Sandwiches (Let Them Eat Tea Sandwiches)

Tired from the long day yesterday, but still got to school on time and had a productive day. After a short lecture about the nature of the sandwich, we got straight into it. Dirty Kim and LI Lolita did grilled chicken sandwiches and curry chicken salad, Dirty Dave and I went after the grilled ruben, smoked salmon tea sandwiches and Deviled Quail Egg Canapes.

Today, the last day of lessons before our exams for the module tomorrow, Chef C found his inner meany and started yelling a little bit at the other two groups, who were lagging and arguing with each other and misidentifying lettuces and breads, therefore coming up short on many of their recipes. Our team just floated back and forth, basically just doing the jobs in front of us and occasionally one asking if the other needed anything. Makes for a smooth, fun class -- but a boring blog-entry.

Putting together the Deviled Quail Egg Canapes did get me thinking. Here is a super-delicate finger food, with specialty ingredients, that only appeals to a small minority. Last night, at the James Beard House, the people for whom we were cooking were almost uniformly white, upper-class, or in the food media realm. The people in my program, and working in the kitchen last night, were almost uniformly multi-racial, young, poor, and struggling to get a foot in. Are we being trained to be servants for the rich? Is this a meaningful pursuit? Or just the necessary first step to get somewhere else?

The smoked salmon tea sandwiches (rye bread smeared with chived-creme fraiche on both sides, one layer of smoked salmon, cut into crustless rounds) generated silly amounts of waste, which was quite delicious but quite ridiculous. The Ruben was fun, and Dirty Dave even brought his own bacon fat to braise the kraut in -- that's a symptom of why it's great to work with people who really a) are prepared and b) want to be there as opposed to Explorers or blabber mouths. I assisted LIL on assembling the fussy curry-chicken salad canapes, tearing bibb lettuce to fit the breads (again, waste) and DK had her grilled chicken sandwiches with funky aioli on lock down.

We were the first to get our stuff out to the table, and the Rubens were the first sandwich to disappear. Chef C gave a lively little talk about team work, which made me think that by culling DD, DK, LIL and myself into one team, kind of let the rest of the class sink a little bit. Not that I'm complaining...if I ran a business, I'd cull us and fire everyone else.

Tomorrow, tests.

ADDENDA:

After class, I went back to the Fancy Food Show to do another shift with the D'Artagnon people. This was the last few hours of the show, and Chef Lee was stubble faced and a little beat up, but still cranking. The energy of the entire place was a bit low, and there was another student and a woman who taught rec classes in LI helping out. I got to wander around for 45 minutes during and ate a lot of random crap again, and stuck around to help Lee break down the kitchen onto palates. He invited me to assist him travelling around NJ cooking game meats for various producers and clients, but I had to say no due to school and work obligations. Still, a good contact to have for the future.

After that, went back to school and sat in on a demo of entire side of beef be butchered. After quite an involved day, it was nice to sit for 3 hours and just be passive. I wasn't so much listening as just watching the master butcher's very precise, silky-smooth knife handling as he simply drew his blades across the carcass and perfectly seamed meat would just fall away like magic. Having done some of this kind of work in class, I can appreciate the years of experience in his hands, how he makes something extremely difficult look ridiculously easy.

Today was the first day that I did not eat a meal -- just kept on eating where I was, first at school, then at the show, then samples of all the different parts of the cow at the demo. Not the healthiest, but the most, ummm, educationalist.

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

AM SNACK: 10am, cuttings of a smoked salmon tea sandwich, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM TASTINGS: 11am, half a grilled ruben, quarter of a grilled chicken sandwich, cheesy shrimp toast thingy, quarter of a freshly ground chicken burger, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

PM TASTINGS: 2:30-3pm, random Fancy Food Show samples including cookies, chocolates, juices, a shot of Margarita, a gluten-free small pizza slice, etc., 2 bowls, hunger 3/5

I really gravitated towards sweets.

EVENING TASTINGS: 8-9pm, slices of several different parts of the cow from bottom round to prime rib, all grilled with salt and pepper, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5