Malawry

Jinmyo, my palate has definitely expanded over the time I've been at L'academie. More on that in tomorrow's entry. In response to BigMac's questions: We don't get a daily grade. The only time the food I cook is graded as you mention is when I have a practical exam. On those days, I cook the whole meal and I am the only one who gets a grade. I do get a participation grade which is based mostly on what happens in the kitchen on a day-to-day basis; this is more about my attitude and keeping busy than about turning out a top-notch pie. Chef Peter, Chef Somchet, and Chef Francois will comment on dishes we serve them if they are assigned to our teams as guests to be fed, and Chef Peter in particular will sometimes go around tasting foods and tell us what they need. But this is more for personal edification and learning experience than a demerit or addition to a grade. All three know when we are feeding them; Chef Peter and Chef Somchet eat with students every day. Chef Francois normally eats at his desk, but he knows who brought him his food and if he has comments he usually finds that person and talks to them and their team. I have been a little disappointed that we are so busy on market basket day that we cannot focus on the work of other students. Each team normally produces a "taster plate" to show off their mad plating skillz and to give Chef Peter and Chef Somchet something to sample. They rarely polish off these plates. There is sometimes enough time on market basket day to go around and pick off of other teams' taster plates. I try to hit the "buzz" dishes, the ones people exclaim over most, to see for myself what they're like. Lunch service is a little slower on market basket day which helps to make this possible, fortunately. We can consult our notes for market baskets, and most of us do at least a little (especially if working in pastry). I haven't tried to look at another cookbook. There is really no time to do so, unless I happened to know that a certain book had a certain dish I wanted to make and I knew where the book was in the library. I assume we are allowed to do so if we have time. Frankly, it's more useful to go into the walk-in and check out the nature and quality of the produce on the basket list. I've done this both times we've done the baskets, to help us use the best-looking stuff in the best possible way. There's only about 20 minutes to decide what's on the menu, so there isn't much time for puttering about. I don't use cookbooks for non-pastry recipes, I use them more for ideas about flavor combinations. We get almost no advice or instruction on the contents of the basket. Chef Peter may go over a few items verbally, but it's more about their nature and quality than their preparation or intention. For example, I think he told us the pumpkins were jack-o-lantern type ones.

Yeah, the school has a cold smoker which we've used to smoke salmon, tomatoes (which we used in a smoky tomato soup), and now the duck breasts. I haven't been the one to play with it yet, although I have seen it and understand how it works. Two students cured the duck breasts overnight, and then set up the smoker the next morning and got the breasts smoked. They were then placed in the walk-in for a second night, and we seared them and used them to top the salad on Friday. Yum yum.

I don't think there is any intended purpose for most of the things on the list for market baskets. The only clearly intentional things I've seen are limits on quantities for dairy products, and only two "center of the plate" animal protein options. I suspect we had the pumpkins because they're seasonal, we haven't learned how to use them in class, and because we've been learning some carving lately and so carving a pumpkin for Halloween might have made an appropriate centerpiece this Thursday in particular. That being said, nobody made a jack-o-lantern, and almost everybody at least talked about cooking the pumpkins. At least one other team made a puree; I think they filled pasta with it or something. I am pretty sure one other team used it, but I don't remember how. I am not a big pumpkin fan (I dislike pumpkin pie), but I viewed the basket as an opportunity to see for myself what it tastes like in a savory application. I had indeed heard many times that jack-o-lantern type pumpkins have little flavor, but I wanted to know firsthand what it tasted like. We did toast the seeds, thinking of sprinkling them over the finished puree or using them some other way, but we forgot them in the oven and they overcolored. It was just a chance to play and experiment, which is in part what the market baskets are all about.

Thursday, October 31 This was a decidedly un-Halloweenlike Halloween. Nobody attempted any sort of costume, and we didn’t really make any Halloweeny food. I had briefly considered coming as Chef Somchet; I could have swiped one of her chef’s jackets, blow-dried my hair straight, and talked with a Thai accent all day. It was a funny idea, but I didn’t get up early enough to carry it off. Today was of course our second market basket day. I was teamed up with Marta and George this time. The available ingredient list was longer than it was last week, but some quantities were more limited (most notably butter; only 8 ounces!). Ingredients included pumpkin, 2 pork tenderloins (they were very small), 1 pound of salmon, eggplant, black beans, red bell peppers, and more. We had to come up with four courses. Here is what George, Marta and I put together: Wilted salad with salmon, roasted grape tomatoes and chevre Fresh fettucine with assorted vegetables, garlic, olive oil, parmesan and proscuitto Pork cutlets with potato-pumpkin puree and roasted asparagus Banana cream pie George really wanted to make the banana cream pie, and had said so as soon as we’d been assigned to teams. Marta was attached to doing the pork cutlets, which she likes to make at home. I came up with the puree idea and helped to flesh out the pasta course. George suggested the salad. We divided the work: George on salad and dessert, Marta on the entrée, me on the pasta. We had three hours to make our meal, and the pasta dish was really not a three-hour job. Just the same, since the dish was so simple I wanted to make it the best it could possibly be for what it was. I selected red bell peppers, shiitakes, portabellos and leeks as the vegetables. I carefully cut them all into even julienne so they would look like colorful ribbons in the finished plate. I sliced the proscuitto similarly, and chiffonaded basil for garnish. George gave me roasted yellow grape tomatoes from the first course for color. I took plenty of time with the fettucine, making sure it was as thin as possible and evenly kneaded and rolled. I didn’t want to risk burning or undercooking the garlic, so I minced it and heated it very slowly in extra virgin olive oil until it was lightly browned and sweetened. For service, I sauteed off the vegetables, boiled the pasta, and tossed the noodles with the garlic oil. I tossed in the veggies and the proscuitto, and then plated small rounds in heated bowls. I sprinkled on the cheese and the basil and garnished with thyme. Very simple dish, but it was one of the best I tasted because every component was executed perfectly. Marta and I collaborated on much of the planning for the pasta and the puree. She made the puree, but we talked about it a lot to figure out how to work it. The pumpkins we had available were the big jack-o-lantern type, which don’t have much flavor to them. Marta cut some large hunks, oiled and seasoned them, and roasted them in the oven until soft. When they were soft, we each tasted a small cube. It didn’t have much flavor, and it was very watery. We agreed that it would have to be pushed through a tamis and then squeezed dry. By the time Marta had it pureed and drained, it amounted to maybe a third of a cup of pumpkin (despite being several large hunks when she started). It tasted a little stronger, and there was little we could do but add it to some riced potatoes with some cream and butter and hope for the best. The puree wasn’t bad, but it didn’t taste much like pumpkin as we’d hoped and the texture was only so-so. Still, it was a useful experiment. Next time we’ll try butternut squash instead (unfortunately, it wasn’t on the market basket list this time). The salad and the pasta ended up being the better courses my team prepared. George seared the fish in peanut oil on the stovetop and finished it in the oven. He brought his balsamic vinaigrette to a simmer in a pan and melted in the chevre. Then, he tossed the greens with the hot, cheesy dressing and plated them. He scattered on the tomatoes and then plated the fish on top. It was attractive and addictively tasty. Marta’s pork tenderloins were good, as was the asparagus, but I think we were all a little disappointed in the pumpkin-potato puree. George’s banana cream pie was good but a real sugar hit, with its crème patisserie flavored with white chocolate, cookielike crust and whipped cream topping. Oy. Next week we go down to two-person teams for the market baskets. This could be a real success or a total mess, depending on who the team is. Chef Peter warned us that we needed to be efficient when deciding what to make, and said that if we don’t make up our minds by the time he asks us what we’re doing he’ll assign us something. “You won’t like it, either. It’ll be mousses and ballotines. A world of hurt.” Friday, November 1 Back to the usual grind today. The menu was a fun one: smoked, seared duck breast salad with citrus, paella, and a chocolate terrine. I was teamed with Melanie, who wanted to make ice cream and work on other projects in the pastry kitchen. I took care of the other two courses; she came and helped me cut up some of the vegetables for the paella and helped with the last-minute paella assembly, but I took care of most everything else. It was fun. I had zero anxiety about cutting down the chicken for the paella, searing or finishing the duck breast for the salad, or any other component of the meal. A nice feeling. After lunch and cleanup, we did the first round of reports for our culinarian papers. I gave my chat about Jacques Pepin. I was forced to stop and process with the class when I revealed that Pepin was offered a position as chef at the Kennedy White House but turned it down to take a job with Howard Johnson’s. I also explained why I think Pepin is much like Chef Francois, and talked about his relationship with people like Craig Claiborne and Julia Child. I ended up talking for far longer than I’d expected, and hopefully nobody got too bored. After class, a classmate told me he thought I should write a biography of Pepin. Once class let out for the day, I went downtown and talked with the chef at Corduroy, Tom Power. I have two weeks in which to nail down my externship, and I felt no closer than I was when I started looking. I arrived a little early for my appointment, so I put on an apron and helped destem spinach while I waited. I think it made a good impression on Chef Tom that I was working when he showed up instead of just standing around. He interviewed me for about a half hour, asking about my knife skills, experience and availability. Corduroy is a New American restaurant located in a Sheraton hotel in downtown DC. Edemuth and I had lunch there once and really enjoyed it, which was partly why I thought of going there and checking it out. They serve three meals a day, plus they do the banquets and room service for the hotel (they are not run by Sheraton). They do not have a pastry chef on site; Chef Tom and his sous chef Paul Gomez do most of the baking themselves. Chef Tom said he likes to rotate externs through all of the positions he can, assuming they can keep up with the learning curve. He said he has 200 high school students staying in the hotel to feed for several weeks in January, so somebody who can start in December would be a welcome addition. I plan to trail there on Wednesday next week.

I've not eaten out for Thanksgiving in DC, but the Thanksgiving meal at 1789 is locally famous. They're probably insanely booked up by now, but try calling anyway just to see if they have space.

Definitely a modernist. The Asian style dishes we've made have been decidedly Americanized, and this was no exception. Both curries were based on commercial pastes and canned coconut milk. Chef Somchet said that when she was in Thailand she made her own pastes, just like everybody else did over there. Here, she thinks the ingredients are not as good, and it's not worth the bother. After some pressing, she said she'd show those of us who are interested how to make a fresh paste sometime.

Tuesday, October 29 This was one of those long days with nothing to do in it. I came in early and made both focaccia and pizza doughs, thinking I could sit them in the walk-in overnight and bake them off tomorrow morning. The morning demo was extremely short; we learned how to make Thai green and red curries, and Chef Somchet demoed a cold rice noodle salad with sauteed shrimp. We were split into teams and given a ridiculous amount of time to get everything done. I asked my teammate, Amy, if I could go into pastry and make the coconut ice cream for dessert. She said she didn’t mind, so I went in with Em and got the ice cream freezing within a few minutes. Em and I decided to make some cookies to go with our ice cream (which we had made for everybody in the class), and we chose some coffee-chocolate chip ones we’ve made in class several times before. We were out of chocolate chips, so Em went to a nearby supermarket to buy more while I mixed up the dough. We got the cookies in the oven and looked at the clock: 10:30am! I went to see how Amy was doing and she had already finished all of our mise en place and was working on other projects to kill time. Around this time, Chef Francois came to me and handed me a telephone call slip with Jacques Pepin’s phone number on it. “I just talked to him and he said to call him here at 5pm today for your interview.” Huzzah! The rest of the day started to pass a little more quickly after I got this news. I filled my time by cutting up a bunch of toppings for my pizza and focaccia, helping Amy with a caramel sauce for the coconut ice cream, and so on. After I got home, I set up my phone and computer and called Jacques Pepin. I remembered a comment on eGullet that I should try to ask some interesting questions of him, and so I had written a few more personal, fun type questions about his food history. My first was a question about an early cooking memory. He seemed taken aback by my question, and said he didn’t really have an answer. “I left home when I was 13 to apprentice in a restaurant where my mother was a chef. I was always in the restaurant working, washing, cleaning tables. Chefs are stars now, but 20 years ago we were at the bottom level. We didn’t know that somehow, some day we would be asked to remember these things.” After this response, I decided to stick to more traditional questions. Chef Jacques seemed happy enough to answer them, and gave detailed responses when he could. He also asked me questions at various points, including whether or not I knew who Craig Claiborne was and what my parents’ professions were. I learned some interesting facts I hadn’t seen in my research, such as that he turned down an offer as the chef for the Kennedy White House when he moved to the US to take a job as a corporate chef at Howard Johnson’s. “I’d already worked for Charles de Gaulle and thought it would be the same sort of thing. The Howard Johnson’s job sounded more interesting.” We spoke for about 20 minutes. I came away thinking Chef Jacques is much like Chef Francois, except he had his name on books and his face on television rather than founding a cooking school and a major culinary organization. They both enjoy teaching, believe in the importance of technical skill, and are serious and passionate about their work. By the way, I did address the idea of an eGullet chat with Chef Jacques. He politely declined, saying that he has his plate full with the similar work he does with epicurious.com, Food and Wine magazine, and other food media. Wednesday, October 30 Today’s schedule was a sharp antidote to yesterday’s leisurely pace. I boned out an entire shoulder of lamb, which took me quite a long time. I was glad I had sharpened my boning knife on the stone recently, because it would have been even harder with a dull blade. Tunneling out the shoulder blade was especially trying. I worked and worked and worked the meat and sinew away from the bone, pulling the flesh away repeatedly, and after a while I started wondering where the bottom of the bone was. When I finally pulled it out I waved it triumphantly and said “YES!” before getting back to work. In recent weeks I’ve noticed my discomfort with handling meat has started to fade. I did not mind breaking down the lamb today, and wasn’t nearly as anxious about the job as I have been in the past. I had no trouble tying the stuffed meat shut neatly and tightly. I was not disturbed by the sticky, “meaty” feeling on my hands. I didn’t cook the meat correctly, but today was the first time in quite a while that I didn’t handle it well. (I neglected to turn it over halfway through roasting in the oven. Apparently, Chef Peter mentioned this, but I missed it. My inexperience with meat means that I don’t intuit such handling without specific instruction. It was a fixable problem, fortunately.) After our break, Chef Peter told us that the menus in the remaining weeks will be mostly light, and that we’ll have more days like yesterday than we will like today. “This is your time. If you want to try something, try it. Practice it. It’s up to you to fill the time. You do whatever you feel you need to work on.” I started thinking of all the things I’d like to get right before I leave for externship in December: tourneeing a mushroom. Folding a paper cornet. Cutting a julienne more quickly. Cooking a proper omelet every time. Baking good French bread. These are some of the same skills that are why I wanted to attend culinary school, and I can do a rudimentary to adequate job at all of them, but I am not at all satisfied. I’m glad I’ll have the chance to work on it before entering the “real world.”

Vegetarian chili spiked with dried pasilla and chipotle chiles, Tillamook cheddar, tortilla chips Steamed broccoli, Maldon sea salt And I'm about to polish off the apple pie from the other night for dessert.

Durkee's! I'd forgotten all about Durkee's! I'll have to pick up a bottle when I go home for Thanksgiving. Thanks for mentioning it, Jaymes. Here is the waldorf salad we made at school. I am not a big waldorf salad fan, but this was all right: Waldorf Salad Celeriac Lemon juice Apple, a tart variety like Granny Smith Sea salt and white pepper Walnuts Mustard Mayonnaise Mesclun mix Emulsified vinaigrette Cover celeriac with a squeeze of lemon juice. Combine with apple and season. Add walnuts, mustard, and mayonnaise. Combine mesclun with vinaigrette. Serve celeriac-apple mixture molded in circles topped with a pluche of mesclun.

I looked over my list as copied off the whiteboard, and you know, apples don't appear on it! Now that you mention it, I seem to recall some discussion of whether or not we could use pears, but I don't remember the outcome. It's possible that people asked Chef Peter about the apples later, and he said to go ahead. I dunno. We had originally agreed to make a lemon tart, thereby using up all of our butter in one fell swoop, but Chris suggested the apple cake later and nobody had a problem with it. BigMac, welcome to eGullet. I'm impressed that you waded through all these entries. Please consider posting a bio so we can all get to know you.

Thursday, October 24 Today was our first market basket day. I was looking forward to this day for some time, with more enthusiasm than trepidation. When we came into the demo kitchen, the following was written on the whiteboard: ½ pound flank steak 1 pound shrimp mushrooms cauliflower eggplant zucchini yellow squash baby spinach fennel butternut squash tomato potatoes: Idaho, fingerling, or small waxy white mirepoix/shallots/garlic filo dough arborio rice pearl barley any cheeses sugar flour any spices/herbs, fresh or dried wine/other alcohol 1 pint cream 10oz butter 1 pint milk 1½ pints chicken stock 1 cup demi-glace 6 eggs strawberries raspberries blackberries oranges lemons Items with limited quantities were nonnegotiable. Items with no listed quantity were usable in any amount desired. We were not required to use each item listed. A three course menu, including one dessert, had to be produced by normal service time at 12:30pm. We were divided into teams of three and given a little time to decide what we wanted to make. Chris F, Kristin and I were put together on a team and immediately went to our table to talk over the ingredients. We agreed quickly that the steak should go into our starter, and the shrimp should be the main part of the entrée. This was because of the quantities involved. We briefly considered doing a vegetarian course for the entrée, but then we decided that the vegetable quality was not likely to be strong enough to make it an appealing option. Here is the menu we ended up creating: Grilled flank steak spinach salad with grilled vegetables Sauteed shrimp Risotto Fennel-tomato compote Apple cake with cinnamon ice cream Kristin said she wanted to make the salad, and I was enthusiastic about my fennel-tomato compote idea. Chris agreed to go work in pastry on our dessert, and we all got down to business. There was so much time on our hands that we ended up having an hour to devote to other stuff; I spent my spare time working on some croissant dough I’d started on Tuesday morning. I’m pleased to report that everything came out beautifully, except the risotto was a little too thick and gluey from not being parcooked properly. Kristin’s salad was a serious achievement: grilled zucchini and yellow squash slices fanned on the plate, a mound of dressed spinach, and then soy-balsamic marinated steak slices fanned out over the spinach. There were a few slices of grilled portabello mushroom with the steak, and then a sprig of thyme on top for garnish. Chef Peter said her steak was perfectly cooked, and the combination was excellent. I was very proud of the compote, which was exactly as I’d hoped it would be: soft, melting, slow-cooked fennel and sweet-tart tomato cooked down together with olive oil and a splash of stock. Some of the plates at other tables were pretty cool. Amy created a real showstopper dessert plate: apple strudel with caramel sauce, cinnamon ice cream and apple chips. The caramel was on the plate, the strudel was cut on a bias and propped up, and the chips were sticking out of the ice cream decoratively. Drew made a grape-strawberry sorbet that made me quite rueful about my strawberry allergy; the dessert was a lovely reddish-purple and was sweetly fragrant. Jonathan produced a beautiful butternut squash ravioli, and Zoe worked on a fresh herb risotto that was topped with fried sage. One team made an upmarket version of steak frites for their entrée; I think they were the only ones to serve potatoes. I don’t think there was a single dish on any team that was terrible, and most of the combinations and plating were excellent. Everybody had a terrific time, and we can’t wait for next week’s basket. We will be doing market baskets every Thursday for the rest of the classwork phase. Next week, we go up to four courses, and then Chef Peter will cut us back to two-person teams to increase the workload for subsequent weeks. Fennel-Tomato Compote Onions, very thinly sliced Olive oil Sea salt and white pepper Fennel, very thinly sliced Chicken stock Tomato concasse BG Sweat down onions in plenty of olive oil. Season. When softened, add fennel. Soften fennel briefly. Add remaining ingredients and plenty of seasoning. Bring to a boil on the stove and then cover with a cartouche (parchment paper circle). Bake in a moderate oven until completely softened and melted down, about 45 minutes. Stir periodically to prevent sticking. Garnish with fennel fronds.

Wilted baby spinach salad with grilled broccoli raab and roasted red pepper Potato gnocchi w tomato concasse and EVOO, sauteed shrimp, garlicky ruby swiss chard Apple pie with braeburns, honeycrisp and granny smith apples, caramel sauce

Hmmmm. I'm near the top of my class in culinary school. Plenty of A's. I wonder if they'd give me free donuts when I come down for Thanksgiving?

I don't remember too many specifics. I know there was a rubber tree, which has obvious industrial uses. There was a whole bed of plants with natural insect-repellent properties, and no it didn't include citronella. I know rosemary was in that bed. There were a few plants that produce resins used as gums for adhesives, that type of thing. There was a Native American bed, and a Colonial Period bed too. The Native American bed had rushes, which the sign said some people used to make paper. Which is sort of like an industrial use.

Tuesday, October 22 This morning was the first time I felt unable to ignore the Washington sniper: he attacked in a neighborhood between my home and L’academie right before 6am, causing a Beltway closure and other traffic snafus as authorities attempted to capture the criminal. I had left home at 6:30am with the intention of baking croissants today (breads must be started in the morning), and fortunately heard en route to school about the attack and subsequent traffic problems. I cut across Montgomery County on state roads rather than taking the Beltway as I normally do, and I arrived at school around 7:30am. I was lucky that my alternate routes weren’t backed up, and I was only the second person to arrive at school. Chef Peter beat me to school, which was amazing since he lives in Virginia and crosses the American Legion Bridge to get to L’academie daily…and the American Legion Bridge was closed in both directions by police by the time I heard a traffic report. The students who live near the school largely arrived before 8am, but students coming from greater distances took much longer to get to class. The last student came in around 9:45am. Chef Peter put off the morning demo until 9:45 and set us to working on stocks, grinding meat for the day’s consomme course, and baking bread. By the time we’d completed our demo, it was a little after 11am. Chef Peter broke us into 3-person teams and told us to make lunch happen by 12:30 as usual. The menu included chicken-tomato consomme, a composed salad, veal saltimbocca with grilled polenta and sauteed artichokes, and poached pears in port wine with sabayon. I was paired with Ivelisse and Marta, and I immediately got busy with the polenta so it would have time to firm up before grilling. Marta worked on the meat entrée and helped me with the artichokes, while Ivelisse made the consomme and the salad. It was fun to work with two people again, something I’d enjoyed back when it first became the norm…the time crunch made today’s menu a challenge. Wednesday, October 23 Today was our second field trip. We started our morning at A.M. Briggs, L’academie’s meat supplier, in Northeast DC. I carpooled with Chris, who lives down the road from me, and we met up at the Briggs warehouse around 8am for a tour. One of the Briggs managers handed us all hair nets (we’d been instructed to appear with chef’s jackets and baseball caps) and Jonathan and Chin were given beard guards to put on. Almost the entire warehouse is kept cold, and few of us were prepared for the chilly conditions. I’d worn a lightweight silk sweater and my denim jacket in addition to my chef’s jacket and found myself shivering after a half hour or so of walking about. I was sorely missing my gloves and a real winter hat. We all looked equally like dorky lightweights in our white nets and stamping cold feet. I had expected a terrible smell at Briggs, partly because Chef Peter had alluded to the unpleasant stench of the dry-aging locker a number of times. (“You’re gonna walk in there and want to walk right back out right away.”) The warehouse did not smell like much of anything, and the sight of all that meat thankfully did not follow my Rule of Food-Service Quantities (things which are tasty in small quantities become disgusting in food-service quantities). Many things were secured in boxes, but there is one large room where people butcher and break down meat. Their efficiency is astounding to watch. Briggs has several machines that remove the silverskin from meat in the amount of time it takes to place the meat on the pins (I wonder what those things cost?). We checked out their cryovac machines, and got a brief tour of their fish processing facilities. After we finished up with the tour at Briggs, we drove to the nearby National Arboretum and checked out the herb gardens. I’ve lived in DC for six years but had never visited the Arboretum for some reason. The herb gardens are beautifully planted and clearly labeled. I liked the “please touch!” signs; most gardens prohibit handling the plants. Many herb labels gave brief descriptions of the plant’s history or properties. The herb gardens are organized by categories: culinary herbs, medicinal herbs, herbs used as dyes, and my personal favorite: the industrial herbs, those used for industrial applications. We had plenty of time, so many of us wandered over to check out the remarkable bonsai gardens and the fish fountain before eating lunch. The fish fountain reminded me of the ponds at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA, where the well-fed fish follow visitors as they walk by in hopes of extra snacks. Chef Francois once told us that when he sees an animal whose meat is edible, he sees its steaks and chops and primal cuts. I found myself looking at the larger fish in the same manner; I saw filets and supremes and steaks. We sat in the sun and ate the lunches we’d packed for ourselves yesterday, and then we took off for Lanham, MD, home of Eco Farm. L’academie purchases micro greens and some herbs from Eco Farm, which is a tiny organic 2-acre farm just beyond the Beltway. Eco Farm sells only to restaurants with rare exception; the manager/owner explained that he lives in Takoma Park, MD (very near me) and occasionally sells extra tomatoes and such at the natural foods co-op where I shop. This combined with his commitment to producing an excellent organic product naturally endeared him to me quickly. He encouraged us to sample the micro greens in his greenhouse as we walked around. I liked the baby shiso, the corn shoots and the radish greens particularly. He then took us around the outdoor beds, where I sampled delicacies such as borage, lime basil, spicy Greek oregano, and the same black mint Wingding pointed out to me at the NY Greenmarket. He explained his methods of farming, which include composting, digging deeper beds without disturbing natural flora for planting, and careful planting design for optimal growth. These methods had some similarities to those employed at the much larger Sunnyside Farm we visited a few weeks ago, and like the farmers at Sunnyside the ones at Eco Farm try lots of new approaches to see what works. I am sorry that Eco Farm does not sell at any area farm markets. I am considering purchasing some Eco Farm products through the school for my family Thanksgiving celebration next month.

I hadn't heard of that. I have heard of eating cornbread or biscuits that way. Cornbread broken up in sweetmilk or clabber cream seems to show up in a lot of Southern literature.

Damn, I knew I should have looked over that recipe before pasting it into the post. My recipe as written is slightly at odds: when the roulade was demoed by Chef Somchet, she had cold eggs. She warmed them over a bain-marie just until they came to room temperature. If the eggs are room temperature, as I wrote in my ingredient list, then warming is not necessary. I will edit the recipe to reflect this. As for the merits of rolling before cooling or after cooling, I haven't tried it after cooling. I really dislike roulade so I won't be making it on my own, but the next time we do it at school I'll try your method. FWIW I said I'd try your method for ladyfingers, Lesley, but I never did because they haven't appeared since we were tested on them. (Well, they appeared in tiramisu, but we used all the leftovers from the test to make that dessert.)

The problem with the commercial sprays is they eventually build up on sprayed surfaces, in my experience. They're hard to fully clean from pots and pans. I think it might be the lecithin that does this, actually. I use a Misto on most pots and pans if needed for this reason. I keep a can of Mazola nonstick corn oil spray that I use exclusively on my cheep tabletop hibachi. I don't care if I get a stubborn film on the grate of that thing.

Friday, October 18 Test four today. I was in the “late group” again today, so I showed up in time to take the written test at 10am and then we started off in the kitchen at noon for the practical exam. By this point the tests are old hat; I knew what to expect and felt reasonably well-prepared. The written test was short...only 100 questions, so each of them counted more than on previous tests. I missed a few questions, but thanks to Dana I got the question on Grande Veneur sauce correct. Yesh! Here is the menu for the practical: Gnocchi parisienne with mornay sauce Rockfish meuniere Glazed carrots Fresh noodles Roulade with meringue I’d gotten the menu when I came in for the written test (there’s no way those who are in the late group can be prevented from figuring out the menu) so I’d spent the downtime between tests organizing a detailed list of ingredients, equipment, and sequences. I marked the relevant recipes in my notebooks with paper clips and was ready to start when we were allowed to get going at noon. This time, I needed my recipes very little. I used the recipe for the roulade and the recipe for the pate a chou used for the gnocchi, but other than that I barely glanced at the paperclipped pages. I knew what I was doing and how to do it. This menu was difficult only in that everything had to be ready at the same time…and everything had to be done a la minute. The dessert could be finished in advance, but everything else has to be cooked and then served immediately to avoid deterioration. Planning was obviously key. Everybody started in the pastry kitchen. I started out by bringing some eggs to room temperature by putting them into some warm tap water, and then I got all my mise en place together for the pasta, the roulade and the pate a chou. It took me a little over an hour to have the roulade (which is a jelly roll; we’ve filled them with lemon curd in the past but today we just used a commercially prepared raspberry filling) baked and filled, a meringue piped on top, the meringue browned with the torch, the pasta dough resting, and a firm pate a chou in a pastry bag ready to be piped. I zipped into the main kitchen and resisted the urge to take care of taking apart the rockfish right away. Normally, when we have any fabrication to do for a daily menu, somebody on each team starts out by getting the butchery out of the way immediately. This way we can clean down the table where we did the dirty work before clean things for other projects get contaminated. I resisted today because I didn’t think breaking down the fish first was the best approach. I wanted to have my carrots cut and in a pot, my gnocchis blanched, and my pasta at least in sheet form before getting going on the fish. I managed to keep ahead of the time curve by a narrow margin. I tried to pace myself and remain focused on the work at hand. Nothing fell apart before the deadline. I was worried that my roulade was underbaked, but the slightly underdone cake actually rolled more tightly and made for a more attractive finished product. My julienned carrots looked okay, and the pasta and gnocchi-making were uneventful. I was having fun by the time I got to the fish; I can take apart a fish rather quickly by now, and I lost very little flesh in the process of filleting. Chef Peter had asked us to get to a certain point and then tell him before finishing our food. He wanted the roulade completed, the pasta cut and ready to boil, the fish filleted, the fish sauce components prepared, the carrots ready to go, and the gnocchi covered with sauce and cheese ready to go under the salamander. When we got to this point, we were instructed to write our names on the whiteboard in the main kitchen with the exact time. I put my name on the board at 2:55pm, 5 minutes shy of the 3pm deadline. Phew! I fired my food on command from Chef Peter. The fish developed a nice browned look from the flour I’d used to dredge it, but it was nowhere near cooked in the middle. I dropped the filet on a sizzle plate and popped it in the oven to finish while I coordinated the rest of my dishes. Chef Peter told me that he was waiting on me (which I misinterpreted as meaning he needed me to go right away) and so I hurried on the finishing of my food. As a result, the fish was obviously underdone, and despite the miscommunication I’m sure I was docked serious points on the fish. Which really sucks, since I knew what the problem was and I thought I was being forced to plate unnecessarily early. Other issues: the carrots were way oversalted. I turned out perfect carrots for the first test, but since then there’s been a problem every single damn time. I’ve vowed that for the next test (which will surely also include glazed carrots; why stop after four tests?) I will focus a lot of attention on the carrots from beginning to end so they’re perfect. The fish sauce was a little underseasoned. The gnocchi needed more sauce but was otherwise good. The noodles tasted good but were a touch too thick; I hadn’t taken them to the thinnest possible setting on the machine because I thought they were thin enough on the next to last setting. The roulade was absolutely perfect, though. Chin told me later that Chef Peter had told him to look at mine if he wanted to see what a textbook roulade looks like. It’s good to get something right. Sunday, October 20 I just spent the weekend with my parents and some old friends (it was my high school reunion). My folks have been avidly reading this diary, and we talked about both school and the diary a lot over the past couple of days. Dad’s big criticism was that as a non-foodie, he didn’t understand a lot of the terms I used in my entries. To that end, here is a brief glossary of terms used in this post: Mornay sauce: A bechamel with the addition of cheese. Bechamel: A French mother sauce, made of a roux plus milk which has been flavored with onion, bay leaf and clove Roux: A cooked mixture of equal parts flour and butter, used to thicken sauces and soups. May be cooked to different degrees of color depending on what it’s to be used with. This is called “beurre manie” when it’s totally raw; a basic roux has the butter melted before the flour is added. Meuniere: This describes a preparation where a piece of fish is dredged with flour and then sauteed in a pan. It is then served with a sauce made of browned butter with lemon juice, salt, pepper, and parsley. Roulade: Jelly roll, French style Meringue: Sugar and egg whites whipped into a foam Pate a chou: A paste-like dough, used for eclairs, cream puffs, parisienne-style gnocchi, and more Mise en place: Everything in place, getting all your equipment and food together and ready to be cooked/assembled Fabrication: butchery Salamander: A very hot industrial-equipment broiler, seen mostly in restaurant kitchens. Used to brown the tops of dishes and to crisp or firm the crust up. Sizzle plate: An oval metal plate, often used to finish cooking through sauteed or fried foods in the oven Jeez, Dad. I start providing definitions and then I realize my definitions need definitions! Hopefully this makes my post more readable. Meanwhile, here’s a recipe from the test: Roulade 6oz butter, divided 6 egg yolks, room temperature 1oz clarified butter 4oz cake flour 6 egg whites, room temperature Salt Put egg yolks in one mixer bowl. Add 4oz of the sugar to the yolks. Put bowl on mixer and mix on high speed with whisk attachment. Put egg whites in a second mixer bowl; whisk on high speed on mixer with whisk attachment. Run in remaining sugar and mix until egg whites form soft peaks. Scrape edges of yolk bowl and run until mixture is ribbony. Sift flour and salt together. Fold white mixture into yolk mixture. Sift in and fold flour mixture in two batches. Add melted butter by pouring it over a spatula and fold in. Scrape batter into parchment-covered, greased, floured half-sheet pan. Clean pan sides and bake at 375 degrees for 7 minutes. Cool partially and remove cake from pan by overturning onto sugared parchment. Remove parchment backing and roll with towel. Once cake is cool, unroll, fill, and reroll. Variation: Roulade with Meringue Prepare Swiss (warm) meringue. Pipe over finished roulade. Color with blowtorch. And one more definition: Bain-marie: A hot water bath. To make one, set a pot of water simmering. Put whatever you need to warm over the bain-marie in a metal bowl and set the bowl over the pot of simmering water. Make sure the water level doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl.

In a white russian. Also I have a girly-girl friend who makes "wedding cake martinis" using Stoli Vanil and a dash of Frangelico. She also makes "divorce cake martinis" with that recipe plus a dash of Godiva liqueur. She learned these recipes from a gay bartender friend of hers. I like femme-y drinks sometimes.

Hey, Dana? One of the questions on yesterday's test was about the difference in ingredients between a poivrade and a grande veneur sauce. If you hadn't asked about it, I probably wouldn't have remembered the cream. So, thanks for being a study help.

Wilfrid is right that, used properly, flour thickeners like beurre manie and roux can make for a delicious, full-bodied sauce without a starchy mouthfeel. If using a roux, incorporate the liquid slowly, a ladle or two at a time, and make sure your sauce is smooth and lump-free before you add more liquid. For both roux and beurre manie, make sure to not only bring the sauce to a boil, but then gently simmer it for several minutes to cook out the floury taste. Fat separators are nice and easy to use for degreasing the marinade. You can also use a skimmer or a ladle. And you don't even have to wait for the marinade to settle to take off the fat; if you're in a hurry, just start reducing it and skim off the scum and the fat bubbles that rise to the top as it starts to cook. Just like a stock. How long will it take for the marinade to settle on its own? Depends on how you emulsified it in the first place. If you emulsified only by force, as for a basic vinaigrette beaten with a whisk or with a blender, it will settle fairly quickly. If you used an agent like mustard that encourages oils and liquids to hold an emulsion, it will take longer. And ya'll flatter me so. Where's that embarrassed smiley Cabrales uses sometimes?

You don't have to add beurre manie or another flour thickener. Reduction is a wonderful way to thicken a sauce. I recommend you degrease your sauces of the excess oil so the mouthfeel is better and so you can justify adding cream and butter (their lushness feels better on the tongue, imo, than oils). This technique is one we use a lot in school: Degrease your marinade by letting it settle and skimming the fat off the top. Cook it down "a sec," until it's almost completely dry. Once it gets thicker and glossier, reduce the heat and swirl the pan periodically so that the edges of the sauce don't overcolor and stick to the pan edge Add plenty of cream Cook down to sauce consistency If you like you can save the straining until now, so the aromatics in your marinade get infused into the cream. And then serve the finished sauce. If you like you can mount with butter, but I think it's overkill with a creamy sauce like this. Be careful with the fruit in the particular marinade you just mentioned; natural sugars can caramelize quickly. You don't have to cook completely "a sec" if it starts to color up rapidly; use your judgment.

Oh, a grande veneur sauce is the poivrade sauce I posted a recipe for, with the addition of red currant jelly and heavy cream. It's traditionally served only with game. Basically, melt in the jelly when the poivrade is finished, and then add some cream and swirl the pan over the heat. Varmint, I didn't get red currant jelly from your grandma...I think I got raspberry-blackberry jelly. Still haven't cracked it. Was there red currant jelly among the many jars?

My esteemed housemate Abi raved about a soup she had at Dusit in Wheaton, so we drove out there a few months ago and checked it out. I liked their soups but thought the rest of the dishes we ordered were so-so. What do you like to order there, Steve L? We ate at one other Thai place in Wheaton not too long ago, in the same strip center as Hollywood East...I forget the name. The food was terrible: greasy and thick. I have never been to a Thai place in the District that I regarded as worth returning to, but I haven't tried any in a long time. Star of Siam, Jandara, Thaiphoon, Sala Thai, etc etc. All the same oversweetened, undersharpened dishes. I think the original Tara is the one in Bethesda's downtown (MD). I ate there periodically when I worked in Bethesda years ago. It was the first Thai restaurant I ate in (having moved from NC where Thai food hadn't exactly taken off yet) and I remember being impressed by the palate of flavors. But I haven't returned in a long time, and I think my impression was colored by my then-vegetarianism and my inexperience with the cuisine. I would try it again if I was in that part of Bethesda and hungry but unable to get into Jaleo. BTW Tara Thai won snaps with me for not only having a vegetarian menu, but also offering to prepare vegetarian items without fish sauce upon request. I appreciated this greatly when I did not eat fish, and for a long time they were the only Thai place I saw that acknowledged that fish might not be acceptable to all vegetarians.