#92 - It eventually goes away...

For better or for worse...
Cuisine final is over and I am still recovering.  15 of us going into the kitchen - they had people going in 2 by 2 (opposite sides of the kitchen) and I was second to last - had to wait almost an hour before I got to go in and set up my station.  There was last minute panic in the hallway, a few questions for the Patisserie chefs who were walking past as they set up for their tasting from Group C and a few nervous trips to the bathroom.  At least it was before and not during the exam...


There have been sporadic instances this week where I just wanted to curl up in a little ball on the floor and have a nervous breakdown.  But we don't do that - we're chefs and we deal with it.  Or as one of my friends told me when I told her I just wanted to die, "do it after the exam."  As you can tell, we're a sympathetic lot.  The bright side is that the feeling does go away - eventually - and there are 4 of us from my cuisine group who will be repeating this experience on Friday morning in staggered starts.  The enthusiasm with which we look forward to Friday is as palpable as that which might accompany a doctor's appointment which involves taking off your clothes and being put in positions you normally wouldn't engage in with someone who isn't your spouse / lover / [insert word of your choice here].  It has also reduced even those of us with pretty extensive vocabularies to mostly 4-letter words which you wouldn't say in front of the very young or the extremely elderly, especially when something boils away.  You will note that I have not said "boiled over" - I stopped doing that last Thursday.


The exam...
I didn't take in my time plan because I figured if I had to check it too often I'd been in deep s#$* and looking at it wouldn't fix matters whereas looking at my mise en place told me where to go next.  It was a busy but not horrific 4 hours and if it hadn't been for the couple of things which went wrong (and if I had had another couple of pots and burners) I think I could have done it in a little less time.


Things were pretty on track in terms of timing right up until I had to plate my starter.  Of course that's when things start to go pear shaped.  I recovered from burning my carrots (had to scoop out a couple more, but luckily I had a whole extra carrot so that was no drama) and burning away my wine (for the Hollandaise) twice.  Then...as I was starting plating, disaster struck - my egg broke and the backup wasn't usable because it looked awful.  So I had to poach another egg.  This then threw off my hollandaise schedule a little bit and it was cold by the time I had to plate it - so I tried to recover it with a little hot water - hopefully it didn't split but it started to look thin although it went over the egg fine.  This time I remembered the lemon and the salt so although the tartlet didn't look as pretty as during the mock exam (and I didn't make a spare) hopefully it will taste better.  Also - I presented 2 minutes early!  I suppose I could have used those 2 minutes to try to fix the hollandaise a bit more, but really, I wasn't in the mood to mess with it any more than I already had.


Then the main...everything on track again except for a minor hiccup with the mousse which I will tell you about after the debrief on Monday.  I also dropped the bowl which had my pigeon legs marinating in it, so I had to clean up the floor and wash the legs (I was going to do that anyway).  I don't know how that affects the hygiene marks - I didn't have any spare pigeons and I had to make the legs so since they were going to cook in gently boiling oil for about an hour or so, I figured any bugs would be long since cooked away.  The dish ended up looking quite nice - I think everything was there, including the parsley chiffonade.  And finally the pigeon was cooked, but it's possible one of them was slightly over - ugh, will it never go right???  Time - 2 minutes over because I had to clear my station down so that I could plate - and there were a lot of components:  glazed vegetables, cutting the bottom off the braised and stuffed lettuce, the sauce, the chiffonade, the potatos fondant, the confit pigeon legs where we have to debone the thigh, then pan fry to get the skin crispy (and which took forever), the glaze for the stuffed/braised lettuce and the sauce.  Think one pot or something similar for each of those things which then has to go on 2 very hot plates.


My station was a shambles.  It seemed like crap was proliferating everywhere, but never the stuff I needed.  Another small pot would have been nice (we had an extra one during the mock exam so it was a real nuisance not to have one today).  Also, they said we could trade our used pots for clean ones, but there weren't any in the washup area for the first hour of my time so I either washed my own or I had to do other stuff while waiting for my pots to get cleaned - I can tell you where my 2 minutes went.  In the meantime, there was quite a bit of "hot pan!" and "mind your backs" but otherwise, it was intensely quiet in the kitchen except for the sound of pots going on stoves and oven doors opening.  Oh, ridiculous - I couldn't open my oven unless I used both hands, which meant a little bit of juggling.  Small in the grand scheme of things, but awful when seconds count.


Good night...
The next time you hear from me, hopefully the Patisserie will also be finished and I will be able to tell you that it felt good.  Until then, may you have enough pots and pans (or whatever) to do what you need to do.  And may you beat the clock...

#55 - Tired, confused...and a little cooked

Cause for celebration
My memory stick adaptor may have gotten laundered, but 24 hours in a plastic bag with some rice grains seems to have dried it out and I can get photos off my camera card!  So on with the post.

A little cooked - Monday - Day 1 of sugar, Session 1...
Everyone said to be ready to get burns and blisters when we started our sugar module.  I was lucky enough to get away today with a couple of minor burns (but stay tuned - we don't finish until next week) when we did our poured sugar.  I forgot to grease my measuring cup for the sugar fountain, so it stuck to the sides.  One of the porters saw what I had done wrong, so he whispered that I should also pour the sugar down the centre of the ice cubes, not the side of the measuring cup for my coral.  I thanked him profusely and got a wink in reply, especially when Chef CB told me the same thing a few minutes later, although his language was a tad more colorful.  Yes, I am forgetful.

Anyway - sugar duly poured, I have quite a few things to work on for next time.  A few unintended things happened, but over the next few days a design should take shape because we have to do one of these for our final exam - a minimum of 2 - 3 platforms because our petit fours (the truffles and sable biscuits) are supposed to be able to rest on these.

Session 2 - The Rose
This is the one where we had to pull out our gloves.  I had bought mine last term while getting other supplies.  Even better, I remembered to take them to class!  So while some of the guys were whimpering from the heat, the girls who had gloves were happily pulling our sugar to make it satiny and shiny.  The final part of pulling the sugar got to be a bit of hard work - I had to basically lay over my hands over my sugar in order to press it after I'd pulled it.  We had to make sure it was shiny and silvery, keep it under a heat lamp, then pull bits off of it to make a rose and some leaves.

Eggs and potatoes
Also, as promised in the last post, here are a couple of pictures from the poached eggs and Hollandaise yesterday - oh, and the fondant potato.  A small piece of potato (well, we'll have to cook two pieces) slowly confited in an obscene amount of butter and only enough chicken stock to keep things from sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Not that the poaching of eggs needs a lot of practice, but I forgot a couple of things so now I think I'm set.  The only thing is the potato - AM and I cooked them for about an hour and twenty minutes - and they still could have used a bit more cooking.  Thank goodness the final exam is 4 hours long.  I have to say, the egg could have been worse.  Still not my favorite with the runny yolk, but surprisingly edible.

We are all tired and confused.  I'm a bit sad because I hate being confused - I hope it passes soon because we've still got a fair amount of work left to do and I think this is when we will really need to dig in and work hard.  I'm trying to think the last time I shed a few tears over exams - hm, not since Intermediate when I wasn't sure if I'd make it through the practical exams, actually.

At least I have the comfort that my shortcrust pastry for the exam has the right consistency this time, even though it's still too thick (and it's see through when I line the moulds).  One of these days...
So until next time - may you be less tired and confused than I am.