Quick post.

Just a quick update since it's 1 am and I have a large amount of Math and English to be working on...

To all my readers..you know, all...what, 3 of you? Perhaps you noticed I changed the name of my blog. Culinary Journeys of a Midwestern Foodie just didn't quite mesh right. I'm not a true midwestern(I'm a damn nomad), I don't know that I'm necessarily a foodie per say...I'm not a food snob. I'm not dining out, critiquing a different fine dining restaurant every night of my life,...though I might on occasion. I want to call this blog a food blog, but at the same time I don't, because some entries aren't solely focused on food(although most will involve food in some way). Some are merely mind vomit that has ended up in cyber space. Really, it's a record of my passions. I have many. Cooking, writing, photography, the combination of the 3, family, friends, art(especially when presented on a plate), music. So, right now, I'm just doing what I love. I know it lacks structure. It's unorganized. Sometimes it doesn't make much sense. But that's my life.
Read at your own will.

Other than that, I am working on a couple more entries that are soon to come(maybe in the next week, we'll see how my schedule works out). One about my consommé that I made in Soup/Sauces this past Tuesday(that had the flavor profile comparative to watery chicken juice), and the other I throw in some good ol' nostalgia.

Tonight I had food styling...got a few good shots of the drinks we made. I'm happy to share. It was a fun time til the weather turned nasty.

Le Fond

The new quarter has started. I’m 2 weeks in but still don’t feel like I’m in it full swing. For some reason I’ve been dealing with a lack of motivation. I’ll blame it on the depression I’m feeling from the holidays. (Bahumbug). I’m taking Soup and Sauce Cookery, Oral and Written Reports, Culinary Math, and Food Styling. 14 credits, 18 classroom hours. I’m sure I can narrow my two favorite classes down to Soup/Sauce and Food Styling. To me, doing any form of Math is equivalent to gauging my eyes out with a ball point pen. Oral and Written Reports is all research and presentation, but at least it’s geared toward something I have an interest in.

My first night of Soup and Sauce didn’t contain near the amount of excitement that my first foundation’s class did. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because everything was so new and there was a lot of nervousness. The first lesson in foundations was on egg cookery. I already wrote about it once, but how excited can one be about an egg? I ask this because I know all of you are thinking it. Really, though, an egg is very exciting. In fact, in the culinary world, it is thought about with almost a religious-like devotion. From the beauty of its design, to its many functions from binding to leavening to coloring, to its ability to be delicious solely on its own (poached, shirred, over easy, sunny-side up, boiled, scrambled) to be paired with other things and become even more heavenly. The egg even sauces itself. And makes other sauces when combined with cream and butter and whisked into oblivion (hollandaise). I assume you’ve gotten my point by now. Onto Soup and Sauces.
We learned THE, if not one of THE, most important elements to the foundation of a great culinary education.

Making a great stock.

Why must a stock be great, you ask? Because it is the base to everything else in a kitchen. Great stock gives the potential for a great end result. If you start with something less than great, as with anything in life, generally its potential decreases from there on. There is reason for the French’s reference to stock as “le fond” meaning “the foundation.
The steps to creating a great stock are fairly simple: low heat and great, fresh ingredients. There are 5 types of stocks: chicken, beef, fish, vegetable, and the most versatile of all: veal. From Michael Ruhlman’s The Elements of Cooking: “ Stocks are a distillation of flavor, an extraction by water of the ingredients. If those ingredients are old, or if they are pale and weak, those qualities will be reflected in the quality of your stock. Ask yourself: Do these ingredients look good, would they be tasty if I were to cook and eat them as they are? If so, they are suitable for stock."

Onto heat. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of low heat. The stock must NEVER boil. In fact, it should almost not even simmer. Let’s say just barely simmering. The temperature should range from 170-180 degrees, but never more than that. When a stock boils, the bubbles stir up the impurities and fat resulting in a cloudy looking and tasting liquid. Cooking too high will also overcook the vegetable causing them to soak up your precious liquid.
You should begin by cooking the bones first to enrich the flavor. You would blanche them for a white sauce or roast them for a brown. Follow up by pouring cold water over the bones and allow the temperature to rise gradually. Once reaching ideal temperature, strain for impurities.
Cooking times for stock will vary. 1-4 hours for chicken, 4-6 for beef, an hour for vegetable, less than an hour for fish, and 8-12 for veal. Once reaching doneness, the liquid should be passed through a strainer or chinois, then through cheesecloth to remove as many particles as possible. After the stock has cooled, the fat should rise to the top to be removed easily. Once reaching room temperature, you can transfer it to the fridge. The stock can be used for up to 4 days in the fridge and frozen for later uses.

I don’t know if anyone reading this was hoping to get a lesson in making stock, but it couldn’t hurt. In my opinion, it makes the world a better place.

Classic Veal Stock

7 pounds veal or beef bones, cut into 2 or 3-inch pieces
1 can best quality tomato paste
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped carrot
2 cups chopped onion
1 cup red wine or water, for deglazing
Small handful peppercorn
4 bay leaves
3 sprigs thyme
Cold water

Preheat oven to 425 degrees, F.

Spread bones in a roasting pan and roast for about 30 minutes, turning once. Remove from the oven, and paint a thin layer of tomato paste over the bones. Put the vegetables on top of the bones, and roast an additional 15-20 minutes, until the vegetables begin to caramelize.

Remove the bones and vegetables to a stock pot. Deglaze the roasting pan with wine or water, and pour this into the stock pot. Add peppercorns, bay leaves and thyme. Cover the bones with cold water.

Over medium heat, slowly bring the bones up to a very gentle simmer. Don’t let the stock boil. Adjust the temperature to maintain a gentle bubbling. Every thirty minutes or so, skim off any foam that rises to the top of the pot.

Let the stock simmer gently for at least four hours. If you have the time, it can simmer for up to 12 hours. Add a little more water and lower the heat if you are getting too much evaporation.

When the stock is done, remove the bones and discard. Strain through a very fine mesh strainer or through a colander lined with three or four layers of cheesecloth. Chill quickly, then refrigerate. Skim off the fat from that has solidified on top, and discard.

So, you want to hear about Tennessee?

Going back “home” as people like to say…it’s a weird thing for me. I’m not quite sure where my home is. I didn’t grow up in one place with one solidified family. I’m not sad about that fact….I’ve just begun to think about it from an objective perspective since I’ve gotten older.
I’ve been “homesick” few times in my life. Do you know the feeling I’m talking about? Where things just don’t feel quite right in your gut and nothing you do can make it better. Nothing. Unless that something is to pack your bags and head right back where you came from. For me, I would get homesick for certain smells. They say that smell is the strongest sense when it comes to memory. I would go on month long road trips with my father in the summer(he was a truck driver), and I always handled it well. Never really got homesick. But once arriving home, walking through the door of my mother’s house, a comfort would surround me. At that time in my life, I would usually come home to some kind of a soup on the stove. Onion, garlic, and other various aromatics sprinkling the air. (As my Aunt Terry would say, “Your mother, I swear that woman could make a soup outta rocks!!”) She’d greet me with a hug. She usually smelled of a combination of Estee Lauder’s White Linen, Virginia Slims, and hard farm work.
My father on the other hand, I never really got “ homesick” for. He wasn’t around much when I was younger. I would see him for a bit probably on average about every 3 months. He would send cards and call often and every meeting was a joyous occasion. It had to be. There were so few, I certainly would hope they wouldn’t be bad ones. I remember mom dressing me up in my best dresses. There were bows in my hair, and bells and lace on my socks. My shoes shined. I would pace back and forth struggling to contain my excitement, driving my mother up a wall, making her regret even telling me he was coming. I’d sit at the French doors of the back porch. Nose and hands stuck to the glass, condensation from my breath fogging the rectangular windows. And then I’d spot him. He was rather hard to miss, really. A great big green Peterbuilt truck parked across the street at the Shell Station. And I had the same reaction every single time. I’d leap to my feet, wrench open the front door, and run as fast as my 3,4,5,6,7,8 year old legs could transport me. I was pelting towards him while he walked his typical carefree gait. A 6 foot 2 inch broad shouldered man wearing a Kansas Jayhawks cap and a big smile, with arms wide open. He smelled just like his cards that came in the mail. Clean, aftershave, coffee grounds.
Now as a grown woman (and it’s still hard for me to write that….me? a woman?), I still remember those smells and how they made me feel. They can transport me back to a world where my biggest worry and concern was where my favorite stuffed dog, Peanut, had disappeared to. When going back to Tennessee in November, I was slapped in the face with those smells. And let me tell you, it had been a LONG time. It had gradually started to sink in on the 14 hour drive down. The grassy plains rescinded into rolling hills, rolling his transformed into highways carved through mountains. The air became heavy, damp, and cold. It was fall on the edge of winter in the South.
My car hugged the outrageously curvy roads with much success surprisingly, and they seemed to grow more twisted the closer I got to my mother’s house. Finally I pulled in at the very top of the ½ mile long driveway. A rusted gate overgrown with grass was pulled off to the side. A large portion of open pasture was interrupted about halfway down by an elegant red barn on the left, and another random outbuilding on the right. The driveway was washed out like a riverbed and had a steep slope leading to what used to be remnants of a thriving garden on the right, Up the hill a little ways was the log house. What used to be considered my “home”. A structure built from a family’s 2 log cabins from over 200 years ago, torn down to make 1 big, fairly modern one. It sat there staring at me, almost completely choked in green ivy. Stoic, it reminded me of something beautiful in its sadness, a picture out of “The Secret Garden”.
I could go on and on and paint you picture by picture with words and descriptions of smells and sights, but none of it would encompass the feeling I felt when stepping over the threshold of the back door into my mother’s kitchen and similarly a couple more steps into her arms. Years later, the same smells remained. The house and land had undergone some major wear and tear, but it was all still the same. Unfortunately, though the house seemed to still hold its noble ground, my poor mother seemed quite simply, exactly what she was. Older. More tired. More sadness. More pain. I won’t go into it any more than that. Describing the house is much easier to do.
One of my fondest memories of the trip was cooking dinner for her, my brother, and his wife. We had just had a lab on braising the day before I executed the drive so, I was determined to practice my learned skills. I have to say, braising might be my favorite of all the cooking methods. It’s humble. It doesn’t ask for much more than a little love and a lot of time. You don’t have to be pretentious and buy the most expensive piece of meat off the cow. Tough, inexpensive cuts from the shoulder, breast or lower chest, or hind sections. These sections of the cow work much harder than the middle sections and are therefore much more exercised with stronger connective tissue. By cooking them slow and low in a flavorful liquid, the muscles and fibers are tenderized resulting in an exquisitely elegant piece of meat.
The braising liquid is very important. Veal stock is ideal. I realize this is difficult to come by in some cases…if you don’t have the bones or time to make you own, you might be able to purchase it at your local butcher’s shop. Otherwise, try to make a beef stock…but if you’re unable to do that, I suppose the only option is to buy commercial beef stock off the shelf of a grocery store. If you do this however, be expectant that the great potential of your end result will be stifled. The 2nd important liquid is a good red wine, preferably a burgundy. Once again, better the wine, better the end result. It’s a personal choice.
Here is the recipe from my class Copyrights Chef Timothy O’Donnell:
RIBS:
6 pounds beef short ribs, cut 2" thick,
trimmed to include one bone each
to taste salt
to taste pepper
3 each onions, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 each leeks, white and pale green
parts only, roughly chopped
1 each carrot, peeled and roughly
chopped
2 each plum tomatoes, roughly
chopped
6 cloves garlic, smashed
6 sprigs thyme
8 sprigs parsley
3 each bay leaves
1 ½ cups red wine
3 cups veal stock, hot

GREMOLATA:
¼ cups parsley, chopped
½ each lemon, zested and minced
1 clove garlic minced

1. Season ribs generously with salt
and pepper and refrigerate 4 to 6
hours, or overnight.
2. Arrange ribs bone-side down in
roasting pan and roast at 475
degrees until lightly browned, about
20 minutes. Meanwhile, saute onions
in olive oil in large skillet over medium
heat until lightly colored, 6 to 7
minutes. Add leeks and carrot and
cook until slightly softened, 3 to 4
minutes. Add tomatoes, garlic, thyme,
parsley and bay leaves and saute 2
minutes more.
3. Spread vegetables in roasting pan
large enough to hold ribs.
Arrange ribs on top of vegetables,
bone-side up. Add wine and enough
hot stock to barely cover ribs. Cover
pan tightly with foil and place in oven.
When braise begins to simmer, after
about 20 minutes, loosen foil and
reduce heat to 350 degrees.
4. Begin to test for doneness after 1
1/2 hours. A skewer or paring
knife inserted into meat should
encounter no resistance, and meat
should be nearly falling from bone.
When they are tender, uncover ribs and
turn them again so that bone side is
down. Pour off and reserve braising
juices. Raise heat to 450 degrees and
return ribs to oven for a final
browning.
5. When they are beautifully glazed,
after about 10 minutes, remove
from oven. Strain braising liquid into
bowl, pressing down on solids to
extract juices. Allow liquid to settle,
then spoon out grease. Pour liquid
back over ribs and reheat if serving
immediately, or cool, refrigerate and
serve next day with Gremolata.
6. Gremolata: Just before serving,
mix parsley, zest and garlic and
scatter over short ribs. (These
ingredients should be prepared at the
last minute.)

I served these with vichy carrots, celery root puree, and steamed asparagus.

We made it!

Well, my first official quarter of culinary school has now came to pass. Funnily enough even with my severe lack of grace, I made it out with all appendages still intact, not even partially severed. I also came out of that class with a bit of newfound confidence and respect for myself-both attributes I've been trying to attain over the past 20 years of my existance.

I have an incredibly LONG way to go, but that class will forever be engrained in my memory. It was me, the struggling protagonist embarking on her new frontier, fearful of failure but not willing to give up, grasping for success. And her fate was dependent on the flip of an egg.

Boy,I was sure was scared. I think I thought Chef hated my innards for a good 3 weeks(which is a long time for a girl constantly seeking everyone else's approval). After those 3 weeks however, I started to fall into a kind of groove. Maybe a tinge of non-chalance too but not in a bad "I don't give a damn" way. More like a "if you mess up this one time, the world might possibly STILL remain on its axis and continue with its rotation" type of way.
I remember the tip of my nose practically glued to a recipe card for the entire duration of the first couple classes. That was definitely hindering me. They were all basic concepts we were learning...but I became so wrapped up in a silly recipe card, i couldn't really deliver the way I should have. I began to memorize the recipes before class...a major step in my mise en place for the day. I started eye-balling measurements, started hustling, the wheels in my brain finally started to turn. And thus, the obsession began.

I now think about preparing food constantly. ICA has evoked some kind of crazy passion in me that I had never been aware of before. Sure, I enjoyed cooking....otherwise, I never would have entered this program. BUt this has really introduced a lifestyle change. I not only want to cook and prepare the food, I want to know the process of hunting and gathering it, where it came from, what is its history?
I no longer drive under golden arches or anywhere near a drive through not because I'm a food snob, but because I now know that the majority of the beef produced in the US has been scaled to fit McDonald's standards....not because it's impossible to have better meat but because they are the biggest buyer. And it offends me. It also makes me sad to think that an animal's life like a chicken or a cow's was taken just so it could be some thoughtless soggy disaster that Americans cram into their mouths without even giving a second thought. That a chicken can live a horrible life just to die so that it can be turned into pureed, breaded meat. Terrible.

I've grown outrageously aware of what I put into my mouth...and it's sad to me that you can't even trust a tomato these days. Buy a tomato in winter, and it's really not a tomato. It's the idea of a tomato. Maybe a ghost.
Phew, anyway, I didn't mean to get off on some kind of a rant there. That should be its own topic. I just want to say, my life is changing dramatically, and it's all because of food.

My passion for the subject was not discovered at my grandmother's knee in the kitchen as so many others like to say. My grandmother was way too sick to be in the kitchen by the time I came along and my mother really didn't like me in the kitchen as a little kid because I was in the way and it was dangerous. I used to think a homemade cake came out of a box. And that Mom's spaghetti sauce was the best there ever was....but it was actually Kraft's spaghetti sauce. No, I have to say my first love for cooking came from the feeling of feeding someone else. It was a bad relationship I was in with a guy, but something infinitely good did manage to come out of it. I would cook for him every single night...striving for his approval. And then it wasn't just about him, it was about everyone else too. I put together my first Thanksgiving dinner for an entire family when I was 19 years old. Then I got held responsible for Christmas. I would spend over a week planning out what I was going to do.

This year, I did Thanksgiving dinner for my parents. My father said it was the best Thanksgiving dinner he's had in his entire life. He's 63! EIther he's had a lot of awful Thanksgivings or maybe...I did something right.

I'm doing something right. It feels right. It is right. This is me. I've finally found it.

Anyway, I have a lot of pictures I left out from previous Tuesdays. I will go ahead and just post the mess of them here.

braised beef shortribs, carrots vichy, celery root puree

roasted root vegetable(straight to my heart...mmmm)

chef taking a torch to my chicken





Lainey and Ian rolling pasta dough

She's so proud!







My Amatriciana







Lainey's Puttanesca( dirty girl!)

deep fry week

lemon poached salmon with maple bourbon reduction

Final Practical: (practice week) warm salmon nicoise salad with dijon vinaigrette

Roasted Tomatoes

Okay, Okay so it's been a while. Forgive me please! I could go on and on about my horrendous schedule and lack of time but that hasn't really stopped me from writing before…perhaps I'm getting old. Perhaps my body is actually starting to crave that strange thing called sleep. And when a person sleeps, as most of us know, it's hard to write. You can walk, you can talk, ….but can you sleep write? Well, I can't. So please kindly accept my futile apology and excuses.

Truth is, I do plan to make it up to you. I have a ton to write about so there will be many more posts to come after this one. I just have to tap into my memory bank. For now we'll start with a recent endeavor.

Monday afternoon.

I had just finished my last sanitation class. Orientation was also over. What could this possibly mean? An entire evening and partial afternoon to do whatever my heart desired! So what do I do?

I drive with much conviction to the bank and withdraw some much needed cash.

I zip over to Whole Foods(*cough* Whole*cough* Paycheck*coughcoughcough*) and walk right up to their tomatoes. Bright, red, seemingly juicy. They are now out of season, which is sad….because if any of you know me at all, I'm a goner when it comes to tomatoes. When I was a little girl in the summer time in Tennessee, I would eat them whole like an apple. Tomato in one hand, salt shaker in the other, savory juices running down my chin…a custom much brought on by my sweet grandmother who did the exact same thing. I still, in fact, can be spotted devouring them in such a way. I can also eat them with sugar, a taste that my stepfather introduced me to. I will eat them stewed. I will eat them sun-dried. They are the first morsel I dive for in a salad. I eat them with pasta (the Italian's are genius for coming up with that combination!), and yes, being a southern girl, I will eat them fried ,green, and crispy.

But what is my favorite way? Well, I have 2. When they are fresh, in season, bursting with redness, I prefer to appreciate them in their most simplistic state with only salt enhancing their beauty.

Unfortunately, it is November, and even if I buy the best organic Roma tomatoes from Whole Foods, they still don't do justice to what I picked out of my mother's garden in the summers.

A solution?

I take the roma tomatoes, I halve them, I sprinkle them with a wee bit of salt and basil and coriander and just enough olive oil so see them glisten and then I let them go in the oven until they're shriveled and wrinkly and fragrant, and oozing oil and juices. Ideally, if I weren't a crazy tomato maniac, I would be patient and let them roast slow and low for 6 hours. But let's get real here. I'm hopeless and positively bewitched by a roasting tomato (oh, I'm hopeless - by any tomato at all, really). I make the oven hotter and then chain myself to a sturdy piece of furniture for two hours, because otherwise I'll be absolutely compelled to continuously wrenching open the oven door in despair because it's not time to take the tomatoes out yet.

And what to do with them? Namely, anything.Use them as a pasta picker-upper, or store them in the fridge covered in olive oil, lay them over chicken, salmon, tuna or mixed vegetables. Put them in salsa. My favorite thing to do with them though is put them… in my mouth. Or mix them with white beans or slivers of basil. Or in my mouth. Or in salad. But mostly in my mouth.

Heavenly Chicken

Currently, I'm sitting at the nurses station writing this future blog entry because I'm afraid it might be the only quiet time of my life this week to reflect on what I've learned.
2:30 am, someone's monitor is blaring because their heartbeat is irregular and I'm thinking about roasted chicken. Heh.

My thoughts the past couple weeks have ranged from total pessimism and frustration to complete and utter happiness. My schedule has been grueling to say the least and I've felt a strong urge to complain, but honestly, I'm quite blessed. I wouldn't have it any other way. It is because of my current job that I am able to support myself and finance my education without help from anyone. And no, it's not easy, but nothing that's worth anything in life is.
So I find myself fried by Monday mornings, dragging my haggard, frizzy-haired self out to my car that just so happens to be in the furthest corner of the parking lot. I drive myself home with about as much focus as an intoxicated driver with blood alcohol level of .4, somehow turn the corner and park in a space in front of my building(within the yellow lines!). I trapse up 3 flights of stairs to my cozy one bedroom,stumble out of my shoes and socks, collapse into my bed still clothed in scrubs and I sleep. I sleep until noon at which I spring out of bed, complete the hygiene routine, and cheerfully head out the door to my first class of the week.
I have never been this busy before in my life, and yet I realize I've never been happier.

I stumbled across a quote this week that put me into check.

"The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours-it is an amazing journey- and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins."

That gave me the strength to suck it up. And it also gives me hope that if I can handle this, I'm that much better off than the next guy.

All of that aside, I did manage to roast a chicken this Thursday. And after doing so, I've reached the conclusion that I will never buy boneless, skinless chicken breast again. I spent 8 bucks on this little bird, and he managed to feed me for the past 4 days.
He and I kind of bonded. It was a nice change to the usual hectic atmosphere I'm surrounded by.

In a quiet meditational silence, I rubbed him down with salt and pepper, a little lemon juice. I stuffed him with fragrant rosemary,thyme, parsley, garlic and some more lemon and gently laid him on a bed of mirepoix.

He roasted at 375 degrees for an hour and a half, in which he debuted with a crispy golden brown skin. I carved off a piece of the breast . The flesh was perfumed with the herbs and transported me back to early days in Tennessee, particularily Christmas.

After spending a while first carving off the most presentable meat for serving, then the other for chicken salad and soup, I surrendered the carcass to a pot and covered it with water, 2 sprigs of parsley, a bay leaf, an onion, salt and pepper, and left it to work its magic for 6 hours.

In the meantime, I felt inspired and began the process of my aunt's homemade noodles. I actually had no idea what her recipe called for but figured it couldn't be more complex than flour, eggs, oil, and water. I must've been right because they turned out great.

Towards the end of the day, I strained the stock and added oblique cuts of carrots and celery, then noodles and chicken. By the end of it all, I had a masterpiece.

I cannot express enough the appreciation I have learned for mother nature. She, no doubt, is the true artist.

Week 4, how we doin' now?

"Be in love with whatever is happening around you. YOU cause your own happiness. Happiness is an emotional thing, not physical. Define what it is you want." -Chef O'Malley.

I'm trying to remember how pumped up I was last night after his long spiel of "profound shit" he fed to us whilst sitting here right now feeling like a snot bomb exploded in my cranium. I was so pumped up, I was up til 4am just thinking about everything. The above concept is something I've been searching to grasp my entire life. I let every little thing going on in the metaphysical universe affect me. I worry. In fact, I waste precious time worrying about elements I can't control. Not to be repetitive, but it's exactly why I couldn't take the pressure of being a performance musician. And I hope it isn't the demise to my culinary journey as well because I am continually seeing similarities in everything. They are both a form of art. But even if they do have the same elements, just because those things crushed me and made me falter when I was 18, doesn't mean they can conquer me now. I need to learn to get over it or else I'll continue living my life working a job doing something I'm completely unsatisfied with. And the prospect of that is well worth the uncomfortable moments of facing my fears.

Anyway, I swear that class goes by faster than a bag of cheetos at a weight-loss convention.

Right now, I realize that I suck. I suck BIG TIME. But I do my homework, and I am on time, and I wear black socks, and I press my white coat the night before class, and I consciously practice "mise en place" throughout every moment of my daily living, and I have no problem doing what I'm told, or living like a robot for 2 years if it means that these Chefs will pass on to me a fraction of their "badassery".

So many people were thrown off when told to say goodbye to the person sitting next to them because more than likely either you or they won't make it to the end.Chef O'Donnell told us at the beginning of foundations that he wasn't going to bother learning any names yet since he knew half the class would be gone by the 3rd week. Well, he was right. Honestly, I think it shows students that Metro ICA is not a dumb, sub par, easy-breezy cooking school that anyone can have the priveledge of graduating from. Its program is designed to produce great culinarians, and if you don't cut it, you're hosed. Why should you have your degree handed to you? That's not how anything in life is. Sadly, that means you could possibly spend 2 full years time and money on school, but if you burn your cheeseburger(a poor example) at that last moment, the one moment that matters, you walk out empty handed. Why? Because that's what this business/art/craft is all about. You're only as good as your last dish.

So for now, I'm fine with sleeping 2 hours a night so I can be prepared for the next day, traipsing through an 8 hour foundations class when my head is full of cotton, cutting carrots until my fingers turn permanently orange, doing what someone else tells me to do just because they tell me to do it. I'll wear black socks, I'll press my white coat. I'll take off my nail polish and make up. And I'll cook. I'll keep cooking until I don't suck anymore.

The Musician,Chef, Nurse.

I'm not currently having an adventure in food per say right now. I suppose I am at Panera Bread mooching off their wifi, and just consumed some of their tomato soup(which I love, and can't wait to figure out how to make....but even better). I have eaten so much spicy, acidic food in the past two days(between the Thai, the Pizza, the Chipotle Chicken Sandwich and now this tomato soup) to give me eternal heartburn...doesn't help that I've been washing everything down with lemonade.
Psh. Oh well. It was worth it. Except for the pizza...I would've rather skipped out on that.

Anyway, I just felt like writing. I have 15 minutes before I have to leave and sit in that dungeon of a hospital for 12 hours. I suppose I really shouldn't be like that. I do enjoy my job, as much as I possibly can, and I really do gain satisfaction out of interacting with people, making their day just a little better(or I like to hope anyway). I was working up on the Psych Unit the other night and the charge nurse started talking to me. She said if the culinary thing doesn't work out, I should definitely consider nursing because she can tell I have the heart for it. Maybe I do have the heart for it now, but I know that 5,10,15 years down the road, I'm going to be getting farther and farther away from the patient just like almost every other nurse I've worked with does. It was the same for me with music. By the end of my senior year, I didn't enjoy playing anymore. The stress and competition completely took it out of me. It made me forget why I played. It made me think I played just to show off myself, and not the actual music.
Cooking is different though. I enjoy the rush(even if I don't admit it at the time), I like the competition, and I like the end result(generally speaking here....if everything turns out, I like the end product, on the table, and watching people "get off" so to speak at the taste of my food. Like Chef says, Sex and Money. That's what we're all about.)

I've had some unfortunate shit go down with the financial aid department. Apparently, I'm going to have to keep working four 12 hour shits a week plus my 3 days of class to stay ahead. I wish I could find a food service job that pays as well, then at least I'd be benefitting from the experience. Olive Garden is still hiring, and I've got my cover letter and resume' ready to go...so I might try that. It's at least a start.

Well, I better pack up and go here. Everyone have a great night!

Rice the right way.

I have to admit that after the last week, I was slightly terrified to come back to class in fear of another epic fail. As I was explaining to my mother, cooking in this school/commercial kitchen is nothing like cooking in the comfort of my own…but I’m gaining ground I think and familiarity is starting to fall into place.
The class shrunk just like Chef said it would. I couldn’t believe it. It was a much calmer day than last Tuesday. It didn’t quite have the “bunch of chickens running around with their heads cut off” feel to it.
This week was rice cookery, and honestly, I’ve never cared a lot for rice until this class. My problem was trying to make my rice out of a box. It always tasted like nothing to me. Once again, I was doing it all wrong. I will NEVER buy instant, out-of-a-box crap rice again. Well, I never really bought it anyway, because I thought it tasted awful. But now, I’m certainly going to look into investing in some jasmine and basmati rice. * Family and friends who are reading this, please, go buy a bag of jasmine rice now. Leave the computer, and find a respectable store that actually sells it from a valid location (Texas doesn’t count)… you haven’t lived yet. I was just born this past Tuesday. *
Our group made Chicken and Shrimp Jambalaya, Risotto with Mushroom Broth, and Brown and Wild Rice Fruit Pilaf. I had the pilaf, and this is something I feel like I need to have on hand at all times. I don’t think I could ever get tired of it. I did manage to mess it up in class though. As usual. But I perfected it at home. I didn’t even think about soaking the wild rice beforehand…so it turned out undercooked, but had great flavor. Chef tried to help me by putting it in the steamer, but the steamer wasn’t having one of its best days so our attempt failed. It was still very pretty to look at and I ate it anyway.
I really enjoyed Laney’s risotto. I had never had risotto before, and it was heaven in my mouth(…I’m getting a little cheesy aren’t I? Ha. Well, there WAS parmesan). I enjoyed Barbara’s Jambalaya as well.
Aside from all of that, I went to visit my best friend Emily at UNL yesterday and I told her we had to try somewhere different to eat. She was up for it, and I wanted to try Thai since I love it and haven’t had it since I was back in Tennessee. We found a place called Blue Orchid and had a great experience. It was a great atmosphere, our waiter knew the menu front and back and described different flavors to help Emily get an idea of what she wanted. She ordered the Thai Basil and I ordered their signature “Orchid Chicken” which was served in half of a carved out pineapple. They were both SO spicy (of course I ordered a side of chili paste), but wonderful.
Here are some pictures for everyone to enjoy!



And I have some from mine and Emily's experience at Blue Orchid but those will come later.

Dropping the ball.

My 2nd week of culinary school was a far less pleasurable experience.

Why?

Let's see. We jumped(or more like leaped) from eggs to NY Strip Steaks cooked medium rare, pan-seared and grilled, creamed spinach, twice baked potatoes, pommes anna, and pommes duchesse. Let's just say, I attempted to leap, but instead stumbled and collapsed into a metaphoric crumpled disaster.
Everything in that one 8 hour class day that could've gone wrong indeed DID go wrong. (I probably shouldn't say such a thing, because things can always get WORSE). Even my knife cuts were less than satisfactory. I don't know if I was thinking about it too much or what. It certainly couldn't be that I wasn't focusing enough, because I'm pretty sure my brain was on the verge of explosion just from all the focusing I was doing. On cutting up a carrot.
Chef mentioned something about muscle memory and it took me back to a conversation I had in high school with my band director, Mr. Gotcher. It gave me an inkling of hope. I remember Mr. Gotcher saying to me, "It's not a natural human thing to stick a flute up to your face and stretch your fingers in all kinds of strange ways to reach certain keys and to make your lips make the perfect embouchure for getting the perfect tone. Which is why you must practice the correct way every day, and eventually, those muscles will just naturally do it for you." Well, I sure as hell hope things start to fall into place for me just like they did as a musician. Because those carrots were not sexy. And I'm going to have to be able to do much more difficult cuts in the future, so I better step it up.
Besides carrots, I was responsible for making the creamed spinach for our group. I honestly find it hard to mess up creamed spinach terribly, but I did. How? The recipe is quite simple. De-stem, wash and roughly chop a pound of spinach, simmer for 10 minutes, sautee' half an onion, strain spinach, add to onion along with cream cheese, sour cream, and parmeasean cheese. Season mixture with kosher salt and white pepper. Put into remekins, top with sauteed bread crumbs, bake for about 20 minutes.
It sounds like a pretty disaster-free recipe, right?

Well, not necessarily when you're a nervous wreck and when salting the mixture, and mistake the sugar for salt. Actually, everyone at my station "salted" their dishes with sugar(which resulted in a nicely caremlized steak at least). After running through the events in my head, I felt like a complete incompetant idiot because we should've used kosher salt anyway which is like 6 times the size of a grain of table salt. I suppose when you're just scurrying around trying to get everything done, the thought process of such simple things doesn't quite compute as efficiently.Dealing with pressure. This is a skill I must master if I want to continue to work in this field(which I whole-heartedly DO). And I've never been one to deal well under pressure. Under intense inspection or judgement. Being in this kitchen with Chef O'Donnell takes me back to All-state orcehstra auditions in high school. I practice at home, I do beautifully, I stand in front of a judge to play my piece, I fail epically. But, there is hope, because I know for a fact that the more I practice on controlling my nerves by throwing myself into such situations, I will eventually be able to deliver competantly.

My steak turned out mediocre I thought. I had no idea what oven to put it in after pan-searing it, and by mistake stuck it in one that was at 325 degrees. I must learn to not rely on what everyone else is doing just because there were 2 other steaks besides mine in that specific oven. After about 5 minutes of having an "Aha! moment" and realizing it was in the wrong oven, I quickly moved it to a hotter one. It turned out slightly more rare than I usually like, but it was still...edible. I say edible because everything, by the time our class had finished cleaning and plating our dishes, was stone cold. I am not a fan of a cold steak. Is there anyone out there who is?? If so, maybe you'd like my restaurant.

Anyway, I felt like I was in a state of confusion the entire class. And that is not a comfortable feeling. Especially coming from me, a person who feels extrememly insecure anyway, but outrageously insecure when not prepared.

I'm going to cook all of these dishes this week hopefully. It doesn't matter that I work 4 twelve hour shifts at that wretched hospital, I will get them done. And I will post pictures for all of you to see. Wish me luck!

EDIT** Here are a few pictures...unfortunately I fell short on my promise and didn't get the potatoes done but accomplished the steak and spinach. Been a hell of a week. But a good one! Stay tuned for another update from our rice cookery class(which went much smoother that my steak and potatoes).

And for those of you with a sweet tooth, I made these cupcakes last week at 2am when I couldn't sleep and took them to work. Dark chocolate cupcakes with coffee cream cheese frosting. They turned out quite yummy.

Un jour.

I was beginning to wonder if the hot, relentlessly humid Nebraskan summer was ever going to come to an end. I've been anticipating the start of Fall for primarily one reason and that is Culinary School. I've spent about 8 months preparing for the move to Omaha from Sioux Falls...a slightly daunting task for a barely 20 year old. Although I find complete independence to certainly be a challenge, but riveting all the same-especially when striving toward one of my greatest passions (FOOD).

The past month and a half was probably the most difficult because I finally made it here, but without the company of friends, it has been difficult to enjoy. I began working 60+ hours a week only because I personally found the blaring alarms of a telemetry monitor in a hospital to be more comforting than staring at my blank apartment walls.

I started to grow very anxious about my first day of school. I would talk (or attempt to talk) to my coworkers about school, about cooking- it was obvious how much I love it. However, talking to a medical professional about my passion for cooking was quite similar in talking to my blank apartment walls. The only difference was they were able to provide me with a verbal response...a subtle nod of the head, slight sympathetic smile, accompanied with an "Oh, ...well, that's nice." All of these instances made me grow even more impatient for September 7th to arrive.

Well, as you have probably gathered, that first day has cam to pass and I sit here 2 days and an entire flat of eggs later with excitement still coursing through me.

I found myself surrounded by passionate, eager-to-learn, like-minded individuals...and our leader? Nothing short of spectacular (I apologize Chef, but I did have to find the opportunity to suck up just a little). But honestly, any doubts that I ever had of choosing Metro's Institute for the Culinary Arts for my Culinary Education had vanished half-way through Chef O'Donnell's lecture. Throughly impressed is truly an understatement.

Our first lab in the kitchen was eggs--
Scrambled,sunny-side up, over0easy, poached, soft-boiled, hard-boiled, omelets.
All this time, I never imagined I'd been cooking scrambled eggs incorrectly my entire life. No wonder I never cared for them! My mother used to make them for me as a kid....dried up, browning , crispy, squirrly yellow curds accompanied with a big ol' bottle of ketchup. Thankfully I've now passed on Chef O'Donnell's simple brilliance and my mother now makes delicious, moist, creamy, melt-in-your mouth scrambled eggs as well.
[Hey Mom, I apologize for using you as an example. I would still contest that you're one of the finest, most creative, innovative cooks out there ;-) ]

Besides the scrambled eggs, we spent the time flipping eggs(over-easy) without a spatula-goal end result being egg still in pan, yolk in tact, and not overcooked. Surprisingly, considering my lack of gracefulness, my egg did not end up on the floor, however did end up a broken, over cooked disaster.
We later proceeded with the french omelet. We were to cook it, plate it, and present it to Chef to taste. My mind completely skipped the whole "making it looked presentable" process and I slapped it on a plate that was already somewhat covered in chunks of stuck-together cheese, sprinkled some leftover sauteed remains of what was inside, and rushed it to Chef. This resulted in him asking the question, "Now, do you think you would really serve this to a customer? What would you think if this plate were brought out to you?"
And so, with my imaginary tail between my legs, I headed back to my station and attempted again, only to fail miserably...and run out of class time. After arriving home, I became determined to execute everything proficiently...and as I said, a flat of eggs later, here is one of my better results(but still far from perfection):

.......ok, well after much technical wrestling, I'm going to give up. Bloggr is adamant on posting the pictures BEFORE the actual blog...so, sorry to ruin all the suprise. It's a spinach,ham,and mozzerrella omelet...it's not perfect, but it was the best result I had before collapsing into my bed. Better luck next time I hope.