, they are. We tasted fingerling potatoes, jicama, and cipollini onions. Onions are separated based on if they are dry or green. Vidalias, or sweet onions, are dry onions, and leeks are green. Mosher talked about Vidalias being grown in a select area in Georgia, and only certain onions can be labeled as such. (The same thing goes for Champagne in France being called sparkling wine other places.)

Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays, I have a break from 1:30 to 5:30 if I have Banquet or 6:30 if I do not have Banquet. Today, I studied for my math quiz, and I read a little for Food Safety. With my presentation on Bocuse being tomorrow, I also reviewed for that. Today is a new block for most students and an entry date for new students; therefore, we did not have Banquet today (it is reserved for the newbies). At 6, I walked to Roth, went downstairs, and ordered the combo stir fry with pork and TANGERINE (go me!) chicken from the Cuisines of Asia kitchen. I enjoyed it.

Then, it was time for math. Blah. We had a quiz today, and it was more difficult than the first one. It almost took me the entire hour and twenty minutes to finish it, but I checked over it a few times. Some of the questions were confusing, and I changed a few answers a couple of times. I think I did well, though, hopefully.

My presentation on Bocuse, which is 25% of my grade in Gastronomy, is tomorrow morning. I also have a Food Safety quiz immediately following Gastronomy. On Wednesday, I have another Product Knowledge quiz, which requires me to identify any of the produce I have blogged about since day one. Ew. Tonight looks like it is going to be a study night, with distractions welcome!

EAT MY WORDS

Haley

*Welcome home, Karen Swann, from Europe. I hope you had a trip of a lifetime, little cousin!