Malawry

Sounds like it's either really tasty or really vile. I once heard about a place known for their pie milkshakes. Apparently they put a whole slice of homemade pie into the metal cup along with the ice cream and milk before popping it onto the spindle for whirling. This was a secondhand tale and I think referred to a place in Iowa. Fun with (sweet) pie!

I guess I should just file this one under "places where personal history takes over true foodiness." I ADORE KK donuts. I even like the jam-filled raspberry ones, and I openly acknowledge that the jam they use is cheap and mostly devoid of real fruit. But I grew up in the next town over from where KK donuts were born, and they were a fact of life around town. I don't go way out of my way for them but I do love them if I'm near a KK bakery. They're a conveyance vehicle for fat and sugar, yes. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe you have to be a Southerner to "get" KK donuts and sweet tea, I dunno. But they both sure are mighty tasty...

I have a knife callous. It has been developing slowly over the time I’ve been in school, but I never noticed it until last Thursday while I was trailing. I noticed it then because it chose that time to break open and reveal the very pink skin underneath. It didn’t exactly hurt, but I could tell it would sting if I kept rubbing on it with the spine of my chef’s knife or if I stuck my hands in a bowl of tomato concasse, so I bandaged it. I had to take a little ribbing because of it (“One hour in a real kitchen and you cut yourself??”). I’m rather proud of it, and as it hardens up I’ve been admiring it a little. It doesn’t hurt at all now and it takes the pressure just fine, and it means my hands are really hardening up. I can also handle hot plates with minimal issue, and even if I touch something too hot I can usually handle it until it’s safe to put down (unless it’s really, really hot, in which case I usually know it will be that way before I touch it). I still have not nailed down my externship. I have taken this week off from the hunt because our next tests are on Friday, and I need the time to study and prepare. We made our first venison today. I have never eaten venison before, not even before I became a vegetarian. I am glad we waited so long to prepare it, because I am now somewhat acclimated to eating red meat and was not as sensitive to the gamier flavors in the venison as I would have been a few months ago. As it was, the venison we got at school was farm-raised and not particularly gamy. As Chef Peter said, it tasted like very red meat. I found it fairly easy to trim, and had no trouble tying it up. We dusted it with porcini dust, seared it, and finished it in the oven. We served it with a traditional sauce poivrade. I was a little sorry we didn’t make the grand veneur sauce we talked about, because I think red currant jelly would taste nice with the venison. Since we went down to two-person teams, we have had shorter menus. A week and a half into the small teams, I have started to enjoy the extra work. I like that I feel in charge of lots of things and have no trouble getting it all done. Today I trimmed and cleaned the venison, cut all the mirepoix for the sauce (we made one big pot of sauce for everybody to share), made a spinach-ricotta ravioli filling, made alfredo sauce for the ravioli, and put together the parsnips we served with the venison. The last twenty minutes before service are the best. Everybody crowds along the line to get everything cooked, and if you don’t have a rhythm then your plates won’t be ready at the time you need them. Today’s sequence: finish alfredo, strain alfredo, color blanched parsnips, season parsnips, roast parsnips in oven, season and dust venison, sear venison, finish venison in oven, reduce sauce, mount sauce with butter, remove parsnips and finish with butter and honey, rest venison, and plate everything up. My teammate Chris helped my out by finishing the parsnips, and he made the raviolis and the roulade we had for dessert. He brought out currant-rye bread he’d baked for eating with the meal. I have noticed that my approach to preparing food is spilling over into my approach to other tasks. On laundry night, I automatically start my laundry right when I get home so it will be dry and folded before bedtime. When I shop for food, I attack the store in the most efficient way possible, and I load items onto the conveyor belt at the cashier stand in a specific order: cold items together, heavy items interspersed with lighter ones, fragile things like eggs and greens last. (The place where I shop, a natural foods co-op, is a bag-your-own type of place, and I bring my own bags.) I even take medications in the most efficient way possible, finishing up with an inhaled medication right before brushing my teeth. Days when I do these things out of order or offhandedly are almost always bad days; I don’t know if it’s because I’m out of sorts to begin with or if it’s because I approached the tasks unthinkingly (thereby putting myself in a bad mood). Saddle of Venison with Sauce Poivrade Venison bones Peanut oil Mirepoix Parsley Thyme Bay leaf Red wine Black pepper Demi-glace or game stock Venison Sea salt and white pepper Porcini dust Butter Color bones in peanut oil. Color mirepoix in peanut oil in separate pan. Add mirepoix to bones. Add parsley, thyme, bay leaf, and red wine. Cook down. Add seasoning, demi-glace. Boil, skim, simmer, and strain. Season venison. Dredge in porcini dust and sear in peanut oil. Finish in oven. Mount sauce with butter and serve over venison.

After much discussion, Edemuth and I are planning to come up and check out the show. Any suggestions for cheap, livable lodging near the Javits center? Anybody want to get together while we're there?

Sorry, no pics of the canapes. They weren't as pretty as they sounded; they looked okay but not outstanding. I plated them with big pieces of parmegiano-reggiano so my classmates could see the pattern in the cheese and the pin labeling on the rind, plus some chunks of the cheese for plain sampling. Welcome, Kiz. You should consider posting a bio in the member bios section. KateW, my plan is to ask Chef Francois for assistance. He probably knows Chef Jacques personally, after all. Mamster, there was a list of approved topics to choose from, as there has been for each paper assignment. Chef Peter used the class cards to determine the order in which we chose our topics. I wanted to do my paper on Escoffier, but he was the first topic to be chosen. My name was called third, so I selected Jacques Pepin, thinking that if I couldn't do Escoffier I wanted to do somebody who was alive and try to actually talk to them for my paper. Right after I picked him there was a chorus of sighs from the women in my class; apparently he was a hot commodity as topics went. Slarochelle, I went back by Grapeseed with my partner Erin on Saturday to see the kitchen in full swing. I saw four and sometimes five people moving through that tiny space. Pretty amazing stuff. LainaAS, what did you ask him about? Do you have a copy of your article? And welcome to eGullet.

Thursday, October 10 I have continued to pursue possibilities for my externship over the past week. The research continued tonight when I trailed at Grapeseed, a bistro and wine bar in Bethesda, MD. I was familiar with Grapeseed before trailing there; I wrote up the desserts Steve Klc designed for them back in July, and both the chef and two of their line cooks are graduates of L’academie. I showed up around 4:30pm to find chef Jeff Heineman was not in the restaurant. I spoke to a fellow named Steve, one of the saute cooks from L’academie, and he suggested I return after the chef came back around 5. I asked if I could wait at the bar overlooking the kitchen and watch him prep; he said that would be fine. I waited there until Chef Jeff called in and asked that Steve bring me into the kitchen to help him prep. I was introduced to the other people in the kitchen. Steve started out by saying I’d be shadowing him, but I ended up spending most of my time talking and working with Tim. Tim is 19, has been working in kitchens for several years, and plans to attend Johnson and Wales next year. He’s very chatty, and it was easy to get him going on any subject I asked him about. Tim and Steve set me up on cutting root vegetables for a hash. They seemed impressed that I’d brought my knives and had my own peeler (I don’t know if they are easily impressed or if they don’t see many people trailing there or what). I tried hard to keep everything evenly sized, and took my time about the job. Once I finished with that, Tim had me cut a brunoise of mango and pear. The mixture was for topping a panna cotta dessert. I was thinking about Steve Klc and his standards, and I used my paring knife like Robin had shown me at Café 15 last week to cut the fruit precisely. I then spooned it atop the panna cotta glasses and added vanilla syrup to the desserts. Later, I helped to get the family meal of fish, chips and tartar sauce together. The restaurant was quite dead; there were only seven covers on the books, and between the rainy weather and the local skittishness with an unknown sniper picking off innocent people in the area, there wasn’t much of a walk-in clientele. Tim and Steve kept themselves occupied by doing advanced prep for the weekend, but there wasn’t much for me to do a lot of time. Chef Jeff showed up and talked to me briefly, but it was mostly just Tim and Steve around the kitchen. Eventually people trickled into the restaurant, and I watched as orders came in, were cooked off, plated, and carried off by servers. The plating is not as elaborate or precise as in some restaurants, but the plates are attractive and the food quite good. I liked watching the guys move in the small open kitchen space. There’s a small “chef’s table” bar overlooking the open kitchen, and some regulars sat there. Chef Jeff talked to them for quite a while, and they recognized that I was new and asked me to introduce myself. Later, a former cook came by for a glass of wine and chatted with me for a while. His name is Chip and he just graduated from the French Culinary Institute. He showed me the documentation for his final project, a multi-course meal with chips of some form in each course that he prepared for his family. Late in the evening, I asked Chef Jeff if we could have a discussion about the possibility of my externing at the restaurant. He said he didn’t think we should talk about it until I came by the restaurant while it was actually busy, and he suggested I call him next week to set up a time to have the discussion. I agreed to do so and left. Friday, October 11 I got back my certification from National Restaurant Association today: I am now ServSafe certified as a safe foodhandler. What excitement! I scored a low 86% on the test, which happened because I didn’t crack a single book the whole time I was in the sanitation course. I have a certificate to prove my ServSafe status in case anybody needs evidence. We gave presentations on our cheese papers yesterday and today. My presentation was this afternoon. My cheese was parmegiano-reggiano, so I prepared little canapes of baguette slices, shaved parmegiano, balsamic glaze, torn basil and strips of sun-dried tomatoes. The papers and presentations for this round of papers were much shorter and less involved than previous assignments, and if it hadn’t been for the widespread popularity of my cheese it may have been difficult to find enough information to cobble together a good paper. Our next papers are on the subject of a culinarian; I will be reporting on Jacques Pepin, so I am now reading his Complete Techniques book and I hope to interview him before my paper is due. I’m not sure what will actually happen after I graduate in June, but I think I should try to make the most out of the externship period in case it is the only time period I end up working in a restaurant fulltime. The big question about the externship has become: do I work in a more prestigious restaurant where I won’t be able to do as much but everything I do will have to be exact, or do I work in a lesser restaurant where I get to do more things but I don’t learn as much precision? There are some kitchens that combine both qualities. I am leaning towards having the chance to do more in less time by going with a smaller, more casual kitchen. Grapeseed seems like a good candidate so far. I spoke to several of my classmates about this question during the day, and everybody I talked to about it said they considered that same question to be the important one they were grappling with. A few students have found externships already (at Persimmon in Bethesda: Chris; at Yannick Cam’s new restaurant: Ivelisse; at Restaurant Seven: Drew) which makes the rest of us more anxious. Sauce Tartare Make mayonnaise: Egg yolk Dijon mustard Oil Lemon juice Sea salt and white pepper Whisk yolk and add mustard. Whisk while drizzling in oil. Season with lemon juice, salt and pepper while incorporating oil. Add finely brunoised capers, cornichons, shallot, chives, parsley, sea salt and white pepper to mayonnaise to make sauce tartare. Serve with fish and chips.

Item 26 looks to me like a circular mold, as for making stacked foods or cutting rounds of pasta, that type of thing. Another good reason for having two chef's knives: it's the one I'm most likely to need a duplicate of if somebody else shows up who can help me.

I made a rabbit confit a week or two ago, at school. Mix rabbit pieces with salt, fresh thyme, pepper, and orange zest. Cure overnight. Cover with duck fat and bake as for duck confit. Yum yum.

Monday, October 7 We went down to two-person teams today; from now on, there will only be two people to produce the daily menu. Chef Peter assigned a rather simple menu today and wrapped up his demo quite early, making it a reasonable amount of work for one day. I worked hard to stay ahead of the curve, which was a good thing since I ended up being called in to speak with Chef Francois about my class evaluations 45 minutes before lunch service. He had a lot that he wanted to talk about (nothing of great interest; mostly a monologue about focus and concentration) and kept me for over a half hour. By the time he let me out I had to scurry to make lunch happen on time, and I ran through the hallways in the last few minutes to fetch seats for my table. After lunch, Chef Mark came to teach us for the first time. He explained some of the rudimentary basics of chocolate and tempering. He taught us about the crystal structure, and how once you heat chocolate enough to break some of the crystals you have to break all of them before you can put them back together. This is all controlled through heating and chilling chocolate. I am doing a poor job of explaining it, but it made perfect sense to me (in theory). He showed us how to temper using a marble slab (which was very exciting to watch, since the chocolate moves around a lot and you can see its form change rapidly) and how to temper using an ice bath. He also drew charts for us on the whiteboard showing relevant temperature points for different types of chocolate (dark, milk and white chocolate, that is). He dipped a few ganache centers into his tempered chocolate to make truffles to finish his demonstration. They hardened and became shiny quickly, and the walls of the truffles were thin. Tuesday, October 8 Field trip day! We’d been promised a field trip to visit an organic farm in Rappahannock County, VA and a stop into the kitchen at the Inn at Little Washington since beginning school back in July. The trip finally came today. We met at the farm, Sunnyside Organic Farm, at around 10am. I carpooled with two classmates and we arrived super early despite a stop for breakfast. I occupied the time by checking out the horses in the barn by the parking lot, aided by a rather friendly barn cat. Once we all gathered, one of the farm’s employees appeared and took us on a walking tour. We checked out raspberries, blackberry plantings of various sorts, and white and purple eggplant. Dogs who discourage deer came to greet us and happily enjoyed our attentions. We learned about their chickens and mobile chicken homes, and how they use them to help “scrub” plots of land in between crop rotations. We learned about how they manage pests without herbicides, and we learned a lot about experimental techniques they have tested on the farm. Our guide told us about how organic practices and best environmental practices occasionally diverge, and spoke briefly about the new organics regulations coming out later this month. I particularly enjoyed our stop in the unheated greenhouse, where basil plants are grown during the summer and fall. We could smell the basil while still some distance from the greenhouse entrance, and the sweet-minty-sharp aroma was almost overpowering once we entered. Sunnyside grows all sorts of basil…the common genovese, thai, a red-leafed variety, lemon basil, and so on. I talked to our guide a little about my farm market obsession. Sunnyside sells at the Dupont Circle market in downtown Washington; I plan to check out their booth this Sunday morning. After the farm tour, we visited the Sunnyside shop in town to kill time before our tour of the Inn at Little Washington. The shop was disappointing, mostly overpriced “gourmet” products available for less money at points closer to home, with very little of the produce from the farm I’d hoped to find. One thing about being in school: my perception of which “gourmet” products are or are not worth buying has shifted quite a bit. I’m still a sucker for good jams and mustards, but I have minimal interest in products like bottled marinades, salad dressings or pasta sauces. I create versions equal or superior to these products with minimal effort, and I can control the ingredients and season to my own tastes by doing so. We headed over to the Inn next. Our tour guide was a graduate of L’academie who now serves as Chef Patrick O’Connell’s personal assistant. She took us through the public parts of the Inn, explaining the origins of various artworks, ceiling patterns, and interior design concepts. (The Inn includes fabric from a Napoleonic tent, among other rarities.) Our tour led to the kitchen rather quickly (the Inn is not that large). The large windows, beautiful Vulcan stove with brass fittings, and cool climate of the Inn’s kitchen left me feeling like I’d wandered into an alternate reality where people live their lives working in such spaces. Gregorian chant music floated over the kitchen space. A PacoJet machine sat next to a table with assorted fruits and vegetables decoratively arranged on elevated dishes. The floor was spotlessly clean, and while everybody was busy, nobody was running about and everything was fairly quiet. The kitchen staff is outfitted with labrador-spotted chef’s pants and aprons, and the chef on duty explained that side towels are to be changed the moment they become visibly soiled. The staff had prepared some platters of dried fruit and petit fours (shortbread wedges, brownies, tiny heart-shaped cherry scones, and so on) for us, and set out trays with glasses of iced tea. The food made us feel welcome in the kitchen, and helped us to loosen up and enjoy the kitchen rather than feeling intimidated. We were encouraged to walk around, ask questions, and investigate what the cooks were doing. Among things I noticed: a former L’academie extern nearing his first anniversary busily checking in a very active live lobster delivery. A pastry chef piping “Happy Anniversary” and “Happy Birthday” in chocolate onto marzipan ribbons for dessert trays. A half-sheet pan of white bread cut into ¾” squares, for later use in World’s Smallest BLT canapes. The PacoJet whizzing through a mixture to make melon-mint sorbet in record time. A cook straining the sauce for braised rabbit…he wiped up the small spill he caused immediately. Another cook filling half-moon raviolis with an eggplant mixture; he used a scalloped cutter to cut the edge decoratively after he cut, filled, and sealed the pasta to make the scalloped pattern as clean as possible. The stove at the Inn deserves special mention. Gas eyes have water baths underneath the suspended elements; if the cook spills something onto the stove, she can simply drain the water bath and refill it and the spill is gone. Refrigerated and dry, cool storage allow cooks to work their stations without having to turn away for fresh vegetables or dried herbs and spices. The stove is laid out more like a European two-sided station than like an American hot line, allowing cooks to interact. The stove was designed by Chef O’Connell with the owner of Vulcan Stoves and bears a plate with the Inn’s logo and Chef O’Connell’s signature. I looked up after almost an hour and saw the last students walking out of the kitchen. I hurried after them and caught up before the tour wrapped up in the front entrance of the Inn. I carpooled home with my classmates wishing I didn’t have to return to the actual reality in which I live. I didn’t even eat at the Inn, but my perceptions were altered by the visit nonetheless. Wednesday, October 9 Tempering chocolate did not seem simple when Chef Mark demonstrated it for us on Monday. His explanation was pretty clear, and I understood what he was doing as he did it because of the detail he’d given us. However, when it came time to try out the technique today, I found it difficult and borderline frustrating. Today’s menu included chocolate truffles, and since I was eager to try out what we’d learned on Monday I immediately told my teammate Drew that I wanted to head into the pastry kitchen. We were almost out of 50% chocolate, so I set up a hot plate with a bain-marie and a bowl of 63% chocolate to melt. I tested the temperature against my lower lip as Chef Mark had shown us when I thought it was hot enough, and then I stirred the chocolate off and on over an ice bath. The chocolate dropped and dropped in temperature until it was almost fudgy in texture. I put it back on the bain-marie and warmed it a little and then tested it with a strip of parchment paper. I knew it wasn’t tempered properly, because it took too long to dry and when it did it looked pale instead of glossy. I tried moving on and off the heat, on and off the ice bath a number of times. I asked Chef Somchet for assistance. I tested many, many parchment paper strips. The chocolate got to the point where it hardened quickly as desired, but it never got particularly glossy as I’d hoped for. Chef Somchet didn’t seem to have much advice for me except to say that 63% chocolate is much harder to temper than 50%. She did not explain why and I never asked for an explanation (figuring I should just talk to Chef Mark about it when I have time). Eventually Chef Somchet indicated that my chocolate was as close as I was likely to get it, and I used a hoop-shaped utensil to dip balls of ganache in the melted chocolate. I used the utensil to form a decorative swirl atop the balls after carefully dropping them on parchment paper, and I feel they looked fairly good for my first try. I tasted one after it cooled and the wall was thinner than I’d expected (a very good thing). Too bad they weren’t shiny.

You can save your leftover duck fat from a duck confit and use it to confit your next batch. I don't see why you couldn't do this with leftover fat from chicken confit, unless you're sick of chicken confit that is.

Hm. I don't know about that. I haven't compared On Cooking to many other textbooks. I think that if you want strictly technique with lots of illustrations, you're better off with Jacques Pepin's techniques book that Jinmyo mentioned once. On Cooking has lots of full-color photos of things (like how different herbs and spices look, that type of thing) and some recipes which can be helpful. The text varies in its usefulness. Woe betide the student who tries to figure out a tournee cut from the information in On Cooking. You may want to check out CIA's textbook and some of the others on the market before making a decision. If I was making out a holiday wish list, I'd ask for basic references I've been meaning to add to my collection that I just can't spring for right now. Larousse Gastronomique is a good example of this; I don't have $50 to spend on it but would love to have it handy. I don't find textbooks all that helpful and rarely learn as well from them as I do from reference books written in other formats. One of my favorite reference books is Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking. I'd consider Robert Wolke's new book on the science of food as well if I was fishing for gift ideas.

Thanks for the feedback. Due to various issues, these may well be the last images I manage to get up while I am a student, but if the situation changes I will look into photos of plated food, etc. Jogafur, what's a cruise ship kitchen like? I've never seen one. There was a thread about eating on cruise ships, I think in the Pacific Northwest board, which talks about cruise ship kitchens and so on. Fascinating stuff. Meanwhile you can visit the kitchens of many professional schools even if you aren't a student, by stopping by an open house or by taking a fun recreational course taught in a professional teaching kitchen. Kim WB, I'll forgive you one punny lapse. Sandra, the black disks are retracting power cords. Normally the tables are lined up so there is one cord at each end of the six tables. We use them to power electric plates, Robot Coupe food processors, and the Vita-Prep and bar blenders. Some students are fond of working with the electric plates for soups and slow-simmering sauces, since they can get it going on the gas stove and then keep an eye on it over electric heat while working on other things at their table. I do this during tests but not much the rest of the time; I find the electric plates too annoying. There are drop-down power cords in the pastry kitchen, which you can probably make out in the image provided. Professional kitchens vary greatly, and I appreciated your note about how yours differs from mine. I'd love to hear from other current and former students about the kitchens where they learn(ed).

I've used a mandoline before. See the "Gaufrettes, Rockfish" topic. Yes, I gouged my thumb the first time. But I didn't hurt myself at all at Cafe 15, unless you consider the aforementioned finger pad that got sore from the cleaver.

Edemuth pointed this out to me just a few minutes ago. Sadly, Max was not on duty on Thursday night. Le sigh.

Thursday, October 3 A very, very long day today. I got up early enough to get to school and make a braid out of the challah dough I started yesterday. It was a fairly typical school day, but once class let out I went downtown and trailed at Café 15 rather than hitting the gym and going home as usual. Café 15 is situated in a newly renovated hotel. Its kitchen is fairly large as restaurant kitchens go. The chef, Philippe Piel, is very French and has designed a very French menu for his restaurant. I think Café 15 may be the only place in DC that sells a lot of frog legs. Café 15 currently has two L’academie externs, one from the pastry course and one from the culinary career training program. I recognized both immediately on sight, but had not really spoken to either before coming to the restaurant. Chef Philippe started me off with the man who worked the fish station; he wanted me to work on garde-manger but the person staffing that station had stepped out briefly. I helped to debone frog legs and chatted with the fish guy, whose name I have since forgotten. He was friendly and chatty, and told me about what he’d done before Café 15 and what sold well of the fish items on the menu. One thing I did that was fairly boneheaded: I left my knives at school. This meant I relied on other people to loan me knives they weren’t currently using to cut things, which was frustrating to say the least. It got worse when Robin, the cook working garde-manger, showed up. Robin works mostly with a cleaver and doesn’t keep a chef’s knife at his station at all. I have never used a cleaver before, and I ended up getting pretty sore on the pad of my right index finger from holding it (possibly improperly, I don’t know). I don’t think Robin was especially thrilled to have to work with me all evening. I don’t really blame him; I’m not the most adept person in a restaurant kitchen. Robin set me to work on plating amuse-bouches: thin puff pastry crackers with onion compote, sun-dried tomatoes, an olive chip and a sprout. I set up a tray of them for him, and then I dished a mixed vegetable brunoise into small fluted china cups to go with the crackers. When orders for amuse plates came up, Robin prepared a tiny pan of crabmeat and had me spoon it on top of the brunoise to finish the amuse. I cut a bunch of the olive chips for the amuse crackers for future use. Each chip is a cut of about 1/3 of a black brined olive, and the chips are supposed to be oval…meaning the cuts cannot overlap. (Overlapping cuts lead to straight, rather than curved, sides to the chips.) Then I did a fine brunoise of shallots for Robin, and when I finished with those he gave me some asparagus to trim. “Cut off the bottom three inches, and then cut off the nibs to right below the head.” I immediately cut three to show him, and he responded strongly. “The nibs! The little triangular leaves! Nip them off! Not the HEADS! I’d like to be able to use the rest of those!” I apologized and did the rest as he’d asked. Later I remembered Suzanne F’s suggestion that I ask to be shown how the restaurant wants me to do a job before starting in on it, and I felt rueful. Lesson learned. Robin went down to a storage walk-in on a lower level and got a bunch of vegetables for me to brunoise for the mixed vegetables I’d plated earlier. He came back up after a few minutes and started me to work on some carrots. He gave me a mandoline to use and showed me how to use it for cutting planks. He demonstrated how to use his cleaver for cutting the planks into julienne and the julienned strips into brunoise. It seemed fairly simple at first, but it took me a loooooooong time. I think I spent almost my whole evening on those damn carrots. The biggest problem was the cleaver, which was so heavy and unfamiliar to me. After a while I was getting tired and somewhat irritated. Nobody had offered me any food, even though I saw people eating as they worked, and I hadn’t eaten enough before arriving to carry me through the night. I was too shy/nervous to ask about food, so I went without. I had been placed at a table that was way too low for working, and even though Robin tried to help out by setting up empty glass crates on top of the table the situation was awkward at best. I’d been running since awakening at 6am and hadn’t sat down for more than five minutes since the morning demo wrapped up at 9:30am. I didn’t mind working, but I had wanted to get a sense of what the kitchen was like and Robin only gave me monosyllabic responses to my questions (I gave up on asking pretty quickly). I got a sense of the garde-manger station from watching Robin, but I didn’t see much of anything else. Chef Philippe did briefly show me the other stations before service, but that was about it. The culinary program extern who I’d recognized seemed somewhat shy, and didn’t say much more than Robin in response to my questions. The pastry extern saw what was happening and took control of the situation after a while. She was there to plate desserts, and as garde-manger was slowing down she started getting pretty busy. She sidled over to me and said I should leave the carrots behind and go help her. Things got much more interesting from there, and I enjoyed helping her plate the sweets. I tried my hand at quenelling ice cream with one spoon (the preferred Café 15 method), which I wasn’t too good with. I still form only an adequate quenelle with two spoons, which seems much easier to handle than a single spoon. I did have a brief moment of triumph late in the evening. There was a diner who had a birthday, and the pastry extern was asked to write “Happy Birthday” on a plate for him. The patron hadn’t ordered a dessert, so the idea was to write the message on a square plate and then send the requisite petit fours out on the same plate. The extern said she was terrible at writing with chocolate and didn’t want to do it. She asked if I could do it instead. So I did, and I’m pleased to report the plate looked quite nice by the time I finished with it. Chef Philippe seemed somewhat nervous about trusting me with the pastry bag, but he didn’t stop the plate from going out so I suppose it looked fine. Around 10:30pm I was exhausted, and the orders had slowed considerably. I asked Chef Philippe if I could leave, and he said that would be fine. We talked briefly about whether or not I will actually work there. He suggested I compare his kitchen with a few others before making a decision, and promised to keep in touch with me about my possibilities. Saturday, October 5 Today was L’academie’s semiannual open house. We spent the last two school days preparing for the event. Here is what we served: Lamb merguez sausage A whole roast suckling pig, deboned and stuffed with a pork-veal-apricot stuffing Raclette with potatoes, pickles and bread Cassoulet Egg rolls, vegetarian and with chicken Chicken satays with peanut sauce Gravlax Smoked salmon Grilled vegetables Eggplant roulade Quail Scotch eggs Build-your-own risotto Assorted breads George more or less took over the pig from beginning to end. Several students made the sausages, which looked like a fun project. I spent much of my time on over the past few days on preparing the grilled vegetable platters and fixing mini spanakopitas, which somehow fell by the wayside and never went out. The pastry students set out their own buffet of goodies, which was quite impressive considering they have only been at school for a month or so. Chef Peter assigned us to our jobs early this morning. I was selected along with Jessie to work as a “runner,” bringing people who stood by food whatever they needed and otherwise standing around and welcoming people. The open house started at 11am; friends and family were to appear starting at noon to ensure prospective students had an opportunity to talk to us before our own guests took over our attentions. There were actually two prospective students who wanted to become food writers there, both of whom came to me with their questions about the field. It felt odd to be asked for advice on the field when I haven’t yet earned any income from my labors, but I enjoyed chatting with them nonetheless and they seemed to feel like they got some good information from me. A little later, my partner Erin showed up, and so I took him around and introduced him to my classmates, Chef Peter, Chef Somchet and Chef Francois. My housemate Abi and friend Irene appeared later and enjoyed a quick tour through the kitchens. I enjoyed meeting some of the people who my classmates are connected with; at this point we have all heard references to significant others, family and close friends from one another, so it was good to connect names and faces. The open house wrapped up at 1pm, and it took surprisingly little time to break down and pack off all the food. It has been a very long week for me, and I am glad that it is over.

Thanks for the tips, which did make sense to me for the most part. Fat Guy has kindly helped me out, so all of the images except for the pastry kitchen picture should be showing at this point. I hope to get the pastry image up and running soon. Thanks again, and I'm so sorry about the problems. Edit: Hats off to Hat Guy for saving my pastry kitchen picture, too.

I am sorry about the problems, which appear to be intermittent. I am looking for a way to resolve the issue and should hopefully have it fixed by tomorrow night.

Folks have often requested pics of the school and of yours truly. I finally got around to snapping and uploading a few shots... This is me, in my school-issued uniform. No necktie or apron; believe me, they add little to the overall effect. Note the sexy Rockport clogs. If you visit L'academie, this is the entrance you will probably come through. It's rather unassuming; L'academie's professional campus is situated in an ordinary-looking office-industrial park. I start my morning in the demo kitchen most days. I sit in the front row on the far left. Chef Somchet normally does her demos in front of me, while Chef Peter stands to the right behind the line. The refrigerator in there has a timed turn-off switch since its compressor is loud, so it is often too warm for food storage. We use the microwave to melt butter sometimes, but that's about it. Here's the main kitchen, with a view of the line along the left. There's also a fish fridge on the left, and on the other side of that fridge is the spice table. I think the spice table is pretty cool. We get most of our spices from Vann's, a Baltimore company. Among the salts we stock: Italian sea salt, Hawaiian sea salt, fleur de sel, Kosher salt, La Baleine, and Celtic sea salt. Another view of the main kitchen. There are normally six tables arranged in the middle of this room, but some of them were removed for a special class when I snapped these shots. If you look at the far reaches of the room you will see the reach-in glass doors of the school walk-in. Here's a peek inside the walk-in. The freezer is through the door at the back wall of the walk-in. Note the boxes of Plugra butter on the bottom shelf. (They're the white ones with the red bands.) Yes, that's Hellman's mayo on the shelf there. We use rather ordinary pots and pans at L'academie. Believe it or not, we occasionally run out of items, but for the most part L'academie's potwasher Juan keeps everything turning over quickly. Dish storage and dish processing share the same long, narrow space. Here's the pastry kitchen, with a view of the ovens at the back. The left counter is all reach-in refrigerators, with the upright reach-in at the back left. We do almost all pastry and bread work in this kitchen. It's also favored for pasta-making, as it's usually a little less humid than the main kitchen. This room is home for L'academie's pastry arts program, and use of this kitchen and the demo kitchen are carefully scheduled so we won't have to use the same rooms at the same time. BTW: Many thanks to Rachel and Jason Perlow for all their image assistance.

When I was a vegetarian, I often referred to myself as a "decadent vegetarian." I did this to differentiate myself from the majority of vegetarians, whose dietary choices are driven by politics and personal beliefs more than by what tastes good. My own vegetarianism was initiated by the same set of political and personal beliefs, but I always approached food with an interest in what's yummy rather than regarding food as an enemy. I have never identified as a "gourmet," but I assume this is a semantic issue in the larger context of your question. It is quite possible to be serious and passionate about food without eating meat, fowl, and fish. It is even possible for those who eschew dairy and egg. Are gourmet vegetarians common? Depends on your definition, but by my own definitions, not really.

Last night went fine. You'll have to wait until Sunday for the details.

Tuesday, October 1 I’ve been thinking over this upcoming externship, and I’ve mostly decided I should work in a restaurant downtown. I think I can handle the transit issues by carefully choosing the location of the restaurant where I work, and the restaurants downtown just seem more exciting. Barbara Cullen, who serves as admissions director of L’academie and who helps us to arrange our externships, sat at my table for lunch yesterday. I asked her what she knew about Café 15, where I ate dinner with some eGullet folks on Sunday night. She said they weren’t as busy as they had hoped, but that she thought I might get along well with the chef there. She said that they would teach me a lot about French food if I externed there. After considering her remarks, I called the restaurant to see about maybe trailing for a night. I left a message yesterday, when the chef was out, and then managed to get him on the phone today. I explained to chef Philippe Piel who I was and what I was looking for. He said he was fully staffed right now but that he might be able to take on a new employee closer to the holidays, and suggested he would speak to his owners and get back with me. Meanwhile he did say I could come trail on Thursday night. Chef Piel is very much a Frenchman, as seem to be most of the people connected with Café 15. I’m glad I’ve been listening to Chef Francois for a few months, since I’m now somewhat acclimated to French accents. The chef asked me all kinds of questions about who I am, what my ultimate goals are, and what sort of restaurant experience I have. I was honest about my interest in writing, and explained that I had worked in an institutional type food service setting but not in a serious restaurant. He wanted to know what sort of station might interest me, a question I had not considered previously. After a moment’s thought, I told him that I didn’t know enough about the professional kitchen to think I belonged in a specific place. I suggested that if he wanted me to work on garde-manger, I’d be delighted and would enjoy the learning experience. I said I’d be happy to plate desserts. I said I wanted to learn about butchery, about the saute station, about preparing fish, and about a million other things. I said it didn’t matter where I worked as long as I was able to learn. He seemed pleased with my responses for the most part, and I’m eager to show up in uniform on Thursday evening and see what happens. Wednesday, October 2 One of the people at L’academie who I have rarely discussed (if at all) is Maria. Maria is a woman who works hard to keep the school clean. She takes care of school laundry (we go through plenty of side towels, and faculty and staff uniforms are all washed and ironed by her) and she scrubs our bathrooms. English is her second language, but she’s more adept with English than I am with Spanish. She does not eat meat, at least not at the school, although she does sometimes eat shellfish. Occasionally she asks for a salad for lunch when we are eating a meat-y meal for all courses. She normally eats alone in the student lounge. Her teenaged daughter came in and hung out in there with her once in a while over the summer, but now that school has started we rarely see her. Every day, a student asks faculty and staff what they would like from the meal we are producing for the day. (People often reject a course, or request more of one item or that a component which is easily removed like a side dish be omitted.) Sometimes, when a person cannot be found, we assign their meal choices based on prior experience and hope for the best. Maria ended up assigned to my team today. I’ve made her shrimp before, which she liked, so I was surprised to see on the lunch order that she wanted only vegetables inside the summer rolls we made as starters. When she walked through the kitchen, I asked her about it in my broken Spanish: “Maria, recuerdo que te gustas camarones…?” She said she did like shrimp, and so I said we’d give her some for her lunch starter. She smiled and walked off. A few minutes later she came back and shyly admitted to me that she did not know how to cook shrimp properly. She said they were hard when she made them and wondered if I could show her how to cook them when I made hers. I smiled and said I’d love to teach her how to fix shrimp. When it came time to sautee the shrimp for the rolls, I went and found her. I showed her how to devein them, and then I heated a pan with peanut oil. I seasoned the shrimp, explaining why we season before we cook, and talked about how to saute you use minimal fat and high heat. I told her that with shrimp the secret is to pull them off of the heat once they’re no longer translucent and the pink color has fully developed. I showed her how to test the heat of the pan, and then I cooked the three shrimp I’d deveined for her. All the while, I talked to her about aromatics and such that can be added to the pan to give the shrimp a different flavor. I plated the three simple shrimp with a chive garnish and sent her to enjoy the spoils of her lesson. It made me quite happy to show her how to cook something. She always seems to avoid the kitchen for some reason. Granted, it’s not common for students to show staff how to prepare foods, and the kitchen is not exactly a safe place to be hanging about for the inexperienced. Still, I was flattered that she asked me to give her a lesson. A half hour later, she came back into the kitchen and shyly handed me a note. It read: “Dear Rochelle: Thank you for teaching me how to cook shrimp. Do you know? The shrimps was soo good, delicious. Thank you! Maria.”

Karen S, thanks for the additional info on bread baking. And Oraklet, I will try to check out those threads. Why is a starter called a "chef"? And what's the difference between the bread you describe and a sourdough? The bread we made contained flour, salt, yeast, and water. We were told that if we bake regularly, we should keep 1oz or so of dough for tomorrow's bread...but that 1oz would be added in addition to yeast, not instead of it. I know next to nothing about bread baking. I'm interested in the subject, but only as a larger culinary issue...not as a life's passion.

There are only fifteen of us in my class, Yvonne. It's easier to talk about people than percentages. Chris F. has a history as an athlete (he's done the Ironman competition). He's interested in the connection between athleticism and cuisine, and wants to do something in that vein. Ivelisse has worked at a hospital and I believe is a licensed dietician. She is interested in the connection between health and dining, so she enrolled at L'academie. There are other examples, but these are the two that come to mind. Not all of my classmates want to be a chef in a restaurant. One person has been talking about externing at a hotel, while another is considering one of DC's bigger caterers since he's looking at building a catering business. Several people are curious about becoming personal chefs. As for comments, do you mean from my classmates? My classmates seem to be supportive to neutral on the subject, though I don't know that I have asked directly. One person made a reference to me going to "the other side" after completing my formal education; he was mostly joking but also maybe a little nervous that I might write a review of some place he works. One of my classmates told me she had a dream about me talking about my diary on television. There have been a few other nice comments, but not much of note that I can remember. As for others, it depends. Some food writers I've spoken with think school was a great idea, others disdained the idea and suggested that if I wanted to be a food writer I should just do it. You can read the thoughts of other foodies in responses here, especially from my introductory diary topic. My family and friends seem all for it, but they've thought of me as some kind of writer for a long time now.

Laurie, the fruits on the fresh fruit tartlettes were kiwi, strawberry, and blueberry. Edemuth cut up the kiwis and strawberries that afternoon at L'academie. I had raspberries too but we ended up deciding to make raspberry tartlets: raspberry jam, creme patisserie, and a fresh raspberry on top. They looked pretty. We only made one tray's worth of the fresh fruit tartlets, so I don't think it took Edemuth too long to cut the fruit up. We even had leftovers which we ate for brunch this morning. Vogelap, I'm sure you could keep up with a chef in conversation with or without my diary. Meanwhile, feel free to ask questions here instead of or in addition to consulting your companion. Sometimes I wonder if I make sense to readers, so questions can help me to know what I should or shouldn't explain as I write.