An Alarm Clock?

I am so behind. Yet, I have to wake up at an un-Godly hour to do prep for the Apple Pie Bakery Cafe. Not only do I have to do this from 6-10, but I have an extern meeting from 10:30-11:30 and class from 1:45-8:45. I do not even know how to function properly before noon anymore and actually be productive. An alarm clock has not been my mode of waking up in many, many, many months now. I know, right, y'all feel my pain?! I will try and make this as painless as possible, for you and me both, but I do feel like I have a lot to say about Skills on Friday (but maybe not as much as my last post).

I am sorry, Jess (she is getting bored with my knife skills redundancy), but I must mention that we started the day on Friday with knife skills, the same cuts from the previous days. My yield was not as good as on Thursday, but my cuts themselves were better. For the most part, my juliennes and batonnets are equal 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch long cubes. My brunoises and small dices need a little help being uniform cubes. Chef Klug thinks I am almost there, almost at a 9 (out of 10) score, with the best person usually receiving a 9.5 in the class. I will take a 9 any day, and that is my goal for the upcoming week.

On Day 5 of class on Friday, Chef Klug taught us how to make a espagnole sauce, which means "Spanish sauce," and is the signature brown "mother" sauce, also called a grand sauce. He gave us a short demo, but we were not required to actually make this sauce in teams. We will have to make it later in the course. The two most important ingredients in this brown sauce are brown stock and brown roux.

The main objective for the day was to learn the differences between the two categories of soup, clear and thick. Clear soups are soups that do not use thickeners, such as broths, hearty broths, and consomme. Thick soups use thickeners, such as those flour-based and/or with cream. Thick soups include purees, cream soups, bisque, and chowder. The chef demoed two soups, cream of broccoli soup and lentil soup.

In our teams of four, we were required to make the cream of broccoli soup, a cream soup, and the lentil soup, a puree soup. We were also responsible for the garnishes, broccoli pieces for the broccoli soup and fresh sauteed croutons for the lentil soup. I love my team, but we can easily get frustrated with each other. We get mixed up on who is doing what. We disagree sometimes on seasoning. With us having to make two soups, which were not the easiest to make in the first place, and competing with the other teams for ingredients and equipment, it made for a tiring day.

After our two soups were simmering, the chef showed us how to puree the broccoli soup with a blender and how to use the immersion blender with the lentil soup. After he finished his soup, he allowed us to taste his. After the tasting, we had to finish our soups, season them, and be evaluated by the chef. I freaked out because our lentil soup was too light and not thick enough after we blended it. Jon added a slurry of cornstarch and water to thicken it. The chef liked both the broccoli and the lentil, but he thought our croutons were too soft. Once again, I accept his comments with a sigh of relief, especially with how that lentil soup first looked.

I was full of soup of course at dinner, and I could not even think about putting another bite of food in my mouth. Instead, I rested and talked. My cleanup job was sanitation again. I wiped down all of the tables and sinks, before taking out the trash. We try to be as earth-friendly here at the CIA as we possibly can. Each kitchen is equipped with three "trash" cans, one for trash, one for compost/food waste, and one for recyclables. Therefore, taking out the trash is an adventure, to put the trash where it is supposed to go and to rinse each can. I loved it! By the time Sam and I made it back to the kitchen, everything else was done, we reviewed the homework, and we were free to go.

My weekend was not too eventful, but with everything I have coming, I was more than okay with low-key. A few of us hung out on Friday night, including a late-night trip to McDonald's (I was hungry by then. McChicken or McDouble anyone?). On Saturday, I went to Sonic, did laundry (I only have chef clothes to wash now and it is kind of sad), and watched TV. Today, I worked on homework and went to an early dinner at Juliet's Cafe (Hawaiian Pizza, yum) near Vassar College. Now, I look at the clock, and I must go to bed asap. 5:30am is coming too quickly.

As an aside, can you believe it has been five years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast? Though it does seem like forever since I watched the news, almost nightly, in my dorm room in Brumby Hall freshman year at UGA, it also feels like just yesterday. I have visited the Gulf Coast and New Orleans many times since then, and though a lot of work has been done, the evidence is still visible, both physically and emotionally. New Orleans is one of my favorite cities in the world, and despite a Category 3 storm almost destroying it, it is still a wonderful place.

As my sign off, I thought I would change things with a little CIA humor. Enjoy.
What did the Johnson and Wales graduate say to the CIA graduate?
"YES, CHEF!" :) (If you do not get it, I can explain it to you.)

Haley