Outroduction

This evening I prepared two entrées and one side dish. B wanted wild salmon, I wanted pork. For a side, simple sautéed string beans. We went to the market, and I found both green and white beans -- that would make a nice color combo, I thought. A few button mushrooms, shallots, a spoonful of butter at home, done. Also picked up a lean center-cut pork tender-loin chop and a pint of frozen veal stock. For the organic wild-caught fillet of salmon, a tetrapack of vegetable broth for poaching.

I trimmed the string beans with my new luxuriously long chef's knife, put them into rolling salted boiling water, then into an ice bath behind me. That could be held until ready to sauté, which takes 3 or 4 minutes. The broth got on the fire, and I cut a round of parchment to fit in the pot that would hold the fish under the liquid. The veal stock was put into a nice small warming pan to reduce. Mushrooms thinly sliced, shallot minced, fish portioned into three manageable pieces.

Canola in 2 sauté pans, fire. Fish dropped into broth, covered with parchment then put on the lid -- low simmer. Rubbed sea salt into pork, then into oiled pan to brown. In bean pan, threw in shallots to soft, a little salt to help it, then the mushrooms. Turn pork, browned nicely. Drained beans, threw them in pan, snap crackle. Pork onto drying rack with towels underneath to let the meat rest. Drained off some oil, keeping brown bits. Threw in shallots, soften, hit it was a splash of sherry. Flambé for a second, then reduce to dry. Then added reduced veal stock, then let reduce more. Shook the beans around, hit them with a tablespoon of good quality butter. Tasted. More salt. Tasted. Dropped in the last of the stock to steam up and cook the beans a little bit more. Tasted, done. Spooned out fish, cut to test, well-done like B wanted. Plated beans and fish, presented to the wifey. Plate more beans with the pork, top with the well-reduced pan sauce. The pint of stock yielded about 2 tablespoons of thick, delicious gravy.

I try to imagine what this meal would have been like without my experience at culinary school. I would have pan-fried the beans in sesame oil and lots of garlic with the idea of being 'Asian', and the dish would have tasted like sesame oil -- not beans. Garlic would have burned or gotten crunchy, adding a musty overtone to the proceedings. Fish, would have done like my mom's, put under the broiler with butter and minced garlic. Would have been ok, a little bland. The pork, he he he, would have been pan fried to smithereens, no sauce, a bit like shoe-leather. I probably wouldn't have bothered with the pork because, well, I don't like to eat shoe leather.

The meal I turned out tonight was not restaurant quality -- the beans were a little undercooked (though it just occurred to me that's exactly how my dad liked them), the pork was slightly overcooked (it was medium-well, which Chef C said is the appropriate American way to serve pork because of people's fears, though I prefer medium-rare with a nice line of pink in the middle), and I forgot to check the fish for pin-bones. On the other hand, the sherry in the pan sauce and the stock reduction screamed LIQUID SEX DO ME BIG BOY!!! all over my tongue, it masked the slight dryness of the meat, the fish had a wonderful bronze caste from the broth that contrasted healthily with the tan color of the fish flesh, and the white and green beans had the color locked in perfectly from the blanching and shocking. Because of c-school, I pretty much know what I did wrong and why -- I have a road map to making this meal better the next time I do it. And I didn't use a recipe, I just did it. I didn't make or prepare or process: I cooked.

I can now cook. I'm not a chef, which is basically a term for 'boss', or 'boss of the cooks'. I don't know if I can cook professionally -- this coming Tuesday, I'm starting as a staggiere (intern, assistant, what have you) at a high-end pizzeria in Brooklyn for a few months to complete my formal education. However that goes, I'll still be able to cook food to order for my wifey. And do it with my kids when they rear there lil' butterbean heads.

Am I glad I went to c-school? Unequivocally yes. Will I pursue cooking as a career? Unequivocally I do not know. Will it help me along a path to a healthier lifestyle? Undeniably affirmative. Just as I'm happy I got to do a cross-country bike ride in this lifetime, I'm also grateful I was able to attend culinary. For both, I must thank first and foremost my parents, without whose emotional and financial support this would all be moot. Thanks to my wifey for sticking with this somewhat meandering dude, thanks to Ilsa for putting a flashlight in the dark forest to a few of the paths available, thanks to the chefs I had teach me: Chef M, whose disciplinary ways drove home the point of the basics of knife skills and basic concepts, Chef C whose laid back demeanor poorly hid an incredible store of knowledge, skill and advice, Chef K whose demos were notorious but tender enthusiasm helped me make pasta as good as Batali's, Chef G for giving me sugar headaches everyday for months and reminding me why I never want to eat 3 deserts a day again, and Chef Al for, well, for only slightly killing me when I presented poached fish in court bouillon as a dish -- I knew enough not to present the fishy poaching liquid to B this evening!! And last but certainly not least, the 13 others who I spent every single friggin' morning with for the past half a year....

At some point in the first few months, I revealed to most of my fellow students that I was keeping this blog. Some cared, some didn't, those who cared just wanted to see what smack I was writing about them. With a few notable exceptions, I didn't talk sh@t about anyone because really, who the hell am I to judge? However, I do have a fondness and bond with my new friends, so for those following along and honoring me by reading my rants, here is a roll-call of all my fellow students and my deep, dark, secret opinions of them!

• 2nd Language Girl: Probably the crappiest nick name I gave, should of named her Spanish Martha Stewart or Quiet Wonder. Despite the language barrier, 2LG showed herself to be the most naturally talented cook in the class. Her children are extremely lucky, they must eat unbelievably well.
• Chef Jr.: He comes from a family of chefs, he looks like he's 12, and probably has the strongest work ethic in the class. He has the focus, he can cook, I hope he gets the opportunity to travel the world cooking.
• Dirty Dave: Homeboy & wifey hauled ass from a life in Arizona to do the culinary thing up in this not-easy city. He's externing at a very reputable cheese monger to hone his knowledge for his idea of a beer & cheese bar. If I were to open my own place, I'd want someone like DD as a partner.
• Dirty Kim: Perhaps the only person in class with a certain mixture of talent, natural skill, personality, ego and drive to someday become a Chef-Celebrity with a fleet of restaurants, a TV show, a line of frozen goods and a regular appearance in the gossip columns.
• Dora the Explorer: Her extreme incompetence was only matched by her arrogance when she was confronted by our various chefs. Between her lack of comprehension in both English AND Spanish and her lack of hygiene while cooking, her presence underlined the crassness of culinary school -- it would have been better for everyone involved if the school booted her and refunded her money the first week.
• the Long Island Lolita: Though she initially seemed like the kind of sorority girl I avoided assiduously in school, I enjoyed the opportunity to work in teams with her -- she really showed herself to have a serious passion for making (and eating) good food.
• Natasha: A sweet 18 year old kid who is finding his way. People underestimate his intelligence because he's still developing. He can cook, and has an interesting palate, especially with his sorbets (that winey sangria sorbet was off the hook!)
• Norbit: Weird guy who definitely talks too much when hes nervous, but as everyone got to know each other, he mellowed and was a good dependable team mate who can cook the hell out of a side of just about any animal.
• Roundhead: Very quiet. He was definitely competent. I didn't get to know him well, but he seemed to be well-liked by other students.
  
• the San Francisco Kid: He came into the class mid-term, and came to class late almost everyday. Asked a lot of silly questions.
• Speedy: Motherf@cker needs to stop thinking so much and just do it. Do it. Do it. He has the most wonderful quality -- an extreme attention to detail -- but needs to not doubt himself when the pressure is on and get the friggin' dish to table on schedule. Definitely has the right personality to go far in the cooking biz.
• Squarehead: Sweet kid, needs to sharpen his tools.
• Stalker Kowlowski: Felt a certain empathy with SK, we're both of a certain age, both coming out of media careers, both a bit travelled and established in who we are. However, he's definitely a better natural cook than me.

Th-th-th-th-that's all, folks! I was considering blogging about it here, as it's officially part of the culinary school experience, but really, it's so highly personal and variable that it's less about c-school and more about the individual.

My previous blog, "I Am What I Eat -- I Eat What I Wish to Become" (what a snappy title! NOT) was a personal diary-like thing that centered around what I ate and my thoughts around eating. By giving focus and thought to everything that passed my lips, I found myself healthier, happier, and wanting to know how to do it better -- hence, culinary school.

School is definitely more of a beginning than an ending. Now with the externship upon me and some other major life changes, I feel like I'm learning a whole new set of basic life skills needed to take me into this new chapter of my life. When your tiny, you learn to read. Now that I'm pushing my later 30s, I'm only now really learning to feed.

If you want to continue with me on this semi-anonymous journey, please set your bookmarks to:

www.learningtofeed.com

Thanks for reading! Go cook some good food in your home for a loved one, especially if that loved one is yourself.

One more thing: Vote OBAMA!!

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

SATURDAY:
BREAKFAST: 5:45am, organic cheerios with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5 AM SNACK: 7am, half a large good quality chocolate bar, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11:30am, piece of vegetable focaccia, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5 From the farmer's market at Brooklyn's city hall.

LUNCH #1: 1:30pm, Singapore Mai Fun noodles, small wonton soup, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 Mediocre vegan food on Montague St. OK, it's a $6 lunch special, but no proteins in the noodle, and almost no veg? Lame. As the old joke goes, such bad food....and such small portions.

LUNCH #2: 4pm, large green salad, small portion of broccoli risotto, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, 2 small slices of John's Pizza, water, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5

SUNDAY
BREAKFAST #1: 5:30am, good yogurt with nuts, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

BREAKFAST #2: 11am, organic chex with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 1:30pm, cupcake, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Out and about with B, at Sugar Sweet Sunshine.

LUNCH: 2:30pm, fresh onion & garlic knish, seltzer, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
In the movies with a Yonash Shimmel knish for snacking.

DINNER: Oh you know, like it said up there. I can't believe you read this post to the end!

Grand Buffet (Graduation)

Today was the final day of class, a double day from 8am to guest-arrival at 5:30. Everyone prepared two hors d'oeuvres, and Norbit cooked off a bunch of roasts for a carving station. As usual, I put my head down and got my work done.

I finely chopped onion, garlic, Thai basil, parsley, and cilantro and mixed it in with yesterday's chopped vegs. Folded it into the batter made yesterday, then into the fridge. I reserved a handful of purple basil and zucchini for garnish.

I prepped the pizza topping -- thin slices of plum tomatoes, tiny dots of fresh mozz, cooked off and chilled a long link of school- made sausage, chiffonaded Italian basil. By this time, it was 10:30, and didn't want uncooked topped pizza to sit all day, so I jumped in and helped other students whose chosen preparations were a bit more involved. Dirty Dave had meatballs to shape, Natasha had mango sorbet quennels to shape, the Long Island Lolita had bacon masa dough to ball, Stalker Kawalski had mini eclairs to eat (damn, they were good!)... By 1pm, Dirty Dave helped me roll dough and cut it with a ring, to which I oiled it, topped it, and refrigerated it.

With some extra mini-pies, I baked off a bunch to see how they were. In the name of efficiency, I actually left all the little pies on the aluminium sheet tray, and placed the tray on the stone in the oven. In 10 minutes, the cheese started to brown nicely, and out it came. The crust was pleasingly cracker-like, and the tomato had cooked nicely, bonding with the fresh mozz for a pizza-like experience. The dough didn't char at all due to the pan and the relatively low temp of the oven -- had I added a little sugar to the dough, it would have been much more visually satisfying.

The pakora fritters involved deep frying. At 3:30pm I went to fry off about half the batch and keep them in a warming oven for service. A lot of liquid leached out of the vegetables into the batter, giving off a lot of little bits when it hit the hot oil. In retrospect, just throwing in more chickpea flour would have made this a much more efficient dish. I got off 60 pieces, though maybe 15 worth of bits went into the trash.

At 5:30, Chef A called for the hot food to plate, and my pakoras were out in a jiff. Two trays of pie went in, and they were out in another 10. My best friends, my wifey, my HVS, my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law, my girlfriend-in-law, and my Ilsa all came to snack and give props -- it was really nice, though it took me a few minutes to unwind from 10 hours of work culminating in that one moment. That's the cool thing about cooking in a professional way, when the food is fired and leaves the kitchen to the person receiving your work, it's a culmination, a high point, a place to go, an orgasm, a reason to keep going. It's great when the food is good (the pakoras, fresh tasting, veg came through, spiced right), kinda sucks when the food is bleah (the pizzas needed more heat, a lighter crumb) but that's just being persnickety.

The director of student affairs gave a little speech, Chef A said a few words, and Chef M from Mod 1 and part of 2 was there, which was cool. Students were called up one at a time and given a book (of French recipes, of course), crowned with a toque, and a whole lot of back slapping and picture taking, it all felt a bit goofy. A beer definitely settled my mind, though all the food I had been popping in my mouth all day guaranteed a lack of hunger.

A few friends and the wifey got together and got me a 10" Global chef's knife -- one of the most notable things from school was when I took a knife skills tutorial, using a longer heavier knife was so much easier than a shorter, lighter one. As long as it's balanced and you're holding it correctly and your stroke is just right, you can let its weight do a lot of the work for you.

This coming Tuesday, my externship starts. A lot to think about. This weekend, I will conclude this blog with my final thoughts and discuss some plans for the future. Stay tuned!

ADDENDA:
All you mystery readers out there, feel free to leave comments and congratulate me! ;) Judging from the meter, there are about 10 regular readers and maybe another 20 occasional indulgers. Thanks for reading!

Slept poorly the night before, maybe getting 5 hours of sleep. When I got home around 9pm, it felt like 4 in the morning. I slept like a baby, with visions of mini eclairs and pizza dancing in my head.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, a large portion of homemade vanilla ice cream, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5
Not a healthy breakfast, but needed a sugar kick to get moving.

ALL-DAY TASTING: 8am-7pm, including several pakoras, a handful of mini pizzas, handfuls of chocolates, mini-eclairs, a few mini burgers and meatballs, shrimp cocktail, a beer, a slug of Guinness, chicken sate, almond cookies, a few bowls, hunger varying all day

Grand Buffet Preparation (Cooking for My Peeps)

Today's class was spent preparing for tomorrow's Grand Buffet, our graduation send-off. We placed our food orders last week, and today's biggest challenge was finding everything amid the bins of everyone's ingredients. The pull was like a visual syllabus of the past 6 months of c-school.

Last night, I wrote up my recipe cards for pizza dough, mozzarella cheese, pakora fritters, and tamarind chutney. I made an additional card outlining what my goals should be for today's class -- what makes sense to make the day before the buffet, what can be done first thing tomorrow, what needs to wait until right before service. (With around 80 mouths to feed, each item had to be about 120 pieces.)

First thing, I made tamarind chutney. A half-cup of tamarind past got dissolved into a quart of hot water, then sautéed some golden raisins and ginger to soft. Threw in some cinnamon and a few other spices, sautéed until fragrant, then poured the tamarind liquid over it and brought it to a boil. Once it cooled, blended it to a purée and added water until it had the right consistency. Looking for the right balance of sweet and sour, it was still a bit too far on the latter; so, I added some jaggery sugar (palm sugar of the subcontinent, has a wonderfully funky sweetness), which hit the right note after I smacked it upside the head with a few pinches of salt. Into a quart container and into the fridge, done.

Next up was pizza dough. Got out the mixer, got the yeast dissolved in water with some olive out, then mixed it with Italian double 00 flour and a dash of salt. Let it go for about 10 minutes until it looked nice 'n bouncy, then scaled it out and balled it up on to a greased sheet. Covered it in plastic, into the fridge to proof over night, done.

On to the fritter batter, the base of the wheat-free, animal-product-free dish of the day -- chickpea flour mixed it dry with turmeric, garam masala (a specific curry spice blend), coriander, salt, and a few other spices; add water and a whisk until nice and thick. Let stand, covered, for an hour to develop and really get fully bloomed, then into plastic containers and into the fridge.

I boiled a gallon of water with a cup of salt in it, put on 5 layers of plastic gloves, then placed three pounds of curd. Once it got soft, pulled out the curd into boil, poured boiling water over it and pulled and stretched until the curd magically became smooth, stringy mozzarella. Balled it up, iced it, wrapped it in plastic, then into plastic vessels surrounded by the milky salt water. Fridge it goes.

By now it was 10:30, and we were aiming to clean by 11. I pulled peas, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and a huuuuge zucchini and got choppin' (these are the vegetables for the pakora). Potatoes peeled and diced, the cauliflower was put into the robocoup for a nice powdery consistency, and the zucchini diced with skin on. A big bowl o' veg, covered and into the fridge.

Tomorrow, need to mince all the herbs for the pakora, then I will mix the veg and herbs into the batter an hour before frying (since I don't want the veg to take in too much moisture from the batter). The dough needs to be rolled out, stamped into rounds and topped a few hours before baking. I think I may have a bottle neck at service -- baking and topping with basil, frying and plating the pakora. We'll be in from 8am until service at 5:30, a long day. I wonder what I'll be eating for lunch...

ADDENDA:
Yesterday I made dinner for B, the first time in quite a while I focused on just making a nice meal for the two of us at home. I made seared diver scallops on a bed of broccoli risotto, garnished with lightly battered broccoli florets, and a dessert of crème anglaise ice cream made with real vanilla bean. As I cooked, I could see how much my schooling has influenced my cooking.

The large scallops were sliced in half lengthwise, and right before it hit the hot fat, I dredged in salted flour -- before I would have just thrown the whole thing in, overcooking the outside and leaving the inside raw. The flour yielded a nice browning, and the thinness allowed it to cook evenly with one flip. By look and feel I just vibed when it was cooked.

The risotto took an hour of stirring and, rather than just make plain generic risotto, I had beforehand blanched and shocked a head of broccoli, and then puréed it with some water to smooth. Because of the blanching and shocking, it locked in the color; when I mixed it with the grated cheese into the risotto at the end, the finish product took on the most brilliant emerald green shade, not a bit of brown -- and it had a pure, direct broccoli flavor livened by the saltiness of the stock and cheese, clarified by the butter finish.

I plated it in a nice wide bowl; it looked beautiful. It tasted as good as I hoped it to be, and if I got it in a restaurant, I would have been very pleased to pay $25 bucks for this dish. To be able to whip it up without too much forethought for my wifey and me, it was a good feeling.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, banana, quart of water, .25 bowl, hunger 2/5

AM TASTINGS: 10-noon, spoonful of tamarind dipping sauce, handful of chocolate, handful of almond cookies, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
So many ingredients lying around, I was drawn like a magnet to the chocolate.

LUNCH: 2pm, 1 slice fresh moz pizza, Boylan's grape soda, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Emotionally satisfying. Very light on the cheese, the soda the same fake-tasting but purely sweet tasting grape from my childhood. Welch's tastes way too acidy and sweet, Boylan's has the more mellow balance of my memories.

PM SNICKLE SNACK: 5pm, quinoa, seitan, hijiki with tahini, grape fizzy lizzy, half a vegan brownie, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
After yoga feed with the HVS. Brownie surprisingly rich, made me think I may have OD'd on the sugar today.

DINNER: 7:30pm, broccoli risotto, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Microwaved and still delicious.

Terrines (Out with a Whimper)

Today was basically the last day of class -- we are off next Monday through Wednesday; Thursday is strictly prep for graduation buffet; and Friday is an all-day affair of cookin' n' drinkin' with all the friends, family, and peeps of of the class.

The last few days have been dedicated to terrines (aristocratic meatloaf) which will be present when people come in. They are served cold or at room temperature, and are accompanied by slices of baguette and smooth mustard.

Squarehead and Dora the Explorer went off and did this scary gallentine, which is a foie gras and chicken fine grind wrapped in a whole chicken skin....served cold! Eeeee! I made a Mediterranean Seafood terrine. Took a bunch of clean shrimp and sea scallops, diced them, mixed them with salt, white pepper, egg white, and a large jigger of heavy cream that I infused with golden saffron. All this went through the grinder to make a runny white and yellow paste. To this, I added chunks of shrimp and scallop, as well as minced basil and parsley. This went into the terrine pan, which went into a hot water bath, and all into the oven to reach an internal temp of 140. Cooled on ice, wrapped in foil, and stashed in the fridge to come together next Friday. Shellfish-loaf, not something I'll be making at home too often.

Everyone finished with their terrines by 10am, and we went ahead and whipped up rustic mashed potatoes (i.e. mashed with a spoon instead of a masher or a food mill) and Dirty Kim made some suave fried chicken. Chef Al reviewed the platter situation, locked in our food order, gave us a pep talk, and we were off. Class dismissed.

That's it for classwork. This blog is going to go dark from tomorrow to next Wednesday, then I'll return in full force with the good stuff about prep and the pomp of the Grand Buffet.

ADDENDA:

I have a trail at another Brooklyn Italian/Pizza place on Tuesday. Have decided to continue on with management classes in February. Should I continue this blog throughout my externship? Working as a kitchen slave, trying to learn how it REALLY is, as opposed to being in school where one learns how it's SUPPOSED to be.

Went to a pizza class in the evening, a continuing ed class about how to make it at home. It was a lot of fun, reminded me what I love about pizza, and the fact that not everyone can make pizza, he he.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, organic chex with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH pt 1: 11am, 1 piece fried chicken, small portion of mashed potatoes, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH pt 2: 12:15pm, ceasar salad, vanilla ice cream, 1 beer, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

A private celebratory moment with the wifey.

DINNER: 9:30pm, lots of different bits of pizza, 2 beers, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

Sick (Mental Health Day)

I didn't get to bed until midnight, still buzzing from the time I had at the restaurant -- being shown how to stoke a wood-burning brick pizza oven was fantastic, watching these people I was working and chilling with all afternoon make world-class pies before my eyes, damn cool. Woke up feeling not so hot in the middle of the night, revenge of the sausages perhaps? After 6 months in c-school, this may be my first gastric disturbance of note, which is a pretty good record.

When my alarm went off at 6am, I thought of the moussilines we were to make today (fish sausage, a moussier texture to ground meat, yuck) and the drama of Dora the Explorer freaking out on Chef Al because, well, because she's as utterly lost today as she was the first week of class, and knowing that I was allowed one more absence to graduate with honors, I knew the couch was the place for me today.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, organic cheerios with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 11am, flax-sesame tortilla chips, .5 bowls, hunger 4/5
A random purchase from WF, surprisingly tasty despite being 'healthy'.

LUNCH: 1pm, falafel sandwich, spinach pie, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Healthy comfort food.

PM SNACK: 1:45pm, cherry Italian ice, .25 bowl

PM WATERING: 4pm, 1 quart

DINNER: 8:30pm, spoonful of peanutbutter, good yogurt with honey, cashews, vanilla, 1 bowl,hunger 4/5
Not much to eat in the house. Breakfast for dinner!

Terrines (Aristocratic Meatloaf)

Not much to say about today's work, other than that it was just sausage again, with different flavoring and without of the casing.

I teamed with Second Language Girl to produce a Country-Style Terrine. We cubed up up some pork shoulder, veal shoulder and fatback. Sliced shallots and garlic were browned to soft in butter, then deglazed with sherry to sec. Chilled, they were mixed into the meat with paté spice, salt, pepper, and tinted curing mix; then the whole mixture went through a large grind, then half through a medium. Once ground, an egg, heavy cream, more salt, and freshly processed white bread crumbs were mixed in. Some smoked ham was finely diced, more fatback too, and raisins were plumped in wine and almonds were sliced and toasted. Parsley and chives were chopped up, and everything got thrown into the mix.

Boiled some water and spooned a few teaspoons in to cook. Tasted fine, kind of foofy foofy. A terrine pan was lined with plastic, the meat goop pushed in, covered in plastic then covered. Water was boiled, poured into a hotal pan, the terrine set in it, then the whole thing went into the over till the temp got to 150 internal. Straight into an ice bath, then into the fridge.

Tomorrow, mousseline sand stove-top smoking.

ADDENDA:
Had a trail at one of my favorite pizza restaurants this afternoon. It went really well, it was a good feeling to be prepping food for dishes people were going to actually buy and eat rather then endlessly pretending. The chef was a great guy who was interested in explaining what went into the dishes and the logic behind everything we were doing. The team was clearly well-integrated and happy to be there. Hopefully, I'll know in a few weeks if they have space for me.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, granola with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM TASTING: 9:30am, 1 little country-style boiled meatball

LUNCH: 11:45am, 4 different kinds of sausage, fried potatoes, water, 1 bowl

PM TASTINGS: 1-4pm, a lima bean here, a piece of Jerusalem artichoke there, pickled carrot, .25 bowl

LUNCH 2: 4pm, pasta with ham, toasted bread with roast garlic, cooked string beans, romaine salad, hunger 3/5, 1 bowl
Family meal at the restaurant.

DINNER: 7pm, clam pizza pie, hunger 4/5, 1 bowl
They comped me a pie before I split. Very different than a Frank Pepe pie, whole clams in a clam juice reduction, no garlic or wine.

EVENING WATERING: 8pm, 1 quart

Sausage Preparation (Grinding the Day Away)

Ah, sausage. It seems like a simple thing -- grind up some meat and spices, jam it into a casing. It is a simple thing, but like the best simple things, the more you look at it, the more varied and complex it becomes. I guess that is why the so-called simple things in life are so satisfying.

Sausage traditionally uses the tougher cuts of meat -- it ain't so tough once it's ground, but you still get all the extra meat flavor you don't get with the milder tender cuts.

Once ground, meat becomes 'forcemeat', as it is forced through a rotating blade and then a die of varying-sized holes. Grinding meat comes in different styles of texture, from country-style (once through a large-holed die for a coarse texture) to a progressive grind (sending the meat through several times, each time with a progressively smaller die-hole for a finer texture).

Simply sending the meat through a grind results in a basic grind sausage. Emulsion forcemeat has a formula of 5 parts trimmed meat, 4 parts fat, and 3 parts water in the form of ice. As these elements are combined in the grinding, the temperature is lowered from 50 degrees to 30. This results in a very fine and even texture, like the American hot dog.

Our group got two sausages to make, a Szechuan-style and a Braunschweiger. The first is all pork and a basic grind, while the latter is an emulsion forcemeat primarily of pork liver— liverwurst. Dora the Explorer and 2LG took on the liver, while Squarehead and I went to Szechuan.

Simply put, you must cube the meat to less than a 1" square. I had 15 pounds of pork butt (shoulder, silly!) to cube, and being that the shoulder ain't no tenderloin, it was full of gristle and silverskin and other stuff that got caught in the rotating blade and jammed up the space between the blade and the die in the Kitchen Aid mixer. Once cubed, all the seasonings were added: salt, prague powder (a pink salt curing agent, frightening stuff), sugar, chili powder, white pepper, Chinese five-spice powder, Szechuan peppercorn, soy sauce, and a healthy shot of vodka.

All this was done over a salted ice bath -- in sausage making, EVERYTHING must be kept as cold as possible, as solid fat will result in a better grind, fat distribution (thus flavor distribution), and easier handling. But the Kitchen Aide kept jamming, despite going over the meat again to make it into smaller cubes. Norbert, somewhat experienced in sausage-making, jumped in and put our remaining 13 pounds through the Hobart. This is basically an industrial mixer, with an industrial grinding attachment -- literally 5x the size of the Kitchen Aide. We sent it through twice, first through the big die then the small, and it tore through the meat cubes like it was slush.

The ground flavored meat mix was again on ice, and I chilled the Hobart bowl and mixing paddle. I mixed the meat mush for about a minute until the consistency of the ground meat became a bit sticky and bound to itself. Now, casing.

We had long ropes of pig intestine to work with -- natural casing. First run through with water, because, well, it's intestine, then delicately spooled onto a hollow plastic tube with a flanged end. Once loaded, this tube is secured to a cylindrical tub with a plunger on top that is forced slowly down by a turning motion. Loaded up with the meat mush, the meat comes out in an even tube while you pull the casing. Every 6 inches or so, the tube is twisted to make links. Getting the rhythm down with the 2nd person was a bit tricky, creating bulbous shaped sausages and a few burst links. Air pockets would form, which would be pricked gingerly. Eventually we got through the fifteen pounds, getting 6 links in a string without a burst. This style of sausage is to be hung and air-dried for three days, but since the school doesn't have the facilities for this sort of thing, these Asian porky tubes went into the fridge to age.

At the end of class, we quickly reviewed what hors d'oeuvres everyone will be cooking up. My two ideas passed initial muster, so this is what looks will be my final swan song in c-school:

• Indian Vegetable Pakora fritters with tamarind dipping sauce
  


• Mini Margarita Pizzas with Fresh Tomato, Fresh Moz, House Made Italian Sausage and basil chiffonade

The first we made just last Friday, and on top of being the best pakora I've ever eaten (here and the UK) with real flavor of the vegetables, it's also vegan. Vegan without tofu, mock-meat, or the feeling of absence.

The pizza will be a bit challenging -- tonight I am assembling an experimental run to see how long topped round of dough can sit in the fridge before hitting the hot oven.

Tomorrow, we go on with forcemeat and replace intestine with aspic -- terrines.

ADDENDA:
After class, I attended a chocolate tasting of new and emerging brands from South America and Africa (though a solid half of them were from Ecuador.) It was a bit like a wine tasting, with all the chocolate dark and around 70% cocoa. The first chocolate was used as a standard barer, to judge the rest against, which was the French Valrhona. It was really good, maybe an 8 out of 10. All the other chocolate varied wildly, and all were pretty inferior, going from mild and innocuous to burnt, artificial tasting and unpleasantly bitter. Funny, I was expecting something fine, but the hype around being organic and socially just just does not add up to a more pleasurable chocolate. Once Wholefoods and the like starts stocking all these chocolates, it'll probably be the ones with the best marketing and packaging that'll survive -- it's just too much very a consumer to try everyone. Of the brands, the best one was the Grenada Chocolate Company, but the lecturer warned due to the super small batches that are made and the undependable supply of beans, the quality of the chocolate varies greatly from bar to bar.

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, good yogurt with raw cashews, honey, vanilla, .25 bowl, hunger 2/5

Again not very hungry at all, but didn't want to feel ill with the dirt pill.

AM TASTING: 11:45am, 4 different small sausage patties (including a chicken vegetable, Italian, and green chile, pommes Parisian, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

As today was prep and not cooking, some of the extra meat mush was fried up in patties and served with golden cubes of buttery taters. NOT a low sodium meal.

PM TASTING: 1-3:30pm, a variety of South American and African chocolate, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

Full of sausage and chocolate, somehow lusting after salad.

DINNER: 8pm, pizza with fresh moz and fresh tomato, large green salad, half a pint of ben & jerrys, 2 bowl, hunger 4/5
Double 00 crust came out perfectly, nice and thin, crisp, nice wheaty taste. Made a round of 1.5" pizzas, stuck them in the fridge till B got home.

EVENING SNACK: 10:30pm, 20 mini pizzas, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5
The experiment worked -- I held the topped pizzas (pizzettes?) in the fridge for 3 hours, did not suffer too much quality wise. The dough didn't rise that much, very cracker-like, but still had that nice pizza chew. Topped with just fresh moz and a single thin round of tomato, the real thing will have a small morsel of sausage to kick up the salt bang, and some basil chiffonade to make it come together.

Hors D'Oeuvres 2 (Blinibonanza!)

Today was the second day of hors d'oeuvres with Chef Al. I took on the Buckwheat Blini with American Caviar alone, and though I intended to do the Goat Cheese Mousse with Beet Quenelles with Squarehead, I ended up doing it myself as well. The blini was straightforward: activated yeast in warm milk with a pinch of sugar, then mixed it into equal portions of buckwheat flour and AP flour and a pinch of salt. After it doubled in an hour, I gently mixed in an egg yolk and a small amount of beer. Separately, I whisked the egg white to soft peaks and folded it in to the batter. On a hot griddle, I ladled on hot clarified butter and squirted batter onto the grill through a pastry bag. As both came off the griddle, 2LG helped me top them with little bits of crème fraiche, black caviar, and a sprinkling of minced chives.

Upon presentation to Chef Al, he said that if he were presenting, he would have placed a hot plate on a cold plate for heating the blini (while keeping the hand cool).

The Goat Cheese Mousse involved simply melting some gelatin sheets in hot cream. Blend goat cheese in a blender with boiled milk, throw in some roasted garlic, crème fraiche, olive oil, cumin, and walnut oil with the melted gelatin. Poul over a mess of freshly-ground walnuts and minced chives, put into an ice bath to set. Roundhead cooked some beets and peeled them, I minced them fine then mixed them with a little olive oil, sherry vinegar and salt. After about 30 minutes to set the mousse, I poured it into shot glasses via a spouted pitcher. I spooned beets over the top with a 1/4 teaspoon measure. Chef Al said it was delicious.

After we cleaned up, Chef Al got into the mechanics of the graduation grand buffet for which we'll be cooking for one week. Everyone is responsible for 2 hors d'oeuveres, which we must decide on tomorrow morning (so we can arrange for placing an order for whatever ingredients we need. Later this week we'll be making terrines and pates, which take a week to ferment or something, so those will be served at the buffet, too. We'll roast some meats for a carving station as well. I think I know what I'll be choosing, but tomorrow we'll be going over the mechanics -- if we end up with 28 deep-fried items, that would cause a jam-up....so we'll see.

When I was a graphic designer, sometimes I would refer to a boring job as 'making sausage'. Tomorrow, I'm making actual sausage.


ADDENDA:
Yesterday's ride was relaxing, but not particularly challenging because I just didn't push it. After class, went to yoga with my favorite teacher. Was hoping to snickle-snack with the HVS, but when she was a no-show, just went home to do the Monday chores. Kinda forgot to eat enough, which is very not me. Guess the end of school coming up has made me feel a little odd.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, banana, hunger 2/5
Didn't feel hungry, but when I take my dirtpill (mulitvitamin) without food, I get a bit nauseous.

AM TASTINGS: 10-11am, blinis with cream fraiche, chicken skewer, beef skewer, veggie fried thing, salmon crepe, shrimp mush on little tarte thing, water, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
I put Dora's thing in my mouth, turned, and spit it out.

DINNER: 5:45pm, pasta with shrimp and homemade sauce, Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked ice cream, water 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Made the pasta from the weekend again because it was so damn good. Used a better quality of dry pasta, added cubed fresh moz and again it was pretty damn good, except maybe again I made too much. Despite being really hungry, wasn't able to finish. After 30 minutes, found space for ice cream!

EVENING WATER: 7:30pm, quart

Weekend Report (Tenderloin Walkin')

On Sunday, I took a train with my bicycle to Garrison, rode to my parents' resting place, then down the Hudson Valley back to the Bronx. On the way, in Putnam Valley, a small front lawn off the street had a bird feeder hosting three cute-as-a-button deer. I stopped, watched them chewing the bird-cud, and wondered how hungry they must have been to expose themselves to traffic and spandex-clad cyclists. Also made me wonder how delicious their tender-loins could be....

I made two apple crumb pies on Saturday, one for a get-together with B's friend's that night, the other for a brunch that B hosted on Sunday. I used Chef Al's quick and easy pate brise recipe, which can be remembered by 1.5 + 1.5 = 3: 1.5 cups of AP flour, 1.5 sticks of butter, and 3 tablespoons of ice water, plus salt to taste. Chill flour, cube butter. Place all in food processor for about a minute, make into a powder. Press with fingers (the warmth from fingers should make it ball up). Add two tablespoons of sugar, put into a cylinder, wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

For the filling: 10 green granny smith apples were peeled, cored, and sliced thin (by mixer attachment). In a pan, heat sugar and lemon juice with water and cinnamon. As an experiment, I put in a shot of light corn syrup and one tablespoon of cornstarch dissolved in a little water, just to play with the mouth feel. Once it started boiling, it looked like it thickened, and I put the apples in the pan to heat and coat thoroughly.

Rolled out the dough into two rounds, covered two tins. Piled in the filling, then topped with crumb topping: butter, flour, sugar, and cinnamon blended in the mixer with the whisk attachment until it got really...apple-crumbly. Poured over the pies and baked for 60 minutes.

Consistent the crust was not. After laying in the first, the second got really thin to cover. On the thinner one, the crust was somewhat overwhelmed by the filling -- maybe I should have blind baked it? But the thicker one, the crust held up fine and tasted awesomely buttery. Chef Al's recipe worked.

Tomorrow begins the last full week of c-school.

SATURDAY
BREAKFAST: 9am, organic cheerios with good milk, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1pm, sauteed shrimp with homemade pasta sauce and wholewheat pasta, organic cherry Italian ice, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
This was perhaps the best pasta dish I ever made at home. The sauce was homemade a week ago and frozen, with shittakes in them to kick it up a notch. For a change, I butterflied the shrimp and dredged them in flour and sea salt before cooking off -- it gave them an interesting snap, and the butterflying made them curl up in a very restaurant kind of way. Once the pasta was boiled off, I put sauce in the pan and cooked the pasta further in the sauce to really grab and bond to it. Tossed in the shrimps, covered the top in freshly grated parm. I cooked up about half the bag of pasta, and when I was putting it into the bowl, I could hear Chef Al deriding me for serving him so much pasta -- only someone as 'large' as me should can eat THAT much pasta. So I left about 1/3 of the pasta behind (after picking it of shrimp and sauce), and it was quite enough. The cherry ice I picked up at Wholefood was only made with 5 ingredients - water, cane sugar, cherry puree, natural flavoring and citric acid. It was really good, looked purple instead of red, had a real nice flavor, but if I were to make it, I'd put in a shot of gelatin to make it just a little bit smoooother.

DINNER: 7pm, cheese and crackers, hummus, tabouli, 2 slices homemade apple pie, 2 glasses white wine, .25 bowls of food, .75 of pie, hunger 3/5
Dinner at A's house with B and two of her friends. Very low key, and not hungry due to great lunch. Lots of compliments, but I thought the pie was a bit disappointing.

SUNDAY
BREAKFAST: 4:45am, pancakes and bacon, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5
Wanted to eat strong for the ride, but only ate about 1/2 the amount of pancakes as usual, due to it being so damn early. Put the other half of the batter in the fridge, gonna cook 'em tomorrow to see how the flavor is.

BIKE POWER SNACK #1: 9:45am, small bag of potato chips, small bag of chocolate chip cookies, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Peekskill.

BIKE POWER SNACK #2: 11am-12pm, 20oz Gatorade, bag of corn chips, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
Stopped in Ossening hoping for a farmer's market, but it wasn't there. Wasn't hungry enough to finish this small snack, but felt a lightness of head coming on.

BIKE WATERING: 8-3pm, 60oz

PM SNACK:3:15pm, bagel with hummus, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Left overs from B's girlie brunch while I was gone.

PM SNACK: 4pm, apple pie, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Today's pie was much better than yesterday -- the crust was thicker, and held up against the apple goo.

DINNER: 5pm, beef & brocolli with brown rice, shrimp toast, water, 1.5 bowl
Perhaps the most reasonable meal I've had from Chinese takeout ever!

Hors D'Oeuvres (Frittermania!)

Chef Al got all up in our faces and sassy about hors d'oeuvres today -- they're a lot of work, hard to get out at the right temperature, and if they're preceding a catered meal, God help you, because moron waiters won't. There is a whole set of rules -- always keep a tray 2/3 full, always have a second tray ready to go when there is one out, you should make about 2.5 pieces per person per party, a tray should always have garnish except if the tray itself is something stunning, like sterling silver or antique crystal, then just let the plate shine through. And he insisted the best book for recipes and rules is Martha Stewart's book!

Our graduation's cooking will be mostly hors d'oeuvres. Each pair of students will do one stationary item (like a roast, which needs to be carved to order), two to three hors d'oeuvres and one dessert. Oddly enough, the pakoras I made today were vegan, one of the few items in my many months at school.

Chef ran through the recipes, and off we went. I blinked, and all of a sudden I was grouped with Squarehead, 2nd Language Girl and Dora the Explorer, -sigh-, whatayagonnado. We divied up the recipes, and I ended up with Spicy Shrimp Fritters and Vegetable Pakora Fritters with Tamarind Chutney.

The shrimp fritter was pretty straight forward. Take a bunchof shrimp, peel and devein. Half of it turn into a smooth paste in a food processor, the other half dice finely. Steep some rice vermicelli in hot water to soft, cut into short bits. Through it all together with minced scallion, bit of dark icky shrimp paste (a brackish stinky fermented product) and a singular tiny bird's-eye chili, minced carefully with gloves on. Separately, mix up some egg, water and fish sauce togehter, then slowly add some AP flour to form a batter. The dry goes into wet, then into the fridge to come together. When fried off in one-tablespoon lumps, salt when hot.

The vegetable pakora was a little bit more involved. All the dry get sifted together: mostly chickpea flour, with turmeric, chili powder, garam masala and salt. Whisked with water, set aside to set for 30 minutes. Vegetables get diced: zucchini, sweet potato, cauliflower, peas, onion, Herbs get minced: cilantro, purple Thai basil and parsley. Once the batter was set, veg and herbs folded in, then spooned into the hot fat. (2LG made the delicious chutney.)

ADDENDA:
My number one choice of pizza place to extern at finally got back to me today -- I trail on Wednesday! Wish me luck...

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, banana, .25 bowl, hunger 2/5

AM TASTINGS: 10-12pm, mushroom phylo triangle, shrimp toast, crispy duck wonton, chorizo and tomato phylo triangle, cod fritter, risotto ball, coconut shrimp, curried lamb triangle, spicy shrimp fritter, vegetable pakora fritter, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Today's food was definitely delicious, but by no means light or particularly healthy.

PM WATERING: 2pm, 1 quart

PM SNACK: 4pm, small amount of bittersweet chocolate, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8pm, hors d'oervres including pigs in blankets, lame vegetable dumplings, sea bass skewers, mushroom and goat cheese on toast, mini burgers, coconut shrimp, chicken torta, dinner including bbq pork, pulled chicken, potato salad, corn bread, grilled veg, cheese ravioli, half glass of champagne, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
At a wedding of a friend of B's. The hor d'oerves were eatable and appealing, but I could hear Chef Al in the back of my mind getting into a hissyfit about the crassness of pigs in blankets.

EVENING WATERING: Midnight, quart of water

Career Lecture (Food Memory Essay)

Today was not for cooking, but for lecturing. A speaker came in, the same one from a few months ago, and ran down the basic budgetary theory of opening a restaurant. Start-up costs versus operating costs, working budget vs. profit/loss statement, and operating profit vs. net income. In three groups, we calculated the cost of ingredients in a single loaf of bread, and reviewed the many, many direct operating expenses -- everything from paper supplies and trash services to credit card fees and linen costs. Basically, a 4-hour overview of what others have learned in management class over the past several weeks.

Chef Al requested an essay from us, to include a statement of who we are, what we do, our favorite food, a food memory, and who inspired us to go to c-school. Admittedly, I recycled some material from my old blog, but if it fits, it fits! Here's the essay, for your readin' pleasure:

WHO
I am -redacted-. I was born and raised on Staten Island, schooled upstate, and now on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with my wife, B, and my ever-loving feline named Rufus, who happens to be a girl, but that’s another essay.

WORK
Out of college, I managed an independent music label for about 5 years, and then started a career in graphic design. Over the past decade, I’ve worked as a designer at a white-shoe law firm; as a production coordinator for a print broker; and, most recently, as a project manager at -redacted-. While putting myself through culinary school, I’ve been working as a free-lance business-to-business presentation specialist.

FAVORITE FOOD
It’s hard to pick one favorite food, because like music or sex, different things appeal differently at different times. If a gun was put to my head and I forced to choose, it would have to be pizza—for two primary reasons.

First, for nostalgic reasons. When I was a kid, my parents would bring home a pizza to give my mom a break from cooking. Pizza nights always felt celebratory, and put everyone in a good mood. It also didn’t hurt that there was always good pizza in Staten Island, with its large Italian community and independent pizza shops.

Secondarily, because of all of the fabulous pizza that’s come to New York during the past few years — Una Pizza Napoletana, Franny’s, Isabella’s, Otto, as well as the classics like L&B Spumoni, Grimaldi’s, Totonno’s, and John’s. Such a simple food with a limiting definition, but such character and variety can emerge from this restrictive palate.

FOOD MEMORY
A few weeks ago, I sat down to read my hand-written journal from my cross-country bike trek. I wrote down pretty much everything I ate—the good, the bad, especially the ugly— and a lot of thoughts about my parents, whose passings were still very fresh in my mind at the time. Only once, the two subjects crossed. From my Marshfield, Missouri entry:

Heard a piece on the radio about some local hospital improving their food, choked me up. Reminded me of the time my mom was hospitalized—her food, sharing pizza & Chinese food with her, bringing her chocolate. God I miss her.

Mom’s hospital food was bland and gross, and my mom had no appetite due to the chemo. Still, she would eat bites of the pizza, Chinese, and chocolate not because she was hungry, but because it was comforting. And it was shared with her son.

The full weight of my mother losing her facilities came to light due to her bearings in her kitchen. When she started her first course of treatment, they eventually sent her home, and every few days she would make her way back to the hospital. I got a call from her one evening at work, a little panicked because she could not remember how to turn off the oven. I immediately left work and rushed to her apartment. When I got there, the oven was off; she had mistaken the clock time on the panel as a temperature. The next day I moved in with her and started making arrangements for home health aides during the day.

My mom was never a good cook, and it was almost a relief that during the time I lived with her that I got to prepare breakfast and dinner (I’d set aside easy stuff to prepare for the aide). I remember one dinner: I was preparing dried pasta and jarred sauce, and made a simple green salad with most of the stuff I grew up on—carrots, cucumbers, green pepper, celery, onion, except instead of iceberg, I used romaine. I stopped eating iceberg lettuce years before because it tastes like nothing and is nutritionally void. When I served the salad, my mom asked where the iceberg was. I sighed like I was a snotty teenager again, told her this was much healthier, not to mention tastier, and it was HER generation who screwed up our eating habits by making silly stuff like that the standard.

Instead of getting into a raucous (and fun) argument with me about intergenerational food warfare and my silly teenage-like snootiness, she meekly said, “but I like it.” I immediately felt horrendously guilty—I knew subconsciously she was dying and these were most likely her last meals (they were), but on the surface I was hoping to introduce her to new things, to things that reflected my way of thinking and seeing things. Suffice it to say, for the next month until the end, her house saw nothing but iceberg lettuce. I can’t eat the stuff today without feeling a little guilty and sad.

CULINARY SCHOOL INSPIRATION
A few people shaped my experience that lead to culinary school. My mother, of course, because she was a lousy cook! I grew up hating the food I ate at home, and cooking for her was an eye-opener. I couldn’t cook to save myself, and I certainly couldn’t cook any better than she could.

Next, my nutritionist, Ilsa. In recent years, my doctor told me that I had to eat better to get a handle on my blood pressure. Having no idea what ‘eat better’ meant, I started seeing a nutritionist who led me on activities like walking through the farmer’s market and just vibing on what appealed to me. In honor of my mom, and to the delight of my wife, I started cooking at home, reading up on the culture and politics of food that has been evolving around my generation.

The more I read, the more I cooked, the more I knew that I was incredibly inflexible and limited in what I ate and what I cooked. I went to c-school to become a healthier, more worldly person who can cook for himself, a more generous and loving person who can craft a meal for loved ones who need to be fed, and perhaps, put a curve in a career away from the law and corporate sector and into something that involves nourishing both body and mind.

ADDENDA:
The lecturer told an interesting story about Shake Shack, in the context that restaurants are constantly looking to cut costs and boost profits. The vanilla shake's shake's ingredient cost was 15% of its price, while the chocolate shake was 40%, due to the mix of three expensive kinds of chocolate used in making the ganache (that was blended into the vanilla base). They called their vendor to request samples of cheaper chocolates. They made the shake the old way and with the new cheap chocolate, and did a blind taste-test in house. Everyone who tasted it agreed: The cheap chocolate tasted like ass! It would have been damaging to the brand and rep if people started asking why the shake started tasting crappy while the price remained the same.

So after class I went and got a chocolate shake from the Shack. After waiting on line for an hour and spending $5.25 on a petite 12 or so ounce portion, I must say it tasted pretty great -- the deep chocolate flavor had nice caramel overtones. Still, for the wait and the price, so not worth it.

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 2/5
Good milk and yogurt, banana, grapes, blueberries, flax, ice. Wasn't feeling inspired, but haven't had a smoothie in a while.

AM SNACKS: 9-11:30am, 2 crackers, small piece of baguette, small handful of peanuts
Weren't cooking this morning, but had a few snacks lying around.

PM SNACK: 1pm, chocolate shake, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

SNICKLESNACK: 5pm, seitan with quinoa and kale, sesame tahini dressing, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Chow with the HVS after an HVS-lead yoga session. Felt good to eat some intense green.

DINNER: 6:30pm, Capricciosa Pizza, a couple of small slices of Marherita, flourless chocolate cake, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Delicious pizza at a place where I'm considering an externship. The pie I had was recommended by the waitress, a white pie with fresh cow's moz, sausage, artichokes, green olives, mushrooms and rosemary. Nice thin crust, seriously good, where has this place been? Really under the radar.

EVENING WATERING: 9:30pm, quart of water.

Practical (Again, Plating & Portion is the Problem)

Today was the third and final Market Basket, as well as our final practical exam. The protein was Cornish Game Hen (which is just another name for "baby chicken," just a bit smaller). The pantry was stocked, and away we went.

After yesterday's trials and tribulations, I focused from the beginning. There was specialty equipment on hand to use, but no pizza stones -- no way was I going to bake on a pie in a sub 500-degree oven on aluminum, it would turn out gummy, no matter how thin the dough. However, there were pasta attachments for the mixers, so a bed of pasta it was.

Color: I didn't want a lot of white and tan everywhere, having to depend on garnish for color. So I blanched some spinach, blended it until liquid, and used that to bring the bread flour together. After some kneading, I had a nice green pasta dough. While I kneading, I thought of what could go on the plate. My plan: to sauté parts of the bird until golden, make a chicken stock pan sauce with a lot of wine to coat the pasta, simmer some elegantly cut mushrooms, remove various gills and the skins. Maybe even put in some diamond-cut some red peppers. Chef Al will like that, right?

So I dissembled the bird and frenched the legs for another 'elevating' touch Chef Al might appreciate. Sautéed it in peanut oil, salted well, looked nice. While the bird was frying, I broke out the dough and sent it through rollers. It was a bit loose, due to the spinach liquid on top of the eggs; but, I added a lot of flour until it got pasta like -- and saved the dish! (I've made too-loose dough at home and it was a disaster.) But this time, I was cool and calm. I patted myself on the back, what could go wrong?!

It was at this point I oopsed -- no water was on to boil. If you make pasta, the FIRST step should be to get a big honking pot of water on to a rolling boil. And here I was, with my chicken already cooked off.

So I finished my vegetable cutting, played with some fan action, then got the pan sauce going. Using the brown fond from the chicken and the fat it was cooked in, I hit it with some shallot, followed by a solid four ounces of white wine. Flambéed a bit; then, when near to dry, started ladling in the chicken stock. Water was not yet boiling...so I kept on adding stock as it reduced, adding more and more to an intense flavor.

When the water was finally boiling, I threw in about half my pasta, then the mushrooms and peppers into the sauce. Tasted it, needed just a pinch of salt. After three minutes, pasta out of the water, coated in a bowl with good olive oil for a nice sheen, and twirled onto a hot plate already ladled with sauce, with the veg pushed to the southern rim. Four pieces of bird stacked on top in an orderly way, two fans of pepper upper left to break up the uniformity, and off I went, confident that I was presenting a nice dish -- fun to make, yet certainly not oversimplified.

First comment from Chef Al: Way too much pasta. Not everyone is as large as I am, he said: nice! Fresh pasta is expensive to make, and even an entrée portion is about one third the amount I presented. The plate was too crowded, and the red peppers were making it too busy -- I could have used the peppers as an accent, but between the green pasta, tan sauce, and white mushrooms, that was quite enough. Needed white space. If he got that in a restaurant, he would not want to eat it, he would have sent it back. He asked me to fetch him a plate, to he could show me what he was talking about; as I did, I noticed him tasting the chicken. D'oh! It was dry, as it had been sitting on the rack for an extra ten minutes while I waited for that water to boil. He did credit me for going through the trouble of making a nice pasta, though; I suppose he felt bad for ragging on me so thoroughly. I got an 85/100, the lowest score in the class except for Speedy, who unfortunately showed up 2 hours late to class today.

As I went to my station to lick my wounds, I ate some pasta -- HOLY TOLEDO!! It was easily the best pasta I ever made -- it was toothsome in just the right way, and the rich flavor of the sauce was perfect, winey in the right way, just a hint of roasted garlic. That made me feel a bit better, knowing despite the f'd up bird and the poor presentation, I rocked it in flavor.

At the end of class, Chef Al asked each of us to write an essay -- who am I, what is my strongest food memory, why am I in culinary school. Tomorrow, a career lecture from an outside speaker, cooking continues on Friday.

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, good granola with the good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM TASTINGS: 10:30am, a little pasta with wine sauce, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, homemade pizza, seltzer, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Fun home cookin' with the HVS and the Ruf. Funny, Chef and all the students have nothing but scorn for vegetarians, but one of my bestest, closest friends is a vegan among vegans. I look forward to showing her off at graduation, like a rare, mystical evil unicon.

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, brownie
Small snack at a school function. I didn't think, it just jumped down my throat!