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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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Well, I just finished my last cooking lab at the school. I still have 2 academic classes, "rotation (rotating through the various positions at the school's two restaurants)," and an externship to go. I also have to take a written exam and a practical (cooking) exam to graduate.
I haven't been around much over the last two weeks because of school projects and finals. But I did manage to get an A in my history class and an A- in International Cuisine. Our final exam in International was a bit different than other labs. Usually we are given a menu of items to prepare, but not this time. We were given ingredients and could prepare anything we wanted (1 soup, 1 appetizer, 1 entree). The only requirements were we had to use each of the ingrendients we were given. We were free to use anything else in the lab.
I wasn't given anything exotic (pork loin, salmon fillet, eggplant, russet potato, endive) and was able to keep things simple. I made wonton soup using the pork in the wontons and julienne of endive in the soup. My appetizer was roesti potatoes (like hash browns) with dried fruit compote and sour cream. The entree was blackened salmon with red pepper sauce and beurre blanc, grilled eggplant, and sweet potato gaufrettes.
My instructor really liked the spicy broth of my soup, but thought the wontons were a little bland in comparison. My roesti was perfectly executed, but too simple. And the entree was very good, but more color was needed on the plate and it was a couple minutes late (We were given a presentation time for the soup and had to present each successive dish exactly 15 minutes later).
Overall I thought it was the best cooking performance on a final exam that I had for any of my classes. The plate color of the entree was more due to the lack of equipment in the kitchen than to my design. There weren't enough plates for everyone to use so I had to choose between using a soup plate or a reddish dinner plate to present my entree. I chose the reddish plate and it washed out the color of my salmon and red pepper sauce. But I thought that would be better than trying to fit an entire entree into a bowl. The instructor seemed to think otherwise. It cost me a couple of points on my final exam grade which was a 92.75 but wouldn't have made a difference in my final grade for the class so it was inconsequential.
Anyhow, working in the Bistro at school should be fun. That's what I get to do starting on Monday and I take a class in nutrition. I have to start earlier in the day, but it means I'll get home earlier in the evening so it's a good thing.
Think good thoughts,
e
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Hehee, just kidding! 
It's wonderful to see you writing about cooking again, you know I luv that. Is it really that common in English to use so much French when talking about food, or is it just mostly in the restaurant business/fancy cuisine in general? I mean, instead of "beurre blanc", I guess "clear melted butter" or such would be a suitable substitute, right?
Wonderful also that you're doing so well!  It's amazing how many different things can be done with food, which basically is just stuff we eat in order to not die, hehe! I don't think I would be able to compose a menu for an entire meal, I could maybe think up a fairly simple dish perhaps, but not really any more than that. It must be hard, especially if you're given a set of ingredients and told to make a dinner out of 'em.
I'm just happy I can make such lovely pancakes, hehe, but I haven't made any in over two and a half years, becauae I try to be more conscious of what I eat, LOL...
Anyway, It's HORRIBLE with that hurricane in Florida! I heard it passed over a whole bunch of islands too, but of course the news didn't bother to mention what damage was caused there. Consider what it did to the US, it must have been pretty bad. Hope smith's OK.
Okies, take care now n stuff! Hope to hear from you soon, or at the very latest after you graduate, granddaddy e!
*big hugs*
-L
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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after reading what you wrote..... cooking sounds very exciting. I can sense your passion for cooking.
Damn i just got hungry!!!!
You don't love someone because they are beautiful, they are beautiful because you love them.
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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The hurricane, that is. I sure hope smith and our other Floridians are ok too. From the looks of it, we might not hear from them for a while. I haven't seen much about the other areas hit by the storm either.
It really isn't too common for a lot of French terms to be used in American cookery, but some have found their way across the pond. I think it is much more common at my school because it is Le Cordon Bleau.
Beurre blanc is much more than just melted butter. It is a white wine and butter sauce that muct be emulsified because the fat of the butter and the water of the wine don't mix. Heat and motion are critical. It is a bit tricky, but not overly difficult. The biggest problem is making certain it doesn't get too hot or too cold. That causes the fat to seperate from the liquid "breaking" the sauce. The texture then becomes poor and it will appear to have little oil spots floating in the sauce so it won't look good either.
The hardest part of the exam wasn't coming up with ideas on what to make out of the ingredients, it was trying to come up with the ingredients to add to what they gave me so I could make anything at all. I went through at least a half dozen ideas before finding items in the lab that would allow me to make something interesting. Being the end of the term, the kitchen wasn't very well stocked.
Tonight's dinner at home was ok. I made roast beef using a cinnamon, onion, and garlic spice rub with a beurre rouge (red wine and butter sauce), sauteed mushrooms and roasted red potatoes with swiss cheese.
Think good thoughts,
e
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I read in the news over a dozen killed, that's BAD... Typically, I don't think most of us think of weather as something particulary dangerous, but when mother nature's in a foul mood we're all at risk. In Bangladesh about half the country got flooded, maybe still is. We'll probably never get to know how many died from that! Jeez, that's horrible when one thinks about it. Of course, we humans are pretty good at causing great calamities ourselves as well, just the other day there was a massacre on civilians in a UN refugee camp, what drives people to commit such atrocities? I can't understand it.
It feels like my brain crashes with a division by zero error when trying to comprehend what those people were thinking while murdering innocent women and children. Obviously they must have had some kind of reason for it, but damned if I'll know what it would be. This world is crazy. Sometimes I'd prefer to live in solitude on the moon just to get away from all the lunatics down here!
...Hm. Slight change in direction of your thread perhaps. Sorry about that, I get carried away sometimes. Your roast dinner sounds lovely by the way, but SWISS cheese? I bet in Switzerland there's no cheese with that name!  If I may be a bit conceited and gloating in a smug, old-world Eurocrat kind of way , it would seem there are two kinds of cheese in the US: swiss, and american. Over here, they all have actual names. I know I'm exaggerating, but it's just sort of funny that swiss cheese is a cheese which major characteristic is it's full of little holes.
*hug!*
-L
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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I know you like your threads to remain "on topic" but I don't mind getting sidetracked if the discussion is worthwhile. While I may start a thread with a particular topic in mind, if it results in a good discussion I don't mind if we stray.
People do some very strange and awful things. I think it's remnants from when we had to fight just to survive. Instincts that are no longer necessary and have become perverted because the person can't find more appropriate ways to allow those instincts to express themselves. We may be "civilized" but we are still animals.
"Swiss" cheese is sort of a catchall for cheese with holes. The cheese I used does have a real name, I just couldn't remember what it was (I bought three kinds yesterday) and was too lazy to walk to the fridge and look. Funny you should mention the two kinds of cheese here in the US. When I was a kid I thought I hated cheese, except for mozzarella (I love pizza). It turns out that what I really didn't like was American cheese. I still don't. A few years ago my mother commented on how she couldn't believe I was eating cheese because she remembered my aversion to it. My response was that there was only two kinds of cheese in our house when I was a kid; mozzarella (on pizzas) and American. Once I got to college I discovered the wonderful world of cheeses and have yet to meet a cheese I haven't liked though I did take a bit of time to get used to the "bleau" cheeses.
Think good thoughts,
e
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Go five days without a shower and you'll know exactly what I mean... We think we're so sophisticated, the pinnacle of creation, blah-blah. Pinnacle of conceit is more like it.
Btw, I found out a good use for sports on TV. As I might have said, sports in general and on TV in particular is amongst the most boring a person can watch. I once spent a whole ice hockey game in the couch of a friend in school while his parents were working (it was some time during first to fourth grade, I can't quite remember when exactly), and it was the boringest moment of my life. Damn, I should have put my hand on his leg or something instead, he was pretty cute.
Anyway, like I said, I found a good use for the olympics which seem to pollute damn near every TV channel right now. I keep it on at low volume to prevent me from getting TOO immersed into the extremely immersive, frightening world of Doom 3... That is a damn SCAARY game, jeez.
And on the topic of cheese, I have a hard time with blue cheese myself when eaten as is on bread or crackers, but it is an excellent spice in food. Even worse is French goat cheese (chevre), that is YUK.  Absolutely god-awful stuff. It looks putrid, and it has the consistency of something putrid too, and the smell, while not putrid, isn't exactly attractive to my olfactory organ. Greek goat cheese however (feta) is nummylicious! It's crumbly yet soft and creamy, and quite salty. The flavor takes a little bit to get used to, but then it's a favorite for life.
Greek salad with sun-ripened beef tomatoes, lettuce, red onion rings, olives and cubes of feta cheese eaten at some small taverna near the ocean along with some of that yummy Greek crunchy-soft bread and a tall glass of Coca Cola... Follow that up with some souvlaki with fries, OMG! That is HEAVEN.
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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my personal favorite cheeses:
Greenbank farms here in the NW makes a white cheddar that is awesome.
Goat cheese. I made a sauce from it a while ago and served it over grilled salmon marinated in a sesame oil based concoction and cooked over mesquite. yummers!
Had a grilled cheese sandwich years ago made with a double Gloucester--dear God!
Fontana on pizza.
Gotsa love cheese!
"I promise not to try not to fuck with your mind/ I promise not to mind if you go your way and i go mine/promise not to lie if i'm looking you right in your eye/promise not to try not to let you down."
--Eve6
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Cooking classes are over 
Yeah, blame the PLATE why doncha! 
Egads, that was one mean mother of a storm. 
