Vacation: Miscellaneous

First of all (let's say it's food related because baseball = hotdogs), Barry Zito is going to the Giants instead of some abhorent East Coast team and there's all the reason I need to start paying attention to the Giants again.

Secondly: DREAMGIRLS. Some drinking. Not much food at all. See it anyway.

Then: for those of you keeping score, it's 3.91 with seven units completed. I'm a little bit bummed out about the A minus in Skills but at least I didn't serve raw chicken. Sixty one units total, so (as my dad would have once calculated), I'm 11% finished.

Also, representatives of the Salvation Army (enlisted men?) came today and picked up bags and bags of household items and clothes that will be of value to someone, I'm sure. They've been taking up room in our spare closet, and while that project (now: getting rid of items left behind by the boys, when they set off for college; perhaps the X-Men and Tick comics are worth something, and we can retire early...) is a long way from complete, it feels good to have made a dent. I recommend it. Get rid of something you're not using any more. Lighten up for the New Year.

I started to make some rosemary/pear chutney this afternoon, but discovered after I'd started that the pears were over-ripe and unusable. So now instead of rosemary-spiked pears, my house smells like boiled vinegar. Not all that great. If I didn't have a counter-full of baked goods already, I'd have to bake something. Maybe I'll try the realtor's cinnamon trick. [Oooh! Better yet! found some mulling spices.... ]

(Go Bears.)

Ho ho ho!

Some gifts I received for Christmas:

• a pizza stone
• a food mill
• a blown glass ornament in the shape of a fat chef
• an All-Clad 1/2 quart butter warmer
• an AudioBook of My Life in France by Julia Child
• a Lunares platter, shaped like an artist's palette (perfect for garde manger)
• The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater; Setting the Table by Danny Meyer
• three heat-resistant spatulas (red)

Today's project: minestrone soup.

In the (Holiday) Pink

OK, remember how I said yesterday that I was past the grade thing? I spent the fifteen minutes before class started calculating what score I'd need to get on today's dishes in order to get an A in kitchen skills. The answer is 90.2.

Chef lifted a pan of croissants from a pastry classroom, which we warmed up and ate with grape jelly and butter (from the little institutional packets he picked up in the cafeteria). I brought in some biscotti, and Chef announced, "If you haven't eaten freshly made biscotti, try these. Julia brought them in. If you don't finish them, I will eat them all. Don't say I didn't warn you." The plate was soon empty. We took our nutrition exam, discussed today's kitchen plan of attack, then watched an outtake from "Super Size Me", in which an order of McDonald's french fries, left at room temperature, shows no noticeable change WHATSOEVER after 10 weeks. "Imagine what that is doing to the insides of your stomach!" Chef said. "They taste so good because they're designed that way." Our kitchen was available 30 minutes early, so we headed up and began preparing our mis en place for our final final.

There was a high level of restlessness in the classroom which translated to immediate activity in the kitchen. The atmosphere was a combination of "I can do this, let me at it" (especially after yesterday's "I'm disappointed" lecture) and "When this is over, I am so out of here." Aaron and I totally nailed our first dish, the veal scallopini (with roesti potatoes and sautéed carrots and green beans), which was exactly what I "practiced" last Monday night for David's birthday. Perfect score. And our pork chop (with Sauce Robert, pommes Duchesse and steamed broccoli) was marred only by a slightly thin sauce. Minus two. Imagine me dancing like the happy Snoopy in "A Charlie Brown Christmas". It happened, my friends. And I'll do it again.

PLUS, there was freshly made rocky road ice cream.

Before we left the kitchen, we received our final words from Chef Joseph. He advised us to maintain high standards of both food quality ("If it's not good, THROW IT OUT.") and appearance ("I see those slobs walking around the hall. I don't want that to be you. DRESS THE PART.") He talked about personal responsibility and attendance. He said we were an awesome class, "and I don't say that to every class, believe me." He said once he has taught us, he will always be our teacher, and to count on him for that. After he excused us, the class filed out quickly. I found it necessary to shake hands and say thank you. An age/experience thing?

So now I've completed my holiday grocery shopping. I registered for The Fancy Food Show and now I'm finished with school for the year, except for the highly recommended "Cook every day". Which definitely won't be a problem. I'm heading to clean some crab right this minute.


Dried Cranberry and White Chocolate Biscotti
The original recipe actually calls for melting the chocolate and drizzling it over the cooled biscotti with it. My melted chocolate always misbehaves, so I just started throwing it in the dough.

2-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1-1/2 cups dried cranberries (about 6 ounces)
6 ounces good quality white chocolate (such as Lindt or Baker’s) or white chocolate chips, chopped
1 egg white

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line heavy large baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl; whisk to blend. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, butter, 2 eggs and almond extract in large bowl until well blended. Mix in flour mixture, then dried cranberries and white chocolate.

Divide dough in half. Using floured hands, shape each piece into 2-1/2-inch-wide, 9-1/2-inch-long log. Transfer both logs to prepared baking sheet, spacing evenly. Whisk egg white in small bowl until foamy; brush egg white glaze on top and sides of each log.

Bake logs until golden brown (logs will spread), about 35 minutes. Cool on sheet on rack for about 10 minutes. Maintain oven temperature. Transfer logs to work surface. Using serrated knife, cut logs on diagonal into 1/2-inch-wide slices. Arrange slices, cut side down, on same sheet. Bake 10 minutes; turn biscotti over. Bake about 10 minutes more. Transfer biscotti to rack. Cool completely.

Store in airtight container.

Makes about 28.
From Bon Appetit magazine.

Christmas Blues?

During my drive home from school, the dj reported that we would be having "indoor recess" today, as it's too rainy to hit the playground. That made me laugh, and good timing on that. I was right in the middle of pondering the reason(s) for my sudden impulse to burst into tears, which hit me about quarter to twelve, as Chef was giving his daily end-of-class wrap up.

We started the day with a projected photo of Chef's dinner from last night, a close-up of a stuffed leg of lamb on a bed of roasted root vegetables. He went through his process in detail, and I added "roast" to the shopping list that I was working on before class started. We got our nutrition mid-terms back (94%) and then took the written kitchen final, another 50 multiple choice questions that were totally easy. We spent some time with our partners, strategizing our cooking plan for today's two-dish final (day one of two): roast chicken, poached salmon. Aaron impressed me by sharing a written plan of attack, including a list for each of us of equipment and ingredients to gather before we get started.

Nothing too tricky. Preheat the oven, sauté the onions for the pilaf, prepare the root vegetables to accompany the chicken. Season and sear the chicken, add the vegetables, pop it in the oven, add wine 10 minutes later, add stock 15 minutes after that; make sure it's cooked, then make a stock from the pan drippings. Meanwhile, finish the pilaf, poach the salmon and zucchini, season the zucchini, make the beurre blanc sauce for the fish, plate and serve. We got 40 out of 50 points on the salmon, because the sauce was not thick enough, and because Chef said he had some undercooked rice. I subsequently ate four big spoonsful of rice and it all seemed consistently and fully cooked to me, but there's no arguing with the Chef.

Our chicken took FOREVER to finish in the oven, at least 15 minutes longer than the estimated 30 minutes as per Chef's demonstration, but we were warned that undercooked chicken would result in zero points. We ended up with 46 on that dish, a couple points missing for thick sauce (it's always something) and for a nicely turned carrot that was slightly underdone. So a B for the day's efforts, and food that was incredibly edible (I know, because we ate it during kitchen clean-up).

Before he dismissed us, Chef told the class that he was generally disappointed with our results today. (I know one team scored a 98, and another a 93, but the other three teams were significantly below us.) His palatable disappointment is what set me off, and I hurried to get out of class, gather my gear from my locker, and head to my car, without talking to anyone. With the rain falling steadily, I no longer had the need or ability to keep my face dry, so gave in. And what exactly was the issue? Not the B, even though my son asked how I did, then IM'd "86? not 90?" when I reported my results. No, I think I'm past that. Maybe it's the recurring realization that sometimes good does not mean always good. And sometimes great doesn't even mean always good. Maybe it's accumulated sleep depravation. The alarm, set for 5:25, has not gone off one single morning in the last six weeks. I am always awake, waiting for 5:19 to change to 5:20, then I get up and turn off the alarm. Maybe it's disappointment that my brother and his family have had their travel plans thwarted by Mother Nature, and will be spending the holidays at home in Denver instead of with us.

Then again, maybe it's just "inside recess". One of the best remedies for pent-up tears is the right movie, so I'm off to wrap presents and watch "Love Actually", and that might just do the trick. Tomorrow: veal scallopini, grilled pork chops.

Fish Fish Mussels.

Like Duck Duck Goose, only different.

For our last day of new dishes in the skills kitchen (tomorrow and Friday, we're being testing on dishes we've made thus far), we made poached salmon (with rice pilaf, tournéed zucchini, and beurre blanc); fish "en papillote" with buttered potatoes; and steamed mussels with garlic croutons. We started by making a court bouillon, essentially a flavorful vegetable stock, in which to poach the salmon (water, wine, mirepoix, herb sachet). The fish poaching took about seven minutes once the stock was finished. That plate looked like the dieter's special, to me, but it was exactly as the chef ordered. We got two points off for underseasoned pilaf. Otherwise, the day was great.

Today's fish in paper was halibut. A couple of days ago, we each made a half pound of maitre d' butter, which is essentially chopped mixed herbs, lemon juice and white pepper kneaded into unsalted butter, formed into a tube about an inch and a half in diameter. Wrap it in paper, stick it in the fridge. You can then slice off a piece and use it to flavor virtually anything. We used it yesterday under the skin of our chicken; today, it was in the fish packet and on the potatoes. I'll be making some at home in the next day or so. Good use for those "leftover" bunches of fresh herbs.

The mussels were delicious. We made three extra pieces of garlic toast in order to wipe the bowl clean. We steamed the mussels open in white wine, minced shallots, and parsley, then removed them from the liquid and added maitre d' butter, until the sauce was thick and emulsified. Then we put the mussels in a bowl, poured the sauce over it all, placed the croutons strategically, and sprinkled minced parsley over the whole shebang.

Chef spent a few moments talking to each of us about our progress to date. The only bit of criticism he offered to me was that my seasoning can be more aggressive, "but that will come with time". I said, "Well, I'm having fun," and he said "that's the secret to success in this business."

Relief in Sight!

Well, I'm late in posting because I had to leave school early. Makes sense, doesn't it?

I have to say that I'm disappointed in the coverage that nutrition is getting in these two weeks. Probably because of Chef Joseph's three day absence, the subject has been given short shrift, plus Chef is easily distracted by classmates who can prompt a 15 minute tangential discussion with questions like "How do type two and type one diabetes relate to the health of my grandmother?" and "What's the nutritional value of colonic cleansing?" Eye rolling ensues. Let's learn something valuable. I must admit, though, that during our discussion today on anorexia and bulimia, I wanted to raise my hand and provide some personal observations. But that would have been both time-wasting and intrusive.

But hurrah! Aaron has returned. Unfortunately, his absence yesterday was migraine-related. Not really anything I can get ticked off about.

Did I say he was a good partner? Today we oven-roasted again. Larger cuts: a half chicken (with roasted root vegetables and pan sauce) and a pork loin roast (with braised vegetables, sauce Robert and pommes duchesse). Since Aaron was missing on the day we made duchesse (mashed potatoes + an egg yolk, piped with a fluted tip into little mountains, 3 per serving), I had him make and pipe the potatoes. Chef commented that their form was "almost bordering on dog park, if you know what I mean" so I'll for sure be doing the piping for the final. But we had no points removed today: for both dishes, we received 10s across the board. I'm feeling confident about the rest of the week, unless the migraine fires up.

Everybody Hurts

Today, or the first time, many of the teams scored big fat zeros on parts of their dishes. I only escaped that dreadful fate because I got sympathy points — my formerly great partner, Aaron, was AWOL today so I worked without a net, so to speak. Without a partner, anyhow.

On today's menu: grilled pork chop, sauce chasseur, broccoli and potatoes duchesse; grilled steak with maitre d' butter, grilled vegetables, and tournéd potatoes. The methodology used for the meat is what tied everyone in knots: we put grill marks (position the meat at 10 o'clock, then turn it to 2, to get perpendicular lines) on both sides of seasoned meat (salt and pepper for the beef; some chopped herbs and garlic along with the S&P for the pork, and a bit of salad oil). Then we put the meat in sauté pans and finished it off in a 350 degree oven. Chef Glen (wandering through) asked how I did today, and I told him that I felt like my meat got away from me in the oven. "What, it grew legs and wandered off?" he asked. With only one exception, we turned in medium to well done meat, and Chef Joseph ordered medium rare. Zero points right there. We should have all waited to put the meat into the oven until we were much closer to serving.

Andy came over to my work area after class, while I was prepping the ingredients for Chef's demonstration for tomorrow morning. (We take turns doing this chore, and it's another way my formerly great partner failed me today, since I had to do it all myself.) Andy's fretting about the final. The pork chop will be one of the four dishes we have to make (two on Thursday, two on Friday) which will determine our final grade. In talking with him, I realized that my personal working style has not yet kicked into gear in the kitchen classroom, and the time for kicking may be now.

For the last sixteen years (beginning on this very day, in 1990), I've made dinner virtually every night (well, probably 25 nights out of 30, if you take an average) for four, three, or two people (depending on who was living here), and dinner time is 7:30. Not to blow my own horn or anything, but I've been pretty damn accurate about keeping to this schedule. And it's not like our household is rigid or militaristic, but the train runs on time. I've gotten comfortable working backwards from calling everyone to the table at 7:30: determining the critical timing for the various steps required, and watching Jeopardy at the same time. So my plan is to decide what time we'll "serve" Chef Joseph (he "closes" at 11:30; kitchen clean-up starts then), and plan accordingly. That way, I can leave my marked pork chop on the back of the stove, and fire it (finish cooking it) about six minutes before "dinner time". And maybe there will be time for a round of "double Jeopardy" before we plate.

The coq au vin (No photos, sorry. We had company...) must have been okay, because everyone had seconds. I used oyster and button mushrooms, large quantities, and about $40 worth of demiglaze (retail value), and boned chicken thighs, because it's sometimes hard to cut chicken off the bone at the table, especially when you've got zinfandel-colored sauce. So it wasn't as pretty as I'd like because the chicken sort of fell apart, but it was very very tasty. I did the pilaf with blanched carrots and small pieces of green beans and toasted pine nuts stirred in at the end.

For dessert, I was able to put together an awesome cookie tray, because yesterday morning was the Annual Book Group Brunch and Cookie Exchange. Amy's macaroon-y cookies, with white chocolate between the two halves, got really really high marks. Probably 11.5 on the Chef Glen scale.

Homework

Last night's dinner: fish and chips, tartar sauce, peas. Very pub-like, no?

So a couple of things at work here: important to keep practicing the in-class dishes, especially with finals next week. And I've received a couple of requests for photos on the blog. Well, not exactly requests: in both cases the word "need" was used, and I'm afraid of losing readership if I don't comply. So we're on a mission to expand our photographic offerings, with the understanding that the picture-taking will not be allowed to interfere with the consumption of hot food.




Here's the set up: beer batter (pinkish because of the paprika), and the snapper (bones removed with the trusty needle-nose pliers). The tartar sauce is in progress (chopped cornichons, capers, and hard-boiled egg), but I didn't make the mayonnaise from scratch.













At the stove, I gerry-rigged a thermometer onto the pot, using my digital probe and a chip bag clip. In the background are the fries, cooked once at 300 degrees, waiting for their second cooking.







And then we ate!! The fish would have been crispier if I'd used two oil pots, and cooked the fish and fries simultaneously. Instead, the fish went into the oven for about five minutes while the fries finished. Otherwise, no complaints.

Thanks to Madeline and Matt G. for the demand. I mean request. We're doing our best to keep you entertained.

Tonight: coq au vin.

A Perfect Week

... from a kitchen score basis, that is. No points off on any of our dishes, all week long. (I'll take some of the credit, but Aaron is a great partner.) Today we continued braising, moving from large pieces of meat yesterday to stews today: veal blanquette and lamb navarin. Both dishes start out with seasoned and floured cubes of meat, cooked in oil. With the navarin, the point is to get good coloration on the meat, and it's just the opposite on the veal, because that finished dish will be cream-colored. So you need to remove it from the fat before it gets brown at all. This caused some grave distress for the team at the other end of the hot line (stove, to you non-cooking-school types).

Chef Joseph is back (a day later than expected, but on a Friday! which shows true dedication) and we're again doing things his way, which means exactly as he says. Good training. We had to serve the navarin spooned around a disc of soft cheesy polenta, which was topped with tomato concasse (blanched, peeled, seeded and diced, if you have forgotten). We also made gremolata, a beautiful zesty garnish: equal parts minced garlic, lemon zest, and parsley. (Don't forget to rinse and squeeze out the minced parsley in a paper towel. It removes that "grassy taste". Would I have noticed a "grassy taste"? I think not. But I wouldn't put it past the Chef.) We sprinkled the gremolata on the lamb stew. Oh man.

We used frozen puff pastry to make a "vol-au-vent", a little box to hold our blanquette. We spooned the stew into the "box" and leaned the lid alongside, with some minced parsley over the stew. Some tasty food, right there.

When we were discussing these recipes in the classroom before preparing them, Chef asked if anybody had ever tasted tomato paste. "You should taste everything!" he said. "Who knows what cardboard tastes like?" Everybody raised a hand, though tentatively. "Of course you do! And how do you know?" "Uh, because I ate it once," somebody offered bravely. "OF COURSE that's how you know! And you know what keys taste like, and coins, and dirt! You don't have to eat them all the time! You have taste memories! ADD TO THEM! YOU ARE AN ARTIST. YOUR TASTE BUDS ARE YOUR TOOLS."

With encouragement from both Chefs Glen and Joseph, some of us brought containers to school to fill with veal demiglace, to take home. The demiglace accounts for much of the richness of the coq au vin and swiss steak that we made yesterday, and it would be hard to duplicate ("practice") these dishes at home without all the ingredients. And most of us, even if we're not living in the dorms, will not be making an 8-hour stock from veal bones, and then reducing it by half. So I scored a decent 48 oz. of beautiful brown gelatinousness, valued at $139.20 retail (not counting sales tax and shipping). Hey, at $300 a day in tuition, I'm going to get my money's worth where I can.

And it'll be Coq au Vin for Sunday dinner.

"Will you come work at my fat camp?"

As part of our nutrition lecture this morning, we had a free-wheeling discussion on the question, "Is obesity a disease?" We reached a degree of consensus that, while there are hereditary factors, and diseases which result from obesity, it is more a lifestyle choice with heavy socio-economic and environmental influences. During break, Jordan described his entrepreneurial vision, a summer camp for fat kids, and he invited me to join his team. "You can be the nice person," he said. Seriously. I guess they've got me pegged.

In another example of preaching to the choir, Chef Glen lectured the eight of us (out of fourteen) who were in class by seven am today about wasting our money when we are late or absent. ("You're spending three hundred dollars a day for this!!") He was even more direct following our kitchen session (we totalled eleven, by that time): "Cut your losses. Don't go backwards. You know who's dependable. Build a strong team."

I can't complain about working with Aaron, that's for sure. He's thoughtful, quick, resourceful, polite, and funny. He wears glasses with thick black rims, and a diamond high on his ear that's covered by his cap, and non-uniform black loafers. Today, we braised: coq au vin and swiss steak. We had to serve the chicken with pilaf and "vegetables du jour"; mashed potatoes and braised red cabbage with the beef. Aaron suggested mixing the veg with the pilaf, so he parboiled carrots brunoise and short pieces of yellow and green beans. Our chicken was a leg/thigh piece, with carmelized skin and a beautifully mahogany sauce studded with pearl onions, diced bacon and mushrooms. Rating: 11.5 out of 10. It was the dish to beat today, and no one did.

The swiss steak was really fun. First, we used a piece of flat-iron steak that Chef had marinated overnight in red wine, onions, rosemary, and garlic. After flouring and sautéing it, we added sliced onions and minced garlic, herbs, and red wine and veal demiglaze, then simmered it for an hour. Mashed potatoes and braised cabbage were also on the menu. We added chives and horseradish to our potatoes (Aaron likes horseradish as much as I do), but he was befuddled by the cabbage. He's Filipino, and is used to eating cabbage cold, shredded with fish sauce, so the brown sugar and apples and long cooking did nothing for him. I added some red wine vinegar, a lot of black pepper, and some caraway seeds. The piece of meat, about an inch thick, seemed like it would have to be tough, but we seasoned the sauce and put the plate together. Chef Glen tasted the cabbage first. "What's in here?" he asked.

"Caraway."

"Where did you get that?"

"From the spice shelf."

"No, I mean, what made you think of that?"

"It needed a little something."

Andy, at the adjacent table, looked up and said, "That's a great plate of German food, right there." (He's from Minnesota, so he knows.)

Thank you, Grandpa. (Rating: 10.5.)

Today, I made and used beurre manie for the first time. It's equal parts butter and flour, combined (I mushed it together with my fingers, which was really cool), and it's used as a thickener for sauce. You add a lump to the liquid at the end of the cooking, bring it to a boil, and cook for a minute or two, until you reach the desired consistency. Super easy.

I only had a small taste of our finished dishes, because I had plans to meet Sandra for lunch, but Aaron finished off the swiss steak, which was incredibly tender. He ate all the potatoes. And the cabbage. He's a convert.

Rehearsal for the Birthday Dinner

David has requested veal piccata for his birthday dinner next Monday, and serendipitously, we made it today in class: sautéed veal scallopini with lemon caper sauce. We served it (on china plates: a first) with roesti potatoes, and lightly seasoned green beans and carrot batonnets, and ours rated a 10. Our salmon (with spinach and orzo, to which we added toasted pine nuts) got a 10+, because Chef Glen "liked how it tasted." That's the goal, no?

Our objective today was to do all of our prep work (mise en place) in advance, in order to quickly put the complete plates together when the proteins were ready ("fired" in kitchen lingo). Aaron and I worked well together: without even discussing it, the only ingredients we both collected were green beans. This bodes well for our finals next week, as one of the four dishes we have to make is the veal. I'll get to practice at home on that one, too, thanks to the b'day wish.

According to the Wikipedia entry, the concept of "mise en place" works outside the kitchen, as well. "This constant attention to having everything in its place is rich in philosophical value." I learned this the hard way at six thirty this morning, outside my locker, when I reached into my book bag to pull out my apron, side towels and hat, and found.... nothing. Well, actually, a once-worn hat, and a not-too-dirty side towel, but NOTHING resembling an apron. The office, where you get sent to see the Dean for such infractions (and where they presumably have piles of uniform parts to loan underdressed students), was not yet open. I ran into Tashana and Rudy in the cafeteria, and asked them if perhaps they were carrying a spare. "No," Tashana said, "but there's one in our classroom, folded on the counter. You should grab it." I did, and I was ready to be busted for it all day, because I'm pretty sure it belongs to Chef Joseph. It has fancy black and white ties and it's made of soft cotton, not like the cheap ones we were issued. Once it's washed, I'll put it right back where I found it, I swear.

When I got home from class today, my own supplies were neatly stacked on a chair, but not where I needed them. Mise not en place.

It's FRYday. Get it?

Our substitute, Chef Glen, is a Polack from the South Side of Chicago (it takes one to know one), and the first thing he said when he walked into the classroom this morning was, "How 'bout dem Bears?" Like Chef Joseph, he peppers his lecture with stories, but he calls us "sports fans," as in, "Listen up, sports fans," and he's a bit rougher around the edges. More like my dad, in fact: "If you burn yourself on that boiling oil, I'm gonna be really mad."

But nobody got burned, and there was lots of high fiving and celebrating going on in the skills kitchen — we all rocked with our foods today, and it was Good Stuff. Three kinds of batter for deep frying: tempura (for shrimp and veggies — Aaron and I used mushrooms, eggplant, and green onion), beer batter (for fish, and we made fries as well), and flour/egg/panko, for chicken strips and onions. We also had to make a soy dipping sauce, tartar sauce, starting with the mayonnaise, and cocktail sauce (fortunately, we didn't have to start from scratch on the ketchup!) The important things about frying are temperature regulation (I definitely need a clip-on thermometer for the pot, before I try this at home) and a deep pot of oil, so the food can bounce around.

When preparing the chicken, the Chef advised us to use the "wet hand/dry hand" technique, where you use one hand to take the chicken out of the buttermilk, the other one to dredge it in seasoned flour, the wet hand to dip it in and out of the beaten egg, and the dry hand again to coat the chicken in panko crumbs. I prefer the "one messy, one clean" hand method that I learned from a cooking show. I want to say it was Jacques Pepin but it seems more likely that it was Rachael Ray — who advised getting just one hand messy with both wet and dry ingredients. That way you have a free clean hand, just in case the phone rings.

Perhaps I have offended!

We have a minor daily feud with the pastry class that works every morning in the kitchen next to ours. When clean-up time comes, some of the class want to use our big dish sink to wash their tools and equipment, to bypass the long lines at their own sinks. (OK, this is petty detail, I know. But they never come into our kitchen with any of their morning's efforts: the tit-for-tat that would make the whole process kosher.)

Today, Andy, working with one hand while his stitches heal, was rinsing dirty dishes while I scrubbed in the middle wash sink. Aaron (my new partner), on the other side, moved clean pots from rinse to sanitize. Andy began attacking a pile of bowls filled with sticky chocolate and custard, clearly not the remnants of our class work (today was miscellaneous grains, as you recall). "Andy, leave that chocolate shit," I said. "We gotta be eating their stuff before we do their dishes." "Oh, I'm almost done," he said, in his Minnesotan drawl. A few minutes passed, while we scrubbed, and then he said, "You surprised me right there. I didn't expect you to say that." OH DEAR. "I hope you weren't offended," I said. Aaron looked up, his glasses steamed up from the hot sink water, and said "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I was surprised, too."

Well, I don't want to fit into a stereotype. I guess surprise is good.

Or not.

Probably on purpose, we made miscellaneous grains and beans today, on the same day that we began our two weeks of Nutrition. Grains are the biggest portion of the Department of Agriculture's Food Pyramid, and we're encouraged to eat at least 3 ounces of whole grains every day. Beans are a source of protein and carbohydrates and fiber — tons of good stuff. Today, we made lentils (simmered with carrots and toasted cumin seed), barley pilaf (with sautéed mushrooms), kasha [toasted buckwheat] with onions and bow-tie pasta, and white beans with bacon. The kasha is unfamiliar to me, and even Chef said "I would never ever order kasha in a restaurant." He also promoted an alternate recipe, cooking it like oatmeal and adding dried fruit and cream. I think I'd prefer that. It's chewy. The rest of the dishes were delicious, especially the white beans (well, duh: bacon). (When you taste beans, you know they are not done yet if they have a powdery texture, and if you can "hear it" in your ear when you chew. Try it.)

Chef intro'd the nutrition discussion by reminding us that human evolution is slow, and we are still converting food fat into fat cells and holding on to them (you know where, on your own body), based on the rarity of fat in the diet of our long long long ago ancestors. Meat was not a staple, and they never knew when they'd have it next, so they stored it up. Not necessary to do that, these days, but we're still keeping it in reserve, just in case. Similarly, we used to have another stomach, the appendix, which served to digest bark, back in the day when that was on the menu.

Our digressive lecture this morning was on cutting: "Just because you have completed your knife skills final, don't stop practicing your cuts all the time. They should become habit. Some of you are struggling against your knives. They should work for you, or you are straining your wrists, and in five years you'll have carpal tunnel syndrome and be in pain all the time. Your arms are your tools just as much as your knives are. Use them properly. They need to last you a long time."

Tomorrow! Shrimp tempura and other delights of the fryer. And chapters 3 and 4 of Nutrition (Carbohydrates. Lipids: Fats and Oils).

Chef won't be with us for the next couple of days. He's having radiation treatment for thyroid cancer and can't be around "young ones" (I'm thinking that's not necessarily me). A sobering announcement which ended today's class.

Not much rice in my genes, I guess.

Today we made risotto milanese (with saffron, parmesan, and cream), steamed rice (rice + water), and two kinds of pilaf (according to Chef, pilaf is traditionally made in the oven): one with wild rice. You'd think rice would be simple, and the prep work really was — just some mirepoix to brunoise for the pilaf, and some onions to sweat. Naturally, the two ingredient rice was the one I had to discard and begin again. DON'T STIR IT UNTIL IT'S NOT WET ANY MORE. It cooks from the bottom up; if you stir it, you are mixing cooked with less cooked, and it will never reach uniform consistency throughout. You know how the white rice becomes flat in the pot, once the water is absorbed over low heat? You have to use a teaspoon to peek down to the bottom, in the middle of the pot, to see what the consistency is down there. If it's still a bit soggy, put the lid back on and let it cook a bit longer. You only fluff it up with a fork once it's evenly cooked.

We didn't eat much rice when I was growing up. Usually, it was half soft and half crunchy, and cooked in the same pan with pork chops. I'll be happy to make these dishes as "sides," once we begin cooking entrées, but nobody in class (Chef included) was really that enthused with today's dishes, in theory or in practice. In fact, Chef went so far as to procure a flank steak and marinate and broil it, for snacking during cleanup.

We're done with food science. The last question on the 50-item multiple choice test was, "Tonight, I will recover from this final by eating the following Ben & Jerry's ice cream." I chose (b) Cherry Garcia, and picked up a pint on the way home. Apparently, the only wrong answer was no answer at all, even though Chef has a preference for One Sweet Whirl. Ice cream is totally relevant to the food science test: we learned about Blue Bunny, largest manufacturer of ice cream in the world, and at one end of the quality spectrum, with Ben & Jerry's as an example of the ultra premium other end. Two big factors in ice cream quality: the amount of buttterfat in the cream, and the speed at which the ice cream is churned. Low butterfat, fast churn = big crystals and cheap ice cream. We'll be celebrating TGIF with the other stuff after dinner tonight.

Floor mopping is really good exercise!

The rant went over well with both the Chef (10 of 10) and the class. They paid close attention and seemed appropriately aghast at the range of foods that include high-fructose corn syrup, which has been fingered as a leading factor in the country's obesity crisis. I'm sure I sounded like somebody's mother when I concluded with "DON'T DRINK SODA" but hey, that's a mother's job. As Andy told us in his presentation, there are options: beer is much better for you.

Life is beginning to interfere with school, for some of my classmates. Andy's attempt at guacamole landed him in the ER with three stitches in his index finger. The accident occurred at home, but he may have been working on his beer "homework" at the time. One of our classmates disappeared from the program last week; apparently there was some unspecified paperwork that couldn't be put into order, and it's a shame, because his knife skills were exceptional. Another one of our group moped around class for two days, then cheered, finally: he managed to persuade his girlfriend "back home" to postpone their breakup until the Christmas holidays. And somebody's dog ate his presentation notes, or he left them in the other car, or something. At any rate, his oral report was a non-event.

In the kitchen, we made potatoes: Roesti, Anna, Duchesse, and Gratin. Roesti begin like the hashbrowns from Tuesday, then you add a layer of sautéed shallots, then cover with another layer of potatoes. The finished product (which cooks for a bit in the oven after it's browned on the stove) is like a crispy potato sandwich with a soft center. Pommes Anna are a spiral of sliced potatoes, also browned on the stovetop and finished in the oven. More chances to perfect the flipping technique. Duchesse are boiled and riced potatoes, enriched with a bit of butter and an egg yolk; pipe them into a little mound and brown them in the oven. They come out firm, a little crispy on the bottom, and creamy inside. Gratin is what you want alongside a broiled steak: sliced potatoes layered with garlic/cream sauce and grated gruyere, and baked until it's browned and bubbling.

Speaking of steak, after a day of rice and a day of miscellaneous grains, we'll finally be moving into proteins on Tuesday, and the assignments from then on start to look like full entrées (protein and two sides). Tomorrow is risotto and two tests: the food science final, and a written midterm on kitchen terms. Remember: 128 ounces STILL equal one gallon.

The pasta maker's coming out of the box!

Today we watched as Chef made fettuccini and cheese ravioli, then we made them ourselves. Pasta-making is a treat. You can't rush it, you have to stand and work and "turn up the tunes," Chef recommends... my kind of cooking. Yes, you can make the dough in a mixer, but you don't know if it's ready until you touch it, so why not make a little volcano of flour, add some salt, crack in a couple of eggs, (take off your watch), and start squishing things together. Very satisfying. Perhaps part of the reason that pasta is such soul-nourishing food is that you really put yourself into it when you make it. "Become one with it," as my former supervisor Ted Bentley would say. We used our tomato sauce, frozen from last week, to make marinara (adding sautéed onions, reduced with red wine, and chopped herbs, then blending). We topped a shallow pool of sauce with five ravioli filled with seasoned ricotta, a sprinkle of parmesan and basil chiffonade. And we tossed the fettuccini in alfredo sauce, which came together in a sauté pan in about three minutes. Chef showed us how to plate a serving as a "curl" of pasta, somewhat upright on the plate, with additional sauce spooned around the edges and some minced parsley topping the whole of it. "This is delicious," Chef said, tasting our plate, "and I know what you're having for dinner." But no, not tonight. Even though it's a school night, there's a fancy Christmas party to attend, and before I start readying for that, I have to finish up my HFCS rant for tomorrow, and read the potato chapter.

But tomorrow night, definitely. Pasta for dinner.

We really scored a 91!! And: perfect hash browns.

Jordan miscalculated (he was doing the math on his cell phone! who knew!) and we ended up getting a 91 on the soup/sauce test, including two points for finishing first. I got an A, and I still have a balanced life.

Who knew that eggs would be so challenging! We had to make, and present to the Chef, two eggs over easy, over medium, and over hard; eggs benedict with hash browns; shirred (baked) eggs with bacon, and a cheese omelet (the European way, which means not brown at all, and folded in thirds). I was once again the master of the hollandaise (no blender involved), but the fried eggs got me going all sideways. In fact, that's part of the problem. We are required to flip the eggs in the pan (nonstick is totally required, and a spatula is verboten). An important factor is to have the two yolks close to the handle side of the pan, on either side of the handle — that way, when you do the forward/back arm jerk maneuver that results in flipping, the heaviest part of the eggs have the shortest distance to go, and the likelihood of them flipping successfully is highest. Seriously, I dumped a dozen half-fried eggs in the trash today. I did eat the eggs benedict, though, even after they got cold.

But the real hot tip of the day was hash browns. Use a 6" nonstick skillet. Melt about 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat. (We used clarified butter. If you don't, use 1/2 olive oil.) Peel a russet potato and keep it submerged in a bowl of water. When you're ready to make the hash browns, grate about 1/2 cup of potato (on the large holes of your box grater). Don't grate in advance. If you do, the potatoes will turn brown. If you grate in advance, and keep them in water, you'll wash off the starch which is an essential component of the taste and texture. Pile the potatoes in the pan and pat them GENTLY into a rounded shape. Don't press them down. There should be about 3/4 of an inch of potatoes in the pan, sizzling gently. Use a heat-proof spatula to "tuck in" the uneven edges so that you have a uniform cake. Salt and pepper the uncooked side of the cake generously, and shake the pan around to make sure the potatoes are not sticking. Flip the cake. (Hahahahahahaha.) If it's not brown enough, flip it back. When it is well browned on both sides, slide it, seasoned side up, onto a plate. You might have to blot off some of the oil. You can cut this into half or sixths and arrange alongside your eggs, or, as the Chef said, "If you're making it for yourself at home, you just slide two fried eggs right on top."

"Are you going to combinate that?"

For home and for school, it's all about the soup and the sauce. On Saturday, I was part of a team that deconstructed 24 Dungeness crabs in preparation for Christmas Eve dinner for 30+. Our family tradition is cioppino on Christmas Eve; my brother Ed, who captains fishing excursions, knows a guy, and they did a deal, and so crabs were shelled and there's five pounds of meat, well-wrapped to prevent freezer burn. The crab bodies went into a 20 quart pot with mirepoix and resulted in about three gallons of crab stock; bechamel practice became a gallon of crab bisque that was dinner for three households. In class this morning, we assisted Chef in putting together a lovely brunch platter of gravlax, cream cheese, tomatoes, red onion, and bagels, and ate it up during food science, but everybody was a little on edge in preparation for the soup and sauce test (and maybe a bit hungover from the weekend still?) so the level of jocularity was low.

The test itself was jangling. Despite my efforts over the weekend to be organized (I printed out all the recipes and ingredients in summary on a couple of pages), our preparation was more haphazard than I'd hoped and our attention was scattered. In retrospect, making two soups and three sauces isn't "normal" to me — I'm used to putting together an assortment of dishes that belong together in a meal, and there's a natural balance that seemed missing today. At any rate, my perfect score on the hollandaise that I made myself (while Jordan was finishing the potato leek soup) was balanced by a perfectly unacceptable bordelaise (that I made myself while Jordan was finishing the consommé). The Chef said, "Were you here the day we made this in class?" Ouch. ("I don't really like Bordelaise anyway," my mom said, in sympathy). Overall, we scored 86. Acceptable. I'm trying to live a balanced life. I was on dishwasher duty, and they took 45 minutes.

This afternoon, back on Christmas prep, we used the balance of the crab stock in the tomato base for the cioppino, in two pots which total about six gallons. Lots of chopping and stirring, resulting in a couple of hours of increasingly tantalizing tomatoey smells. At one point, my dad stood next to me, "test bread" in hand, and said "Are you going to combinate that? Because it will astrolize from the big sky." His vocabulary has been increasing lately, in a most creative fashion, but I understood him perfectly. The soup is delicious. Christmas is coming.

My head is going to explode.

If it wasn't Friday already, I'd pretend it was.

As I was putting my stuff in my locker this morning, Chef grabbed Andy and me to help him collect and carry ingredients for gravlax from the skills kitchen. He demo'd it after we finished two tests: remove the pin bones from a side of salmon; score the skin side lightly. Chop a bunch of dill and spread it on the surface of the fish. Combine a pound and a half each of kosher salt and sugar and 1/4 cup of coarse black pepper. Unfold a six foot length of cheesecloth. Lay one end of the cloth in a pan large enough to hold the fish, and put the fish on the cloth. Pour 1/2 the salt mixture over the fish, cover it with the short end of the cheesecloth, and flip the fish over. Pour on the other half of the salt mixture, and begin rolling up the fish like a mummy in the cheesecloth, tuckng in the sides of the cloth. Scoop any loose salt mixture out of the pan and spread it on the fish. When the package is complete, put the fish mummy on a rack over a shallow pan. Sprinkle it liberally with alcohol (he used tequila) and put the whole thing in the fridge. Til Monday. Jordan has been assigned to bring bagels. I'll report.

The tests were on food science, week one. Open book. No sweat. The second one was about consommé, to ensure that we had done the assigned reading. Both consommé and gravlax are examples of the science principles we're learning now: proteins, coagulation, stuff like that. The Chef drew a great diagram of a coffee percolator to demonstrate how consommé is made. Your object is a perfectly clear perfectly seasoned broth. Deceptively simple. Hair-pullingly complex. It's all about getting your raft to float. And percolating.

We also made shrimp bisque. We had to serve Chef a bowl of each soup, completed and garnished. We were docked two points (out of 10) for lukewarm bisque. And two points because some of the minced parsley garnish on the consommé was too big. But they were both well seasoned. That's the real objective.

Monday, after bagels and gravlax, we've got the kitchen test. Two soups and three sauces in two hours. Thursday, oral report. Friday, a written kitchen skills midterm. TUESDAY IS EGGS!