Seafood Down, Meat & Charcuterie To Go...

Friday is a wonderful day in Garde Manger, the day that all the preparations of the week come together into beautiful displays for the Grand Buffet. This morning, Chef Al provided us with a "bacon tasting" (which also thoughtfullly included scrambled eggs and cheese and English muffins) before starting us on the display work. All the "boards" (2-inch thick maple boards, about 28" x 40" in size) are due out in the dining room at 11:15, so we had plenty of time to get our creative juices flowing. Each of us prepared one or two boards with lots of assistance from Chef Al, who moved all morning from table to table, slicing and placing terrine here, sliding over a line of cheese there, then draping an aspic'd lobster with seaweed.

My first board includes steamed green-lipped mussels, salmon terrine, mousseline-stuffed squid, smoked sturgeon, seared ahi, and lobster and crab aspic.Andrea's tray featured smoked oysters. We had lots of garnishes to play with: pineapples and melons, lots of greens, red and green endive, cut into "flowers," tobiko caviar (red and green), pea and onion sprouts, and lots of edible flowers.
I used Silvia's decorated Arctic char ss the feature item on this tray. I was especially pleased with the "checkerboard" trout (strips of fish with the skin removed from alternating pieces) and the flowing movement of the cold-smoked char slices.

According to Chef Al, his Advanced Garde Manger class is "the most difficult course in the curriculum." There's no question that it requires us to use virtually the skills we've accumulated thus far. And the stakes will get higher as the weeks progress: while today, our trays benefitted from Chef's critical eye and advice, next week, they're worth 30 points each towards our final grade. And the following Friday, they'll be worth 60.