Pret à manger.

Last week was sort of a shock because I had no idea how difficult it would be to make so much food in a couple of hours. Tuesday, I was on sandwiches being sold to whomever it is that eats at the community college. I just hoped they would sell.

What I did: fresh mozzarella, arugula, roasted red peppers & tapenade on foccacia.

What I wish I could have done, but didn't due to lack of time: Thinly-sliced, roasted leg of lamb, mayo, red leaf & black pepper chips (yes, inside the sammie) served warm on a multigrain. Also would not have worked because the stuff garde manger makes is kept in a refrigerated case.

Le sigh.

Well, life sure ain't fair, but I'll tell ya: I'm relieved I didn't choose to go with a meat-focused sandwich. I didn't have a day prior to do prep, & having to roast meat would have eaten up too much time. I sold all but two, so you know, things turned out OK for my meatless one. A fifth quarter student really dug my tapenade, but I didn't agree. I decided to leave out the anchovy so there was no mistaking that it was vegetarian, so it lacked that depth.

Wednesday I cringed about twelvety times a minute. I was on salads, which couldn't be more straightforward. First quarter does most of the prep, so it's a matter of assembly & making some dressing. Whoopty shit, you're thinking. Well, I was in a flop sweat because the amount I was told to make of the "Pacific Rim (job) Salad" wasn't enough. I attempted to bolster it with a lot of Chinese cabbage, but even then it was still as flat as my grandma's ass. Chef K read me the riot act, so I let him know that was the amount called for on the menu plan. He tells me I needed to put mixed greens under it. So basically a salad under that salad. I knew it wasn't worth pointing out that made no sense at all, so I just did it all over again with frilly pieces of lettuce underneath the cabbage underneath the actual salad. Hrm.

My Thursday/Friday sushi rotation went much better. Fridays are our small plates day, when all kinds of weirdos buy 55¢ tickets that are exchanged for, doy, small plates. It's a total steal because nothing is over few dollars. Thursday, I did passably well on the maki, but on Friday everything clicked into place. I maki stayed sealed when I cut it. It had the right amount of filling to rice. The ends were as good as the center cuts. Everything made it out on time. It looked pret-tay, pret-tay, pret-tay good. My inner Larry David, which is always quite pronounced, was intensely smug.

Re-cap of past weeks I've neglected this blog & then some.

The knife competency happened & it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. The problem was everyone (esp ME) was so nervous it felt like doing well was impossible. I'm not saying if I was in complete control of my nerves, I would have gotten 100%. I do know that when the person who was student chef that day attempted to push me around, & I let it rattle me. I can only speak from my own experience of being student chef of first quarter students in a culinary program of a community college, but somehow I didn't let this dizzying glory go to far to my head.

(I will admit I really wanted to slap a bitch when it was my turn to oversee our kitchen. She's the type that's all talk & no effort. She rolled her eyes at me when I told her to pick up the pace as she took thirty minutes to peel a couple pounds of carrots. Could you imagine someone rolling their eyes at moi? Needless to say, I repeatedly ignore her Facebook requests for friendship, & she has recently dropped out of the program. Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!)

Now it's the second quarter, & I feel a lot less intimidated by the running around & mental organization & giant mixers. In fact, using the equipment is the easy part because there's only one right way to do it. With food, there are so many variables & details that rely on the cook's skills & judgment, doing it one way every time will get you into trouble.

In case I was under the impression that I may have some taste & ability, I have the second quarter chef instructor to put me in my place. He's the kind of person that can tell when you have a question, & you can tell he's put out by having to be the one to answer it. He's an old Japanese man with a great sense of humor & humanity...which is what makes his criticisms so much more harsh. He shares them with an immense amount of displeasure, & you're left feeling horrified that the guy who is nearly a cartoon character he's so buoyant is bent out of shape by your dumb question about how much bread to order. Obviously he just wants to inoculate us against the sort of treatment we should expect to receive, rise above it & all that, but that's easily forgotten when he gives you that look of intense irritation.

Tomorrow is actually my first time back in the kitchen. The first week was just going over a zillion syllabuses, & for me, getting used to being upright in the morning. Last week, I had to wait tables in one of the school's cafés. Having done this for a living, I think it's stupid there's no way to opt out of this. I don't have to have to take the measurements class because of my math credits. Can't I bring in a list of references & not pay tuition for it? It's just silly to have to dress like I work at The Keg & "learn" to remember to bring peoples' food to them. If you can't already do that, you might just be lacking common sense.

This week, my group & I are on garde manger, responsible for ready-to-eat items. I've read the recipes, listed the equipment I need to pull, what my first quarter gopher can take care of. I've also written in my tiny steno pad a bunch of salad dressing ideas I can do in my sleep so that I'm not stumped about it when I'm balls-to-the-wall busy. Or to hand off to whatever poor first quarter is stuck with me. Successful quantity cookery = mental (preparedness + agility) + speed.

About that Turkey breast...

...I'm stealing an idea from Alex Guarnaschelli & covering it with cheesecloth dipped in melted butter. OK, I'm set then!

"'Cause it's all about control..."

Should I really be feeling as triumphant as I am for scoring what I did on the MarthaStewart.com "Which Thanksgiving Side Dish Are You?" quizzle. A score only 5.99% of those who took it received, beeteedubs:

You are undoubtedly
Savory Sweet-Potato Souffles.

You aim to impress with everything you do. You appreciate elegance and showmanship. You've been planning your Thanksgiving feast for weeks now. This holiday season, there'll be no canned soup in your kitchen.

Oh, I've been planning. This Thxgv'g is a special one because Paul & I will soon be in a new place that will accommodate the fucking amazing dining table & chairs making their way to us now. I ordered my organic Diestel turkey a week ago not even knowing where we'd end up because I knew this year was going to be the year. What year?

THE YEAR I'M THE BOSS OF EVERY THXGV'G COMESTIBLE. In my home, anyway.

First things first: do I brine the bird or not? Well, I was going to, until Harold McGee disabused me of this plan. Like I'm going to let watery gravy happen in my kitchen! I'm not bummed about the breast getting dry because I eat that 1 part meat to one part canberry sauce. Oh, that's no typo. I only like Ocean Spray cranberry sauce WITHOUT chunks. It's so delicious, I can eat it with a spoon. I also love the "fffwop!" sound that happens when it comes out of the can in one semi-solid, indented mass. LOVE.

Next is gravy. I'm making stock for it as soon as I can unpack my big pot. & just like my Grandma Nadine, I'm augmenting this viscous delight with the neck meat & giblets. Meat with a side of meat, y'all.

Dressing. Yes, 'dressing', not 'stuffing', which is what I would call it if I was to shove it up my bird's cunt. But I'm not. Ciabatta, mirepoix, some of that affore-mentioned stock & pancetta. OK, I ganked this from Giada de Laurentiis. So what? I would add the chestnuts, but Paul does not like them (weirdo! I think the soft texture & nutty flavor is perfect). Just because I'm the boss of this endeavor doesn't mean I can't be benevolent.

The green beans I'll cook with combination steam/sauté. Sautéing 100% makes the beans wrinkly, & 100% steaming is just...so sad. I plan to dress them with minced shallots, mustard, & butter they will cook with. I cannot abide by the horrific gut-bomb that is green bean casserole with the canned onion thingies. Unless if maybe we're talking bechamel instead of cream of mushroom soup. That I can't accommodate on my stove top room-wise.

This next component is an homage of sorts to a good friend of mine who I've spent Thxgv'g with the last four times. Waldorf Salad, with spicy roasted walnuts. What's not to like? Thin slices of tart Granny Smith apples, sweet & earthy carrot, spicy walnuts, creamy dressing. If I was one of those people who spent more time & energy on salads, I would make this at least once a week.

Lastly, in a nod to Paul's birth place, he will be making Yorkshire puddings. I would say we're having these in lieu of dinner rolls, but dinner rolls are the dog's breakfast compared to Yorkshire puddings. A little turkey drippings in the muffin tin, batter, in the oven, & out comes the most poofy, soft & satisfying starch I've ever stuck in me gob.

Whoa! I said 'lastly', but I forgot about the cheesecake. No pumpkin pie because apparently I'm married to a total hater. W'evs! I like cheesecake more anyway.

I have a mental list of everything I can prepare in advance to avoid collapsing under the weight of my own expectations on the kitchen floor. Wine should help, though.

Stained & drained.

Staying up to do laundry, yeah yeah! (I was singing that more than saying that.) What an ass-pain white is. They (as in the faculty) have really put the screws to us about our uniforms being spotless & pressed. Sometimes, I iron in the morning before class because the night before I was too lazy to bother. As I'm pressing half-awake, occasionally still drunky, I think I'm seeing stains, or that my coat isn't really white & I won't notice until I get to school. Ugh! Besides inducing paranoia, the uniforms are messing with some of us.

I'm not afraid to admit I'm still not used to mine. The pants are of this heinous-anus small b&w check fabric that hasn't softened despite repeated washings. The cut is ridic; exaggerated hips, & the legs are far too short. If only I could transfer the superfluous hip fabric to my ankles. The coat is OK, though for a small, the trunk is very baggy on me. The hat...oh, the hat. It's a white skull cap that threatens to pop off my head from my hair being shoved up in it. The thing leaves a mark on my forehead when I'm finally able to take it off. Makes my small head look even tinier, which contrasts the hip-y pants & apron on top of them. Top everything off with a pair of skid-resistant clogs, & my friends, you've got yourselves the most sexless outfit you've ever done seen.

I get that "it's not supposed to matter," & ultimately, it doesn't matter that we look silly. It's fairly clear that the men-folk couldn't care less... Of course, the uniform was made for men, so why should they? Some of them look handsome in it, but most just look well-suited.

I, on the other hand, feel like it enhances everything I try to play down. I have my own system of doing this in my "street wear": Got a small head? Have lots of big hair. Hips kinda wider than your bust? Wear tight pants. Even though I'm not even thinking about what I look like when I have to meet deadlines prepping & cooking food, when I catch a glimpse of myself in uniform, I recoil internally. I know some of the other women feel the same. It's nothing worth dwelling on, but it's a reminder that stings & serves a purpose. It's not about sexy (or more to the point, if anyone can tell if we're hot underneath the layers of fug), but that we have an opportunity to be obscured enough physically for everything else to matter so much more.

God help ya if you're a butterface.

Now I promise never to use "butterface" ever, ever again.

You better WORK.

So my day as group leader was the most fun I've had at school yet. We finished our prep early, & we did well. (So where were our props, Chef Instructor G? I mean, let a person know sometimes.) I actually wish we spent more time doing prep because I'd actually like to get to the point that I'm not questioning my technique. I mean, that's primarily why I chose to go to school instead of working from the bottom up in some grimy kitchen. The lectures are just so completely dull & ramble-y I wish I could peace-out of them without failing. I mean, tell us something we can't learn on Wikipedia!

I also find myself biting my tongue a lot during lectures so that I don't sound like some shit-heel know-it-all. Por ejemplo, he spoke about white pepper & wine, but didn't even mention rotundone, a chemical responsible for the fact that I think white pepper smells of cat feces. I learned that by subscribing to the Dining & Wine section of the NYT on my Google Reader, homies.

No matter. The humbling thing about devoting yourself to learning about food is that if you lived in every moment of humanity's doomed existence, you still wouldn't have learned a tenth of it. As many times as I hear, "It's all been done before," I can't help but think, "Good thing most of us don't know about it."

Aside à propos of nothing: Everytime he demonstrates with his hands the difference between the sides of a sauteuse & sautoir, he reminds me of RuPaul. "Sauteuse, sautoir," might as well be "Sashay, sauté!"

Picture yourself as a weed whacker...

You guys ever hear the phrase "in the weeds"? It's an oft-used phrase in kitchens to describe the lonely, anxious state one finds his/herself in as they struggle to complete tasks they are not doing fast &/or good enough.

It was also how Chef Instructor G described my group today.

I will preface this with an admission of guilt: I did not have my mise en place list prepared for tomorrow, when I'm group leader. Pulling the products from the walk-in was easy, but quickly & accurately forecasting every piece of equipment nearly was ridiculous. I had to make an extra trip to the stockroom (not very economical with the movements, are we?). When I went to the second quarter chef instructor for my protein, I was thrown a curve ball. The menu's protein was changed, so I had to exchange equipment & products, not to mention dig like mole to find enough pork tenderloin. THIS IS EXACTLY WHY PREPARATION IS KEY. Had I come prepared, the protein switcharoo wouldn't have been as much of a set back.

This evening, as I prepared my plan of action for the group tomorrow, I realized I hadn't forgotten to pull anything. That means I won't start my day with what Kathy Griffin refers to as "pre-diarrhea", which for someone like me, could turn to actual diarrhea that I won't have time to deal with!

Tomorrow will be an easier going day, or so I hope.