Now that I'm on school break...

...I can make time to update this thing.

What with everything that's been going on in my life, I have neglected this blog, which is a shame. A lot has happened during my three months in culinary school.

I've completed my Food & Safety, Foundations I, and Foundations II classes, receiving an A in each, which is great. Not the highest grade in my class, which the competitive side of me hates. But, great grades do not make great food, right?

Right.

At times, I wish I'd been able to attend a 2-year culinary school. I don't know what a 2-year program is actually like; I know that there are several management classes that students have to take. I can only imagine that students have more time with actual culinary lessons; instead of spending a single day on, say, fish butchery, I wonder if students in a 2-year program get to spend a couple days learning and improving their skills. Perhaps this is a false assumption, but it is an assumption that stems from being enrolled in what is what one of the chefs has called an "accelerated curriculum".

In Le Cordon Bleu's accelerated curriculum, we learn a lot of things in each 28-day class. In Foundations II, my most recent class, we:

• made stocks, sauces, and soups
• reviewed and applied saute, braising, roasting, grilling, poaching, and even poele
• trussed a chicken
• butchered a chicken and fish
• learned egg, rice, potato, vegetable, and basic protein cookery
• learned about salads
• exercised a line cooking scenario

While, to the uninitiated, this may all seem like basic stuff you can learn at home, I can tell you that a) you're right, and b) you're wrong. With each lesson there are certain techniques employed that is meant to help the cook be more efficient, which you need to be in a professional kitchen. And, with each lesson and recipe, there are what my recent chef instructor called "competencies" - several smaller skills that you learn while making each recipe. Then there's the food science part of it. Salads, for example, may seem easy but within learning about different salads (and there are different classifications), we learned about temporary and permanent emulsions, proper blanching and shocking procedures (according to the chef), basic composition, seasoning (who seasons a salad? Everyone should!), and dressing... little things that most people wouldn't consider but, upon reflection, all make sense now that we've had those lessons.

And, of course, through it all, practicing our basic knife skills every day.

But the problem with the accelerated curriculum is we don't get to spend enough time in school practicing the larger lessons that we've learned. The smaller lessons get practiced almost every day, but the bigger ones are the more difficult ones to learn and become competent at. Of course, I could go out and, for example, buy a whole chicken and butcher it, but it's nice to be able to do it in school so that I can ask questions and get feedback. Thankfully, the logistics of the bigger lessons have been learned and at the very least I can practice at home so that the application side of it becomes more competent.

For our final, we had to make four plates consisting of protein, starch, vegetable, sauce, and garnish (the last item not being too important to our chef). We split the four plates into two days. The first day was Escalope of Veal and mushroom cream sauce with browned, glazed pearl onions, carrots, turnips, and wilted lettuce and a pan fried potato cake, and poached salmon with Beurre Blanc, rice pilaf, and sauteed tourneed zucchini.

During our practice day, the day before, my potato cake came out great. The chef told me not to change a thing. So what happened? During the final, my potato cake basically melted in the pan. Too much butter. What came out were bits of fried potato that looked like hashed browns. I was, obviously, pretty upset. But, the rest of the food was pretty decent and I got a good grade otherwise.

The second day of finals was grilled pork chop with a veal, dijon, gherkin juice sauce (it's good, really) and pureed potatoes (essentially mashed potatoes), and lamb stew with a side of polenta.

I finished my plates for the day in good time and was pretty proud of the way I'd plated everything: I ensured that my sauce didn't run into my potatoes and my stew (with veggies cooked separately - a modern practice) looked great. Then, as I was and one of the end sinks cleaning up, I heard commotion. I looked over and heard, "Whose is it?"

"It's Phillip's."

I came over and my suite mate told me that the student across from us had knocked my plated down from the shelf onto the counted. I looked and my pork chop was flipped off the plate, my sauce was all over, and my potatoes in a slump somewhere next to the chop.

Needless to say, I was pissed.

In the end, the associate chef told me to just show what I had; the chefs knew I'd done the work so all they needed was to taste the food. My first thought was, "Ew." My second thought was, "There's hardly any sauce left." My third thought was, "I'd better not get a bad evaluation or I'm going to flip out."

My pork chop was, essentially, perfectly cooked. Slightly pink in the middle (yes, PINK!) and juicy. The potatoes were good and the sauce, though he couldn't really judge consistency because there wasn't enough, was good; the associate chef, who evaluated my food) could tell all the components were there.

My polenta was good, and the chef really liked the color and flavor of my stew, which was, as he described, a dark, dirty sauce with intense flavor. Excellent. I could've cooked the turnips just a bit longer, but overall my dishes turned out well.

Before culinary school, I really liked cooking. Often, I loved it, especially when I was making something different and made the time to actually cook something substantial (you know, as opposed to eggs and frozen hashed browns for breakfast). Now, I love it more and more. I find that going to culinary school and cooking everyday has really made me love the act of cooking. I find myself wanting to cook at home, even though I spent all afternoon cooking (I can't say the same about the dishes, though).

I still don't know what I want to get out of culinary school other than the ability to get a job that I believe I will like. I don't know if I want to own a restaurant, become a private chef, get into catering, or what. This is one of the few times in my life where I have entered a field without knowing what I want from it in the end. I do know that I want to share my skills with my family and friends, at the very least, and I think my education will help my wife and me to eat better overall.

I'm looking forward to Foundations III, where the chef seems like he'll be a hardass (yes, I'm looking forward to that). Plus, I need to start work on my resume because the time to begin applying for an externship is coming up.

I'm Certainly In School Again

I find myself concerned with grades.

Geez.

It's been awhile since I've had to worry about grades. Since I graduated college 10 years ago, my experience with teaching drums has put a large emphasis on learning for the sake of learning and performing (oh, and competition, too) with no real concern for grades. With drumline and private drum lessons, grades are not a factor and lessons are given with almost pure education in mind. I entered culinary school with this same mind set until points started being given along with quizzes and practical application exams. Argh.

The other thing that reminds me I'm in school is an unfortunate reminder: instead of feeling like I'm attending a culinary "college", I feel like I'm in high school again. I've mentioned this before, but now I know I'm not the only one to be concerned with the students who are both distracting and detracting from the lessons. It's ridiculous, really, and we did mention it to Chef Bruno, who understands our concerns.

Chef Bruno is an extremely nice guy and is very open to his students' questions and comments. He's patient and seems to always have a good attitude about everything. Hopefully he'll be able to address the rudeness in the classroom as we finish up our last week.

My last week will be difficult. I'll be missing school Friday and the following Monday, which means I'll be losing points (which I hate), thus lowering my grade (still with the hate). It also means that I have two reports to turn in early, practical exams to make-up (if necessary; I'm still not sure if the schedule has changed), and a ServSafe test to take the day after the rest of my class takes theirs. This means a lot of studying on my pre-planned vacation. Thankfully, the studying is for a subject that I like.

Perfect!

A perfect score on my mayonnaise! Yes!

A perfect cherry on the top of our sundae, the run-through of our knife practical. Chef Sandra added 8 cuts to the original 4, having us try to do 12 cuts in 30 minutes. And yes, I finished! Most of my classmates did. I wanted to finish earlier, but unfortunately took longer to do a simple task: block a potato. I needed to get three cuts out of a russet potato but because it was longer than fatter, I needed to be choosey about which parts of the potato to use for which cuts.

The good thing, though, is that I blazed through the two tournées of red potato. The tourée is my worst cut, but following the tips given to me by Chef Bruno and the desire to finish all 12 cuts before time was up, I blazed through them and, thankfully, I think they turned out pretty nice. They were, in fact, my best tournées to date.

To change the subject, all week I've been wondering why certain students are attending this school. I'm not going to talk negatively about anyone, as everyone is pretty nice to each other and we all try to help each other out. But some students just don't seem to want to be there. They don't take notes, they talk during lectures, they dismiss rules regarding the uniform... it's a shame really.

Remove the fact that these folks are paying anywhere between $18K to $22K to attend and essentially what you have is a group of people who are learning how to cook professionally by choice. Everyone is choosing to be there yet some students are squandering their time by not making the most of the education they're choosing to get. Granted, the lessons thus far are basic; we're learning the fundamentals of food, food science, methodology, and knife skills. Some students have culinary work experience, some have attended culinary school before, and others just love food. But no matter the background or the amount of existing knowledge of a given student, there's always something to learn from these basic lessons.

I've been teaching drums for about 15 years now and I teach a lot of basics to a lot of students, basics I know like the back of my hand. Yet I still continue to learn basic things, whether it's how to improve my technique, another way of learning something, another way of looking at something, or another way to approach something. I've found similarities between drumline and what I know of the professional kitchen. I know there are also similarities between the craft of drumming - music in general, for that matter - and the craft of cooking. It stands to reason that there's always something fundamental to learn or to improve upon, no matter how much one knows or how technically proficient one is.

I have to wonder how long some of my classmates will last.

Late and Heart Attack on a Plate

I was late for the first time today. Not happy about that. However, Chef Sandra, who is Chef Bruno's teaching associate and is teaching the class while Chef Bruno is in Las Vegas for some training, gave me all my points. Thanks, Chef Sandra. Still, I did not like being late and I will need to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Today, Chef demonstrated how to clarify butter and also showed us that, if you heat it too much, you might as well make gi*, an even more clarified butter except more brown in color. From there, compound butter was made. Let's just say Chef Sandra likes strong, strong flavors.

Next: more mother sauces; yesterday, she showed us veloute and Bechamel, and secondary sauces you can make from them: Sauce Supreme and Mornay, respectively. Today, it was Hollandaise. Yum. She made what I would consider an "enhanced" Hollandaise by also adding an herb-infused white wine reduction. From there, she made a Bearnaise (add tarragon, according to Chef). Yes, we got to try them, over an English muffin and some Canadian bacon; with the Bearnaise, she made poached eggs. They were pretty strong but tasty.

Next, mayonaise! I've never had anyone serve me personally-made mayo before. I'm sure I've had in-house mayo at restaurants, but this was the first time someone made a batch of mayo and I tasted it fresh. Chef likes her salt! It was a strong mayo. We then tried a batch of pesto she made earlier (damn spicy with the garlic!) before she had us taste them combined: pesto mayo!

Tomorrow, knife skill practice and a test of equipment names.

Before school started, but after I'd already enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu, Sacramento, I got a (late) call from the Art Institute. One of the arguments the admission manager (as she called herself) told me was that they get a lot of transfer students from Le Cordon Bleu because the program wasn't what they were looking for, stating that LCB has a lot of book learning.

I can only imagine what they're learning over at the Art Institute if they skip the "book learning", because, so far, our books are helping us to learn some fundamental things like kitchen structure, the history of the modern kitchen, food safety and sanitation, basic procedures, etc. The Art Institute supposedly concentrates more on the artistic side of food, which is fine, but I'm pretty happy with my books. I feel like I'm getting an actual education instead of being taught how to play with my food.

Maybe that last statement isn't fair to say. After all, I didn't visit the Art Institute, and I am certainly not taking any classes there so I don't know what their actual curriculum is like other than whats described on their website. But, if the admissions manager told me there's less emphasis on book learning at the Art Institute, then I do have to wonder if the basics are being taught through pure lecture or maybe taught along the way.

I can safely say, however, that I like my books.

*update: 12-22-2010 - "gi" is actually spelled "ghee". I didn't find that out until later...

Week 2 into Week 3

As I go into Week 3 of culinary school, I noticed a couple of interesting things:

1. According to our ServSafe book, people will deliberately attempt to contaminate food, including (number one on the bulletpoint list), terrorists. The page dedicated to purposeful contamination was at once funny and paranoia-inducing.
2. Many culinary students are squeamish about "strange" foods, such as brains and cow hearts. I don't understand this squeamishness coming from any student studying food and the preparation thereof, but I apparently it happens.

I find that I'm pretty good at most of my cuts (Chef Bruno seems to think to), but I still need to get the hang of the tournee, the 7-sided (sometimes 5-sided) football-shaped cut. I will find out this week that I probably failed a conversion quiz because I didn't know about one of two equations I was supposed to use. Thankfully, I know about the formula now which is beneficial in the long term.

Oh, and we got our culinary kit, complete with KNIVES! Woo hoo!

We now have the Internet at the new home. Hopefully, as things get set up here at the house, I'll be able to blog about my experience at culinary school more often.

Culinary School, Week 1

...Day 4.

The plan was to write one of these everyday. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), starting culinary school at Sacramento's Le Cordon Bleu coincides with moving into a new home. Our phone and Internet gets turned off tomorrow, so this blog comes to you during the hours between Day 4 and 5 of my first week.

First up is Food Safety and Sanitation and Culinary Foundations I, both taught to us by Chef Bruno Caccia. We've been given 7 books (!) that will serve as our texts during our entire time at the school. The culinary/knife kit comes next week (supposedly Monday).

It's a little weird; Chef reads the SafeServ book to us. Yes, he also provides his own anecdotes and elaborations, but having been out of high school for 15 years, it's weird to be in a class where the teacher reads the text aloud. As we learn more about foodborne illnesses and prevention measures, I fear the class will do the opposite of what I'd hoped it would do; I'm obsessive-compulsive - a "germaphobe" - and I was hoping that learning about food safety and sanitation in the professional kitchen would help me to realize how far is too far when trying to be clean in the kitchen. So far, my paranoia feels heightened, like Spider-Sense except not as cool.

Day 2 put us in uniform, complete with checks (pants), chef's jacket, white neckerchief , hat, black socks, and slip-resistant shoes. No earrings, though, which meant taking mine out (and losing one). We have uniform inspection everyday, during which we line up in alphabetical order as the chef inspects our fingernails, our shaven (or unshaven) faces, and our uniforms.

Day 2 also saw us jumping right into learning classic knife cuts. In doing so, I became subjected to the confusing world of French culinary terminology. A diced potato, for instance, is called "macedoine", no matter the size. However, a "macedoine" for vegetables, however, is a larger dice, while a smaller dice is a "brunoise" and an even smaller dice is a "brunoisette".

Oh, but wait. There's more. Cutting a vegetable - say, a carrot - into a 1/2" x 1/2" x 2" stick is called a "batonnet". But if you do the same cut with a potato, it's called a "pont neuf". Sigh.

Today, Day 4, I cried in class. It was the onions. Imagine 32 students cutting shallots, garlic, and onions in fairly close proximity to each other. There was a lot of crying and sniffling. I'm surprised I didn't see any ex-newbies watching us through the hall window. It's funny to look out and see students who were probably newbies six weeks ago watching the new newbies as if we were zoo exhibits. I would've expected that today, with all the tears and snot pouring from our faces as the fumes from the onions took their toll, the ex-newbies would have looked in on us, the expressions on their faces saying, "I remember that. Ha. I bet we never looked that funny."

My class is a hodge-podge of people. Some are older, some younger. Some look like they're the pirates described in Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. Some look like they came from a ghetto. Others from nicer areas. Some have professional kitchen experience. Some, like me, just love food and want to learn. As I look at the faces of my classmates, I wonder how many will quit before it's over and how many will graduate. You just can't tell because the food industry is full of so many different kinds of people and you really can't stereotype what a foodie is supposed to look like or how they're supposed to behave.

Day 5 is up next, then the weekend. Hopefully the major part of the move to our new home goes well and I'll actually have some time to get some homework done.

Orientation at Le Cordon Bleu, Sacramento

On Saturday, 9-18-2010, I had my first official day at culinary school at Sacramento's Le Cordon Bleu. It turned out to be part self-help class, part orientation. I felt like I was five years old until the chefs got up to speak.

I assumed orientation would let incoming students know how to prepare for their first week of school, where to go, what to bring, what to wear, when we'd get our uniforms and equipment. And it was. But a lot of this basic information was preceded by talk of how to deal with your personal issues while attending school; of where to go for support; of encouraging everyone to help each other and to ask for help.

Don't get me wrong. This is all useful information for people that have never worked together in a kitchen before, for people who are changing careers, for people who haven't been to school in years. But delivery is a powerful thing. They way you say it has a lot to do with how one takes it.

And I hate it when people talk to me like I'm five.

I'm mature enough to handle my responsibilities as an adult and to handle myself in public in a manner that, hopefully, isn't embarrassing to me and to those around me. I think I can get that much right. But I'm also immature enough to like potty humor, to watch cartoons meant for kids, and to act like a five-year-old when I'm trying to cute and/or funny. But when administrative members of a school get up in front of a room filled mostly with adults, please don't talk to me as if you're trying to communicate to a five-year-old.

You can use humor. You can as rhetorical questions. It's all fine. I do the same thing when I teach drumlines. I talk about asking for help and helping their peers. I ask for group answers to my questions. I use humor to help get my messages across. But I talk to my drumline members, who are mostly high school students, like young adults. It's less patronizing, which leaves the listener more open to what I have to say.

Thankfully, when the chefs got up to speak, the communication got better. I feel pretty good about entering a classroom and having the chefs talk to my class. School starts in a week and I'm nervous and excited.

I'm looking forward to it.