Malawry

I have agreed to spend several hours one day a week in the kitchen, preparing items that can be frozen for later enjoyment when my partner, my housemate and I are too busy to cook. We maintain a mostly-vegetarian household (we eat fish). We are going on a fairly strict budget for the foreseeable future. Any suggestions for inexpensive freezables given these needs? I'm looking for soups, stews and items like baked pasta dishes that hold up well and won't cost a lot of money. I'm a reasonably capable cook and I have a chest freezer to hold everything. Thoughts?

Monday: Tilapia meuniere-style with a ginger-lemongrass beurre blanc over basmati rice, stir-fried baby bok choy and shiitake mushrooms Last night: Refried pintos over the leftover basmati, dollop of sour cream, scattering of queso fresco. Grapefruit for dessert.

The externship starts Wednesday. In other words, I get no time off. Ortanique is closed Sundays and I will have off every Tuesday so I can go to class. (I will probably work most Mondays, but hope to eventually make Mondays a day shift so Tuesday mornings won't be as hard.) Ortanique is closed December 24, 25, and 26 (plus Jan. 1), so this does not concern me seriously. I'll be getting a short break, and I'll know enough about my new job to be able to enjoy the time away. I think if I had the break before starting, I might spend the whole time worrying over what comes next. KarenS, I have eaten rolled cakes that did not taste like the roulades we have made at school (in a good way). What do I need to know to adapt a cake recipe into a roulade? I am quite fond of buttery but light cakes with chocolate buttercream, and may try to make a buche de Hanukkah with one next year.

Hm. My understanding of buttercream is that it can take a lot of mixing abuse. When we have made it fresh in the mixer, the whisk is working it for a looooooong time while we wait for it to cool. I've only made buttercream using Italian meringue with the hot syrup. The buttercream I was using for the buches de noel happened to be a whole egg buttercream prepared by the pastry students. Yes, I used a whisk, but I honestly don't remember if Chef Theresa showed us to use the whisk attachment or a paddle attachment. I don't remember any explanation of which to use, which is probably why I don't remember which one she herself used. I may have gone against what she told us to do, or I might have done exactly as she instructed. Nevertheless, the buttercream I used did not turn grainy, and there was definitely no blowtorch involved. (I am CERTAIN I'd remember if the blowtorch was brought out during the demo.)

Thursday, December 12 Instead of sitting through a demo, putting together lunch, cleaning up, and so on, we took a break today for the L’academie student celebration. Those of us in the culinary career training program prepared lunch for everybody, and then we were joined by the pastry students for lunch and celebration. George and Jonathan were in charge of the big things for today’s meal: barbecued beef brisket, barbecued pork ribs, and baked beans with fatback. They’d spent yesterday preparing rubs and sauces and getting things marinating and soaking, and I tried to help them get things moving this morning by putting their beans on to cook and so on. Other students made cornbread, coleslaw, and other fixings. Melanie went to Safeway and came back to school with fluorescent red and green Rice Krispies and ordinary marshmallows, which she proceeded to make into Rice Krispie treats. (I kept teasing her about them, joking that we went to culinary school to learn how to make Rice Krispie treats and then moaning, “ooh, FD&C Red no. 5” while snacking on them. She must hate me by now.) Chef Francois was still getting things together for the assorted Christmas Great luncheons and dinners, so some of us helped him with that. He asked me to make yet another Buche de Noel for Saturday’s event, so I made a bunch of marzipan décor and got the roulade baked, filled and rolled. I was quite fast with the cake after practicing yesterday. I don’t especially like the taste of roulade cakes (they taste of egg and sugar and not much else, probably since they’re made of egg and sugar and not much else) but I love buttercream, and I found myself wishing I could make a cake for family and friends. Perhaps next year I will make a Buche de Hanukkah and decorate it with blue marzipan stars of David and make a little marzipan menorah with almond wicks. At least two of the pastry students are vegetarian, and when we’ve had family meals recently they have been reduced to picking at slaw and bread and salad for their lunch. I did this plenty in my vegetarian days, and I always told my hosts I didn’t mind but it secretly irritated me. It’s not hard to make something substantial, preferably with protein content, that will satisfy a vegetarian and make them feel like they’re being looked after. I am no longer a vegetarian myself, but the school attitude towards vegetarianism bothers me periodically. I don’t think it’s important to make a huge production out of catering to vegetarians, but the fact is there will always be vegetarians eating at the restaurants where we cook, and as paying customers they will always demand and deserve a decent meal. Shouldn’t we be taught to provide it? Chef Peter and George were dismissive when I asked whether or not we were fixing vegetarian foods for the vegetarian pastry students. “They can eat slaw!” Uh, no. So I made a batch of vegetarian baked beans and asked that some of the potato skins be prepared without bacon. I then labeled the vegetarian beans and the fatback-seasoned beans so that it would be easy to tell the difference. It made me feel better that I at least was doing what I could to make every student feel welcome at the party. We opened the lunch buffet line around 1pm, and everybody cracked open bottles of beer and started tossing back Ivelisse’s special egg nog (with coconut milk and plenty of dark rum). The pastry students brought plates of brownies, coffee and vanilla ice creams, and fudge sauce to go with Melanie’s Rice Krispie treats. Chatter flowed freely, and we hung out gossiping about the kitchens where we will extern. After lunch, two of the faculty members organized us into teams for a culinary trivia game. They used a set of cards from a board game called something like “gourmet challenge” and went around asking each team to choose question categories and then giving them questions. I thought I’d do pretty well, as I’m reasonably well-read on food issues, but I embarrassingly failed to get a significant number of the questions shot at my team and others. (I think my team also got unlucky and had a small percentage of the “easy” questions.) We didn’t do so well, but we had a good time just the same. The winning team members were each given a bottle of a French red table wine as a prize. We packed up and went home a half hour early, feeling a little dejected that school is so close to being over. Tonight, Amy sent around a sweet, gushy email to all of us about how much she is going to miss us day-to-day now that we’re about to extern. I’ll miss my classmates too, but I’m also looking forward to the next big experience. Ortanique’s kitchen will be so different from the now-familiar L’academie kitchen, and I look forward to getting to know its staff, its menu, and its stations. Friday, December 12 Today was the last market basket we’ll have the chance to try at school. I was on the team of three for the very first time since we went down to teams of two (unless somebody is absent, 15 students in my class = six teams of two plus one team of three). Zoe and Kristin and I were placed together. I was in the mood to work in pastry, so I asked if I could make the dessert for today. Kristin and Zoe quickly agreed. I started by finishing the Buche de Noel for Chef Francois, and then asked Kristin and Zoe what they were making for our meal. Kristin wanted to make a seared pork tenderloin with sauerkraut studded with dried fruit, and Zoe was kicking around some celery root dish with seared scallops as a starter. I suggested apple fritters and spice ice cream as an appropriate finish to those two dishes, and they agreed it all sounded good. I spent my last full day at school mostly in the pastry kitchen, putting together the spice ice cream and later the apple fritters. I love apple fritters if well-made, but have never made them and have only made ordinary donuts once. I poked around Chef Somchet’s bookshelf looking for recipes and found a great-looking yeasted batter in Nancy Silverton’s La Brea Pastries book. The recipe called for sparkling apple cider and sounded like it would produce a delicate fritter, but realized that I didn’t have time for a yeasted dough. I ended up pulling the recipe from the On Cooking textbook; it was leavened with baking powder and was packed with plenty of apples. I prepared a Frangelico-spiked glaze to brush over the fritters with Zoe’s advice and assistance. I think today’s menu may have been one of the most beautifully plated, tastiest meals I’ve had at school. Zoe made these potato “mirrors” to garnish her scallop dish that were especially impressive. Mandoline-cut, wafer-thin potato slices, dipped in melted clarified butter, sandwiched with a single leaf of parsley, weighted and baked slowly to be flat and crisp. They looked like potato-parsley playing cards. She also made a leek-bacon compote and turned the celery root into a puree. Kristin’s pork tenderloin was delicious and came with a great wholegrain mustard sauce. Chef Peter happened by while I was eating it and snarked on me, the Jewish former vegetarian, chowing down on pork. And the fritters were great, especially with the spice ice cream (I’d added a scrape of black pepper to the ice cream mixture before freezing, which worked quite well to cut the richness of the cream). Kristin told me she never finishes her desserts, so the fact that she ate almost everything I served her was remarkable. I am grateful that I spent my last full day in the kitchens just as I spent my first day: learning, playing with food, doing the best I can to take even a simple item and make it special to look at and special to eat. We started with onion soup, and I remember figuring out as I went along how to slice an onion thinly, trying to keep the onions off the side of the pot where they may scorch, and chatting with Drew about why we came to school. And I spent my last day tossing pieces of bread into the fryer to test the temperature, tasting the ice cream mix repeatedly to get the spice mixture and level right, and asking Zoe to talk to me about making a good donut glaze. It’s not just onion soup and fritters, either. I can butcher a chicken easily and know how to braise tough cuts of meat, I can prepare a decent brioche and know the difference between parmegiano-reggiano and grana padano. My pasta is delicate and eggy, my shrimp are never overcooked, and even my simple salads taste far better than they did when I prepared them before coming to school. I really didn’t just go to culinary school to learn how to make Rice Krispie treats; I came to learn how to cook and how to understand food. I have barely started to learn those things, and I’m glad I have a foundation to build upon while I extern and subsequently begin my “real” culinary career. I have tests on Monday and Tuesday, but the classwork phase is essentially over.

Here is my recipe for lobster with citrus beurre blanc: Lobster with Citrus Beurre Blanc Whole live lobsters Sea salt White wine vinegar Finely minced shallot Grapefruit, orange, lemon and lime juices, jewels and zests Ginger White wine Cream White pepper Whole butter Parcook lobsters in boiling water with salt and vinegar. Shock. Split in half and remove meat. Reserve and wash half of the split shells. Reduce juices, shallot, wine, ginger a sec. Add cream. Season. Work in butter. Finish cooking lobster in butter sauce. Triple-blanch julienned zests. Serve lobster meat and sauce in warmed, cleaned half shells. Garnish with zests and jewels of fruits.

Jaybee, do you know how to make a beurre blanc? It's a very similar process. I will type up the recipe this wkd for my notebook and will share it then, but if you know how to make a beurre blanc then you just use lemon, lime, grapefruit and orange juices in lieu of wine and vinegar in the reduction, and garnish the finished dish with blanched julienned zests of the same fruits. Hang on for something more complete, coming soon. Suzanne F, there's not much to freezing and reconstituting buttercream. At school, the pastry students make huge batches in the big industrial standing mixer. They then dollop it onto plastic wrap, seal it into a rectangular block, and triple-wrap it. It gets labeled and put in the freezer. To reconstitute, defrost at low power in the microwave until thawed or warm carefully over a bain-marie until it's no longer frozen but still cold. Then start working it in a mixer with a whisk attachment until it's smooth. It looks grainy/clumpy for quite a while and may take several minutes of working. It helps if you occasionnally scrape the bowl. Jinmyo, I have felt for a few weeks that Chef Peter has told us most of what he has to tell us. The demos have been short, which contributes to this sense I've had. I don't know that Chef Peter and Chef Somchet have lost interest, but I don't know that they're fully engaged at the end of the course either.

Monday, December 9 We’ve missed market baskets the past few weeks, due to weather and scheduling conflicts. Chef Peter scheduled a market basket today to make up for it, and told us simply to use shrimp, snapper, and whatever we could find in the walk-in that was not earmarked for Chef Francois. He didn’t even bother to shuffle the class cards, probably because four people were absent. He placed me with Marta because we both sit in the front row. We agreed to make a salad with cornbread croutons, leftover roasted tomatoes, and Old Bay spiced grilled shrimp for our first course, followed by sauteed red snapper with a pineapple-red onion relish and black beans as an entrée. Dessert was to be filo cups with coconut ice cream and a strawberry-mango compote. I didn’t realize that much of this menu was influenced by sunny climes until later, when the two visitors assigned to be our guests showed up. The two women asked where Marta and I would be externing, and when I mentioned Ortanique one of them asked me if the menu we’d set was influenced by the tropical-fusion cuisine at the restaurant where I will be working. I was a bit embarrassed to admit that not only was the menu not influenced by my externship location, but I don’t consider myself to especially into “cuisine of the sun” in general. I like the food and its spicy-sweet-hot flavors, but I know very little about it and am not a seasoned diner at Caribbean and Jamaican type places. All the more to learn over the coming months. Tuesday, December 10 Chef Peter mentioned recently that we’d make lobster the last week of class, and today was our lucky day. Lobster with a citrus beurre blanc was our entrée. The lobsters we had were very active; I waved back at one of them during the morning demo. Chef Peter showed us how to parcook them, split the bodies in half, and serve the lobster meat in half the shell. I felt pretty good about my ability to handle them after learning how to do them after the last test, so I asked Chin to do them while I handled our starter. Zoe made our dessert, a repeat of pithiviers (a cake made with puff pastry filled with frangipane). Apparently, there will be no dessert demos this week. I think the only dessert Chef Peter ever demoed for us was crème brulee, early on. Chef Francois is hosting another Christmas Great luncheon on Thursday, so he needed plenty of assistance on food prep from our class. We were assigned to three-person teams to free up enough time for us to assist him, and we did not take a post-lunch break. I brunoised what felt like a million sweet peppers and cut the heads and winglets off of semifrozen squab. Wednesday, December 11 There was freezing rain last night into this morning, and so school opened at 11am instead of 8am as it usually does. I celebrated by sleeping in (finally getting a good amount of rest) and then taking my time getting to school. We kicked off our morning with a demo on buche de noel, or yule logs. This is probably our last dessert demo, and it was presented by Chef Theresa, who is the assistant instructor for the pastry program. Buche de noel is made of roulade, filled and frosted with buttercream and garnished with marzipan leaves and berries and meringue mushrooms. Chef Theresa whizzed through the demo a little too quickly at times (we’ve made roulade and buttercream before, but she gave us a new recipe for roulade and we could barely keep up with it). I think I learned more about roulade and buttercream from her short demo than I did from the lengthier, repeated demos with Chef Somchet. I hadn’t known how to freeze and reconstitute buttercream, or that roulade could be much thinner than we’ve baked it and still be sturdy. I was inspired by Chef Theresa’s demo, so I was pleased to be one of three people assigned to make three cakes. I tried out Chef Theresa’s roulade recipe with Drew’s help. Unfortunately, I overbaked the cakes a little bit, and we ended up having to trim some split pieces off of the thinnest cake. The resulting rolled up log was small since we’d lost so much to trimming; Em started referring to it as a twig instead of a log. Decorating the cakes was fairly easy and fun, and I liked making candles out of marzipan with almond chips as wicks. You can actually light the almonds; they burn for 15 seconds or so and look quite festive. We didn’t eat lunch until almost 2:30pm due to the late start, and there was barely time to clean up before departing. I’m glad I slept in this morning, but I’m sorry that we missed so much of the day today when there are so few school days left. We have a family meal and holiday celebration for ourselves tomorrow, another market basket on Friday, and then tests on Monday and Tuesday. Not much left!

There was a question about middle eastern food, wasn't there? Oh yeah, I ate at Lebanese Taverna in DC/Woodley Park (which I think is their original location) Friday night. My esteemed partner and I shared several mezze as our meal. Ooh was it good. I was very excited that Lebanese Taverna opened a little fast-food outlet in Rockville, in the shopping center with Fresh Fields. I sometimes shop along the dreaded Rockville Pike and was delighted to discover the new quick eatery on a trip up that way with Edemuth a few months ago. I think Skewers is alright if you want a middle eastern meal closer to Dupont Circle. I especially like their falafel salad, with raisins, pine nuts, and crisped bits of pita bread. I ate this at least once a week for over a year back in the day. Their kibbeh is tasty too. 17th and P Streets, NW, above Cafe Luna. If you want a flashy, "scene-y" place to share mezze with friends, try Mezze in Adams-Morgan. Try to reserve a couch upstairs. The food's all right but the vibe and the martinis are better. I'd avoid Fattoush in Georgetown.

I think mine turned out so dark because I used dark brown sugar...I didn't have any light brown sugar around...plus I used the full amount of molasses. It was never hard to stir, not even the first time like Jaymes said, and the caramel was this dark color when I poured it on the popcorn. It didn't darken a lot in the oven, and I don't think I baked it at too high a temperature. There's only one thing to do: make it again with light brown sugar. Sigh.

Welcome, Jojo7. I promise not to harass you about posting a bio. Even if you don't want to, I hope you get involved in the boards. Your experiences on both sides of the kitchen should make your voice a great addition to eGullet. Welcome! Suzanne, I did not play in the snow. I have in the past, but I spent my snow day cooking, socializing with my partner, and then helping him dig out his car. Later, I went downtown to sign some paperwork at Ortanique, and then I did some grocery shopping for the holiday baking we hosted this past weekend. I keep wanting to type Somchetisms into my diary posts, but they're only funny if you hear the inflection and the accent along with it: "You knead the dough, and then you chill the dough, and then you bake it, and DON'T OPEN THE DOOR!" and "Put in your mind!" just don't seem as amusing in written form. Alas.

Thanks for your terrific story. I had my inaugural burger not too long after writing this post. I visited Colorado Kitchen to ask the chef if I could interview her for my paper, a visit I documented in this diary. I didn't document the burger I ate while there, but it was worth documenting: juicy, thick, meaty, perfectly cooked, fabulous. It even came on a good Kaiser roll. My only complaint is that they didn't have a good mustard in-house to stand up to this excellent burger. It comes with satisfying red onion rings. I'm already dreaming of when I can go back and order it again. (It's only available Fridays at lunch and Sundays at dinner, so it's hard to get.)

I am amazed to hear Annie's cooks a delicious steak. I mean, they are a steakhouse, yes, but they're the sort of steakhouse where you don't have to be ashamed of asking for ketchup with your T-bone. Annie's does have good breakfast, though, and we used to go there for overstrong alcoholic beverages and French toast after clubhopping back in my Dupont Circle days. And the eye candy can't be beat, since I don't mind that none of the pretty boys are interested in my type. Annie's is indeed on 17th Street, NW, between Q and Corcoran Streets. Metro to Dupont Circle.

When ya'll have this orgy of Indian food and fabulous desserts, can I come? I'll provide comic relief, or something. And Suvir, yes, you have another home in Washington if you want it, I am sure. It's not high-end creative Indian cuisine, but I adore Tiffin and Udupi Palace in Langley Park, MD, just down the road from my home in Takoma Park, MD. Udupi is all-vegetarian South Indian, while Tiffin has an omnivorous menu and sports a tandoor. They are owned by the same family; they also own a sister Udupi Palace restaurant in Chicago. Good places for the usual suspects of American Indian restaurant menus. Udupi's vegetarian dosai menu is especially impressive, and I love the onion kulcha and the aloo paratha at Tiffin. Both restaurants are popular with area Indian populations; they rely on Indians for at least half of their customer base. I've never had bad service in either restaurant, although I wouldn't call the service outstanding. We eat in one or the other at least once a month. There's also a branch of Woodlands vegetarian in Langley Park, but it pales in comparison to Udupi. Far greasier and underspiced to boot.

I am glad that you liked Ortanique. I think their dining room is fun with its overdramatic draped fabrics, and I'd probably hit their bar occasionally if I had an office job nearby. (I loved the vodka infusions they kept handy: olives in one, bing cherries in another, etc.) I look forward to your writeup, especially on Vidalia where I have not dined in some time...I wonder how they are holding up.

Thursday, December 5 No class; snow day Friday, December 6 This weekend is one of the Chef Francois signature “Christmas Great” dinners. In addition, my class is catering a holiday party for the volunteer assistants who help out at recreational L’academie classes. Missing class yesterday due to snow did not bode well for us, and Chef Peter had warned us on Wednesday that a snow day would equal a “world of hurt” on Friday. We arrived ready to crank out as much food as we could for the dinner and the party. There was no demo. I worked on trimming onglet and flank steak, making jerk paste for jerk chicken, folding spanikopita, cutting and frying plantain chips, and so on. Lunch was served family-style, and we fed the pastry students (who were busy with all the pastry for the Sunday event). They brought us chocolate-chip cookies for our dessert. It’s funny how we learn testy doughs and egg-based concoctions every day that go into desserts, but we all get excited when presented with basic desserts like chocolate chip cookies. I wonder which desserts take back French people to their childhood days like chocolate chip cookies take back many Americans. During lunch, I mentioned to Jonathan that I’d written more about him in my most recent entry. Melanie asked me why I’ve never written about her and semi-jokingly asked me to describe her in this diary. Melanie lived in Lake Tahoe for some time and looks something like a California outdoorsy blonde, complete with a fleece vest and trail-hiking water bottle. She likes to party (she developed a reputation for this early on, sealed by her serving mojitos for her herb presentation on mint). She has some history with working in kitchens and is more efficient than I am as a result. I enjoy working with her; I found we developed a nice creative energy when we did market baskets together some time ago, and I like her sense of how tastes go together. Over the past few months, she’s become good friends with Drew; she chided him for returning Kitchen Confidential to me when he admitted he only scanned parts of it. She’s externing at Butterfield 9. After working without a break as efficiently as possible, things got done rapidly. We even wrapped up a little early, around 3:10pm. I wonder if Chef Peter shortened the menu for Sunday to allow us to get out on time, because even after six months in the kitchen we’re not really able to do two days’ worth of work in one and finish early. I’d expected to be at school at least an hour late. Sunday, December 8 Today’s party started at noon, so we had plenty to do to get everything together in time. I worked with Chris on wrapping pork tenderloin in brioche dough and setting up garnishes and sauces for the pork and the egg rolls. We somehow ended up agreeing that he’d serve the pork in brioche and I’d handle the egg rolls. Egg rolls are really a two-person job because they are so popular; one to handle serving and frying, one to cut them in half on the bias and load them onto platters. Jessie came over to help me with the egg rolls, for which I was greatly appreciative. Chef Somchet’s recipe for egg rolls is legendary. Those who knew Chef Somchet immediately started hitting the egg roll platters, but those who hadn’t seen the egg rolls before didn’t seem enthusiastic until they tasted their first one. The egg rolls started flying off the platters more and more rapidly, and Jessie and I had a hard time keeping up. We developed pretty good communication after a while, and managed to keep the platters filled and looking attractive. I’ve catered enough by now to know that I have to pay attention and keep on top of things, and I’m finding myself less annoyed by catering than I was the first few times I did it. Jessie seems to be feeling the same way about catering. Chef Peter’s wife and children came to the party, so we had a chance to meet them and check the little ones out. At one point towards the end of the event, Chef Peter picked up his toddler son and held him up high over his head. The boy immediately drooled on Chef Peter’s face. The funniest part of this was that Chef Peter didn’t respond to this at all; he treated it as a fairly everyday occurrence. Most of us saw this happen, and we laughed pretty hard about it. Chef Peter has joked once or twice that his home life is mostly about drool, but witnessing this personally was another matter entirely. As we were packing up from the party, Chef Somchet called all of us to her and said she had an announcement. She told us she was leaving tomorrow for a holiday in New Zealand (where her sister lives) and that she would not see us again until we entered Phase 2 of our education. I am sorry she will not be with us for our last week and our last tests, as are most of my classmates. We all talk like her, especially when we are in the pastry kitchen. We will miss having her around for the wrap-up of classwork. I wonder what pastry we will learn over the next week, if any. Egg Rolls 1c ground chicken or pork; use shiitake mushrooms for vegetarian rolls 1c Soaked, drained cellophane noodles Grated ginger Grated garlic Soy sauce Sea salt 1c julienned carrot 1c julienned green cabbage Egg roll skins Egg wash Peanut oil Sweet chili sauce Cook meat in nonstick pan over high heat without stirring until browned on bottom; stir and break up and complete cooking. Add noodles and remove from heat. Add ginger, garlic, soy sauce, and sea salt. Chill in ice bath until lukewarm and add carrot and cabbage. Toss and adjust seasoning. Fill rolls and seal with egg wash; fry in peanut oil until golden. Serve with sweet chili sauce.

Swissmiss, I am generally satisfied with what I have learned so far, but I haven't yet been able to compare it to what I will need to know in the "real world" of food and cooking. That's really a better question to ask me while I extern. As for what happens to this diary while I extern, stay tuned. Masssheltie, I didn't choose my school knives. They're Chef Revival knives, and they're issued to each L'academie culinary career training program student. I wrote about the knife kit in the entry titled "The first three days." As time has gone by I have become less enamored of my knife set. I enjoy the feeling of familiarity I have with the knives, but I noticed recently that the very tip of my chef's knife has snapped off, and the knives don't keep an edge nearly as well as my home knife set. At home, I use Wusthof Classic knives, a set that my partner and I were given as a wedding gift. We registered for these particular knives because I liked the handfeel of Wusthof Classic best of the knives I tried out. I am considering buying myself a chef's knife to put in my knife kit and take to work and school with me. Many of the tools real professional cooks use when cooking are not talked about in the yuppie foodie media. Some of the equipment we use at school is super-cheap, like the aluminum saute pans, while other items like the Robot Coupe food processors and the Vita-Prep mixer are too expensive for most home cooks. Most of the kitchens I have visited have similar combinations of tools.

OK, Jaymes's recipe is delicious, but not quite what I was looking for. The resulting popcorn is dark colored, like Cracker Jacks, and not too sticky. It's quite tasty, and I'm enjoying munching on it, but I am not satisfied despite the popcorn's fine qualities. I want something more golden than brown, something stickier that you have a harder time separating. Any suggestions?

I got my snow day today, and the popcorn just went in the oven. I'll report back once it comes out.

Latkes with homemade applesauce and sour cream Greek salad My belated birthday cake, a buttery layer cake with milk chocolate buttercream. Usually I serve broiled grapefruit with candied ginger at the end of a latke feast, but the cake was good.

Thursday, November 28 Friday, November 29 No class; Thanksgiving break Tuesday, December 3 It’s hard to believe we only have two weeks left of class. By this point, we already know one anothers’ quirks rather well, and we tease one another in between feeding each other and asking each others’ advice. One person who I have written about very little is probably the most notorious of my classmates. Jonathan told me last week that if I wrote that he is an asshole in my diary, he’d be okay with it as long as I gave him space for a blurb on the back cover when I turn my diary into a book. “Irreverent” seems like the best single descriptor for Jonathan. Chef Peter has been wearing him down since very early on in the course, and now Jonathan actually says “Yes, Chef” with minimal prompting rather than arguing about the subject at hand. We always titter when he says this, and Chef Peter gets a somewhat rascally grin upon hearing the words. Jonathan is quite creative in the kitchen (his enthusiasm on market basket mornings is especially impressive), and when he is passionate about a food-related subject it’s hard not to get caught up in his emotions. His reports on Pont L’eveque cheese and Larousse Gastronomique inspired me to sample the cheese on a recent vacation, and to put the book at the top of my holiday wish list. He started his externship at Elysium some time ago, and I always look forward to his reports from the field. I also like talking to Marta. She’s a refugee from the tech world and a former member of the Navy; she and her tech geek husband live in a gorgeous rowhouse on Capitol Hill. I like trading notes with her about Polish vs. Ashkenazic Jewish foods and traditions. She faithfully carts her Food Lover’s Companion to and from the demo classroom each morning, and is the first to look at the Repertoire de la Cuisine book when we talk about classic dishes. Like me, she sits in the front row; unlike me, she reports early every morning and helps Chef Peter set up his mise en place and checks in the produce order. I respect her work on AIDS issues; she has done the DC AIDS bike ride and is an active volunteer with a local organization that feeds people with AIDS (see the “pies” entry for more info). Wednesday, December 4 This Sunday is L’academie’s big annual holiday event. The volunteer assistants from the recreational classes are invited, along with other friends of L’academie, and my class caters the event. There are also two “holiday greats” dinners coming up shortly. We started on the food prep today, with cutting mirepoix for veal stock and prepping filling for egg rolls and folding spanakopita. At this point we’ve done these things enough that they have lost any glamour they may have had in the past. For that matter, I feel sorry for any prospective students that visit the school. We’ve had many guests over the past six months; there is often a visitor assigned to my table for lunch, and I really enjoy working them over and making them feel welcome. We had a guest today, a guy who is an attorney interested in shifting careers towards food. He seemed cool and all, but we all had such a bad attitude today that I’m afraid we may not have given him the best impression. Guests earlier in the program definitely enjoy better experiences in terms of student responsiveness, although it totally depends who the students are how the guest will perceive the school. (When I visited for lunch, the students at my table were nice but relatively unresponsive. Obviously, this did not stop me from enrolling.) Today’s guest did ask me an interesting question, one I have not been asked so far. “What do you dislike about the program?” I found myself agreeing with Zoe that we don’t learn much about ingredients compared to how much we learn about technique, but I don’t necessarily think that is a problem. I know a lot about ingredients and very little about technique, which is probably why. I talked about the disconnect from seasonality and the whole confused French vs. non-French culinary education and culinary dogma, which are issues I have addressed here in my diary. I explained that I have a sense of humor about these issues, but if I didn’t they’d probably bother me a lot more. I’ve been down on the notebook in the past, but now I find myself liking the project more and feeling more glad I have a detailed set of files and single, organized repository of what I’ve learned at school. I think the recipes bear similarities to busy work, but I don’t mind the task of organizing them…just the task of writing them myself. The only thing that kept us cheerful today was the prospect of a snow day tomorrow. There’s snow in the forecast starting at midnight tonight, and if it’s likely to cause traffic issues in the morning then classes will almost certainly be canceled. This does mean that we will have to stay late Friday to finish all the stuff we didn’t get done Thursday, but it would be worth it…and so wonderful to have an unexpected day at home. I find out around 5:30am whether or not I will be reporting to class tomorrow.

If I have a snow day tomorrow, I will try it then myself. Keep your fingers crossed.

I don't care for over-molasses-y popcorn with near-rancid peanuts. Cracker Jack is for tourists. Crunch and Munch is closer to what I'm seeking, as commercial products go, but I know I can do much better in my home kitchen with the better butter and popcorn I normally keep on hand.

I'm fairly comfortable with cooking caramel, but I have never made caramel popcorn. I positively adore the stuff if made well and want to try my hand at a batch or two. If it goes well perhaps I will make more for holiday gift-giving. Techniques? Recipes? Also, what's the best way to pop the corn for it? Oil-pop? (I think popping it in oil makes it taste fresher longer than popping with hot air or in the microwave.)

BigMac, I do not think I will revert to vegetarianism upon my graduation. I need to understand what meat and fowl are like, if I am to have a good overall understanding of food. Besides, I have come to somewhat enjoy those foods. I will not be cooking them at home, but I want to keep working with them in restaurants and occasionally eat them. Suzanne, I will not be starting at Ortanique until December 18. I have many, many commitments to fulfill between now and then. KateW, believe me, I'd rather have some breaks and have to stop classwork periodically. We did have several breaks: 4th July, Labor Day, and now Thanksgiving. The people who are in Phase 1 while I am externing will enjoy a few breaks as well, for Memorial Day for example. Working in a restaurant kitchen is not particularly forgiving breakwise, since when most people break they eat out a lot more. Enjoy the time away from school, use it to eat in some new restaurants and curl up with good cookbooks and experiment in the kitchen. It's what I did with my break, which has been wonderfully relaxing.