Cooked Vegetables (Chocolate is a vegetable/Beard Belly)

Today's class was all about cooking vegetables in French styles -- i.e., involving a lot of eggs and dairy. Chef C penalizes those who come early by having us set up the class room with mise stations, cutting boards, etc. rather than just let us relax and focus on the day ahead so when we hit, we hit hard. I know it's just a question of style, but I much preferred Chef M's. There is a quiz tomorrow; after a rather longish (45 min) lecture in which Chef C went off-topic several times, he gave us the 10 questions that will be on the quiz. I know it's supposed to be easy to make the customers happy, but as a student I feel a bit deprived of a real challenge.

Before actually getting to work, Chef C demo'd his own recipe that's replacing an official one -- though today is vegetables, he replaced the various cheese and veg soufflés with a sweet chocolate soufflé. I guess, nutritionally, in France chocolate is a vegetable? He also spent time showing us creme anglaise, which is basically hot melted ice cream made with half & half instead of cream.

And the team got to it. Sp, the official team leader, assigned recipes; I got glazed carrots, which took about 3 minutes to assemble the mise and 15 minutes to cook to shiny tender rightness. 2LG got the carrot timbales, which is basically flan in a cup. Chef Jr. took over the potato gratin, which was a relatively straight-ahead recipe involving soaking thin sliced potatoes in cream and milk, before smothering in Gruyère and baking in the oven. Potato purée was easy on the face of it, but involved a lot of vibing. Boil potato hunks till tender, then whip in a stand mixer till loose, pouring in a equal parts hot cream and liquid butter until the potatoes have the consistency of cake batter. Salt and you're done.

The timbales were a gross looking liquidy purée of carrots and and eggs, which poached in little molds in water in the oven, coming out custardy looking and thoroughly unappealing. Chef C made a big deal of how the soufflés had to be precisely measured out or they would not work. When our first batch of soufflés were panned before the oven, we were under by a few ounces and Chef C said no way, won't work, start over. I innocently said, yes Chef C, we're starting over right now, but can we throw these in the oven to see a soufflé not work? Right then he started back-pedalling, saying how he hopes it works and he'll be glad to admit it when he's wrong, blah blah blah. Indeed, they rose beautifully and fully, well-lubricated with sugar and butter in the cups so the walls were solid and attractive. I suspect we didn't whip our egg whites fully, but there was enough air in there to expand anyway.

Tomorrow, a day of legumes. We're making, among other things, falafel. I wish my mom was around, as she gave me a strong connection to these chickpea fritters. Perhaps a ramble about them (and by association, her) tomorrow, as how could making falafel from scratch not bring back all sorts of sense memories about momma?

ADDENDA:

Unsurprisingly, with the stomachful of super-rich, super-heavy French food in my belly at 8:30pm, I was up till around 2:30 digesting. I chatted with the dean of student affairs in class, he said he and his wife call this, "Beard Belly," in reference to the James Beard Awards, when you eat all sorts of refined foods in small portions but large quantities, things that normally would never be eaten together in the same meal. Felt tired but switched on today.

Took in a cooking demo with Bill Telepan after school, where he made three dishes that incorporated wild, undomesticated ingredients, in particular what he referred to as 'weeds'. And they indeed tasted like leafy, mildly bitter leaves that left a bad taste in my mouth. He seems like a cool guy, but really don't like this shtick. However, he cooked down some stinging nettles like it was spinach and mixed it with some delicious fresh egg noodle and sauteed porcini, and left a very weird numb after-taste on the back of my tongue. Not particularly tasty, but cool.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, good yogurt with honey and nuts, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM TASTINGS: 10:30-11am, gratin potatoes, chocolate souffle, pureed potatoes, a small number of glazed carrots, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

The pureed potatoes were good but way too rich, the gratin potato's Gruyere was a killer flavor, the chocolate souffle was nicely fluffy.

PM TASTINGS: 1:30-2pm, small bite of weed salad with fig vinaigrette, small bite of weedy Fritatta with weedy steamed potatoes, small portion of fresh egg noodles with sauteed wild porcini and wild stinging nettles, .5 bowl, hunger 2/5

Not WEED weed, silly! Literally weeds! Purslane, lamb's quarter, watercress, etc.

LINNER: 5pm, falafel and hummus platter, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

There was a green component to this dish, Ilsa, I swear.