Day Thirteen

Head honchos at some of the most prestigious culinary schools in America think the Head of Everything is an idiot. "Zhey looked hat me az zhough I add lhost my mhind." He brought his fist to his chin and stared over our heads at the wall behind us. After about a minute of thinking, he proclaimed, "I do nhot care. I will teech my students ow to bootchair unteel I ham too old to muve my harms."

Butchering is a dying, if not dead art - no pun intended. In the 80's culinary schools began phasing butchering class out of curricula because purchasing pre-butchered cuts in restaurants was all the rage. Chefs and industry peeps thought this new convenience would replace ordering primal meat forever. They were wrong. The state of our economy has put those folks, who include the Heads of Seriously Prestigious Culinary Schools across the country, in a big predicament. Right now, most great restaurants will only hire new chefs who can butcher. Struggling owners have discovered it more economical to buy, for instance, a whole lamb for $4 per pound vs. a rack of lamb for $22 per pound. Many restaurants can not take advantage of these prices until they employ an in-house butcher. Most US schools, at this very moment, are unable to teach butchering as they don't employ instructors who can teach it.

Thanks to the traditional, hard-core nature of the Head of Everything, I will graduate with this ancient skill in my arsenal and be an asset to any unthriving restaurant. Yip de do.

We learn to butcher once a week when the Head of Everything personally delivers a fabu lecture, from a textbook he has written but refuses to publish. Besides having an opportunity to learn from this guru, it is beautiful to watch him work. His movements are strong yet graceful and his demeanor is polished while bucolic.

The meat inspection and grading system in the United States is very, very good. No animal can be slaughtered, anywhere, without an inspector on site for the entire process. There are seven grades of meat (for beef, lamb and veal) and purchasing any of the top three grades is acceptable. The seven grades are:

(1) Prime (You get this at a high, high end steakhouses)
(2) Choice (Within Choice, there is a separate grading system. "Top Choice," meat is generally served at high end restaurants and good mom and pop steakhouses.)
(3) Select (Most of the meat in your chain supermarkets is Select. Totally acceptable and often delicious to eat.)
(4)&(5) Commercial and Utility (We enter the Danger Zone. Stuff used at fast food joints and in TV dinners.)
(5)&(6) Cutter and Canner (This is used for dog food).

The grading is completely subjective and at the discretion of the inspector. Surprisingly, the grading is very consistent and therefore very reliable.

The Head of Everything provided two bits of disappointing meat purchasing advice.1) "Nehvhur bye meet on zhale." Shoot. I only buy meat on sale. 2)"Nehvhur bye ekstrah meet with the intenshun of frheezing it for latur yoose. Shit. I will further clarify my meat buying mantra: I only buy lots and lots of meat on sale intending to freeze it for use in weeks to come.

I'll just have to add full price meat to the lengthening list of expenses I must endure in order to do dinner right. I'll tell you all about my recent trip to Sur La Table, "Culinary Shopper Extrodinaire Strikes Again," another time. The guy helping me began rolling his eyes after my signature inquiry, "Does this come in pink?"

Days Eleven and Twelve

Over the last two days we've made:
Veal stock
Chicken stock
Fume (Fish stock)
La Creme Au Caramal (Creme Carmel)
Brioche
Les Crepes de Volialle Au Gratin (Chicken Crepes au Gratin)
Le Filet de Flet Poche (Poached Filet of Flounder)
Hollandaise
Les Pommes Tourness a L'Anglaise (Boiled Tournee Potatoes)
Le Paris Brest (a dessert served on the train from Paris en route to Brest)
L'Omelette Au Fromage (Cheese Omelettes)
Les Nouilles Fraiches (Fresh Noodles)
La Sauce Tomate au Pistou(Tomato Sauce with Pesto) and
Le Pan Perdu (Bread Pudding)

This was the first time our nerves were truly tested. Time was short, space was tight and the kitchen was hot. I saw firsthand how the kitchen can turn good people to the darkside. No room for your pot? Just move someones off the flame! Did you run out of sauce? Saunter past the stove and swipe the first sauce you see! The Sauce Swiper actually took someones entire reduction off the stove, dressed his or her poached fish and then DUMPED the remaining sauce in the GARBAGE.

"Zhee mhost competitshon you will encountair in the industrhy is at zhis skoohul," the Head of Everything explained. "You are all competiting for zhee numbher one spot. Onlee one of yhu will git it....sechond place is zhee fhurst loozher." Ouch. I hope to never employ sabotage tactics or cheap tricks, but who knows how I'll behave in desperate times. I'd love to keep number one as sweet as it sounds.

So far, crepes have been the most versatile item we've cooked. We stuffed our crepes with sauteed chicken and mushrooms, smothered them with a Veloute (a sauce made from stock and roux) and then topped them with Gruyere and threw them under the salamander (a commercial broiler). If you are thinking, 'that sounds delicious,' it absolutely was. Crepes can be filled with anything you've got - sweet, savory, hot or cold.

Basic Crepe Batter

4.5 oz. All Purpose Flour
1.5 c. milk
2 eggs
¾ oz. melted butter
Clarified butter (to coat the pan)

Whisk eggs and flour together. Add milk until the batter is the consistency of heavy cream. Strain the batter to remove lumps. Lumpy batter is a crepe's nemesis. If you let the batter rest, it may thicken. Adjust the consistency by adding more milk. Just prior to cooking, whisk in the melted butter. The melted butter gives crepes color when they cook.

Coat a crepe pan with clarified butter. Clarified butter is butter that has had the milk fats removed, which allows the butter to withstand higher temperatures. Ladle a small amount of batter into the pan and swirl around until the pan is coated. When the bottom begins to brown, flip the crepe using a spatula with a long narrow blade. Cook the second side until browned. Crepes are hearty little things. You can stack them while hot and they will not stick together or tear. Crepes can even be thinly sliced and put into soups as a noodle substitute.

I thought cooking school would curb my shopping habit, but it turns out culinary schools have all sorts of exciting kitchen equipment for sale, for cheap. They often over order or need to get rid of used equipment to make room for new gadgets. Today I came home with a fabulous blue steel saute pan for $25. For me, wearable purchases are now a thing of the past, unless you consider all the heavy cream and butter I am trying desperately to keep off of my thighs. Sigh.

Day Ten

Our primary instructor, Chef, is a good teacher. Chef is critical, helpful, experienced and easy going. He moonlights as restaurant critic (with a regular column), so his communication skills are generally above par. I say generally because everyday, usually toward the end of his demonstration, he will suddenly get derailed from his clear and eloquent lecture by major brain fart.

"Um, um, oh boy, um....." Once he realizes he is truly caught in a senior moment, he quickly starts talking again. EVERY TIME he gets back on track, one of the first fifteen words he speaks is a vocabulary word, used incorrectly. It reminds me of my consulting days when I interviewed nervous college seniors.

Today he was demonstrating how to de-bone a chicken. "You want to find the backbone and angle your knife slightly toward it. Um, um.....um....um. Oh yeah, okay, so slice downward behind the breast and when you hit the cervix bone, stop you knife."

First I thought, 'Do chickens have a cervix bone?' Then, I realized they definitely do not. "HA," I laughed, loudly out loud. Oops.

"What is so funny?" Chef asked me.

Thank god for my classmate Little Accountant Man. Taxes were due last week and since then he's been having late nights and late for class mornings. Still happy from five o'clock yesterday he blurted, "Chef, you said cervix!! Did you mean, the collarbone?" Turns out, he did mean the collarbone. Why his brain selected the word cervix in lieu of collarbone is a mystery to me. Maybe I'll understand when I'm a crazy chef one day.

One thing I hate making at home is rice. Its boring and finicky. This is the most exciting, versatile and fool proof rice recipe, ever. Even Little Accountant Man who has been burning, under cooking and spilling like a pro, got it right. I'll write the recipe in the format suggested by the Head of Everything, "Eef you whant to grahdooate." I will add all the useful information in parenthesis.

LA RIZ PILAF
Ingredients:
1 Part Converted Rice (Uncle Ben makes a good version. 1 cup of rice will easily feed four people.)
1 ½ Parts Liquid (Stock gives good flavor, but water works too.)
Fat (You should use butter or olive oil.)
Onion (Finely chopped - use about 1/2 as much onion as there is rice.)
Boquet Garni (Fresh thyme, fresh parsley and a bay leaf bundled together. Using cheese cloth isn't imperative, but doing so keeps floating bits from invading your pilaf.)

Methods:
-Sweat onions (Over a medium heat, put about 1/2 Tablespoon of butter in a pan and add the onions. Stir until onions are translucent.)
-Add rice, liquid and boquet garni (You can get crazy with the liquid. Chef suggested using apple juice if you're serving this with pork.)
-Bring to boil
-Once boiling, immediately cover and bake in oven for 17 minutes (The oven should be at 350 degrees.)

(After 17 minutes, remove the rice from the oven and season with salt and pepper. You can get super creative and add exciting things such as fresh herbs, zest, dried fruit or small diced vegetables.)

Days Seven and Eight

I've been remiss in mentioning my favorite instructor. She is a small, Asian lady who goes by "Mama." At first her broken English and quiet demeanor painted her as the dutiful assistant. After week one, however, it became clear she is senior to most and a wealth of knowledge to all. Today I discovered she has been teaching for more than twenty years.

"Mick it, mick it, mick it unteel no more flaw." Did you catch that!? It can be tough, but since she's usually demonstrating as she's talking, we're provided a visual translation (mix, mix, mix until the flour is incorporated). She once vigorously proclaimed, "I can not pronoun many tings, so if you canned understaad me, tell me!" That statement is a tiny testament to both her thoughtfulness and her determination for us to learn and learn it well. Everyone should have a Mama in the kitchen.

Yesterday, a discussion ensued about the French vs. the English (British). If you didn't know, there has been a bitter rivalry between these two countries for eons. Turns out the French have managed to incorporate their distaste for the English in their culinary vocabulary. We practiced the technique called A L'Anglaise, which literally translates to, "like the English." It requires finishing a partially cooked vegetable (immediately prior to serving) in a pot of simmering water. A L'Anglaise means no salt, no butter, no flavor, no fun. Although generally I'd rather have dinner in Paris than in London, if presented with a choice between Fish & Chips vs. Steak Frite, Crepes, Coq Au Vin or any other French delight, I'd pick Fish & Chips every time.

Today we began Safety and Sanitation class. It is long (two full days) and boring, but I'll be a certified safe food handler come Friday. Did you (my mom and my aunties) know that Botulism, a form of food poisioning, is caused by a neurotoxin known as Botox? For the record, I convey that fact only as a fun tid-bit, not as opposition propaganda.

Day Six

Sorry Day Five had no entry. It was Friday and when I arrived home, vodka was calling much louder than my laptop. I anticipate this trend on Fridays, maybe Thursdays too.

Today we made a traditional diced veggie salad, tossed in homemade mayonnaise called La Macedoine de Legumes. This dish requires exhausting amounts of knife work and had little WOW factor; I will spare you further details.

We also made a delicious strawberry tart - yes, we get to make dessert! Anytime we do a dessert it skims time and brainpower from our recipe writing homework since baking requires exact measurements, which the big dogs provide.

The crust of the tart is made from Pate Sucree, a traditional sweet dough that has thousands of uses.

You'll need:
8 oz. of butter
4 oz. of sugar
12 oz. of all purpose flour
1 egg
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla

Beware, if you don't have a baker's scale, you must convert the dry weight measurement to a dry volume measurement. Combine all the dry stuff and cut in the butter as you would for a pie crust. When you have pea sized pieces of butter, add the egg (scramble it first) and vanilla; knead together with your hands. Use a technique called Frisage, where you take the heal of your palm and push down and forward on the dough at the same time. It makes a mess, but is the fastest way to fully incorporate the butter. Once the dough is together, chill for at least 30 minutes.

Roll the dough on a floured surface to about 1/4 thick. Then, line a 6" tart tin with the dough. Poke your fork into the bottom of the tin to allow steam to release when cooking. Blind bake (or bake the shell empty) at 350 degrees until golden brown. You may want to weight down the center of the tart shell with pie weights or baking beans.

For the Creme Patissiere:
2 c. milk
6 egg yolks
5 oz. sugar
1 1/2 oz cornstarch
1 tsp. vanilla

Heat the milk over a very low heat. Quickly and thoroughly whisk the yolks, sugar, cornstarch and vanilla. Don't stop mixing or the yolks will get dry and create lumps. Once the milk starts to let off the slightest bit of steam, whisk about 1/2 cup quickly into the yolk mixture. Continue whisking milk into the yolks until all the milk is incorporated. Pour the entire mixture back into the pot and put over a low heat. Keep whisking like a crazy person and the mixture will begin to thicken. It is done when big heat bubbles pop through the surface (almost as though the creme is boiling). Remove the creme from the heat, transfer to a cool bowl and stir with a rubber spatula until cool - about 5 minutes. This part is boring, but worth it to get a smooth, shiny creme.

Once the tart shell is cool, fill it halfway with the creme. Top the creme with sliced strawberries. Glaze the strawberries with any fruit glaze. You can quickly make a glaze by mixing equal parts of jam and water over a low heat. Voila.

The most interesting part of the day was watching the Phase III students. These are students in the final phase of the program. Phase III entails a restaurant externship coupled with classes, taught by the Head of Everything, a few times a month.

The Head of Everything had them competing in a Top Chef style knife skills competition. "Iz zat what you call a julienne?" he barked at one girl. He paraded around the room scribbling on a clipboard. 'What could he be writing?' I wondered. "Do you zee zis?" he asked a guy, while pointing to his clipboard. "I geeve you zerho points for speed! My grand mama is vaster zhan you!"

After the cutting match, Phase III turned out a beautiful beef dish with an artfully plated vegetable thingy and buttery looking sauce; whatever it was it trumped our Macedoine and strawberry tart. As the Phase III students grumpily scurried around the kitchen, surrendering to the wants of the Head of Everything, all I thought about was how I couldn't wait to be in Phase III. How refreshing it feels to be excited about a seemingly miserable challenge. Bring it on Frenchie.

Days Three and Four

Stock and soup, stock and soup! That's all we've been up to the last two days. It started with the La Soupe a L'Oignon re-do, which went well, and ended today with veal stock. It didn't really end, as we Phase I students (aka newbies, peons and onion slicers) will make stock continuously (daily!) throughout our first three months - ugh.

I say ugh, because stock making is physical, tedious and gross. It all starts with bones. Practically any kind of bone can make a stock and the younger the bone the better. Younger animals have higher contents of collagen in their bones which yields more natural gelatin. A gelatinous stock is the goal. The best stocks can be kept on hand in the form of jigglers - so fun.

To start, fill a large pot halfway with bones. We did a batch of chicken stock and used bones from about 150 chickens - it was a big ass pot. Unfortunately we didn't get to debone beautiful whole chickens, but rather we cleaned the scum and fat off of leftovers from the factory. That's generally how it works; restaurants buy leftover bones from processing plants because the bones are an abundant by-product and therefore cheap. Next, cover your bones with cold water and bring to a simmer. Once simmering, skim off the floating fat and albumen (yucky animal stuff). Then, add your mire poix (50% onions, 25% carrots, 25% celery) and herbs. Simmer more, skim more, then strain the stock and chill immediately. There are many, many variations such as roasting the bones before simmering or adding tomatoes to the mire poix, but you've got the gist of it.

Three things about stocks I have been screwing up my whole life:
1) Trim and get out all the fat. There should be NO fat in a great stock.
2) Do not stir or boil a stock - it makes it cloudy.
3) Never add salt!

Who knew!?!

I'm starting to get to know my classmates better. All in all, good people. I'm slightly annoyed with some of the stupid questions people seem to continuously ask. "Uh chef, should we wash the cucumbers before we cut them?" Really? "Um chef, what kind of wine is this?" You are holding the bottle, read the label. One gal definitely doesn't like me. She was getting way too excited about the notion of breaking up frozen veal bones for stock and I told her to simmer down. Hehe.

The best people watching occurred during the knife honing lesson. Honing a knife is when you scrape the blade against a steel. Many think this is sharpening, but it isn't. Sharpening can only be done with a stone. Honing re-aligns the metal fibers on the edge of an already sharp blade and keeps it sharp. One poor woman was so uncoordinated - she looked like she was doing the robot. A few of the guys thought they were hotshots and started honing way to quickly and aggressively for beginners. Two of them lost control and sent their knives flying - can you say danger? The third nicked his knuckle with the tip of the knife. BTW-total cut count is up to five and I'm not one of them....yet.

Day Two

Today I became part of a French culinary school tradition that is centuries old, so Chef tells me. Chef is the guy who will instruct me and evaluate me over the next few months. The best of the industry's best, he explained, began their own career's with this same tradition. This tradition is for first year students to make La Soupe a L'Oignon Gratinee (French Onion Soup) on their first kitchen day.

French Onion Soup is one of my faves and I'd made it numerous times before. This will be a fabulous and fun day, I thought.

A fab day it was, as I was in a kitchen instead of a cubicle, but Le Soupe was much harder to make than I anticipated. A properly made French Onion requires perfect execution of onion carmalization. When I failed to carmalize my onions perfectly, I was shocked. Not only did I think of myself as an advanced home cook, but I've been carmalizing onions for as long as I can remember. Had I really been doing it WRONG the entire time?!

Turns out, to carmalize onions properly, one must stop carmalizing exactly when the onions have achieved an equal balance of sweetness and bitterness. Onions begin bitter and turn sweet as they release water and carmalize. If carmalization continues for too long, the onions turn back to bitter. Onions which are too bitter, or too sweet, are highly detectable in French Onion (since onion is really the only ingredient). In the end, I made La Seriously Sucks Soupe, and therefore will be re-making it tomorrow.

The afternoon consisted of a two hour lecture about recipe writing, delivered by the Head of Everything. He believes 99% of recipes on the Internet are utter garbage, not to mention unprofessionally written. Ok, I thought, he is now going to reveal where to find good recipes and detail exactly how a recipe should be written. He pulled through...I think.

Apparently, over the next six months I will learn every recipe I'll ever need to generate A+ food. I'm required to record these recipes, to the exact standard of the Head of Everything, and keep them in a notebook so I'll never have to surf the web for recipes again. No worries, I will share the fruits of my labor with all.

He provided a "recipe," written to his standard, as a model for us to follow.

La Soupe a L'Oignon
Ingredients
Onion
Fat
Liquid
Wine

Method
-Carmalize onion
-Deglaze
-Add liquid and simmer until it is finished

THAT is what he calls a well written recipe? No one said it, but we must have been wearing our thoughts on our faces. He only said, "Zhis is not zee lhast 'oh sheet' moment you will hav here."

Day One

The first day of my quest for chefdom was filled with information. Primarily, I was lectured about rules, regulations and expectations. The delivery of this ordinary and predictable information, however, was new and exciting. You see, me and my eleven classmates were lectured by the Head of Everything. This guy is way cooler than your typical human resources representative. As soon he opened his mouth, we could tell that not only was he the Head of Everything, but he was the Real Thing. Spectacles, check. French accent, check. Grey hair, check. Slight ego, check. Positively charming, check. Basically, you want him to love you. I got the feeling he despises a kiss ass. Ugh – one of my best skills is out of play.

He explained what we must know to successfully complete the program. “Rhemembur, zee furst time you make a meestake, you shuood hav asked bettur direcshuns. Eff you make zee same meestake again, you are zimply neglijhaht.” So true. Love him. After he said that it became clear to me that to become a chef, it is going take a tremendous amount of focus and good old fashioned hard, hard work.

My classmates seemed to be diverse in background. There was one extremely Strange Agent, but thankfully this person is in the pastry section so I won’t have to judge her (or him) daily. Judging is my favorite bad habit.

All of us students pretended to be shy today. I hope to have better stories tomorrow after they give us knives and someone unsuccessfully tries to show off. I guess that’s not funny. Given I am the world’s numero uno klutz, I hope I’m not the first of the group to suffer a cutlery mishap. “Zee furst drehssing is on us,” the Head of Everything explained, “aftur zhat, you will bandhage your khuts yourzelf.” The fact I’ve accepted my fingers will be susceptible to amputation every day is insane. Oh well. The Head of Everything stated multiple times today, “All schefs are chrayzhee.”

The most thrilling part of the day was receiving my uniform. Since I’m attending a French culinary school, we’re required to wear the traditional neckerchief. It’s an old school accessory, intended to catch sweat droplets and protect our sensitive necks from extreme temperature changes (think 125 degree grill line to 25 degree freezer in five seconds). It is tied exactly like a men’s neck tie and it is damn cute. Not quite as cute as my black and white check pants, however. And so it begins…….