It’s been a long time since I’ve written a school update. Braising and stewing is over. I got an A by the skin of my teeth. I thought my practical exam went very well. I felt on time. I felt confident. I felt organized. I felt clean and sanitary.

Unfortunately, apparently, my stew was too thin and had too much lemon juice seeing as the only two comments I got from the chef were, “It’s too thin!” followed by, “It’s sour!”

I honestly thought that the lemon tasted delicious in my white veal stew. I agreed that the stew was too thin and did fix it by adding some cornstarch.

Here’s the thing, I’ll take all the criticism in the world, but dude, you gotta tell me what I did well! And I got none of that.
But, that class is over and now I can throw together a stew with no recipe at all. I’ll consider that a success.
Right now, I’m two classes into “Fundamentals of Food Service Production” where I learn to saute, shallow fry, and bake (casseroles and meat rather than breads, rolls, cakes, and cookies.) So far we’ve pounded lots of meat into thin scallops, made pan sauces galore, and fried many fritters.

The absolute best part of this class is that I get to work on the oh-so-cool pan flip. You know, that one you see on t.v. where the chef’s look so awesome flipping the food into the air and catching it in the pan. I gotta tell you, getting that pan flip down is making me feel like a rock star.

So far, I’ve cooked french toast (duh, but yum!), sauteed flounder with parsley butter sauce, sauteed butternut squash with onions (and bacon, drool), and baked chicken smothered in onions. Everything turned out pretty darn good. Of course, since basically everything is cooked in clarified butter, I guess it would be hard to be bad.

I do hate getting out of bed at 5:30 on Sundays, but I have to say, it’s worth it. I do love this stuff.

In our third class, we had a substitute instructor. It’s odd having a substitute for a class that only meets 4 times, but this substitute was a fantastic chef. He was able to keep the class on target as well as offer 1-on-1 instruction for anyone who had questions.

While this hasn’t technically been a service class, we have been serving the pastry students. We supposedly had 80 pastry students on Sunday, but it didn’t seem like that many. We were able to get the food done in plenty of time for the 11:30 service. It’s amazing to me when that happens as the first class I had was a true service class (meaning the students in the dining room classes used our kitchens to serve from) and it seemed as if we always had trouble getting things out on time.
I made coq au vin (chicken with wine) in the morning and braised short ribs in the afternoon. Both came out really well. However, I did manage to almost singe my eyebrows off when I flambed with some congac and I almost started a fire when some parchment paper came in contact with the burner next to me.

We have one more class. I have my practical exam — I have to make veal stew and some braised potatoes. Let’s hope that I don’t burn anything during that!

I’m halfway through the next culinary class — Traditional European Cuisine. The main focus is on braising and stewing. For those interested, these are similar ways of cooking. They are both combination methods of cooking which means that they start out by dry cooking and end with moist cooking. Basically, it goes like this:

• Take a large hunk of meat (if you’re braising) or smaller chunks of meat (if you’re stewing) and sear them in a little bit of hot oil until the outside is golden brown.
• Remove the meat, add some aromatics (traditionally, mirepoix, but any combination of carrots, celery, onion, pepper type veggies will do.) Sweat for a few minutes.
• Add some herbs, spices, salt, and pepper. Deglaze with some wine, or beer, or plain stock/broth.
• Add enough liquid (stock, broth, tomato sauce, if you’re desperate, water) to cover completely (for stewing) or 2/3 of your main food product (for braising.)
• Simmer on stove (stewing) or cook in a 375 degree oven (braising) until meat is fork tender.

It’s a perfect way to cook in the fall when you’re looking for warm up the kitchen and cook some comfort food.

As far as the class goes, for some reason, I’ve been a bit off. I think it’s partially because there are 13 of us cooking on 9 burners. This means it’s a fight to get a good spot in front of the stove (all the burners are right next to each other). Usually, it also means, that I’m cooking sideways with just enough room to get my arm in there for stirring.

I’ve burnt myself about a dozen times because the pan handles get hot. I have nice, rubber, heat-resistant handles at home. On the plus side, I’m building up those chef’s callouses.

The chef is hard to read. First, he’s got a very thick accent, so I have a hard time understanding him, and more importantly, decoding when he’s joking. I think he’s a jokester, but sometimes I take it more like he’s angry at me. And his quizzes are HARD! I really bombed the last one with a 6 out of 10.

But, overall, I haven’t been too nervous to ask questions, and speak-up in class, so I’ll consider that as a pretty decent chef to have as an instructor.

The great part about this class is my partner. She’s a couple of years younger than me, and similarly high strung. The excellent part of the pairing is that we’ve managed to calm each other down when we’re getting anxious or upset. I think it’s because we both get a little crazy and can understand each other. So far, it seems, that when one of us is down, the other is able to be a calming influence. It’s fantastic.

So, halfway through, I’m giving the class one thumb up and the other thumb in a neutral position. We’ll see what kind of grade I can manage to be the final factor!

After a long hiatus (summer and then missing September classes) I went back to school on Sunday. It was tough. First, of course, getting up at 5:45 again was no fun. Second, the class I’m taking this go-around is Intro to Dining Room, i.e. waiting tables.

This meant carrying heavy trays of food, serving the plates just so (so. many. rules.), and wearing an even dorkier uniform than the chef’s whites.

It also meant starting another round of classes with people that I’d never met who’d all been in the previous class together. This is absolutely the most difficult part of culinary school for me. Every four weeks there’s a whole new class, instructor, and classroom to get used to and by the time I get used to it, everything is new again. So, as such, Day 1 of every class means I feel like an awkward kid again trying to make friends, please the chef, and figure out where everything is kept.

So, what do we do in this class? Well, it goes something like this:

1. Morning lecture about the front of the house. In this case we learned about different types of service, different rules of serving (serve from the left with your left hand, clear from the right with your right hand except when it’s liquid and you serve to the right; always serve the meat/main dish at 6:00 right in front of the diner; and well, tons of other things you’ll never see anyone doing at Chilis.)

2. Morning side work/dining room set-up. The culinary labs are set up to be similar to a working kitchen. Two kitchen classrooms prepare two set menus for two services — lunch and dinner. The dining room classes seat the guests (guinea pigs other students) in the dining room and serve them. Before the guests arrive tables must be set, napkins must be folded (aw, yeah, the napkin fold of the day), and anything else needed for service must be accomplished.

3. Morning service. Normally, I’d have a table, work in the dishroom, work at the bar, or as the Maitre D. However, for morning service this time around it was self service so I only had to worry about helping clean up at the end.

4. Afternoon lecture. This is more of the above.

5. Serving practice. This basically meant “serving” the chef empty plates as discussed in lecture (I was the worst in the class, by the way) and carrying big serving trays around the room to make sure we could balance them.

5. Afternoon side work/dining room set-up. See above.

6. Afternoon service. I did serve one table where I messed up horribly according to the rules — however, my table was quite pleasant, understanding, and helpful (they probably already took the class) so I didn’t worry about screwing up too much. The fun part of this service is that the kitchen I was working from was a kitchen that my first ever chef was teaching as well as a kitchen where many of my classmates from last year were cooking as such I felt very comfortable going in and getting my order (rather than being all nervous and shy about it.)
7. Clean-up and go home.

As you can see, quite riveting stuff. But it’s clear it’s also important stuff for anyone interested in working in a restaurant or, really, serving any customer/client. And hey, the best thing about this program is if I hate a class, it’s only four Sundays out of my life.