#115 - Punk Rock, Thanksgiving and a blast from the past

(Punk) Rock 'n Roll and more eating
I went to my first (and only?) rock concert / band thing...one of my brothers was touring with a band, "Bad Astronaut" through Australia - a tour called "Hits and Pits".

It was a very cold Sunday night in November when I met my Mom outside a venue whose name I have now forgotten.  We were the most unlikely duo there and if you did the old "one of these things isn't like the others" game from Sesame Street, just by looking, we would have been those people.

Anyway - my Mom is a very good mom:  she knew most of the songs (not all the newer ones), she knew the words and she bopped along to them.  Having your mom bop along to punk songs...I never thought that combination of words would ever be written, much less that I would be the one writing them.


Backstage - yes, we got to go backstage - very exciting (though you still needed earplugs) and Mom did what moms do - she mothered people a bit.  I was just taking it all in except I couldn't remember faces and/or names unless I wrote things down later.  (One of my brother's friends was a guy who had known us for probably 20+ years.  I asked him what band he was in.  Luckily he took it in good spirit and at least I remembered him when he joined us for dinner a few nights later.)  So AC is talking shop with Dave, a guy from a band which my Mom knew about, called Black Flag (?) - ugh, I've forgotten again.  Anyway - they're talking about amplifiers and a few other esoteric things which were incomprehensible to the uninitiated so I took the opportunity to play fan / not-groupie and got a candid shot.

In which I actually use some of the stuff I learned in cooking school...
Funny enough, most of my family seem to be foodie types.  AC is a really good cook so when I offered a home cooked meal, his eyes lit up.  Of course he pooh-poohed the chili which everyone else requests (my sister having done so only last night or so) since he can make his own.  The result:  a menu we cobbled together backstage.

He likes duck.  So does my Mom.  I do not like duck because...it took a while to nail down what the smell reminded me of, but I finally got it:  wet dog.  So here is the prep two nights before AC was due for a home cooked meal.  Duck:  bought and butchered and I took my time removing all the shafts from the feathers (yech!) because I do not have a blow torch.  So - duck confit done, duck breast separated, bones ready for stock, everything in the fridge ready to be schlepped up the hill for dinner.

Dinner

Dinner was set for after work.  Australia has influenced me in several ways - shopping (I can no longer say that I don't care what my bags and shoes look like, though I can say I don't care much about the label) and food - beetroot no longer appears to be the root of all evil but I will never come around to lamingtons or vegemite.  Anyway - the starter (left?  it shows as "above" as I write the post) is 3 layers of crispy biscuit type things (1 plate is gluten-free), 3 layers of goats cheese, baby heirloom tomatoes and peeled grapes.

The main:  duck confit with jus, pan roasted duck breast with orange reduction, rice (as a nod to the Hawaiian part of the meal, and to go with the Hawaiian Seasonings salt which I used as part of the marinade for the confit) and steamed vegetables.  You can't see the sauces very well and the jus was over reduced - but luckily most of those little details were only things I noticed.

Mixed salad and dessert, but I don't remember what we had - obviously not very memorable!

I give thanks for everything...
And for Thanksgiving - we went for Indian food down the street.

Do what you're afraid to do
I've always hated snakes.  We do not get along, but when you go to a function where an opportunity presents itself, you have to grab it with both hands.  Or in this case, touch it very gently with one hand.  In this case, there was an exhibit opening at the Taronga Zoo so my Mom and I went on behalf of someone else so that they could give us (and about 100 other people) a little preview.  We did not know that the preview would include live animals, including this spotted python, Sputnik.  Sputnik was very happy and relaxed, according to his handler.  He was warm and he felt very odd as I touched him.  The baby lemur was much less intriguing after touching the snake and he (the lemur, not the snake) was asleep so I thought I wouldn't disturb him.

Blast from the Past
And then there was a flying visit from a friend from Le Cordon Bleu days - I got a surprise message on Facebook from WP who said she would be in town for certain days.  We ended up having sushi at Hemmesphere after work one night and chatting away until we were both yawning more than the occasion warranted.

It was so nice to have a visit from what seems to be a lifetime ago.  We caught up on what each had been up to since graduation - I think we learned more about each other over those few hours than we had in the 9 months in London.  Then it was time to say goodbye and despite best intentions and endeavours, I had to get ready to go home for the holidays and she had the rest of her travels to complete.

I am now home for the holidays and ready to have some fun with cooking parties.  Christmas plans are in full swing so more later - so until next time, happy and safe holidays to all!

#107 - Mom's birthday dinner (What a wonderful world)

It's been a little while since I cooked anything worth posting but it was my Mom's birthday last night.  A bit of a rush since I made dinner after work but it's all in the preparation - last minute sauce but mise-en-place done before and/or most of the major cooking, which means the only things I actually had to do was make the sauce, reheat and flash the duck, supreme the orange, re-heat the broccoli, toast the almonds and plate.  Easy 60 minutes (only because the sauce takes a while).

Happy birthday Mom!
The result was a group effort - Dad made salad to which I added a few bits and pieces (roasting the almonds took the longest, surprisingly enough), Mom made the rice and I did the duck, sauce and veggies.

And I found out why you trim the duck's legs before you cook it.  Trying to trim them after - well, the bones shattered into pieces and the ugly end was still attached.  The confit leg may not have looked very pretty but apparently it tasted really good.  Frankly, I couldn't face eating any duck after smelling the duck fat while it was cooking.  Don't get me wrong, the duck fat actually smells really good but it's such a rich smell, all I wanted for dinner was a little rice and all veggies.

No madeira for the sauce.  Oddly enough, the liquor store / bottle shop didn't have madeira.   ("What?  No madeira?  What kind of bottle shop doesn't have madeira???")  They had port but I forgot it at home so I cheated - red wine and orange juice.  Substituted chicken stock for brown duck stock.  Yes, shock horror - but it all still tasted pretty good so happy faces around the table.

Dad's pretty salad to the right with cherry heirloom tomatoes - just right with the toasted almonds and vinaigrette.  The crisp greens were a perfect antidote to the duck fat smell.  I think I would have been happy just to eat salad and nothing else.  Why is it that there's so much pleasure in cooking but sometimes, the pleasure in the eating is just not there?

And then of course, dessert.  You can't have a birthday without dessert...but I didn't have time to make it so I bought it from the deli.  I have dessert guilt.  On the other hand, this was gluten free and my gluten free repertoire is (thus far) very limited.  Mousse, anyone?

 In any event, a lovely night with the parents and they got to eat something they don't cook at home and isn't necessarily on a restaurant menu.  Ah, Cordon Bleu was definitely not a waste, according to them.  A true pleasure for me to have more people who like to eat!

(I am off to pick up some dinner - yes, yes, cheating but all in a good cause - I don't cook Chinese food at home.)

So until next time, happy Mother's Day, happy eating and a very good night to you all!  

#88 - Final practical class

Seen and heard
So I got asked if my duck was spam.  Um, no.  Although I can see from the photo how it might be mistaken for spam, seeing as how perfectly it was cooked, rested and sliced.  Well, I'm going to tell myself that instead of it being understandable because there's still fat under the skin.  Also seen, which was really disturbing:  leather hotpants with sheer pantyhose.  Really? I mean, c'mon, be considerate of people's eyes even if you are a fashion victim and don't care how you look!  Those shorts would have been short on my 4 year old niece.  And given the cold weather, I've seen far too many (super) short skirts and cankles.  You may wonder what cankles are - they are, apparently, when the leg fails to taper from the calf to the ankle and makes the abrupt transition from calf to ankle - hence the name.  I didn't use to notice them much until someone mentioned them the other day. Suddenly it seems I see an awful lot of them.  Or perhaps I'm just obsessed with legs since I started going to ballet again.


A confession
I've been having chocolate cravings, which is highly unusual.  If my parents read that last sentence, I'm sure they're going to wonder if they wandered onto the wrong blog.  Anyway - the danger of having food ingredients around and doing Patisserie is that you have - yes, you guessed it - chocolate!  The other night was disgusting enough when I ate the white chocolate straight out of the bowl, but tonight has been even more classy - eating my dark couverture chocolate chips by the handful.  Mind you, these are the ones we have to temper for truffles so I could always try to convince you it's all about quality control, but really, who are we fooling?


Sleeping in

Preparing for the last practical - and
having a Croque Cordon Bleu at the Cafe

The morning started perfectly.  I had already taken my written exam so after my alarm went off this morning, I went back to sleep instead of hitting snooze.  Or maybe I hit snooze once before I went back to sleep.  Whatever - the point is, I got to sleep until the luxurious time of 9am or so.  Then I finished printing out and making last little tweaks to the Cuisine portfolio.  I think it  due at 5pm and I had it printed out and ready to go at about noon - so energizing.  And then at some point my get up and go got up and went - without me.  If it hadn't been for the fact that I had to turn in the portfolio, there's a chance that I might not have gone to the practical, even though I hate missing class.  However...


Queue de lotte poele, encornets farci avec risotto avec langoustines et coriandre - Pan fried monkfish tail, squid stuffed with langoustine and coriander risotto)
Tonight was our last practical class.  Ever.   So off I toddled, clean uniform and portfolio in my bag, ready to take on the stupid monkfish.  I am not a fan of monkfish - the fish itself is nice - white, kind of firm, not fishy at all.  But skinning the thing - ugh - it has a layer of slimy skin that comes off easily but underneath it is a layer of silver skin that you also have to take off.  If you don't take it off, it either turns gray or makes the fish curl up.  Or both.  There's a way that you can kind of skin off the silver skin the way you take the skin off a fillet of fish, but it still leaves bits and pieces on.  Not to mention, if you accidentally cut through the silver skin on the fillet like I did on my first fillet, you have to do it the long and annoying way.


FYI, coriander and cilantro are the same thing, just different languages (I forget which is what).  We didn't have coriander so I ended up chopping up some dill for the risotto - it could probably have used a bit more dill but still tasted pretty good.

So it was supposed to be a fast and easy practical except the monkfish's silver skin was annoying me.  Then we had to brunoise some carrot, celery and onion.  Which is fine except I didn't think the celery through and I got a very nice, fine julienne which I then couldn't use for my brunoise - which I needed for my risotto.  Finally got a good risotto!  It was a little dry looking on the plate but apparently it tasted good and it was cooked the way chef wanted it.  A little too much flour on my monkfish and squid (I patted it off, I did!) but the sauce was good - langoustine-y, saffron-y and buttery (but my sauce split at the end because my plate was too hot).  I got a very encouraging comment - Chef JB told me to cook like this during the exam and I would be fine.


It was also a fun time because no one was taking it seriously.  There was a lot of laughing as we made fun of each other and some of the students who usually don't talk ended up participating as they channeled different chefs from the school.


After class...
My classmates and I went to the pub in the courtyard after class.  Knowing that I wasn't going home soon and that the food wouldn't be nice later, I gave it to one of the guys at the front desk.  By the time I got home, it was too late to buy groceries at Waitrose so I went to Tesco instead.  It's true what they say about not doing grocery shopping when you're hungry - I caught myself looking at things I normally wouldn't - Doritos and Pringles especially.  Managed to stifle those urges but I ended up buying a packet of mac 'n cheese, then some baby salad leaves, baby beetroots and tomatoes to make a salad with goat's cheese I had in the fridge.  Only thing is, I got home and remembered that I still had 2-minute ramen noodles in the cupboard which have to be eaten before I leave London.  Well 2-minute noodles aren't that nutritious and I really wanted some vegetables.  Luckily I had lugged home my knife kit so julienning some veggies took very little time.  I wanted some protein, so a scrambled egg later and having drained the noodles, I put everything together and got this.  I'm not sure if it's blasphemous to the cooking gods, if they exist, for me to put my skills  to fancying up instant noodles.  Whatever - it tasted good and I probably got my day's serving of vegetables in the dinner.


It's too soon after dinner but I am too sleepy to be able to stay up much longer.  Until next time, may you have unbroken and satisfying sleep.

#87 - Last Demo - Ever!

A bittersweet day in Cuisine this morning - our last demo ever.  I'm already feeling pangs of nostalgia and we haven't even finished yet.  We are so over it already that there was the most talking I've heard in a demo in a long time.  Chef JB asked people to share their best memories of their time at LCB - there were a lot of chef FJ stories (one of the guys apparently had been likened to an animal, after Chef FJ looked at him in his hair net (you have to wear one if your hair is longer than collar length) and beard net (if they can see stubble, you have to wear one).  Another guy had been chased around the kitchen by Chef DM with a crayfish - I'm going to guess that was in Intermediate when they had a crayfish sauce.


Although I didn't say this one, I think the best part of having gone to LCB is being able to cook something for my family and friends which isn't necessarily hugely difficult technically but can end up looking really pretty if you manage to plate it right and taste good.  That's still a work in progress, but I do seem to have an endless supply of guinea pigs, for which I am grateful.


Duck, duck...mushrooms
We had a practical soon after the demo - but it was for a dish that was demonstrated last week so I had to check my notes.  Somehow I managed to get the quantities off on my mushroom flan and I'm not quite sure where.  The volumes were right but I had a lot of mix in the bowl compared to others in the class.  And then I overcooked the flan and it souffleed - crap.  The duck needed just another couple of minutes to get the last of the fat out from under the skin but otherwise was ok - a pleasant surprise because it felt really overcooked - so I have to remember what that felt like so I can duplicate it with the pigeon.  The sauce - well, needed a lot more salt.  He could taste the foie gras and the duck (good - I didn't taste it after I added the foie gras) but it was underseasoned.


I was sous chef today - no idea what I was doing so JE had to show me what to do.  Things have changed a bit since the old school (she had to explain the dummy lift - apparently a goods lift that you can send places) and I ended up wearing some duck blood when I chopped the bones for people to have for sauce.  More laundry - ugh.


Tomorrow night is our last practical class ever.  After that will be the last minute frantic dash to get the Patisserie portfolios done.  I remember friends in previous Patisserie classes who practiced so much and I feel like I'm going into it a bit too casually.  I've thought out the recipes and they need a little tweaking, but last week...no wait - earlier this week was the first time I actually made the plated dessert with all the correct ingredients.  I was going to say it was the first time I made the plated dessert as it was meant to be, but realized that would be inaccurate because there were various mistakes which needed to be addressed.  Hopefully we'll still make it but it seems like there are some people who have practiced a lot and some people who haven't.  I still haven't done a full run through for either Cuisine or Patisserie, although Patisserie is a bit more forgivable as we need some specialty ingredients and tools.  No excuse for the Cuisine one except that everyone is freaking out about our Patisserie portfolio and practical exam.


Must go - my eyes are starting to feel happiest when they are closed.  so until next time may you not experience any freak outs.

#51 - Mystery Basket

AKA - thank goodness I have a day job!
Today as our Mystery Basket.  It wasn't actually such a mystery for my group because we had class at 6pm, by which time the first 3 groups or so had already done theirs.  The main ingredient:  duck.

We were given a list of 27 ingredients.  I used 18 (plus substituted one flour for another).  Chef's comment was that I hadn't used that many ingredients.  I'm really not sure how I would have gotten away with putting pasta and potato on my plate when it already had a savory short crust pastry (trial run for the exam - timing will be fine but technique needs a bit of work) and a few other things.

Like a cooking show - but not
This is apparently like cooking competitions.  You have ingredients, you have some time and you cook.  Sometimes it's a compulsory item and sometimes it's do whatever you want.  Which would be fine, if I were an Iron Chef, this might have been a breeze.  Since I'm not...and since we're all students...let's just say that we heard "2 hours" and everyone froze up for a split second.  It's the time aim for our practical classes but because people take time to present their dishes and take comments, sometimes you have a bit more time to refine a couple of things on your plate (i.e. fix your sauce 3 times like I did yesterday).

Lead up to the Mystery Basket
But first - back to the beginning.  Some people had been stressing about the Mystery Basket.  Me, not so much - mainly because I kind of forgot about it until yesterday.  We also happened to have class today from 12 - 6pm so by the time the not-so-mysterious Mystery Basket was on the agenda, I was already brain dead, having half- fallen asleep for part of the 3pm cuisine demo.  Interesting notes...it looks like a chicken walked across the pages and mixed up the methods (wild mushrooms on the scallop dish which doesn't list mushrooms anywhere on the ingredients list).

We'd also had a review of 3 of our compulsory Patisserie pieces for the final (as in, even if it's crap, turn it in.  Otherwise they disqualify you - I assume this means a fail for the course even if everything else is splendid) so that was a bit of a sit-up-and-take-notice time block.

Clueless much?
I have to say, I saw the list and the tray and didn't even think - I just butchered the duck and hoped that inspiration would strike.  Also I wanted to keep things pretty simple - simple, clean, neat.  Well, that was the idea - probably not a bad one.  The execution, on the other hand...not so much.  I braised the legs (not enough time to confit them, although I tried to confit the tenderloins - "try" being the operative word - they were really bad.  As in, I would eat them and like them, so they are definitely not something I would present to the chef) and produced a nice sauce.  The breast pieces felt like they were going over so I took them off.  Nope...way, way under.  And looked very strange.  There was a certain amount of quiet panicking when it was time to plate.  Only idea was about the tarte but the rest of it was all a blur.  They say to diagram it out - but that's a bit hard to do when you have 2 hours to do the dish.

Humiliating - Wild Mushroom Tartelette,
Braised leg of duck and roasted duck breast with
Poached Pear in Red Wine glaze

Learning time - aka "Chef - this is what I won't do for the final"
I finished the tartelette but it was overcooked - so I know what NOT to do for my Cuisine final when we have to do the tarte for the poached egg and Hollandaise sauce.  I totally messed up the Jerusalem artichokes so they didn't make it on the plate (should have made them into a puree like Chef "suggested" at the beginning of class).  Luckily he liked the sauce, but other than that, today was pretty much a write off.  I liked the pears but Chef wasn't such a big fan.  On the other hand, he had been tasting pretty much all day and if even half of the dishes were as miss as mine, it was a looonnnng day for him.  As for me, I am so very glad that I have a day job already.  We laughed at the chefs when they said some people will never pick up a knife again after the course.  I wouldn't go that far, but I have to say that I am not confident enough to cook restaurant style dishes without a recipe.  Certainly you could throw something together, but the questions today were:

1.  Was the technique correct?
2.  Would someone buy this at a restaurant?  If yes, would they eat it?
3.  Chef's personal preference...

"Home cooking" after a long day - a confession
It's almost bedtime and I have my uniforms in the laundry.  To tired to do much of anything except to try to unwind so I can sleep.

So I made 5 minute noodles.  They're actually 3 minute noodles but I had to wait for the water to boil, while cleaning a leak in the fridge and getting out the vegetables for the noodles.  So if you had a vision of fancy food at home, you just heard my deep, dark secret.  Beans on toast with gruyere cheese were on the menu when we did our Boulangerie module a couple of weeks ago.  Very gourmet, non?

Tomorrow:  Bath.  I need a break, then it's on to work on the portfolios for Cuisine and Patisserie with a classmate on Sunday.  On the one hand I can't wait for this to be over.  On the other hand, I am already waxing nostalgic for student days.  I've run out of hands so it's time to say good night and scrub off the day.

Until next time...may you have the satisfaction of a job well done.

#43 - Cutting off feet...and wet dog smell?

(Intermezzo)
Thank goodness I tried to make a couple of things when I was back in Sydney.  They may have been partly unsuccessful and I still bear marks from mysterious sources (ok, the cut on my thumb was my chef's knife, so not a mystery) but at least I hadn't completely forgotten how to cook.

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your brains...

Truffles - to set overnight

I think everyone's brain is still a tiny bit switched off.  Or it may have something to do with the fact that we started at 8am on Monday morning (which means we were in the locker rooms at 7:30 or so) and then did things with chocolates, nuts and other messy but fun things for the next 6 hours.  Well, there was a 30-minute lunch break...then we got to do it all again the next day because some of the things we made on Monday needed to chill overnight before we could finish them.  The result:  6 kinds of truffles, 6 kinds of ganache, 3 confectionary items (one of which went onto a ganache) and 3 praline things.  It actually looked quite impressive once we laid out the trays with all the goodies.  I took home 2 containers full of the things we made, which eventually made the rounds to several friends.

Cutting off feet

Deciding which ones to take home
(all of them, of course!)

When we had finished our initial allocated tasks, people help others finish theirs.  My team was lucky that our tasks seemed quite straightforward and were not time consuming (although the brittle took a lot longer than we thought it would).  One of the things I was supposed to do to help was to cut the feet off the dipped nougat.  It's when you trim off the little bits of chocolate that spread out past the base of the thing you're making to neaten them up for presentation.  EA gently reminded me I was supposed to just trim the feet, not cut off the chocolate dipping on the sides.  Whoops!  Luckily I only did that on one nougat piece and the remainder were fine.

We even finished the second day early enough to have a quick run at making the shells for our exam truffles.  Good thing we did, mine were a fail and will need lots of practice - something some of my guinea pigs are already cheering.  The good thing is that I got to figure out what NOT to do in the exam.

Seriously - start your brains.
Then first day of Superior Cuisine which started off with a bang.  Actually, it was more of a squeal as I fell up the last 4 stairs on the way up to our demo (note to self:  heeled sandals on stairs + running does NOT = good idea when caffeine has not yet been ingested).

The first demonstration was a wake-up call in working cleanly.  I'm not sure I will ever be able to work as neatly and tidily as Chef EB.  I noticed during class that my station had stuff everywhere - so now it's time to be more organized.  Although that would imply things were organized before.  Anyway - Chef EB managed to go over our course manuals, prep 3 (or was it 4???) livers for the terrine tomorrow, give us a break, then prepare and cook 4(???) mallard ducks, plate and feed us.  We students did 1 duck apiece in our practical and still managed to go a little over.  Most people managed to get satisfactory results with their dishes (my duck breast was a tiny bit overcooked and the legs a tiny bit under, carrots and duck legs needed more salt and the sauce was over reduced.  Ahhhh!!!!!  Still coming along - but will it ever arrive?  It's like waiting for Godot - and I fondly think of Doc Bassford and Doctor Gorsky from high school as I think of Godot).  Presentation needs work, but at least most of it tasted fine.  Have managed to find a loving home for one serving tonight and tomorrow will see the other serving go to another home.

Wet dog smell
You might be wondering what the smell of wet dogs has to do with cuisine if we're not actually out there hunting down our own wild ducks.  Here's the thing - apparently it's the smell of game.  It bothered most of us to a greater or lesser extent and all I could think of was large, hairy, wet dogs.  Chef DM was convinced that I must have stuffed wet dog smell up my nose.  Of course he was also teasing me about my "delicate" hands as they were covered in duck blood while I was ripping out the spongy bits left behind from the lungs when I took out the heart and whatever other things they left inside the cavity of the duck.  It took scrubbing my nails like TV surgeons do in order to get the smell off my hands.

Tomorrow is salmon steak.  Must go to sleep - things are starting to feel floaty and we have class from 8 - 6.  There's a lunch break in there somewhere, but I'm not sure I'm going to make it to ballet after school.  Monday and Tuesday were only 6 hours of class but they felt much longer.

So until next time, happy cooking.

#31 - A New High...

I have heard the saying "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."  Well, we are living that saying - yesterday was a new high in class - we had the first practical at 8am (41C/105.8F) and the second practical at 3pm (45C/113F).  But as always, I am getting ahead of myself and need to go back a few days.

Busy Wednesday
After the focaccia and other breads, we had a practical for patisserie which included a skills test.  Yes, mini-test on making more pastry shells (the pate sucree from the apple tart back in Basic) and piping.  I am not going to bore you with photos of substandard work which might only be of interest to people who are into technical-ish pastry type things, so I'll move right along to the food.

Later that same day
We are starting to do a lot more in classes.  As I've said, the course is cleverly constructed so there isn't really any way for us to stand around and do nothing.  On the rare days when we finish early, I think it has been noted for any future amendments to the curriculum.

Surf and turf
Our schedule has also changed so we occasionally have days when we don't cook (two days this week) but we make up for that with double practicals on the other days.  On Wednesday, we started with mouclades which is a regional mussel dish from...near Normandy, I think (I haven't checked my notes).  It appears that the defining difference between that and the moules mariniere, which is the one more people are familiar with (white wine, shallots, etc.) is the addition of curry.  Yes I know - curry and cream sounds so not right, but it's actually really good if you can get the balance right.  The demo one Chef FB did was really good - mine had a few things that weren't quite right about it.


Anyway, we did the mouclade and a lamb stew as well.  Somehow I got lucky and the lamb was actually tender, even though we only had a couple of hours to do it and the mussels turned out pretty well.  I don't know if it's the heat that killed the other stew that we did last week or whether it was the cut of meat (or the age of the animal?) but the lamb stew which was made with a secondary cut, was much more tender and delicious than the beef one.  So if you are looking for hints about stews and things, use the cheaper cut with more connective tissue - it's a much better dish!  I also checked with one of the chefs - don't use bad wine.  If you can get a good one and it's not expensive, great.  I think a good rule of thumb is that if you won't drink it, don't cook with it.  Which goes with the mantra "one for the stew, one for me..." which I have been thinking about suggesting in class.

Then we had a cheese lecture on Thursday - Tom the Cheese Guy is as entertaining as ever and we got some really good cheese.  I still am not a fan of the bleus and I don't think I ever will be.  The smell really puts me off and the texture of the mold cultures in my mouth - kind of grainy and raspy against the smoothness of the cheese itself - is not for me.  Kind of like having seared fish or seared meat where you can really feel the difference in textures, as opposed to when the flame has only just kissed the fish or meat and you get that delicious smokiness but otherwise you wouldn't know it had been touched by flame or heat.

Super hot Friday
It's kind of hard to feel fresh and clean when you can feel your clothes sticking to you.  The 8am class wasn't so bad, it was still cool outside and there was a bit of a breeze which came through the open windows and doors (until we had to close the doors so that we wouldn't set off the fire and smoke detectors).  Again it was a double dish class:  warm asparagus salad with walnut vinaigrette (my asparagus died when I reheated it for service).

Then we did a fillet steak (mine was just on the verge between rare and medium rare - they wanted medium rare).  I couldn't remember what time I put the steak on the stove, so I just poked it with my fingers - I thought it would be slightly over, which just goes to show how much we have to go before we know.  We served it with roast potatoes (or rather fried in lots of clarified butter - mine weren't brown enough), broccolini and wild mushrooms.  It would have been a really good dish except my mushrooms and broccolini got cold by the time I got the dish to the chef, even though the broccolini had been really hot when I stuck them on the plate.  Makes you wonder why we bother.  It is now all sitting in my refrigerator in containers and since I have to reheat the meat anyway, I suppose it's perfect because it won't be overcooked unless I do it that way.  I find it amazing that meals on a student budget include prime cuts of meat and amazing food (as long as we don't mess it up).

Then - duck.  Our class started really late because the class before us was still there at 3pm (they're supposed to be finished half an hour before we start).  They were finishing up their asparagus with walnut dressing and their steaks.  We were wondering what took so long because I'm still the slowest one in my class and we pretty much finished on time in the morning (except for me cleaning up my knives and dishes).  Someone stuck their head in and had a look at the clock to see how much time we were losing and reported back that it was 43C/109.4F - all the stoves were off.  By the end of class, when we had left most of the ovens off and only used the stoves, it was the 45C/113F that I reported at the start of this post.  I think almost everyone had lost some weight by the time class ended and one of the girls in Superior Patisserie joked that she was considering cuisine as a weight loss method.  A lot of people have been desperate to go home and wash their uniforms - which I like because the locker room can be a bit...fragrant on a hot day.  Also - flame retardent clothing isn't that cool...

Butchering a duck is very much like butchering a chicken except for the fact that it is a lot more fatty so your knife gets greasy and slippery and you have to be much more careful to clean all the handles well.  Oh, and the feather shafts are much more stubborn so I feel like it took too long to scrape them off, take off the legs for the confit next week (a little harder to see the oyster by the hips on a duck) and to get the meat off the breast so that it is boneless.

It's meant to be served pink (or medium rare - yech!) and we had to do roast vegetables which weren't really (we parboiled them in water and shook them around in butter just before service) and sauteed fruit (apples and pears) and things with oranges and lemons.  The sauce from the demo was much too sweet for me so I put in much less sugar in my sauce.  Chef FJ, whom we hadn't seen since orientation (he had the other group more in Basic) didn't like my sauce because it was too sour.  It turns out I roasted the bones too long - but it took a few questions to figure out where I went wrong.  I think I have the wrong palate for French cooking - I always seem to have not enough salt (except for that pumpkin soup) and now, not enough sugar...

Also, I had my dish evaluated by another student - nerve wracking, to say the least.  I'm glad Chef was there to overrule him because he thought my vegetables were undercooked (they weren't) and there was something about my duck (which was exactly the way the chefs want it - and exactly the way I wouldn't eat it, so that's always a good measuring stick for me).  I agreed that the sauce was greasy (maybe adding the juices from the duck after I'd degreased it wasn't such a good idea...

So the difficulty was also in making the dish pretty.  I have to say that I don't think it's pretty at all but I also had to get the various bits and pieces onto the plate.  You know how it is, you run into a situation and 6 hours later you think of what you should have said or what you should have done.  I have some ideas for next time, but I find creativity for presentation tends to flee when I am under pressure.

Hopefully next week will be cooler.  We start our exam cakes in Patisserie and I haven't looked at Cuisine.  There's a duck confit in there - we marinated the legs yesterday and rinsed and dried them off - they ought to be in their little vaccum packs by now and waiting for us to do things to them next week.  As for the rest of the week...well, I suppose I will know tomorrow when I start getting organized.

Anyway, it is now a rainy Saturday afternoon and I have slept quite a bit.  On the agenda for this afternoon:  finding a home for the duck (I think the 2 Michaels are a good place to start), a snack and some coffee, then Harry Potter in 3D this afternoon.  A reward for the hot kitchens and doing laundry on a Friday night...

Sneak peeks and previews
I am looking forward to going to the Tea Party by the Superior Patisserie students and the Supper Party by the Superior Cuisine students.  Unfortunately the Supper one is only open to students at the school, which is sad because I have friends who would love to go.  The Tea Party (at the Mandeville Hotel on Marylebone High Street) is open to the public but you have to book in advance because it tends to sell out really quickly.  It's also harder for people to get to  because it's held in the afternoon - 3-6pm and most people work.

It's a good chance to get a preview of what we will be doing next term, assuming we all pass this one.  I am still of the opinion that it's something not to be taken for granted, but a lot of people are finally starting to feel like they are no longer so lost in class.  Superior students have said that Superior is mostly spent in consolidating, refining and putting together everything that went before.  Apparently Intermediate was the most work - which makes me gulp a little in alarm.  There is still a lot to learn and given the shake up of various groups (and some new additions) people are still on their best behavior.  After all, Monday signals the start of only the 4th week of Intermediate - and we already have mid-term assessments.

Well I must go and find a home for my duck - it has not found a loving home at my place, so until next time, I wish you cool or warm weather, according to your preference.  If you are cooking, may your sauces be grease free and your pastries happy with the relevant temperature and humidity.