Staff Meal Recipes

One thing we do in the Oak Cafe kitchen is prepare staff meals. I suppose this could be compared to cleaning out the refrigerator on a larger scale. The best situation is where we can find something left over from production - trimmings, a few peppers, an onion, some garlic, fish bones, whatever - and turn it into a meal worthy of a chef.

There are a lot of benefits to this. We reduce food waste, since all those limited quantities of food are eaten instead of thrown out. We learn to think on our feet, because the ingredients choose us instead of the other way around. We're thrifty, since expensive ingredients are generally taboo - although occasionally obligatory.

There's nothing wrong with any of this food. It's just that it's funny sizes or shapes, not enough to serve, or extra from a cooking class that didn't need that much halibut after all.

So, here's what I've done so far.

Quick French Fish Soup
We filleted several cases of branzino, leaving lots of bones. There was only one logical thing to do: make fish stock. Since we were already at it, why not whip up a batch of soupe de poissons?

Ingredients
- branzino bones and meat scraps from fish stock (fumet).
- leftover tomato juice
- garlic
- tarragon, fresh, chopped
- potatoes, fine dice
- fish stock (fish bones, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, parsley stems, bay leaves - we were out of thyme)

Process

1. Bring the tomato, stock, garlic and potatoes to a simmer in a stock pot or rondeau.
2. Take out the fish bones and run them through a food mill to squeeze out whatever meat you can. Don't go too strong, since you're doing this bones and all. Add the fish paste to the soup.
3. Use an immersion blender to purée everything in the soup pot.
4. Add a bit of brandy that you found in a bottle at the back of the liquor cabinet.
5. Add the tarragon.
6. Just before serving, add some pastis (or anisette, but be careful since this stuff is not as dry as real pastis).
7. This should be served with roux and croutons, but that's another thing with staff meals - they have to be done quickly without fooling around.

Cuban Poutine
We were doing a Cuban menu. We had bits of steak, trimmings left over from prep. There were a few jalapeños, and there are always onions and garlic. We had some badly cut julienned yuca fries, too. So, what if we sautéd the meat, jalapeños, onion and garlic, then added a bit of flour and oil to make a roux, then added some leftover papaya-mango-citrus juice to create a tangy gravy? Something we could then pour over the yuca for a kind of poutine, less the cheese curds (we didn't have any).

Ingredients
- scraps of beef
- garlic
- jalapeño
- cilantro
- onion
- flour (AP)
- mango/papaya/citrus juice
- oil

Process

1. Fry the yuca - like French fries with an initial oil blanch, then a second frying to crisp them up.
2. Sauté the meat in some oil. When the meat is showing some color, remove it and set aside.
3. Sauté the onion, jalapeño. Add the garlic toward the end, give it a few tosses and set it aside with the meat.
4. Add some oil to the pan, then add some flour, stirring constantly. When the roux takes on some color, temper with the juice, stirring constantly. Heat until the gravy thickens and the flour cooks.
5. Put the meat and other ingredients back in the gravy, give it all a stir.
6. Plate some yuca, then pour the gravy over it. Garnish with fresh cilantro.

Sautéed Halibut
There were two beautiful fillets of halibut left over from another class. This is one of those times where staff meal could use a premium ingredient. Since staff meal must be done quickly, the fish was left skin on, thrown into a pan where the skin would stick, then taken out with a spatula, leaving the skin in the pan. After you've made your quick pan sauce, some skin might still be sticking. No problem since a bit of water added to the pan softened it up enough for an easy cleanup. Skinning the fillets in advance would have wasted a lot of time, but cooking this way sidesteps the issue. If the fillets were patted dry, and the fish were scaled, the skin could have been fried crisp during the sauté process. But that would have taken more time!

Ingredients
- halibut fillet, skin on, rinsed.
- garlic
- dry white wine
- oil for frying
- salt, pepper
- freshly squeezed lemon juice
- cilantro, chopped
- parsley, chopped
- butter, melted

Process

1. Roughly chop some cilantro and parsley, squeeze with lemon juice and salt lightly. Set aside.
2. Trim out the fish into about 4 ounce portions, leaving the skin on. 
3. Heat a sauté pan, and when the oil is hot add the fish off the flame (in the interest of fast prep, the fish was not patted dry - if you add it over a high flame, the oil will spatter and catch fire)
4. The skin will stick to the pan. This was the idea, no worry.
5. When the fish is cooked from the bottom up, but not all the way, sprinkle some maldon flake salt on the fish and place the sauté pan under the salamander to broil.
6. Watch the fish - you just want a slight broil, not charred embers.
7. When the fish is ready, take a spatula and run it between the skin and the flesh leaving the skin in the pan. Set the fish aside.
8. Place the pan on the flame and add the herbs and white wine. Scrape a bit if you like. Add the melted butter, stir and strain the sauce.
9. Plate the fish either on the sauce or plate and pour the sauce over. Garnish with the cilantro/parsley/lemon and serve.

First day in the cafe kitchen. What can possibly go wrong? Everything!

Today, I was Mr. Optimistic. I even sort of volunteered for one of the chef positions. Sort of, because I happened to be sitting at the front and was directly in front of James, full eye contact, no way to refuse. Not that I wanted to, since if you're going to be chef and things go south, you want this to happen on practice day.

The menu, simple enough. A fresh green salad tossed with citronette. Baked chicken breasts with a salsa verde/chimichurri drizzle, served over cannelloni beans. Foccacia bread on the side. Apple crostada for dessert. Direct, straightforward, no sauces to mess up, no emulsions to break.

Everything seemed fine, yet catastrophe was lurking in the reeds like a 30 foot python. The ovens were on, the citronette ready, the salad greens washed, prepped and set aside, the chimichurri seasoned perfectly, the chicken cooking...

Maybe that problem where the hot water tap would not shut off should have been a clue that all was not destined to flow smoothly.

The kitchen was humming along, ready for an on-time 11:30 service. Ingredients were prepped, mise en place set, all the elements ready for our first performance. Right?

The first hint came as a calm remark from James, "Guys, this oven is set to zero degrees...". The oven with the chicken that's been "cooking" for fifteen minutes?

Yep. That's the one. See this knob? It needs to be turned...

Shit.

Quick! Transfer the chicken to the convection oven!

Uh, how much chicken is that?

16 half breasts. We'll cut them just the way Teresa did.

So, I have this image of Teresa cutting the chicken on a 45° slant in Pro Cooking, fanning it over the beans and drizzling the slices with the chimichurri. Two portions per half breast, so 16 half breasts should yield 32 servings, right?

Wrong image.

The correct image was one half breast, cut in two, stood up on top of the beans. The chimichurri drizzle part was right, thankfully.

So, we're 15 minutes in the weeds and only have half the portions prepped and in the oven. Luckily, we had the missing chicken prepped and on hand.

A quick toss in a mix of parsley, cilantro, salt and pepper and into the oven they went.
Another half hour to cook.

Almost service time.

Where is the salad? It's not in the walk-in.

What?

Hey, I'm telling you it's not here. Go check.

Nope, not there.

Please tell me it's not in the freezer.

Urrr... Yep, it's in the freezer.

Please tell me it went in a minute ago.

No... it's completely frozen solid. Crispy, brittle, icy.

Shit.

Didn't whoever put it there see the word, "FREEZER" written on the machine?

Shit.

Let's try soaking the lettuce in some cold water.

No good. The ice crystals destroyed the leaves' cell structure, it's limper than a viagraless codger.

Shit.

Grab the mixed spring greens from the walk-in, prep them and let's move!

Put in some arugula to make up the difference. Damn this arugula looks like shit. Diseased or something, old, yellow, mucky. Quick! Pick out the good stuff and shitcan the rest.

Toss the green stuff, get the dressing on, plate, garnish, get it out. We're only half an hour late... but the chicken hasn't all cooked.

Finally the chicken was at temperature - 160°F, ready to pull out of the oven and hold for service.

The beans - the only dish that went down without a problem - were ladled onto plates and passed down, the chicken breasts cut and carefully placed, the chimichurri ladled on, the plates whisked out by the front of the house students.

The crostadas and bread, miraculously came off without a hitch.

Finally, the empty dessert plates began to stream back into the kitchen. We'd survived, bruised, late, in the weeds, but uninjured. There were no explosions, shattered plates, blackened dishes, burnt out equipment.

Except for routine clean-up, we survived our first day in the Oak Cafe kitchen.

Uh, what was that about someone spilling all the salad dressing?

Things for next time

• Read the name on the equipment. If it says, FREEZER, make sure whatever you place inside is meant to be frozen. The salad should have gone in the lowboy, the thing next to the freezer.

• The top red knob on the still (non-convection) oven under the range turns it on. The knob with all the numbers sets the thermostat. Screw either one up and you've got raw chicken! Although it's invisible, the top of the thermostat knob is the temperature setting.

• Draw a plating diagram before service, in part to keep plating consistent, but also to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

• If you don't want to get yelled at, don't trash $17 worth of fancy greens!

Crowded, hot kitchen here I come!

Here it is. I'm in. The dreaded class where we create food for paying customers, under the noses of at least three chefs who won't hesitate a nanosecond to come down on any errors like a ton of polenta.

I feel like Dorothy, going up the tornado in the house, looking at all kinds of things and people flying by as I look out the window. In this case, knives, potatoes, duck breasts, rondos, slabs of meat, flames, heat, dishes, looming faces of supervisors, haggled fellow students. Drama, emotion, all that Kitchen Confidential stuff. Well, this time there's no Auntie Em to help you, my pretty!

My first task is to find three chefs, each with twelve recipes that I'd really love to prepare. I suppose this means they're favorite foods. Do I even have 36 favorite recipes from one chef?

When I buy cookbooks, I look for variety. What cuisines don't I have covered? Which recipes look good? Is there a good recipe for civet de lapin? So, I tend to jump chefs.

I'm just not a hero worshipper. They're just people. I don't even want to meet a famous chef; they appear authoritarian, arrogant, obnoxious, unpleasant. I imagine myself treated to some combination of ignored, screamed at, dissed, insulted, cussed at. There might be a laughing Buddha style zen master chef, a mentor worthy of meeting out there, but I've never heard of him. Zen master chefs don't get multimillion dollar television contracts or run three star restaurants, it seems. Except maybe that guy in the subway in Japan, serving sushi.

A fellow student who survived the class added some sage advice: don't pick recipes that might be challenging. Pick things that anyone in the class can put together, yet are somehow excellent nonetheless. So much for my crazy chef with grilled and planked meats. Not practical. Although the techniques are relatively straightforward, they do involve hot coals, soaked planks of wood, basting and lots of smoke in the face.

Meals that might have been

There's no negotiation at the Oak Cafe, so I'm not in the back of the house this semester. A month's advance notice or just failing to show up give the same result: you're out! So, after a pre-emptive drop I'll try again next year.

Just because I was to be thrown out of the class does not mean that I didn't do my homework, in the hope that somehow reason would prevail. It didn't, but I still like the fall menus I created. I might even invite some friends over and make one or two of them.

The assignment was to talk about my inspirations. With this paper, I was already breaking the rules, because we're supposed to start with Famous Chefs for inspiration. I don't. I start from fresh, seasonal ingredients, tie them together with a theme and prepare a menu.

As an aside, I'm not really a Famous Chef fan. The chefs I admire most are the ones who stay with their customers to create wonderful meals in a warm, welcoming atmosphere. They might write a cookbook or two, hold culinary events in their restaurant, or do other local activities - but they aren't the guys who are constantly on television, opening restaurants thousands of miles apart and hawking their brand of Things That Come in Bottles designed more by food engineers than chefs.

Since this was a seasonal menu, I went with cuisines that follow the seasons, using typical autumnal ingredients like pumpkins, mushrooms, quince, game (well, duck anyway), pomegranates, persimmons and pine mushrooms for the Japanese menu.

Everything was supposed to come from one, inspiring chef. Unfortunately, I preferred recipes from several chefs in the same theme, so another broken rule.

Three Inspirations

The real inspiration is the food, the different courses linked by a common theme and in this case done in a common style per menu. People enjoying food around a table is the true end goal; recipes and cookbooks are but a means to that end - as are preparation, training, quality ingredients and the panoply of things that must be done and known in order for that seemingly simple meal to be a success.

With this in mind, I’m starting from the meals themselves and working towards chefs who fit into the theme. These foods also come from places with a sense of seasonality, especially Japan where they may go so far as to simulate a full autumn moon in a bowl of soup.

France

Background
These foods were great things to find, coming in from a cold autumn day. These aren’t high-end, three star restaurant foods; they’re things people in France eat more or less regularly. Except maybe the millefeuille, but part of the idea is to make things you love.
Sample Menu
Brandade de morue, Pumpkin soup, Confit duck gizzard salad with pine nuts, Toulouse sausages with beans, millefeuille, quince tarte. Country-style sourdough bread.
Chefs
Paula Wolfert, Julia Childs, Auguste Escoffier, Alain Senderens, Peter Reinhard (bread)

Persia

Background
This started with an Iranian restaurant in Pasadena. The place was for some reason never crowded, but the people inside seemed to be enjoying themselves. So I ventured inside to discover some really wonderful foods. We have restaurants just as good here in Sacramento, where in addition to the printed menu, they often secretly brew up a pot of khoreshe fesenjan, yours for the asking.

Sample Menu
Pomegranate soup, Stuffed quince, Duck/Pomegranate stew with nuts (khoreshe fesenjan), Ground lamb kebab, baklava, rice pudding. Pita bread, herbs.

Chefs
Claudia Roden, Maideh Mazda

Japan

Background
I really didn’t have many white friends where I grew up, since the hood was at least eighty percent Asian. So, when I was invited over for something to eat, it wasn’t PBJ’s. Since then, I’ve traveled to Japan, and dined for a while at a small kaiseki-inspired restaurant in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. That’s where I discovered chawan mushi and matsutake. Tako yaki was discovered in Tokyo on a cold day as I was passing by some street vendors. Then there's that izakaya place where you squeeze in and order of a chalkboard that changes constantly...

Sample Menu
Pine Mushroom (matsutake) soup, (or tako yaki ), custard soup (chawan mushi), Miso-grilled fish, Katsu Kare (curried breaded pork cutlet), Persimmon ice cups, Sesame crisps, Steamed chestnut-bean squares. Rice.

Chefs
Kuwako Takahashi, Elisabeth Andoh
I don't know if they would have accepted these people, since they're not hip, fusion or cutting edge. They just write (or wrote) good recipes for traditional Japanese food.

BOH: Rule with an Iron Fist!

Sometimes plans just don't work. I won't be working in the school's restaurant kitchen this fall. I'm giving a conference that people actually pay to attend, and will be forced to miss two days of class.

This breaks The Rule: anyone missing two days of class will be dropped. Since it would happen after the drop deadline, I suppose this means the school keeps about $400 and I get an "F" adding insult to (financial) injury.

Only a fool would enroll in a class with terms like that.

To be fair, one of the chefs tried to find someone to swap shifts. It's a Good Chef / Bad Chef schtick. One wants to crush everyone, break them, make them run screaming for the doghouse, their tails between their legs, get them out of the hospitality business now before they sully the reputation of the school. The other, although strict, genuinely seems to want everyone to succeed. This chef is the one who smiles, and it's a real smile all the way to the eyes. The other person smiles like the cat when it's about to engage in some play at the expense of a small furry creature, generally vermin. 

Here's the funny thing: if I just flaked and didn't show up, it's considered no different than trying to work out a schedule a month in advance, make up time lost, turn in paperwork early, or any other advance mitigation.

The class guidelines say to be professional, communicate, plan ahead - but when you actually do these things the message is that none of this counts. Apparently these rules apply to things initiated by others.

So, imagine that this is a business. That's what the school keeps saying, that this class is just like working in a real restaurant, because you are working in a real restaurant. The only difference is that you pay them instead of the other way around. The other difference is that you only work part time, two days per week.

So, here's how the business is run: Anyone who knows in advance that they won't be able to work a shift will have to find someone to take their place. If they can't, they're fired. If anyone is late too many times, they're fired. If someone does not show up without notice, they're fired. There is no hiring after the beginning of September. If they wind up with a skeleton crew after mid-November, that's just the way it will be. There are no excused days, no matter what attempts are made in advance. No show: goodbye!

I think this place would be bankrupt rather soon, due to a lack of staffing. Their reputation as a hostile place to work would spread as those removed from employment spoke to their friends. Fewer and fewer people would apply, and those who did would likely not be the best qualified for the job.

The main message is that you can't negotiate with management. They are not your friends. They are not reasonable. It's futile to even try.

I would have missed two days in the semester, true. But I would have made up the hours, and even offered to replace others who could not attend on their work days. In a real business, things could probably be worked out. Someone would call in sick, I'd replace them, food would happen. They will probably eject other people for breaking The Rule. If I were there, I'd replace them where possible, keeping the kitchen staffed.

Maybe restaurants really are run this way. Since I need to have work experience to get work experience, I won't know. It seems like a great way to increase turnover and create animosity in a profession that's already demanding. It also conflicts with a "fair but firm" rule in management - how is it fair that trying to work things out in advance earns the same penalty as just not showing up? Where's the incentive to communicate, negotiate, work things out?

Chefs are fighting the idea of food as a commodity, where all chickens are identical (except for size), all factors other than price are irrelevant. They want each bit of food to be traceable to some source, where happy animals and plants live in happy ecosystems, happily converting sunlight, water and nutrients or whatever they eat into delicious things for us to eat.

Yet, when it comes to human resources, we are all commodities. At school, our value is measured in hours. We're interchangeable. Our pasts, desires, feelings are irrelevant. We are but cogs in the machine, mechanistic automatons executing preplanned instruction sets.

How can an industry that wants to strengthen complex interconnected food production and sourcing do an about face and reinforce the industrial groupthink concept of people as commodities?

I always viewed Zen as something that breaks rules, thinks outside the box. Right thought, right action does not seem to mean commoditizing people into cogs in a food processing machine.

If this is our best paradigm for kitchen management, it's time to choose again. The food, its origins, the people preparing it, the path of the matter and energy in the food, the building and its systems are linked. Saying one part of the system is organic and ecological while another is mechanical and linear just doesn't make sense.

If I ever get this Hospitality Management certificate, some day I could be management. I would make the inflexible rules, fix my victims with the angry reptilian stare, send them articles on Zen Buddhism while practicing something else. This is supposed to be a model of how to run a restaurant, right?

Perhaps I will, though hours of meditation, achieve some form of enlightenment and find a solution - although I fear it would be dynamic and changing. The truth is not the thing that can be contained in words, as they say.

I've dropped the class. Gone, forgotten. Although several fellow students gave their condolences, there was not even a note of regret that it didn't work out from anyone involved in managing the class. A new cog was found, the machine works. Nothing further need be said.

A very busy semester!

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted anything here.

Since the last post, I've been involved in making and decorating special occasion cakes, I've invented a unique species of cupcake, made bagels, donuts, sourdough bread, ciabatta, chocolate candies, sugar butterflies, marshmallows, sausage, pâté, coulibiac, tortillas and I forgot what else.

I've also been learning about restaurant advertising and management. Two more things to critique, with reason, at local establishments. More on that later, I suppose.

Now the semester is almost over and perhaps I'll have time to catch up on this blog. In July. We'll see.

Eat here. Get on TV.

The restaurant posted on their Facebook page, inviting friends and family to come in for the taping, perhaps get interviewed (perhaps not, too - but most people are optimists). In a new restaurant, getting friends and family in to pack the tables was a great idea. The last thing you want is to tape a segment of a tomb-like space with one couple munching away in a corner. You want a full house, maybe even seat people all on one side of the dining area so it would look more full when filmed (they didn't do this).

We showed up at after eleven, when the TV Diva was supposed to arrive. She was late. TV Divas are always late. They're Divas, after all. Accountable to nobody, not even themselves. Divas are freer than the wind. A Diva, a cameraman, cruising through the Sacramento landscape in a plain, unmarked car, with only a production schedule to guide them. This segment would not air for weeks, so no rush.

This Diva seemed to have a kind of negative energy aura around her that discouraged anyone from approaching her. You don't approach the Diva. She approaches you. Or not. There's no warm fuzzy feeling here. All cold-eyed business. Get the segment on tape and move on. I don't think she smiled even once during the few times I managed to see her face.

It was a typical experience with TV people. They have this way of looking right through you as though you aren't there. Their eyes track across you, seeming to focus on some infinite point behind your head. Eerie and a bit creepy. Do they do this in their private lives, too? Like with their son's or daughter's new boyfriends or girlfriends?

We decided to order something, since waiting in a restaurant for a TV Diva to show up is not much fun unless the house makes it into an event. They didn't. There were no hors 'œuvre, no little plates, nothing that would have made waiting forty-five minutes for a Diva more fun, nothing to get food in people's stomachs so they'd look happy and well-fed for the Diva's grande arrivée.

So, instead of nibbling on a (nonexistent) free appetizer, we sat. We pondered who else they invited. Were any of them planted there, setup in advance for interviews? Celebrities in the making? People connected to the television station? Some were from a local chamber of commerce. A table of six women, a skinny blonde who looked like a model and was constantly fondled (in appropriate areas) by her companion. A man in a suit. A woman with a plastic badge, a couple of random diners, perhaps some friends of the owners.

Just another (rather slow) day at the restaurant, business as usual. Except for the Diva thing that would happen unannounced to surprise anyone who happened to walk in. Imagine you were an innocent, unknowing diner who came in, ordered, got food. Suddenly and without warning, the room would be crowded with a cameraman and a Diva, interviewing people at other tables, filming the hostess, interfering with your service and making you hesitate before taking a big bite lest the camera swoop down on you in mid-chomp, your cheeks bulging hamsterlike, perhaps a bit of sauce dribbling down your chin.

Finally the Diva arrived. She interviewed a table of six. Then, of course she interviewed the blonde. They always seem to interview blondes. It's TV. She interviewed the owners. They went in the kitchen. I don't know what she did next because after being there over an hour, it was time to leave.

I wondered about people whose orders weren't up, and wouldn't be until after the interview finished. Without free appetizers, the unlucky few would just have to go hungry. Divas don't wait for chefs!

Luckily, our food arrived before the Diva. We ate.

They interviewed someone behind us, so we might have been background extras. Is that camera pointing at us? Look natural! We talked. I took really small bites and smiled a lot. We paid the bill. We left, uninterviewed but yet possibly captured as fodder for the media.

___

This brings me to the main point of this blog. Getting a certificate in Culinary Arts, in the Hospitality Management program means taking advertising and management courses along with all that cooking. The point is that running a restaurant is a lot more than knowing how to cook. Conveying the right message is critical. Make enough mistakes - or one big goof - and your guests will flee, never to return.

I think the restaurant missed a lot of opportunities with the Diva thing. Free appetizers would have looked normal enough, but turned this into an event and turned hungry people into appreciative people who would probably smile more. They would have put more food on the tables, so nobody would be filmed without food. There were no table toppers, those triangular cardboard announcements that highlight favorite items - that would have added a bit of advertising to the video. There was no menu board on the wall, so the crew could not film anything with menu information. The check presenter (little book with the bill) arrived with nothing inside but the bill. No thank you / sorry for the inconvenience card, perhaps with a free soft drink at the next visit. It could have had a database trap (a database trap is the little card they ask you to fill out to give feedback and incidentally sign up for e-mail postings or join the house's Facebook page). There could have been a QR code link to the restaurant's web site and/or Facebook page somewhere, too.

The key is that you always have to be aware how your words and actions will be interpreted by your guests. Restaurants survive on more than just food; hospitality is key to making guests feel welcome, wanted and valued. It's also a large part of the dining experience, as important as the food. Sometimes even more so.

The waitress who walks by the table, mumbling, "Everythingfinehere?". Normal, right? It's happens almost every time we dine out. Wrong. We're taught that for people to think you care, you need to be more specific. "I'm just checking in. How is your Duck Fat Foccacia Bacon Burger, sir?".

Guests are not supposed to wait more than two fleeting minutes from when their food arrives on the table for a check-in, either. If the food isn't to their liking and they have to sit around for ten minutes to say so, your guests won't consider that a quality experience.

Several people probably went to the restaurant, following the siren songs of television and helping a restaurant in need. Some of these people probably would not have gone otherwise, the Facebook announcement worked and in they came.

So they went, they ate, some were interviewed while the rest were ignored by the television people who turned out to be quite dull. No introduction of the television people, no instructions. Do you act natural, wave to the camera, start a food fight (that would get some ratings!). Hard to enjoy your lunch when there's a guy with a giant camera attached to his shoulder, following a Diva who is interviewing the people who are supposed to be taking care of you while you eat.

After all that, all many guests did was eat in a strange situation. They weren't picked for an interview. Nobody autographed their menu. No event happened, not even a free mini-cup of the Super Sauce to go with their meals. They didn't get to shake the Diva's hand, ask who does her hair, get a recommendation for a plastic surgeon. They ate. They paid. They left. No thank you message from the restaurant awaiting them on Facebook. The "thank you to the people who were interviewed" message was not directed at them.

What kind of appreciation did that convey, to someone who might have driven twenty miles round trip out of their way that day to help fill a restaurant? Yeah, they might feel like the Chopped Liver special.

Did the restaurant ever even realize that they could have done better? I doubt it.

A chef instructor once said that the problem with Sacramento restaurants isn't their food. It's their management. Nobody trained the waitress to greet people with a smile, check on their food quickly to see that it was to their liking, and probably other things that I haven't even learned yet. In this case, the management neglected to thank all the people who came - thus missing a great advertising opportunity and a way to firm up their relationship with their guests.

A simple message, four little lines, and everyone would have felt appreciated. Something like this:

We would like to thank all of our fans who made a special trip to support us during the shooting of DivaDoesFood. We'd also like to congratulate those lucky few who were chosen by the production crew for an interview. I would have put you all on the show, but that's completely up to the crew. The episode will air on [date and time], so please tune in to see if you've gained a few seconds of fame.

That's it. Everyone thanked, people interviewed recognized, the restaurant's lack of control in this clarified. Something to take the sting out of being snobbed by some makeup-covered diva while eating in a strange situation.

If you want to really appreciate restaurants, culinary arts and hospitality management training is probably not a good idea. First, you become critical of the food, with the dreaded "I could have done this better at home!" syndrome infiltrating itself into your appreciation of the food. Then management training begins, and you notice a frequent lack of training. It's everywhere. Small places, large chains, upscale establishments - all have gaps. Some have chasms.

I'm only two weeks into the semester and I'm noticing faults that I always assumed were normal. Lack of a friendly greeting by wait staff, messages sent that do as much harm as good, total lack of organization or routines for handling things when the wait time is thirty minutes over what was quoted, coupled with total indifference... Where was management?

At another restaurant, after a forty-five minute wait - already fifteen minutes over the estimated time - nonchalantly informed us that there would be at least another half hour of standing outside the restaurant. In the cold. The chain was too cheap to build a waiting area large enough to contain everyone trying to get in. We left, dropping off our buzzer at the hostess station, staffed by three bubble-headed staffers who never made any effort to welcome us. Naturally, they had no reaction when we left. We went down the street to a wonderful little Thai restaurant that was more than happy to have our business. Rescued from the Outback.

_____

After reading this, you might surmise that I view television personalities, and to some extent their entire industry as a parade of puffed-up poseurs, searchers of sound bites who shun substance in favor of frivolity. That would be quite accurate. It's an industry that seems to fear truth, controversy, hard questions and presenting reality. They rush everywhere they go, never slowing enough to find what's important and present it to the world. Too much work. They'll often interview a restaurant but fail to really describe the food and how it came about - and why you might want to go there - in favor of a personal interest story.

As a potential diner, do I really care that the restaurant's name came from a drunken Scrabble game gone wrong, that the owner met his wife in a rest stop, that the waitress has twelve cats, all black and white, or that the owner's favorite colors are green and magenta because they remind him of Hawaii? No. Did I want to see some typical plates, learn what's in them, learn about the thought that went into their preparation? Yes. Will I see that? Probably not. Hard to show the food when you're doing head shots and sound bites.

The show title is fictitious, of course. The real title includes the Diva's name.

Once again into the fire

 
It's time to start a new semester. I'm not nearly so motivated than I was in the past.

Much of this is due to some really unpleasant people - students with unpleasant dispositions who saunter around dispensing insults like evil stepsisters tossing shredded hate confetti.

Part is the realization that other than becoming a great home cook, I may never earn even a pittance in this career, so I could very well be wasting everyone's time. Worse, if every chef I met is correct, even if I do secure work it will likely be neither enjoyable nor creative.

So as the dawn of new classes looms, I look upon tomorrow with trepidation. I recall unpleasant moments from last semester, words spat by three different students at other students, overheard in different situations...

"You need to leave, now."
"You're not wanted here."
"That's my seat. Get out!" (it wasn't).

These and even nastier comments were all uttered by students to other students. The real comments weren't so nice as this, however. I've just blanked out most of what I heard after several weeks of re-immersion in real life.

What was the justification for these comments? I don't really know. It certainly wasn't because someone is striving to create a good learning environment.

Could it come from too much reality TV? Could it be that some instructor at school talks like this, making them think this is the way a professional working environment should work? Some kind of positive feedback for negative actions?

From what source stems these people's superior knowledge and authority? They're at best two or three classes ahead of those they disdain. Were they like that before they came to the program, or were these wicked ways somehow developed during their training? Encouraged somehow, morphed into some strange topology where the most unpleasant peon is superior and only the most adamantly arrogant win? Win what? The accolades of instructors? Which ones? Why? Where is the most beneficial outcome here?

Strange. This can't be mere coincidence, can it? The same intonation, the same snide yet smug barbs spit from sneering lips. Three people, all using the same speech pattern, like they're repeating something they learned, somewhere. If not in the culinary arts program, then where? Its like there's a class, Kitchen Insults 101, where they hone their vitriolic skills before being unleashed into the world. A class whose motto is, "Never praise your underlings when you can belittle them".

And why would they think that creating a negative working environment, deriding others instead of showing them how to improve, slinging petty insults would produce better food? Wouldn't a happy, creative team in the kitchen be a good thing? Isn't a petty, backstabbing, snide pack of hissing vipers something unlikely to function well? Is culinary greatness somehow achieved not by acts of brilliance and leadership, but by grinding the competition, both real and imagined, into the dirt?

After seeing and hearing these unpleasant women in action, I know that I would not want to eat anything they cooked. I'd like to say the nastiness were gender neutral, yet it did not seem to be. Well, this semester could change all that. Maybe this time it will be unpleasant males, or a foul-sounding bitter blend of both sexes chewing away like rats gnawing on dessicated bones.

If a wizard were to gift those arrogant, opinionated and inflexible students with the ability to play musical instruments, put them on stage and bid them perform, it would not be pretty. If they remained true to their natures, each student would strive to dominate the others, to the detriment of the audience. Some might exit the stage, unwilling to put up with the strife, their talents wasted. In the end, there would be one dominant musician; everyone else would be relegated to the background. In life as it is on television. Master Chef, Chopped, Iron Chef. One winner, zero sum. Not variations on a theme but one melody to rule them all.

Kudos to an educational system that underscores the unpleasantness of a new career, even going so far as to insist people volunteer for events and then deriding them for not having a complete skill set. They're students! Get it? Students don't come pre-trained; that's what they're taking classes for. "Oh my God! You ruined that piece of meat! It's trashed!". Right. It wasn't sliced perfectly, but after being held for service, or reheated, slapped on a plate, doused in sauce and accompanied with hastily spooned accompaniments it's highly unlikely anyone would even notice that its edges were more jagged than the norm or the uniformity of the pieces lacking.

Needless to say, I won't be doing a lot of volunteering for special events this semester, at least not without taking a careful look at who will be in charge and who I would be working with.

What kind of effect will these things have on my job prospects? I can imagine a potential employer saying, "You went there, huh? We had to let the last five people go. Three were insulting, one refused to work where we wanted, one decided to modify all our formulas, and all thought they were the chef, the boss, the supreme leader. One even got into a shoving war with an employee. So, why should I think you're different?"

The employer would be right to ask such a question. If I were a chef and saw that kind of behavior in my kitchen, I'd give warnings. If it persisted, probation period over. Fail. Out you go. Or maybe I'd use their speech pattern: "You need to leave. Now. Just get out."

___

One instructor even seemed to encourage favoritism over learning. Skilled students were told to self-organize into teams that would produce the perfect dessert, leaving the rest to sink or swim. "Part of a normal workplace is self-organization" or something like that.

Remember choosing people for teams as a kid? The best players would be the team captains. They would then take turns picking their team members, going from the best to the worst. Humiliating if you were the last pick, but at least the teams could theoretically come out even and compete on an even basis.

It didn't work that way in this class. Using the same analogy, the team captains would form their own team, leaving everyone else to fend for themselves. Hah! Losers! Not the best way to spread the excellence.

The whole "best people first" thing was a great way to encourage stress. There were at least two fights, probably encouraged as a direct result of this social setup. I don't think anything got beyond yelling and maybe a bit of shoving, but still. Assault and battery really should not be part of the curriculum.

But. This isn't a group of kids choosing players on a field. This is training for professional food preparation. What newly hired recent graduate could waltz into the workplace and tell people to regroup into favorites and dregs? You get hired. You go where they tell you, do what they tell you and work with everyone. You learn how things are done. Your skills improve. You teach others. You don't put on airs and refuse to be part of the team because you consider someone your inferior.

___

Call me an idealist, utopian, dreamer, fool - but I still think things can and should be different.

Like a ray of light piercing last semester's foul miasma of oppressor and oppression, and instructor brought in films of great French chefs working in their kitchens. They collaborated, invented, tried dishes that they decided didn't work, slung ingredients, pushed the envelope. Never did they descend into petty individual competitions. They were part of a team, like a group of musicians creating a harmonious symphony. They were not afraid to fail. One even went so far as to say that a dish improved over its life on the menu, and by the time the menu changed, the plate was almost perfected.

I would like to work in that kitchen. I imagine it like a jam session, where some goal is outlined and the kitchen team gets to play with their food, testing variations, failing, learning, creating. Eventually, a new dish would be ready for its unveiling, something that would thrill, surprise and delight the house's patrons.

Why can't we strive for this model, where fun, skill, teamwork, creativity unite? If we're going to work long, hot hours for low pay, couldn't the experience be uplifting and creative?

After the Scary Cake Test

This is it. The Cake of Doom. The Cake of Judgement. My grade depends in part on the perfect execution of this amalgam of sweet, sour and technically difficult. Scoring the cake is apparently like Olympic skating, where degree of difficulty comes into play somehow. I'll never know what points were good and which were bad; all I'll receive is a final grade for the class. I will have the satisfaction that comes from inventing something and managing to turn the idea into something not only edible, but enjoyable. If you don't count the stress involved with 25 people all writing little notes about every aspect of the oeuvre.

The idea came from a question: why don't cakes use seasonal fruit, so they taste fresh instead of fake? So what if you can't make this cake in June. That just makes it that much more worth waiting for. So, although there's a bit of orange marmelade (and it could also be a tangerine purée simple syrup), all the fruit flavor comes from fresh, mostly uncooked tangerines.

It's not too sweet, either. It's not supposed to be a rich, heavy thing, but a light fruity interlude before taking a brandy and a fine cigar and heading away from the table.

If you're brave enough to try all this, please keep your common sense. I already found one mistake that would have transformed the thing into a vanilla cake - so think things over before you start. The ingredients are more or less in the order they would be prepared. The Bavarian cream has to be done as one of the final steps just before assembling the cake, since it needs to chill to set. The genoise, chocolate wafer and buttercream can all be made in advance.

This will make two, six inch diameter cakes. I like small cakes; they seem more chic and European that way. I suppose it could also be modified to work in a square pan, although the corners would be tricky.  To assemble, just read the assembly instructions and follow the diagram above. Then do it again, and again and again until it's all just a piece of cake.

Tangerine Dream Cake

Components per cake

• White chocolate for drizzling   
• Swiss meringue buttercream, Dark Chocolate   
• Orange genoise    2    pieces
• Orange (tangerine) Bavarian Cream   
• Tangerine slices, seedless   
• Simple syrup w/Cointreau (or equal)   
• Orange marmelade   
• Chocolate wafer (base)    1    piece

Yield: Two, 6” cakes.

Cake assembly

1. Spread orange marmelade on the chocolate wafer, very thin.
2. Measure a piece of acetate so that it is just wide enough to cover the fruit layer, but leave the top layer of the cake exposed.
3. Spread orange marmelade on top of the chocolate wafer.
4. Place the chocolate wafer in a 6” charlotte ring. 
5. Spread tangerine-flavored syrup on top of one piece of the genoise, and place it on the wafer.
6. Arrange tangerine slices around the perimeter, against the acetate, flat  sides down.
7. Fill with  Bavarian cream to the tops of the tangerine slices.
8. Add another layer of tangerine slices along the perimeter, rounded sides down (between the other slices)
9. Fill just over the top of the tangerines with orange Bavarian cream.
10. Spread flavored syrup on top and bottom of the other piece of the genoise, and place it on top of the buttercream.
11. Chill until the Bavarian cream is completely set.
12. Spread the chocolate buttercream over the top and sides of the cake.
13. Carefully remove the acetate, and pipe buttercream to cover the lower, exposed, part of the cake. Decorate with crushed leftover pieces from the chocolate wafer mixed with a bit (careful!) of instant coffee.
14. If it can be done without messing up the cake, place an acetate strip over the fruit layer, and place the cake in a refrigerator to chill and set the buttercream. If not, coat the tangerine slices on the sides with the apricot glaze.

Orange Genoise
Ingredients

• Sugar    3.75    oz
• Eggs    3    ea
• Yolks    3    ea
• Cake flour    4    oz
• Sugar    1/2    oz
• Butter, clarified, warm    1/2    oz
• Orange extract    1/2    tsp
• Tangerine zest    1/4    tsp

Yield: 
Two, 6” round cakes.     ± 1 lb 2    oz
Pan preparation
Parchment on the bottom, very lightly grease the sides.
Baking
Scale 6 oz batter into a 6" cake round, bake about 20 minutes at 375°F.
Doneness
The cake will spring back when touched; the cake edges will just begin to pull away from the sides of the pan if the pan has been greased.

Instructions

1. Heat sugar, eggs, yolks over bain-marie to 120° F, whisking constantly. Transfer to mixer, add orange extract, whip on medium speed until the foam is pale and thick, and increases 3 times in volume, and holds a ribbon.
2. Sift flour twice with the sugar. Sift one quarter of the flour over the egg foam, fold in quickly and gently with a spatula, repeat three more times. Stop folding when the last portion of flour is not quite fully folded in.
3. Fold a small amount of the batter (one spatula full) into the butter, then fold all the butter into the remaining batter.
4. Divide batter into two cake pans, pan and bake immediately.

Chocolate wafer
Ingredients:

• Unsalted butter, room temp.    4    oz
• Unsweetened cocoa powder    2    oz
• Granulated sugar    7    oz
• Eggs    2    ea
• Vanilla extract    0.2    oz
• A.P. flour    4    oz
• Salt    0.1    oz
• Water    0.3    oz
• Baking powder (very small amt)    0.1    oz

• Yield: makes two, 6” rounds    1 lb 5    oz

Directions:

1. Preheat an oven to 350°F.  Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
2. Put the butter in a large saucepan and set over medium heat. Stir with the whisk just until the butter is melted.
3. Remove the saucepan from the heat and add the cocoa powder. Whisk until the mixture is smooth and no lumps remain.
4. Add the sugar and continue whisking until well blended.
5. Let the mixture cool for 2 minutes.
6. Add the eggs, water and vanilla and whisk until well blended.
7. Add the flour and salt. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
8. The batter will be fairly liquid. Scrape the batter into the prepared baking pan and spread evenly with an offset spatula. Spread it about 1/8 thick.
9. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the wafer comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
10. Cut the wafers into 6” rounds before completely cool (don't wait or they’ll crack). Mark the dough with an upside-down cake pan. Cut with a paring knife or small pizza cutter - or use a charlotte pan the same diameter as the cake pan.
11. Let cool completely. 
12. Break up remainder and use as crumb decoration for lower part of cake.
13. You can also crisp the cake up by putting it in a low (200° F) oven.

Tangerine-infused syrup
This is for dabbing into the cake to give it more flavor.

Ingredients

• Tangerine pulp    4    oz
• Granulated sugar    4    oz
• Yield    8    oz

Instructions

1. Place all ingredients in a stainless steel pan. Heat until mixture thickens.
2. Remove from heat, strain through a chinois.
3. Dab into genoise cake to give it moistness and flavor before assembling the cake.

Orange Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

This works with Italian meringue, too - just use the type you're most comfortable with.

Ingredients

• Egg whites    4    oz
• Cream of tartar    1/4    tsp
• Sugar    8    oz
• Vegetable shortening    2    oz
• Butter    12    oz
• Orange extract    1/4    tsp
• Chocolate, melted & cooled    4    oz

• Yield:    1 lb 14    oz

Instructions

• Place the egg whites and sugar in a stainless steel bowl on top of a bain-marie. Beat with a whip until the mixture reaches 120°F.
• Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a mixer, whip at high speed until stiff peaks form and the meringue cools to 80°F. This is now Swiss meringue, but it could be done with Italian meringue, too. At this point, either process would work - and the following steps will be the same.
• Little by little, add the soft butter and chocolate and continue to whip. Add each piece after the previous one has been incorporated. In the same way, whip in the shortening.
• Continue to whip until the buttercream is smooth.

Tangerine Slices

Ingredients

• Clementine mandarins, whole    20    oz

• Yield, peeled (85%)    17    oz

Instructions

1. Peel mandarins.
2. Separate slices
3. Cut enough slices to go around cake in half, exposing inside of fruit. Place cut side of fruit against acetate when assembling cake.
4. Reserve 8 slices per cake for decorating the top.
5. Press remaining tangerine slices into Bavarian cream layer or eat them. If you peel as you go, there won't be a lot of tangerine left over.

Tangerine/Orange Bavarian Cream
The tangerine pulp was unstrained, so it would add a bit of texture to the Bavarian cream. This was part of getting more of a "real fruit" feel to the cake, although there's no reason the pulp could not be strained. I think there's more flavor this way, though.


Ingredients

• Gelatin, grains    1/4    oz
• Cold water    2    oz (5 T)

Crème Anglaise   

• Egg yolks    2    oz
• Sugar    2    oz
• Milk    4    oz
• Vanilla    1/4    tsp
• Orange extract    1/4    tsp
• Tangerine (mandarin) zest    1    tsp (or orange zest, or omit)

 Whipped Cream

• Heavy cream    8    oz (1 cup)

Flavoring

• Mandarin purée    4    oz

• Yield:    1 qt 1 pt (48 oz)

Instructions

1. Soak the gelatin in the cold water. Make sure you stir it into the water; don't just dump it in or you'll get a strange floppy gelatin disc and some turbid-looking water instead of well-hydrated gelatin.
2. Prepare the crème anglaise: Whip the egg yolks and sugar until thick and light.
3. Scald the milk and slowly stir it into the egg yolk mixture, beating constantly.
4. Cook the crème anglaise over a hot water bath, stirring constantly, until it thickens slightly. It should coat the back of a spoon, temperature 170°F. Don't get it hotter or it will curdle!
5. Stir the gelatin sheets into the hot custard sauce until it is dissolved.
6. Cool the custard sauce in the refrigerator or over crushed ice, stirring constantly to keep the mixture smooth.
7. Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks. Do not over-whip.
8. When the custard is very thick but not yet set, fold in the whipped cream. Custard should more or less hold its shape when dropped from a spoon.
9. Add the tangerine purée. Do NOT add this to the hot milk/egg mixture, as the milk will curdle instantly. Poof! Ruined! Start over! So, don't do it. Instead, add the purée only after the milk has been tempered into the egg mixture!
10. Spoon the mixture between the tangerines in the cake. Add to just cover the tangerines, leaving a bit over 1/8” over the fruit. Shake the cake gently to settle the Bavarian cream.

Apricot Glaze
This is for coating the tangerine slices to preserve them a bit better and make them glossy. It could presumably be done with strained tangerine jam or jelly, if you could find it instead of apricot glaze. You can also mix apricot jam and simple syrup, although it will be clearer if you strain the jam first.

Ingredients

• Commercial apricot glaze    1    oz
• Water    1    oz
• Yield    2    oz

Instructions
Dilute glaze in water, bring to a simmer, whisking to prevent lumps.
Use warm, or at least while still somewhat liquid.

Before the Scary Cake Test

Tomorrow, my doom awaits. A cake must be made, to perfection. A cake perhaps never made since the dawn of time. My entire culinary future could rest on the successful completion of this dessert. Yes, that's stupid, but that's the way things are set up.

So, what to do while the stress mounts? Diligently study arcane tomes of cakery? Delve into the mysteries of gelatin-stabilized whipped cream and créme anglaise?

I think not.

Pan sear some excellent grass-fed beef, with a flavor of the fresh shoots of springtime, grassy, exuberant, bold. Add some lazy man's Bordelaise sauce - a pan sauce with a medium-dark roux, wine, fond, onions, celery, salt. A bit of tarragon-flavored beurre composé. A trio of artisan cheeses: Valsetz chevre, Twig Farms washed rind, Saint Nectaire. A wine worthy of the task: a Merlot by Solune in the Sierra foothills. Some sourdough baguettes an hour from the oven. Start with a fruity Garnacha for the first toast.

Add music. Sing in Portuguese and Spanish. Berekere, Barabare, O Vento, Depois os temporais, Los Ejes de mi Carreta, A Samba me cantou, Destillando Amor... Dance with the cat, too (he's amused).

Lie down and watch the lights of the room spin and twirl.

Ready?

Perhaps not, but at least relaxed. Tomorrow is a good day to die!

We, the students

We all look like this. Yes, even the women. It's the uniforms. OK, the shoes may vary, and the women generally have shoes that men wouldn't be caught dead wearing. But when we're crowded around tables, nobody can see our feet.

We all have black hats, kind of like large skull caps, no pirate symbols allowed. You can buy a ventilated version that's much better if you happen to be working over something hot or if the air conditioning fails again.

We have aprons, tied over our chef coats so that the coats will stay clean. That's the theory, but in reality stains know very well how to avoid the aprons.

We have chef coats, with the school logo and our names embroidered on them. Cloth buttons. Long sleeves that you have to keep constantly rolled up. OK, so if your sleeves have to be constantly rolled up, why not make them half length? Is this a carryover from when these were some kind of French army coats, before the days of Napoleon? Tradition? Think of all the things they could do with the material now used for useless sleeves. They could probably clothe half of Elk Grove.

We're supposed to all have white T-shirts beneath our chef coats. Some people cheat. It depends on the instructor. I think plain black shirts look sharp, since they harmonize better with the hats. One instructor will throw you out for anything but plain white. Others are less fussy. Normally, the shirts don't even show under the chef's coat.

The pants are really comfortable, at least for men. One woman was ready to kill something because her pants did not, would not and could not be made to fit her. Another thing that goes back to the French army, perhaps. No women in professional kitchens back then. You have a choice here: black and white plaid or black and white houndstooth. Forget the solid colors that you see in the chefs' store. They're for when you work in that trendy little Italian place, if ever.

We can wear any shoes we want, as long as they're closed. No sandals. Probably a good idea, since I'd really regret pouring hot oil over my bare feet.

Despite our uniform enforced uniformity, everyone has a different approach to class.

Some people never talk. Maybe I'm from another planet, but I would have thought that a bunch of people gathered around a table would communicate a bit more. Or at least utter a word now and then, like "umm" or "ecch". What they lack in oral skills, they seem to make up in texting ability. Every time there's a break, these silent participants who have nothing to say to any of us rush outside, whip out their phones and typically spend the entire time communicating. I have no idea what they say. I wonder if they complain about how noisy the rest of us are, or maybe what the chicken tasted like.

I wonder which people the instructor likes. The ones who talk in lab, or the ones who say nothing and just slice their onions, chiffonade their basil and grind their garlic. Imagine the silence if the rest of us were to leave. I have no idea how they would coordinate anything. Texting, maybe. Talking gives the lab class a lively atmosphere, but maybe it's too much? It seems like often the instructor would prefer us silent, so she could whisper her comments, or at least not have to shout to be heard. Maybe silence is considered more professional. I don't know, since this question never came up. Since I'm one of the noisy ones, maybe ignorance truly is bliss. Maybe I should try a day of silence and see what happens, something I could call penance for the zucchini fiasco.

Some people flunk. The instructor announced the number of failed tests, then said, "Take notes, people!". Maybe people think this stuff is easy and you don't have to study - until it's too late. You might think you'd have to study when the book weighs 7 lbs 1.8 oz (we have good scales) and is a bit over 1-3/4" thick with micro-thin pages (hmm. That's thicker than a good steak).

There are lots of things to study, too. Like learning to distinguish between a sauteuse and a sautoir. Don't ask me; one is a frying pan with straight sides, the other with sloped sides. There are a zillion herbs and spices. Cooking techniques. What temperature water when starting a stock (cold). What goes in mirepoix and in what proportions. What a spider is used for, or a china cap, or a chinois. Why was that stew meat tough and dry, to what temperature should I cook pork, and much more. It's like stuffing a huge cookbook into your head.

Most of us do fine. We discuss the subtle difference between simmering and poaching, ponder the merits of cooking en papillote. We learn to apply less black pepper to things. We still get yelled at, but it's part of the learning process, right? At least the old days of pot-throwing chefs are over, at least in this country.

Your mission: become a baker

 Are you worthy?

Baking is scary. You don't use recipes; you have formulas. It's not "a dash of this..." it's 38 grams. There's no seat of the pants stuff in baking. This is science. Chemistry. Crystalline precision with no room for error.

There are things considered baking that I love: puff pastry, croissant dough, breads. Then there are the other things that I've never liked, even when I was a wee bairn. Cakes. Sugary things with no mouthfeel, no oomph, not enough chocolate or fruit or whatever. Cakes in the USA, or at least California, bore me because they seem to be not much more than sugar held in a flour matrix with more sugar on top. This is not the case in France, but the norm here seems to be a dessert desert comprised of drifting dunes of pure sugar. At least as far as most cakes I've tried here. Now, I'll be the creator. Making these things, responsible for their quality, interest and beauty. The question is, can I do better than the typical supermarket slab of sweetness and rise into the heights of wonderful European desserts?

All baking experiments will be scrutinized in minute detail, subject to professional review. Making things I may not even enjoy eating, sugary, puffy concoctions that are usually just a substrate for some ceremonial decoration. Things that often have more chemicals than your local refinery, glowing with all the colors of an unnatural rainbow. So, from sustainable cooking and wholesome, natural ingredients I pass to the dark side of numbered food coloring agents, massive amounts of sugar, and about the same nutritional content as your favorite free newspaper.

Hopefully, when I emerge in March at the other end of the tunnel, I will know how to make really wonderful bread that puts the stuff in the markets to shame. Big ears, wonderful crumb, light, crackling crust, subtle and complex flavor. But will I have managed to create a cake that I really enjoy eating?

Mouthfeel. Mouth feel. Mouthfeel?

yes, mouths have feelings

Mouthfeel is definitely a chef word. It's not something you hear often, say at a fine dining establishment. "Oh, cheeerie! The mouthfeel is simply exquisite!"... "Ah, I love Chef Raymond. He has the best sense of mouthfeel in town. Never misses a note."

It's almost pornographic in the image in conjures, but this is a family rated blog so we won't go there. I leave it to you to close your eyes and imagine the possibilities. Just don't do it at work.

Yet, some foods are almost exclusively mouthfeel. Crunchy things. Slimy things. If a cracker doesn't crunch, it's not much of a cracker, is it? Then again, if your mashed potatoes are crunchy that's not good, either.

Strangely enough, it doesn't seem to have a corresponding translation into French. They missed out on umami, and mouthfeel too? No, ceci n'est pas possible! They must have some equivalent like sensation buccale ou mise en bouche or sensation gustatoire... but I couldn't find it. There is no way that a True and Perfect Master like Auguste Escoffier could have overlooked this aspect of the culinary arts.

So, now that you've read this, you probably have The Curse. Now you will think about mouthfeel, and while doing so will certainly be unable to think about what your tongue is doing, what it feels, which direction it's pointed... Worry not, it will go away. Until you eat something crunchy or slimy.

It's official! I slice, I dice, I chop... julienne, bâtonnet, paysanne...

Many innocent potatoes, onions and carrots gave their all in a supreme effort to to aid me to master the art of putting blade to root. I now possess knife skills beyond the ordinary man's, able to transform ordinary vegetables with classic French knife cuts and whole chickens into expensive parts.

I never learned how to get a knife so sharp it will split a hair, like in the cartoons, but still they're a lot better than they were. I suppose getting them to that level involves a $200 whetstone and a lot of time on the fine stone.

Buying cut-up chicken is now a thing of the past. I buy whole chickens and cut them into all kinds of fascinating shapes. Lollipops, oysters, tenders, breasts, half breasts, galantines, ballotines, carcass for stock, drumsticks, thighs, boneless dark meat for all kinds of things (tacos, Asian, kebabs...).

Funny, but there are at least three ways to de-bone a chicken. Our instructor makes a lot of precise cuts. Jacques Pepin makes very few cuts, and basically rips the chicken apart with his bare hands while maintaining all the major pieces intact. Martin Yan is just a blur, but he seems to be making a lot of cuts in with some ripping of his own.

Watching TV chefs de-bone chickens is interesting. The fastest is supposedly Martin Yan, who can "de-bone" a chicken in under 20 seconds. His technique is blindingly fast, but he talks about for about two minutes before his attack, thereby negating whatever advantage he might have started with (kind of like the Tortoise and the Hare, I thought to myself). I put de-bone in quotes because the wings and thighs still have their bones intact. He does have boneless breasts - I'm not sure about the tenders. He also uses a Chinese cleaver to do the work - but he's still slicing, not chopping.

At another table, representing fine French tradition, is Jacques Pepin. The man is a real artist - he takes over a minute, but does it while he's talking and the chicken truly is boneless - legs, wings, everything.  Jacques then goes on to show how to stuff the boneless bird, truss it and prepare it for roasting.

 I tried two of the methods (I can't even see what Martin Yan does; it's all a blur). The school method runs 5-7 minutes using a boning knife. The Pepin method took about 9 minutes using a boning knife and a chef's knife. Eventually, the Pepin method looks like it might prove to be faster once I don't have to stop to watch the video - and with less chance of cutting myself, too. Although it's much more visceral with all the flesh ripping, joint popping and bone breaking action.

Finals are almost here. One semester down.

In a week, I'll be turning a perfectly ordinary Idaho russet potato into julienne, bâtonnet, small dice, medium dice and large dice. Then I'll attack an onion, transforming it into perfect julienne arcs. I might even fine dice another onion.

In another class, I'll turn in the class cookbook and I'm done.

I'm not sure what I'll be doing in Professional Cooking. A final exam? Frying eggs? Making Hollandaise? I'll find out soon enough.

It's also time to register for the next semester. I supposedly had "priority" registration as a returning student, but my priority is two weeks after everyone else's. So, all the lab classes will already be full, and I'll be some number on a waiting list. The good side is, if I can't get into any classes, I'll have more money in my bank account and can take more and longer vacations right through June.

Where is this all going?

Sometimes I think only someone foolish, deluded or just plain March hare crazy would want to own, manage and chef their own kitchen. For someone who never actually worked in a production oriented, professional restaurant kitchen to attempt such a feat could only be described as lunacy. Or perhaps rushing in where any angel would have done prior research into the true nature of the beast and decided that sitting on a cloud playing the harp is preferable to suffering long hours of kitchen hellfire.

Then there's the part about having to pay back loans (or risk a small fortune). The restaurant actually has to remain profitable over a period long enough to reimburse its debt, turn a profit, become enough of an asset that it could be used to earn enough money to one day retire. Burning out before break-even is therefore not an option for the debt-averse.

Yet, here I am in a program whose end result would be my transformation into someone very much resembling a chef. Since I'm not exactly the typical nineteen year old ready to be molded into whatever someone desires, I wonder if a working, non-ownership position is even a possibility.

Seems like going through all of this just to make better turkey at Thanksgiving, grill tastier steaks for the Fourth of July or just save money by not dining in fancy restaurants is really a waste of resources.  At least a semester's tuition at the community college is about the price of four nice steaks in an upscale restaurant.

Today we cook!

this looks much easier on TV...

Equipped with my gleaming white chef's coat, pants, cap, apron, and the proper closed-toe, non-skid shoes (a.k.a. sneakers - trainers in the U.K.), we put heat to food and step up to a well-used Wolf gas cook top whose burners look like inverted Space Shuttle engines.

Our task is to prepare an herb rub, insert it under the skin of some boneless chicken breasts, sauté the breasts until they're browned, and chuck them into the oven to finish cooking. While the breasts are underway, we prepare a sauce from the fond left in the pan. We also make mashed potatoes as our starch. The garnish will be a leafy stalk of basil.

The chicken breasts are huge, like they came from some avian porn star. Thick. Not something that would be thoroughly cooked through to a safe internal temperature of 160° F in the allotted time. Day one, and we're already behind.

The sauce, sitting in a pan over a burner whose lowest setting seems to be "char", goes quickly. Too quickly. Even setting the pan on the warming shelf doesn't stop the slow loss of liquid - it evaporates out of the pan, leaving the shallots and garlic behind like salt crystals at Badwater.

The mashed potatoes worked fine. We even added a bit of garlic to make them more interesting. They await the chicken.

We take the chicken out of the oven, slice it. Pink in the center. Back in it goes. Again. Pink. Back in.

Finally, the chicken is ready. Each breast has to be sliced diagonally into five pieces. Four pieces are not as aesthetic, sort of like rocks in a Zen garden. Except that this is burning hot chicken, we're behind and the plates and oval mounds of mashed potatoes are waiting to receive the slices that will be fanned beautifully over them. Then the sauce will coat the chicken in a shimmery, luscious nape for the piece de resistance.

The sauce, bane of my existence. I add the butter, for the "monter au beurre" step, whisking frantically to try emulsifying the little liquid that remains into the butter. Too much butter, too little liquid. I cannot change the laws of physics, I shout. Nonetheless, I manage to achieve something that resembles a sauce, although it's really more bits of soggy shallots drowned in a massive amount of butter.

On goes the sauce, decorative sprigs of basil crown the oeuvre, and we're ready for evaluation. Late. Bad sauce. Chicken cooked. Basil should grow "naturally" from the dish. I withhold comments about this novel type of horticulture. Epiphytic basil that grows on chicken... that would reduce the chicken farm's carbon footprint, but GMO basil would never pass as organic.

Day one over, and much pondering to do over how to manage the thermonuclear heat of the burners and become their master, find where everything is located for next time, delve into the chemistry of sauces, and wonder if all this is going to work out in the end.

Culinary arts, day two

People crowd into the room, many of them hoping to secure a place by adding. There are about forty people in the room. The room only has work space for a little over twenty people.

Thank the Powers, I'm in!

Now it's time to buy a knife set - an 8" chef's knife, boning knife, paring knife, potato peeler, instant read thermometer, and the coup de grace: a bird's beak knife. This last instrument is like a paring knife, except that it's curved like a bird's beak, with the sharp edge on the inside of the curve. It's for doing the tourné cut, something apparently used to torture students in cooking schools the world over, yet not typically done in restaurants in this country. It generates a lot of waste and is labor intensive, so it's easier (if you're a restaurant) to buy machine cut "casino potatoes" and use your kitchen crew for more essential duties.

Culinary arts, day one. Fall semester, 2010.

Enrolling is easy. Actually getting into classes is not.

Nonetheless, I persevered and finally managed to enroll in Knife Skills, Becoming a Chef and Professional Cooking.

I arrived early, to find my knife skills instructor sitting on a bench outside the classroom. After exchanging ritual insults, we chatted a bit, went into the classroom, took care of formalities and left. Class dismissed.

But... I thought we'd put knife to potato, maybe chop a pile of onions. No. You must be in uniform. A white T-shirt, black and white checkered chef pants, a chef's jacket, a black skull cap and a white apron. The jacket must have the school logo (so you can't actually use it to work somewhere), your name embroidered under the logo, and fancy cloth buttons. Since the one place on Planet Earth that supplies these clothes was backed up, none of this had arrived by the first day of class. The potatoes were spared for another three weeks. We would listen, take notes and watch while the potatoes and onions sat safely in their cartons. Their day would come soon enough.