"Potlatch". Duh.

The question was "Name the Native American celebratory feast", and all I knew is that it began with a "p". Will my future success as a culinarian really depend on this kind of knowledge?

I did know that Jackie Kennedy was the former First Lady who transformed the style of White House dinners.

We met on this drizzly, overcast morning to debrief about yesterday's event. Many of my classmates expressed dissatisfaction with their team's interaction, or lack thereof. Meghan said, "I'm just glad it's over, and I think there were too many chiefs and not enough indians." I didn't like the way some of the food looked when presented, and the episodes of miscommunication leading up to and during service. Andrea (on the Equipment team) didn't have enough to do much of the time. Kristina had the last word: "What would I change? We don't have enough time." Peter, professional that he is, recognized a "teaching moment" and reminded us that every experience is fraught with challenges and opportunities. To paraphrase my dad, "There are difficult people everywhere."

We cooperated long enough to empty out the kitchen refrigerator, returning unused produce and dairy to purchasing and taking leftover desserts to the Student Dining room. Silvia made scrambled eggs with cheese and salsa, and we sat at the marble bar, reminiscing about Basic Skills and speculating about our two remaining classes.

Back in the classroom one last time, we took a fairly challenging written test, then filed out (early!) into the gloomy Friday morning.

Party Time

Just before our guests arrived:We used fresh bell peppers as the containers for our salsa trios, and of course the lovely tortilla bowls as inspired by Chef Alex.
I made one round flan for decorative purposes. The rest was cooked in hotel pans and we cut out individual servings with circular cutters.And the cookies came out well. Sometimes, third time's the charm.The mid-day class also had their event today: an off-premise "job" where they provided lunch to a couple of firehouses. (Several of the girls in our class were bummed that our project didn't involve interaction with firefighters.) The mid class planned to deliver big cookie platters but only their chocolate chip cookies were acceptable. Their lemon bars didn't solidify properly, so we helped them out by "loaning" them some Mexican wedding cakes.... and they cut the "trim" ends of our chocolate cake into bite-sized pieces. "We saved your ass, man," Andy proclaimed.

Interesting how people perform under pressure. Some people get hot. Others cool down. Alex got a bunch of people (including Peter, our instructor) all worked up by saying that the beans hadn't been cooked, while in fact they were simmering quietly on the back of the stove. And he told somebody else that the rice was all gone, when there was another chafing dish full, warming in the oven. On the other hand, his grilling skills are top-notch.

After take-down (nibbling while cleaning, with the help of two stewards today to do dishes, thank goodness), Andrea and I made a plan to unload our gear in our cars and meet at the Mexican diner kitty-cornered from campus. They only have a beer and wine license, but they make a faux margarita, just the ticket after our eventful day. I asked Peter if it was against the rules for him to join us for a drink. "Oh my God," he said, "It is so against the rules!"

How long does it take to make horchata?

It's not a joke, but it might as well be one.

In the first job I had out of college, I worked with a team of women in the bookkeeping office of a medical clinic. Each of us had the same job, each covering patients within a specific section of the alphabet. When somebody was slammed or sick or on vacation, the rest of us would help pick up the slack, except Beth. Beth never had any extra time. In fact, her own work seemed to grow or shrink to exactly fit her daily schedule.

We have our own Beth in our class at CCA. In fact, her one task can stretch to two or three days (brioche in European, for example), and today, it was the horchata. She needed to blend, strain, and sweeten the rice that had been soaking since yesterday, and it took all morning. It's hilarious.

Meanwhile, the Menu team and some recruits from Set-up and Equipment took the day's production list and "busted it out," as Andy likes to say. There was salsa-making galore: three types, plus chimichurri, which is basically the same thing. Andrea made the chocolate cakes. The first thing I did when I got into the kitchen was check the flan -- I was worried about the consistency and the taste but you can cut it out with a circular cutter, just as we had planned, and it tastes great. I went online before leaving the house this morning to get an alternate recipe, just in case we needed to remake it.

The Mexican wedding cookies are another story. Andrea rolled them out and baked them, and instead of holding their shape, they collapsed on the cookie sheets into flat formless blobs. She rolled out a second pan and refrigerated them before baking, but the results were the same. We surmised that the recipe was inaccurately increased by "someone" on the Menu team. I brought home some supplies and I'll be baking this afternoon.

Sam went to the ER this morning with some kind of throat infection. She's supposed to rest and take antibiotics, and hopefully she'll feel okay tomorrow. She's the "hostess". She's threatened to wear a red dress, which we're all hoping to see, as she's not exactly a "girly girl," if you know what I mean.

And everywhere, there is bureaucracy. We have a bright blue sheet of paper that needs four signatures on it before we can leave the program. Although all four people who need to sign (financial aid, burser, externship, and registrar) are in the same suite of offices on the third floor, there seems to be an unwritten rule that I can only find one person actually available on any given day. I want to be finished by Friday, because next week, we're back at the North Campus for the duration.

A Shot of Encouragement

I spent an hour after class with a CCA graduate who told me that our two upcoming classes, Restaurant Production and Advanced Garde Manger, were two of her very favorites. This is nice to hear. Some cheerleading from the sidelines is in order. We've gotten past the point of being able to encourage one another: when somebody complains, the response is most likely "You and me both". And of course our non-school friends and family can say "hang in there" but that's not the same as hearing from a veteran who says "There's stuff left to look forward to." Maybe I shouldn't be so anxious to reach the end. There are still lessons to learn, and good times to be had. It was a timely reminder.

We began class today with an entertaining exercise, though it would have been easier to take somewhat later in the day. We tasted six olive oils and six vinegars; then we each wrote a five-course menu utilizing as many of the products as possible. ("Imagine your client is a distributor of these oils and vinegars, and wants you to produce a tasting menu.") By 8:30, we were on our way to the Bistro kitchen.

I lead a team of crazy people, but somehow it all works out, and we get the day's work done, plus breakfast, and leave the kitchen in good shape. This morning, we had french toast, and eggs to order, and fried potatoes. "Oh my God, these potatoes are great!" Peter said. "Who made them?" I think he was surprised to hear that they were Alex's work. Alex typically appears to be goofing around, taking numerous breaks, cigarette or otherwise, during the morning, and today he and Meghan riffed for a while (as we washed dishes) about how hung over he planned to be following his 21st birthday, a few days after we finish our coursework. "I'm not going to be able to get up or even talk for days," he vowed. Fitz leaned over to me and said, "If I ever acted like that, I'm sorry to all I may have offended."

On the agenda today: Aioli (to be used in the Southwest Ranch Dressing), Tomato Vinaigrette, and Flan, and we soaked the beans, to be cooked tomorrow. We also soaked rice for horchata. Meghan spent much of the morning trying to purée two heads of garlic cloves for aioli. Alex (who devised the recipe) had counted on using a mortar and pestle, but there was none to be found in our kitchen, so she tried various alternate methods, including a food mill and a chef's knife. Success came, finally, but the Southwest Ranch Dressing had already been fabricated, aioli-less. "Oh well," Alex said, "It kept her busy all morning, at least."

Peter had to mediate a meeting of the set-up team, which is in disarray. Afterwards, he said to me, "Oh, if people could only just get along. They were fine yesterday." And we both knew who was missing yesterday, and present today. "This class is quite a challenge for me," he said. I apologized out of force of habit. "Oh, please," he said. "It's not you."

Kitchen Duty, Day 1

First, we talked about management styles (authoritative/political/bureaucratic/evaluative/participative/laissez-faire), more or less an overview with some "worst boss ever" anecdotes. Then we moved down into the Bistro kitchen, where we'll spend most of the rest of the week, in preparation for Thursday's buffet benefit lunch. Right now, we're only planning for about 50 attendees, so our class of 14 is somewhat undertaxed (of course, rare is the day when 14 people actually show up -- five people were missing today).

Peter is definitely a FOH guy. Sam's been working closely with him on the room decor and she said "I feel like I'm on Project Runway and Tim Gunn just told me that my dress was hideous." Several parts of the room have been decorated and re-decorated. Lots of standing on chairs, then climbing down to get the long view.

In the kitchen, we first put away the grocery order and arranged the walk-in refrigerator. We had three rolling carts filled with produce (cases of lemons, avocados, and peppers), dairy products (milk, buttermilk, cream, and a case each of butter and eggs) and dry goods (big bags of powdered sugar and rice, smaller bags of cocoa powder and cayenne). After stowing away four loaves of bread for french toast, tomorrow, Alex set to work making today's breakfast: he parboiled some potatoes, then sautéed them with bell peppers and onions. And he scrambled some eggs in more onions and peppers, and threw in some avocado and cheese at the end. Meanwhile, Fitz made the compound butter which will garnish the grilled chicken, adding grated orange peel, orange juice, minced chipotle chilies and chopped cilantro to whipped butter. Then we rolled it up into cylinders and stuck it back in the walk-in. And I made the cookie dough for Mexican wedding cakes, which was also refrigerated for later use.

Peter only came into the kitchen a couple of times. I told him that Alex was going off-plan and making family breakfast, and he said, "Oh, good!" Later, he sidled up to me and said, "I can't tell you how glad I am that you're in charge back here."

In charge. Ha!

"Y'all Need To Eat"

This was the day for oral presentations: first, from each team working on next week's luncheon fundraiser, then from each of us individually, detailing our plans for our catering businesses.

Andy is opening a bakery/catering shop in Minneapolis with a decidedly Danish bent, and he's calling it "Scandy's," for obvious reasons that he nevertheless had to explain to most of the class. Andrea will be in the southern 'burbs near Reno, doing a Mediterranean-style lunch business along the lines of Boulette's Larder" in the Ferry Building. Not much competition for that kind of up-scale business. Peter brought up the pros and cons of each proposal, and Andrea's challenge will be guaranteeing receipt of her ingredients and supplies, given the wintertime transportation issues.

Sam is doing an upscale taco truck (she said her fiancé cried when she described the concept: "That's not why you're in culinary school!") She's going to market her gourmet tacos at construction sites and, more interestingly, outside of the SOMA dance clubs right around closing time. "Make friends with the local police," Peter suggested. "Feed them for free." She can get an entirely outfitted truck for just under $65,000 (less than a Porsche, with a lot more storage space.)

Alex will be in Idaho, in a resort area. He's going to do his own charcuterie. And he'll also provide a necessary local service: butchery of the local wild catch. If you bring in a carcass weighing 100 pounds or more to be butchered, he'll knock 15% off your next catering order.

Silvia's aiming for the high end of the event market in San Diego. I told her that we'll have to keep in touch, in case I know somebody who might be throwing a big fancy party in that area. Fitz is doing vegan food on a commune/retreat center in the Santa Cruz mountains. "I got lots of people to work for me," he said. "Most of them aren't wearing any shoes, though."

Meghan's locating her business, "Y'all Need to Eat," in suburban Charleston, South Carolina. "There are only two competitors," she said, "and they pose no threat."

"They're probably afraid of you," Peter observed. She's a force to be reckoned with.

Novel Post

[It's actually a memoir post.]

Joan Didion's book, A Year of Magical Thinking, is her beautiful and heartbreaking account of the events following the sudden death of her husband, the author John Gregory Dunne. The title refers to her realization that she'd experienced a kind of insanity during this period: while she behaved calmly and rationally and stoically, she was simultaneously haunted by mystical, hypnotic thoughts. And of course, she constantly relived their lives, sometimes despite her efforts not to think about him at all. Rarely have I read such an evocative description of the experience of loss.

She misses everything about him, everything about their life together. In describing one summer’s routine in the 1970s, when they lived in Los Angeles, she provides us with an beautiful image of the luxurious monotony she misses:

At seven or seven-thirty we would go out to dinner, many nights at Morton’s. Morton’s felt right that summer. There was always shrimp quesadilla, chicken with black beans. There was always someone we knew. The room was cool and polished and dark inside but you could see the twilight outside.

Our shrimp quesadillas were made with Sonoma pepper jack and heirloom tomatoes, with freshly made guacamole and salsa and sour cream on the side.The heirlooms and avocados are in season right now, so they were also featured on our entrée plates, along with a simple sautéed breast of chicken seasoned with rosemary and orange.And I imagine them drinking vodka martinis, with the twilight outside.

* John was the brother of the journalist Dominick Dunne, who writes great gossipy celebrity-related columns for Vanity Fair magazine.

This is my entry for the Novel Food event that Lisa of Champaign Taste and Simona of Briciole are co-hosting.

Serve from the left, clear from the right

At least, we don't have to learn new names for directions, like port and lee.

We practiced setting tables and serving today in the Bistro. Peter's explanation of the placement of glasses and utensils made me think again about my earliest encounter with cookbooks, and how fascinated I was (at the age of seven or thereabouts) by the line drawings in Joy of Cooking. I really wanted to be someone who goes to those parties where there are five glasses as part of every place setting. It was a goal in life that I've achieved, once or twice.

Andy and I worked on the final production schedule, and Peter was quick to caution us about balancing out the cooking load over the four days leading up to our lunch on Thursday. "With this class, you can count on people not showing up," he said, and ain't it the truth?

Today's New York Times has a great article and video about Alice Waters at the Union Square Greenmarket in NYC. I looked for Joe in the background, but failed to spot him. The article also alludes to the Slow Food Nation event that I'd once hoped to work on as my internship, and I wasn't surprised to read that it's being significantly scaled down. Based on some personal and anecdotal experiences with the event planners, they seemed to be overly optimistic about what they could accomplish with the available resources. They obviously weren't using Peter's philosophy: "Under-promise, and over-deliver."

A day with gelato is a good day. Oh, and hollandaise.

We had an unannounced field trip today -- took the school shuttle to Civic Center plaza to visit the Wednesday Farmer's Market. Peter gave each team $10 to spend, then we came back to South Campus and cooked a family meal. My group settled first on the beautiful green tomatoes, which Fitz volunteered to fry (after dipping them in egg and milk, and coating them in seasoned corn meal). Alex sautéed some onions and added blanched kale. I made hollandaise sauce (successfully! It's such a joy when it works!) and poached eggs ($2.50 for a flat of 30, cage-free). We piled the kale on the tomato, and the egg on the kale, and finished it off with sauce and a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds ($.90 for a large fruit: first week at the market!) And on the side: hash browns that Meghan made. It was a joy to behold, and to make.

The other teams made rosti potatoes with poached eggs and three salsas, wild mushroom bread pudding, and a potato-chili frittata. We all came back with grapes, too: the market is full of them now, from tiny champagne grapes to big fat muscats. And all delicious.

Sam found a bottle of prosecco, so we had fresh fruit sangria. A little bubbly in the morning makes even the dishwashing pleasant.

After class, I headed for the Ferry Building, where, while killing time before an interview, I serendipitiously found a copy of the out-of-print cookbook I've been coveting (The Mediterranean Kitchen by Joyce Goldstein, my hero). And before I retrieved my car from the parking lot, I got gelato from the Ciao Bella stand: blueberry and pistachio.

Yum.

And the interview was really promising, too.

Making It Real

Peter lectured about quality and the goal of meeting or exceeding your client's expectations. Much of the focus of his lecture was on the concept of "service gaps" -- things that go wrong -- because, inevitably, they will, and your response to them is critical to your overall success. Much is dependent on training and accumulated experience. I also think that success in the catering arena -- as in so many others -- is the product of many nights of wakefulness, imagining all the things that could possibly happen, then adjusting accordingly in the light of day.

After a break, we were free to work on our class and individual projects. I made a master requisition list from all of the recipes for our benefit lunch next week, then went down to the Bistro kitchen to determine what ingredients we already had on hand. Andy, Alex, Jordan and Derrick came along. Alex and Jordan ended up finishing the deep-fryer clean-up they'd begun last week, as nobody in the building seemed to be taking charge. Andy and Derrick checked the available equipment against their master list, then Andy made French toast.

After school, I had a non-school-related real-world culinary appointment with a dietitian, whose services (up to 10 hours per year) are covered by our health plan. To make my cooking more heart-healthy, she encouraged the removal of chicken skin, and suggested that I limit my purchasing of salty snacks. But she's not big on saying "No" -- "You have to take into account quality-of-life issues" -- but she did recommend that steak dinners be limited to once a month or so. She's a proponent of nuts (unsalted, of course) as the crunchy snack of choice. And she said I should use more avocados, flax seed, olive oil, and whole grains. Bread and cereal should have at least 3 grams of fiber per serving. Just like Chef Vinita said, knowing how to cook a varied diet with healthy ingredients is important: you may have to do it for someone you love.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Meghan wasn't in class today, so those of us on the Menu team spent the open class time re-researching and re-writing our recipe cards for next week's benefit. Again. Alex is going to be a handful for the chef who hires him -- I can see this already. He really doesn't like to be tied to a recipe. But the problem with that, from a professional standpoint, is that you can't guarantee consistency in results, not to mention costing. He writes some great procedures though: "Put your 50 tomatoes through a food mill..."

During lecture, Peter talked about the importance of operations systems, in costing, pricing, purchasing, production, presentation, and service. In order to have a consistent product that keeps your customers coming back, you have to develop and implement systems in each of these areas. And your challenge, as a manager, is to get your employees to understand the systems, and to use them. (See above.)

Anybody who's in a public school, or a school that accepts public funds (CCA qualifies because they administer federal student loans) was required to sit through a federally mandated "Constitution Day" presentation today, complete with sign-in sheet and Powerpoint presentation (ask your school-aged children). We spent some time talking about inalienable rights, and Kristina perked up with "I hate to tell you kids, but you get more conservative as you get older." "I beg to differ," I shot back. Peter winked at me.

Sarah was back in class today. I spoke to her at break. "I heard you were leaving us, but it's nice to see you here." She said, "Well, it's only eight more weeks. I figured I should stick it out." We high-fived.

P.S. I told David that I earned an A in Advanced Baking and Pastry. "I'm kind of bored with all that," he said. And hey, so are we: group senioritis, big time.

More Pretend Business

Today, we took a stroll down to Economy Restaurant Supply to prepare equipment lists for our catering businesses. Then, we spent time on-line getting pricing, and prepared Excel spreadsheets as part of the financing proposal that we presented to our "banker," Peter, the course instructor.

I had an interview yesterday, and I was surprised at how pleased I was just to be in an environment where people were actually doing real work, and not just practicing.

This Friday brought an assortment of drama. By now, just about everyone has heard from one source or another that Sarah's leaving the program. (I heard from Silvia who heard from Jordan; Andrea said Kristina saw her crying in the Student Services office). And we only have 40 days left...

Adam hasn't been in class this week but he showed up today -- he responded to a casual "Where you been, man?" with "At the dentist." Turns out that he was mugged walking on O'Farrell Street last Saturday, at 11:30 at night, by three guys and a dog. He's already had two busted teeth replaced and he's going back to have work on a third. He was on his way back to the student dormitory -- such a great neighborhood -- and the culprits got off with a $40 cell phone and about $60 in cash.

And Meghan "can't find" the digital file where she's been keeping our accumulated recipes and lists. "I saved it, and I emailed it to myself, and it's gone," she reported. After a brief private meeting with Peter, she said that "everything is under control." Andy was sanguine about it, though. "If we have to bust it all out again on Monday, we'll just do it."

Quiet in the House?

During our fifteen minute break following lecture (on menu pricing and design), Andy and Alex wnet foraging. Alex brought a house-cured salami from the restaurant where he's been workin, and Andy was determined to find the proper accompaniments. Chef Duffy was no help. "I thought he liked me," Andy said, "but he absolutely couldn't part with any cheese." The bread-baking class next door was more helpful, and the Chef donated crusty french rolls, stilton, and brie to our morning snack.

While we munched, we worked in the computer lab, on both our class project (the luncheon for the Larkin Street Youth Center) and our individual projects ("Mama's Kitchen Breakfast Catering"). While Alex and Meghan rewrote recipes to reflect our projected 100 person attendance, Fitz wrote up a template "thank you note," and I worked on the production schedule. Though we have four days to prepare, Peter said he'd typically calculate 16 hours of chef time for each 50 people in attendance.

Derrick wasn't in class today, but yesterday he had the right idea: he listened to his iPod while he sat working at the computer. Before too much time had passed this morning, many of the rest of us wish we'd had that option: Alex just doesn't stop talking! At one point, Andy said (from two aisles over), "Let's use our indoor voices." Then Alex began arguing with Peter about the need to have a recipe for agua fresca: "I've made it a thousand times, and I'll just wing it." Peter used the opportunity to reiterate his earlier point about costing: unless there are recipes, and unless they are followed correctly, the chance of hitting your target profit goals is small. Alex persisted in arguing. Chef persisted in insisting. It was awkward to overhear. I just wanted to say, "Alex, shut up already."

Which is what Andrea finally did say. This was right about the time that Alex, having digressed from the always-popular topic of meat-slicer injuries, began talking about the table saw that uses sensors to prevent injury. "Alex, you haven't stopped talking for two hours. I'm having a hard time hearing myself think," she laughed.

Alex spent the remaining 30 minutes of class talking out loud, about how much he likes to talk out loud, and how it apparently disruptives to other people in the class, who seem to find it offensive or at least irritating, but it's just how he is.

It's All Becoming Clear

Perhaps in ansawer to Andrea's question yesterday about how we'll be occupying our time for the next two weeks, our instructor Peter gave us the first part of a multi-phased assignment today. We're writing yet another business plan. Pleasantly, it does not involve working in groups, and it appears that all of the work will be done in class. Today, we selected a name ("Mama's Kitchen Breakfast Catering") and a location (downtown Oakland), and we researched our location, including demographics and competition. In the days to come, we'll be working on marketing, including some elementary web site design and menu development and pricing.

First thing this morning, after roll call and uniform check, we went down to the Bistro to do a site walk-through. About half our class was absent today, so we were a small group. We discussed set up and decor ideas for our benefit luncheon to take place in two weeks. Much of the talk centered around inexpensive ways to liven up the space, since our budget is exactly zero. That's not my committee, though, so I mostly listened.

And we had a guest speaker -- Tiffany, a representative of the finance office who deals primarily with alumni repayment of student loans. Before we can graduate, we have to get sign-off from four school departments, including financial aid, whose job it is to drill it into our heads that any money that we borrowed must be repaid. "Don't default on your student loans," Tiffany said. "They will hunt you down, and they will find you." Repayment begins six months after the conclusion of the internship. And what's gonna happen between now and then is a big question mark, for all of us.

Catering during the Roman Empire

We start way at the beginning in our brief history of catering, with the notion that ancient Greeks had a trolley from which to serve hors d'oeurves (no women allowed, since they were all talking philosophy and other heavy stuff). And the Romans needed a whole separate crew of staff members, whose job it was to oil down the attendees; personal hygiene being what it was, the only way you could abide lolling next to your neighbor for hours and hours during the course of the banquet was if he were covered in highly perfumed oil.

We're starting to work on the production schedule for our event in two weeks, and there will be no masseuses. We've determined that our client will be Larkin Street Youth Services, though it's not yet clear if we will be hosting a fundraiser or an appreciation lunch for volunteers. The latter is preferable, as far as I'm concerned, because then we're not trying to sell tickets in addition to planning the event.

But really, we've got lots of time. We have about an hour and a half of lecture every day. Today, in addition to the dirt about ancient civilizations, we learned that Thomas Jefferson and Jackie Kennedy have been major influences in the US history of banqueting, along with my "pet" historic restaurant, the 19th century Delmonico in New York. Jackie liked elegance, but she also reduced the number of courses during state dinners so that there'd be time for entertainment.

After lecture, we work on our project. Today, the Menu group pulled together recipes for each of our menu items and put them into the standard recipe card format. Tomorrow, we'll develop an ingredients list and get more specific with the production schedule. As Andrea noted as we left the building, it's hard to see what will keep us occupied for 25 hours next week, seeing that most of our planning is well in hand, and we can't begin any food prep until the following week.

Oh, but there's the Bistro kitchen to contend with. We almost had a mini-riot in class when Peter suggested that we spend time organizing the kitchen. It's big and beautiful, but the fryer is full of rancid oil, the refrigerator is full of unidentifiable and moldy products, and the dry goods area is in extreme disarray. It's like a repeat of Advanced Baking and Pastry, when we spent hours on the first day of class cleaning up somebody else's mess. Alex told Peter that he was going to register a complaint with the Executive Chef. Peter said, "Oh, I'd better be with you for that." Several of us chimed in to support Alex and express frustration with the whole twisted concept of paying tuition to clean up before we can even make our own mess. Peter's response was that sort of diplomatic BS along the lines of "I hear you but it is what it is." Andy came back into class after our mid-morning break and whispered, "We found the executive chef's phone number, AND WE CALLED HIM."

Reserving Judgment

We're back at South Campus, a real pleasure: modern facilities, free parking, better neighborhood. Our instructor ("call me Peter") is a front-of-the-house guy who primarily teaches students in the Hospitality and Restaurant Management program. He's leading us through Banquets and Catering.

One of the objectives of the class is to plan and execute a catered function, from start to finish, so we spent some time in class today looking for a reason to cook, essentially. Fitz (new to our class this session) spent a lot of time arguing in favor of making lunch for homeless people, but Peter kept shooting him down: it's all about liability. We've got a couple of options which should be finalized in the next day or so, but it looks like we'll be hosting a fundraiser lunch on September 27 for a local organization TBD, at the on-campus restaurant on Rhode Island Street in the City.

We've settled on a menu, though. Meghan, Alex, (the new) Fitz and I are on the menu committee, and we came up with four possible ideas, based on Italian, Southwestern, Asian and Americana cuisines, and the class voted to prepare Southwestern food. Perhaps it's because we enjoyed Chef Patricio's class so much. At any rate, we'll be preparing a buffet lunch with grilled chicken and flank steak, lots of regional sides and salsas, and dessert. This week, we have to find and standardize recipes and develop a production list and a labor schedule. Next week, we'll work on the ingredients list, and the following week will include a couple of days of actual cooking in preparation for the event.

Our classmates (we are 14 in total) are working on set up (decor, area layout, and the like) and equipment planning, to ensure that we'll have all the supplies we need for both front and back of house. During the event, most of us will be working at buffet stations or as bussers and runners. There's also talk of a raffle and live music. Time will tell.

Andrea hates it already. I'm willing to follow Nick's example in The Great Gatsby: "Reserving judgement is a matter of infinite hope." We'll see how it goes. It could be fun. At the very least, there will be no flambé station, though we might make tortilla bowls to hold the chips. We have the knowledge.

And while we're on the subject of literature, my friend Simona, who writes a great blog about Italian culinary terms, is hosting an on-line celebration of food in fiction. You can get information on the event and how to participate or observe here. I'll be contributing something next week.

"You have permission to jump."

Today was production for the weekly Careme Room buffet, and I spent the first three hours of class in total happy zen mode, decorating little cakes. I told Chef Alex that I was really enjoying myself. "You have permission to jump," he said. Then he demonstrated.

The cake base was made earlier in the week, from equal parts ground almonds, eggs, sugar, and butter. I turned the cake out of the pan, spread it thinly with raspberry jam, and cut it into 1-1/4" circles. Then I decorated them, and there were five toppings in all. Strawberry with candied orange peel. Raspberry with a sliver of pistachio. Apricot with chopped candied ginger and lavender. Blackberry with a paperthin slice of crisp candied lotus root. And strawberry with a basil leaf. Elsewhere, cheesecakes and petit fours were under final construction.Then we arranged the various cakes on slabs of marble and shelves that we then carried into the dining room.
Chef Alex is really fond of the "tortilla bowl" and the "tortilla flames". The flames are triangles, dipped in red and yellow food coloring, then deep fried. You fill a tortilla bowl with sugar and then arrange the flames in the sugar. Alex argued profusely and at length about including the tortilla bowl on the buffet, but the Chef is always right.While we set up the dessert buffet, we chatted a bit with Chef Stazi, who sat at a table in the back of the dining room with three students and five bottles of wine. "This is what I do after the final," he said. "I have a tasting with anybody who wants to hang around." We missed out. He fell off his motorcycle the day before our final, and Chef Larry just gave us the test and made no mention of wine tasting. He did make it open notes, though.

318°

I may not always remember that the "danger zone" for food safety is between 40° and 140°, but I will never forget that the correct temperature for pulled sugar is 318°. That's what comes from REPETITION.

I made two more batches of cooked sugar today (that's five, this week), but not before chocolate work. Chef Alex gave out the assignments: The "buffet team" made brownies (a 20-quart mixer full) and 13 half-sheets of sponge cake. The "plated" team made chocolate mousse and set up the dining room station in preparation for lunch service. Chef Alex told the rest of us, "Temper a pound each of white, milk and dark chocolate. Then pull sugar."

"We tempered chocolate on Tuesday," Sara said.

"Do it again."

So we did. The results are not that glamorous, when you just spread it out on a sheet pan, but the main thing is: it's hard. And glossy. And it has snap, when you break it. You melt the chocolate (over a water bath but DON'T get any water in the chocolate), then bring it to room temperature. You can spread some of it out on a marble slab and work it back and forth with a spatula, then return it to the bowl. In my favorite biscotti recipe, I now incorporate the white chocolate into the dough, because I've never had much success getting the chocolate to the state where you could drizzle it, and it would harden. I'm pretty sure I've got it down now.Then I made more pulling syrup, using yet another thermometer today to ensure that the mixture was heated to the proper temperature. And I got witnesses. Sarah colored hers purple, and mine, uncolored, was a pale whitish-yellow. Chef Alex told us that the heat of the mass of sugar, as we pulled and stretched it, was all in our heads ("Think cool thoughts!"), but I have blisters on three of my fingertips despite my most positive thinking.Chef Alex made the pretty ribbon.

He also demonstrated the construction of petit fours: melted chocolate on the bottom, flavored simple syrup brushed on each of three layers of sponge cake, buttercream in between and on top; the whole thing frozen for the next process tomorrow. Then Alex and Andrew built ten more, and Jordan and Sara emptied out and organized the freezer and the walk in, and Sarah and Silvia and Andrea and I did so many dishes that I left class with prunes on top of my blisters.

Random Mutterings

As we assembled this morning, Alex said, "Hey, don't we have like 50 days of school left?" "48," I said. He high-fived me.

Silvia went home to Southern California for the break, returning last night, and this morning she told me, "It took every bit of energy that I have, to come back up here." She has a boyfriend in San Diego, and has arranged for an internship in Del Mar, and she needs to find an apartment, and get a car... the last nine weeks of school are just standing between her and the future.

Thank goodness for a short week. Chef Alex is not going to rank high on my list of person favorites. He's sort of in that Chef Alain mold: disappearing for long periods of time, then showing up just in time to tell you that you've done it all wrong. And when he gets us together for demonstrations, it's like the curtain goes up: he's all showman. Every action, stirring, flipping, garnishing, comes with a self-produced sound effect, and every technique is followed by a "ta da!" He showed us how to make wide chocolate ribbons (cool chocolate, cold marble, offset spatula) to wrap around mousse-covered cake. Andy asked if he could try. "Non! Maybe tomorrow."

I spent the first hour of class re-melting the contents of a dozen bowls of chocolate (leftovers from who knows when), and pouring them into sheet pans. Then Alex practiced his training skills (very important for someone who wants to be promoted, i.e. become management) by teaching Andrea, Andy and me how to make French macarons. He learned yesterday from The Master. Mine were tinted red. Tomorrow we'll fill them.

Silvia and Sara got bonus points (from their classmates, at least) by preparing breakfast: scrambled eggs with bacon and cheese, and fried potatoes. I made pulling sugar twice -- the first time, it apparently did not reach the proper temperature, even though I used a candy thermometer to measure, so that batch had to get dumped. The second batch was fine (I borrowed Anthony's thermometer) but our pulling was interrupted when we had to accompany Chef Alex to the Careme Room. He demonstrated how to plate today's desserts, "a la minute". He doesn't believe (as Chef Lorriann did) in plating in advance (you saw the photos). He has us set up a "live dessert" station where two students make caramel sauce and try not to set stuff on fire, all within full view of the paying customers. I'm breathing a sigh of relief that I won't have to try my hand at it: the pyromanics in the class have filled up the available spots tomorrow and Friday.

All You Zombies

Nobody was ready to come back to school this morning, that much was obvious. Chatter was at a minimum. Chef Alex set about handing out assignments, and by 7:30, everyone was working, though still somewhat dazed.

My team (under Chef Lorriann, we'd be making bread this week) has been reintroduced as Chocolate and Sugar. First, we tempered chocolate, formed it into slabs, and cut out and constructed free-form boxes. Chef noted that this was the kind of thing you might be called upon to produce for VIP guests in a five-star hotel. Our notes on tempering from Chef Lorriann are worthless, pretty much: Chef Alex prefers that we melt chocolate on the stove, over boiling water, rather than in the microwave. And he doesn't believe in thermometers.

After I assembled my box, I cooked up a portion of sugar for Chef's pulled sugar demonstration. It's sugar, water, corn syrup, and a pinch of cream of tarter, boiled. After it reached 315°, and the bubbles settled down, Chef poured the hot sugar onto a silpat and began kneading it, using the edges of the silpat to flip the sugar, which was still really hot. He quickly formed a rose, a blown ball about 2" in diameter, and a swan. "Looks easy, eh?" he asked. "I will tell you all the things you will do incorrectly." And he did. Tomorrow, we'll try to prove him wrong.

Hanging Out

Highlights of the holiday week:

* A Dinner Party -- Chef Judy told us about the great joy she gets from putting fresh flowers on a wedding cake that she's baked. I have similar enthusiasm for the entire "dinner party" process, from making the guest list weeks in advance to putting away the good silverware the day after the event. This one was especially fun: a deconstructed paella, with grilled chicken and shrimp so that David would have something to do. I repeated my "competency" dessert, olive oil-semolina cake and white chocolate-toasted almond semifreddo. And we had some interesting wines, from Spain and Italy.

* Lots of reading (wouldn't be vacation without it) -- I especially enjoyed Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, a fictionalized account of an important (and scandalous!) chapter in the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, and The Maytrees by Annie Dillard, a beach book in the best sense of the term. I also liked Wine and War ("The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure") by Donald Kladstrup and Petie Kladstrup. My wine classes served me well.

* Day game at the A's -- sausages! beer! Need I say more? Plus, our home boys won in extra innings. Bad day for Huston Street, though.

* Road trip to Hog Island Oyster Company -- plus a lunch stop at the new Nick's Cove for lunch. Our server told us that they were still understaffed, which was evident during our meal, but the place has potential. (Two guys sat down at the table next to us, looking around at the hunting-and-fishing-lodge decor. "And I thought my restaurant was hard to clean," one of them said.)

* Four dozen oysters -- half extra small Hog Island, half kumamoto. I shucked half of them the evening we procured them, and we ate them along with some nice marcona almonds and cambazola and greek olives. The next day, I dredged them in cornmeal and fried them, and we had fried oyster sandwiches with chipotle mayo and beautiful slices of heirloom tomatoes, on soft rolls. I have to say, cooking school has really improved my frying skills. It's all about temperature, and proper draining.

* Babette's Feast -- took in an afternoon showing on my downstairs television. The look on her face when she finally sits down and sips her wine, after preparing the meal of her life: that's what it's all about.