#23 - Things I don't understand about the UK...

There are a few things that have puzzled me since my arrival in London and I still haven't worked them out.

Miscellaneous
For instance, why does the deodorant/anti-perspirant need to work for 48 hours?  Camping or being somewhere without hot running water and soap for a certain period of time (like my apartment when the boiler pressure turned off) is understandable.  But if you are home and have access to a shower/bath - why?

And speaking of boilers - mine wasn't working the other night.  It was late, it was freezing and I was tired from class.  I eventually figured it out - there was a certain amount of desperation because the boiler controls both the hot water and the radiators.  Also, because I cannot get into my bed when I am dirty.

Differences in language can be amusing too.  In the US, saying someone is "spunky" usually refers to their personality.  In Australia, it refers to their appearance, in a good way.  In the UK, apparently it refers to...hm, how to put this...male bodily emissions.  So not a compliment here to say that someone is spunky.  There's also a whole thing on thongs, but I won't get into that.  Suffice to say that between the US, Australian, South African and Hong Kong interpretations of the word, it gets interesting.  The conversation in our locker room, by the way, was in reference to rubber slippers.

So - words that can cause confusion, depending on where you are:
thongs, slippers, spunky, next week (geography seems to determine interpretation).  Feel free to add any suggestions to this list because I am too tired to think of any more.

Liquid soap - they have the usual arrows (one way makes the pump pop up, the other way makes it go down and you can usually lock it down).  I haven't been able to make them work, so I just refill the one bottle that got unlocked (but a friend who lives around the corner) and refill that.  Yes, I am not smarter than my soap pump.  Who cares?

OCD is only a problem if it functions with your normal daily functioning.  I haven't done the research (if you do, I will believe you as long as your source isn't Wikipedia).  Anyway - I had tutorials for my Cuisine and Patisserie classes yesterday.  My Patisserie mentor told me to stop cleaning so much (in response to my question as to why I am so slow in class).  He said, "in the time you've taken to clean, you could have made something."  Which is true - I am going to test it next week and see if I get pulled up on it.

Am very disorganized.  Everything looks so organized, but it's all a facade.  Nowhere is it more apparent than in the kitchen when I have neglected to collect the other 3 bowls you will need when you got the first two.  It seems the chefs all have eyes in the backs of their heads.  They seem to see everything (and they talk).  Apparently they notice when we make 5 trips to the sink area to get various pieces of equipment.

Fashion - I think I am sartorially challenged.  Spending most of my time in uniform makes for a lazy attitude towards every day dressing (I walk 4 minutes to class, change, then might go out for quick dinner with friends before coming back home).  Total time spent traipsing around London in street clothes on a school day:  10 minutes - 4 hours...anyway - back to my point.  During the 4 hour window, I have seen many inappropriately short skirts.  A (male) taxi driver told me that is the fashion now.  See?  Fashion challenged - I am being told what is in by a taxi driver.  So I thought I was being a granny but one of the younger girls in my course (she turns 19 in a month) also made the comment that the girls in London dress like prostitutes.  Might be a bit harsh, but accurate nonetheless.  If you have to keep tugging the hem of your skirt/dress down (and you don't have to lean a little to do it!) then it is probably too short, and possibly too tight.

Back to food
Somehow this week has whizzed by and I now have to update more photos.

I can't make soup...no time to take pictures of my chicken and mushroom soup (the soup wouldn't thicken...but the chicken julienne was nice) or the potato and leek (?) soup with julienned vegetables (watery soup flavorwise, but the first time my julienne was acceptable)...



French Onion Soup
with burned croutons

More troubled soups:  burned croutons on the French Onion soup because I forgot about them, and soup a bit bitter because I overcooked the onions.



Beef consomme
with too-brown savory crepe

Beef consomme was still a little too oily and the crepes were too brown.  Agh!  I will never make soup!!!

Basic Breads:
Soda bread and dinner rolls

Basic bread and cakes
Went a bit better.  The bread tasted a bit boring but everyone I gave rolls and bread to seemed to like it - possibly because it was made with a certain something (like, I don't care as long as it's pretty).

Basic cakes:
Lemon cake and madeleines

Cakes - were edible.  A bit too much baking powder in the madeleines resulted in air pockets, but otherwise any stuck edges were on the side not being presented.  I tasted one madeleine and a tiny edge of the cake - the one and the edge were enough.

   





Sienna eating a madeleine

SO & Sienna came down from Oxford to visit their friend Bernice. We managed to meet for coffee before lunch - so Sienna got to do some tasting. Evidently the madeleines have met and passed kid testing - she ate three immediately.


Some research:
Comparing to my test eclairs...

    



Wouldn't you visit this store?

 

This week - more meats and stuff...

A dish to help practice butchery because my chicken fricassee was way behind schedule - where does all the time go?

Poussin with apple compote

The poussin - had problems with potatoes.  I can't cook potatoes either - this is the third time something has happened to them - I hate potatoes!  and forgot to trim the drumstick ends.

Luckily JK and ML each had some spare potatoes so I could plate because mine were not cooperating.  The apples were a bit tart for Chef J, but I thought they were perfect...cut through all the butter and cream.  Oh well - still developing the palate (is that a good thing?)

Then it was offal - yech.  I tried them in demo and told the chef that if I liked liver or sweetbreads, I would have loved the dishes.  As it was, I hated them both.  So today we had to make them...I'm not sure whether I smelled the liver or the sweetbreads while we were in the kitchen, but any residual hunger I might have had from tasting the amazing sole from demo before (on the list for next week) was completely buried.
 

Chef EB refused to taste anyone's liver because he had already done 3 classes worth of tastings today.

Veal liver
with onions & sauteed potatoes

I don't blame him - my one teeny taste yesterday was enough to turn me off liver pretty much forever.  I can confirm that my policy of refusing to eat anything that has ever been on my dissecting table (or a variation of said item) is completely sound, along with the certain discrete exceptions (i.e. fish).  So the liver was well done, as per Chef E's directions, the onions burned to a crisp and beyond repair (I checked my photos from the demo - should have stopped when I had originally stopped) and the potatoes were good except they needed more salt.  Maybe everything needs more salt because we are always so hot in the kitchen that everyone pretty much sweats buckets.  Yes, yes, I know - ladies don't sweat.  Well, we're not ladies - we're chefs!  And I defy anyone to stay cool, calm and collected (and not to sweat) when it is 40 degrees C / 100 degrees F in the kitchen with the clock ticking and the dishes misbehaving.

Veal sweetbreads with
asparagus tips and parisienne potatoes

The sweetbreads (say what?) were beyond yuck - they looked like brains.  Just because something doesn't have latex running all through it like in our fetal pig which we had to dissect for 4 weeks, doesn't mean that it doesn't smell bad or look good.  They also feel kind of rubbery, but not firm - a bit squishy, actually.  So I can make it look pretty on the outside, but this one, which was super thick, should have been cut into small escalopes, then breaded and fried.  As it was, Chef E tasted the potatoes, asparagus and jus - bitter jus and the asparagus had been peeled too much...but the potatoes were good (ok, maybe I don't suck at potatoes quite as much as I thought I did).

So we finished class on time (even me!) and everyone headed to the pub for a drink.  There was a deep sigh of relief as we started drinking down our various beverages (Coke, beer, Pimms...)  I had run out of water during the practical so have been chugging for the last couple of hours.

De-offaling...


My dinner after all the awful offal

I took the longest shower ever - getting the feel of the greasy smoke, even if only in my imagination, took forever.  Then it was scrubbing the day off before I could even think about dinner.  So - the results of looking at innards for two days in a row:  yes, I cooked.  Yes, this is kind of an attempt at presentation, but I really couldn't be bothered.  There's all kinds of fussing about to make things pretty and put them in shapes, which is fine if you are getting graded on it - or being paid lots of money to look it that way.  At home, it's just more dishes to do and I have to do my own dishes - so just as soon throw it all together.

So until next time - no more offal!