Beauty School Dropout, Missed Your Midterms and Flunked Shampoo!

Turn in your teasin comb and go back to high school!
(Grease- Beauty School Dropout)

Lesson 30- The Finale

Today's our last demonstration class in Basic Cuisine. There is no practical class to follow this, and it was clear that demo Chef Stril was just having a lot of fun. He always liked to crack jokes but this time he was just on a roll, poking fun at the assistant, translator, the food, students, himself... everything. Honestly I suspected that he was probably drunk. And he still managed to whip up two amazing and complex dishes: Baked Alaska and a Herbal Crusted Lamb Chops. That's why he's Grandpa Bear!

Chef Stril's Baked Alaska (Omelette norvégienne)

Delicious Herbal Crusted Lamb Chops

Baked Alaska always has a special place in my heart. I remember for my 16th birthday my family brought me to Locke-Ober in Boston (R.I.P.) and pre-ordered a Baked- Alaska. I will never forget the excitement of the entire restaurant when the waiter poured the flaming liquor over the cake and the entire thing lit on a blue fire. Thank you Elaine for planning that birthday. Too bad we didn't get to make this today.

The reason why we didn't have practical today was that exams start the next day. Truth be told, I haven't been taking studying too seriously. Come on, it's cooking, right? We have 10 recipes to memorize. On exam day, we will randomly draw one of the recipes, write out the exact quantities of each ingredient, and then cook it by heart. We will also have a "technical" test in which we all have to cut an artichoke and cook it, which is actually quite complicated.

I figured it wouldn't be that hard right? I mean we've done every dish on the exam. And then as I started studying on Monday (already very late, most people started 2 weeks ago), I realized there's a lot of stuff to memorize, and it's so easy to get the ingredients mixed up. Crap. I am suddenly facing the prospect that I may actually FAIL cooking school.

Can you imagine my conversation with my friends or future colleagues?

Friend: I heard you went to cooking school.
Me: Nah, I flunked out.
Friend: Holy cow, was it really hard? What did you fail? Butchering a cow? A super complex molecular gastronomy dish?
Me: I failed at cutting an artichoke....
Friend: Wait, really?

This sounds just as ridiculous as that Grease song "Beauty School Drop Out"-
Beauty school dropout,
No graduation day for you.
Beauty school dropout,
Missed your midterms and flunked shampoo!

HOLY SHIT I'M BASICALLY GOING TO FLUNK SHAMPOO!! I didn't survive 4 years of college and 2 years graduate school only to fail artichoke in COOKING SCHOOL. No graduation day for me????

So yeah, since Monday I've been in lock-down mode and studying at home. I also went to the Luxembourg Garden to do some studying. I couldn't have gone through 3 years of French in Action and not study in Le Jardin du Luxembourg.

Here's to you, Prof Pierre Caprez

I still can't get over the fact that I am memorizing "2 carrots, whole. 2 onions, whole. 2 medium leeks, whole. 1 celery stalk. 2 Garlic clothes. 1 Bouquet Garni." Whatever, I just don't want to fail cooking.

Practicing one of the dishes

SO MANY GARNISHES TO MANAGE. AH ERMAHGERD

Instead of a quote from class today, I'll finish with a quote from the seminal 2006 movie The Pink Panther. What? You haven't seen that movie? Well neither have I....

"But you forgot a fundamental truth about women. A woman is like a....... is like a....... artichoke. You have to do a bit of work before you'll get to her heart."

- Inspector Clouseau.

Women in the crowd all said "aww." One even fainted.

So true Inspector, so true.

 

Life is Like a Hurricane, Here in Duckburg....

Might solve a mystery.... Or rewrite history! Duck Tales! Woohoo!
(Duck Tales Theme Song)

Lesson 29- Magret De Canard + Gnocchi

We made two dishes today: Magrets de Canard à l'Orange and a Parisian Gnocchi.

Magret de Canard 

I've been looking forward to this class all year, because magret de canard (duck breast) is one of my favorite foods in the world. I worked around Bordeaux for 2 months this past summer and I had so many of these delicious duck breasts, though in Bordeaux they are generally grilled and cooked to saignant, whereas we seared it to à point and served it in a sweet and sour orange sauce. The orange sauce is quite interesting since it is made with gastrique cooked with orange juice and julienne orange + lemon zest. The dish is also served with orange pieces.

Parisian Gnocchi

The Parisian Gnocchi was fairly straightforward. Unlike the gnocchi's I've had before, which were made with potatos, this is made with grated cheese. We started with a choux pastry, then mixed in some cheese before squeezing it out of a pastry bag like toothpaste and cutting them into cork-like pieces. We served the dish with a Béchamel sauce.

I had high hopes for my dish today, because I love magret de canard so much and because I've been eagerly waiting for this class all term. The dish came out fantastic: Meat was cooked perfectly so that it is still pink but no longer bloody. The skin has a perfect gold color. My julienne was even width and thin. The only two comments that Papa Bear gave me was that my sauce lacked a sour kick and my oranges were not cut round enough. For the sauce, I later learned that it was because I added some butter cubes into the sauce right before serving, as per instructions from the demonstration and despite Papa Bear saying that we shouldn't. Goes to show that you should always listen to bears. As for the shape of the orange pieces, I like to think that because I grew up with a Playstation, I think in blocky polygons. Just kidding, it is because I suck at cutting.

The Gnocchi was great, though it could have use a tad bit more color on the surface. I had it for dinner today.

After the review, I just wolfed down the magret de canard as I frantically washed my knives because we had our last demonstration class coming up.

Quote from this class:

"Madmoiselle? Madmoiselle? You shouldn't leave the classroom without asking for the chef's permission first. I will never stop you, but it is a matter of respect in the classroom."

-Demo Chef Vaca
catching a student who snuck out for a bathroom break during class

Chef Stril: They eat a lot of these in Bordeaux don't they?

Me: Oui Chef, I love Magret de Canard! I eat it every time I go back down there.

Chef Stril: They usually cook it over dried vines, no?

Me: Oui Chef, grilled. The vines give it a different aroma, and it is delicious!

Chef Stril: I know you guys like it saignant, or even bleu there. Crazy folks. Here, you make it à point.

Me: Oui Chef.

Al Di Lá Means You are Far Above Me, Very Far...

Al Di Lá, Ci Sei Tu Per Me. Per Me, Soltanto Per Me....
(Connie Francis- Al Di La)

Lesson 28- Veal Escalop à la viennoise, fresh pasta with cooked tomato concassé

We made a veal escalop today, which apparantly is the french name for Wiener Schnitzels, though we served it with pasta and chopped ingredients, instead of the salad or potatoes that one would expect in real Wiener Schnitzels. I mean even the chef said the frying style can be called a Milanese. We even serve the dish with olives and capers, which we know the French serve in Italian-esque dishes.

Then why isn't this dish not called Veal Escalop à la Milanaise? I don't know, I've given up understanding how the French thinks.

Boom

We had Chef Ju again. I'm definitely not complaining, because she's a really nice chef who gives good and friendly tips on cooking, while whipping your derrière when you mess up.

Chef Ju  had the wonderful idea of letting us work in teams and splitting up most of the work. We still had to serve our own dishes, and tenderize our own veal, but we split up responsibilities for preparing the garnishes, which we've all done before except for the fresh pasta. The end result was we finished early but still had to take ownership of our own plate.

I teamed up with So Mi, who was one of the most responsible and hard working person I've met at the school. She hand made the pasta while I made the sauce and egg garnishes (Sifted boiled egg). That's teamwork! Our dish came out really well, with only 2 comments: our sauce was not flavored enough (my responsibility, but I noticed that this is a consistent criticism that I get at Cordon Bleu. The French are just begging for more sodium) and our pasta was too soggy. I knew fresh pasta require far less time to cook than dried pasta (generally 30-45 seconds) but we must have left the pasta out for too long and the thing continued to cook with the residual moisture around it. Oh well, you live and learn. In the future, one should make the pasta as late as possible, and perhaps under cook it a bit so it could be al dente when it is served.

Quote from this class:

When the chef is explaining what cured meats are-

Student: Question, so is the meat raw or cooked?

Chef: It's raw, but salted.

Student: So we need to cook it?

Chef: No, it's salted. The salt cooks the meat.

Student: Will I get sick eating that?

Chef: No........ it's cooked

Student: But you said it is raw?

Chef: The salt cooks it.

Student: (Obviously still confused) Okay.

Just Give Me a Reason, Just a Little Bit's Enough.

It's in the stars, It's been written in the scars on our hearts
(P!ink- Just Give Me A Reason)

Lesson 27- Fileting a Fish (Review)

Today we made pan seared Sea Bream Fillets:

I'd like to talk more about this dish, but frankly my dear I don't give a damn anymore. For practical, we had Mr Napoleon Dynamite again, whom we encountered earlier in the semester. Though he was markedly better this time around, he still walked around making inappropriate comments and taunting students, all in the name of keeping the atmosphere light. I swear this guy enjoys power-tripping over everyone because he has some personal insecurity issues (for one, his lack-of height). I think our German classmate got so upset that she cried in the locker room because of something he said in German about German women. Personally, I was so annoyed at the way he belittled every student throughout the class that I messed up my fish and the skin was peeling off. Then, when I was talking my photo he yelled at me because I was already late.

At the end of the class, he walked around handing students paper notes with "0" written on it, saying they're getting zeros for their grade because of some silly reason, then laughed and said that he was only kidding. When I was washing my knives, he handed the "0" to me because I was "washing my knives too slow." I almost lost it. I've kicked the asses of bigger men in college kendo and chewed up tougher guys at Morgan Stanley + Harvard Business School than him. I remained respectful to him throughout the class because to paraphrase Band of Brothers, I respect the rank not the man. I'm sure he's an accomplished chef, and I respect his willingness to become a teacher, but bullying students because he can hide behind his position as Chef is cowardly and shameful. Just give me a reason just a little bit's enough, Chef, and I will devour you for breakfast à la Michael Phelps.

Anyways, I think my classmates noticed that I wasn't amused, and tried to console me after class. I'm very grateful for having supportive classmates.

Something constructive: If you put a round parchment paper directly on a regular pan, you can turn any pan into a make-shift non-stick pan. Doesn't work perfectly, but may be a lifesaving technique someday.

Quote from this class:

At the end of practical, I was last to leave the classroom
Chef: Ou-ard, you're the slowest to leave the classroom. For that you get a DOUBLE ZERO for your grade. *Hands a piece a paper with "00" written on it.
Me: Merci Chef. Do you know what I see on this piece of paper?
Chef: No... what?
Me: To me, that's an infinite sign (∞). Thank you for the grade.
Chef: What are you...... an engineer?
Me: No Chef, I'm a culinary student.


Fuck you, @$$hole.

It's Close to Midnight, Something Evil's Lurkin'in the Dark...

'Cause this is thriller! Thriller at night!
(Michael Jackson- Thriller)

Lesson Z- Halloween Party

The school decided to organize a Halloween party Tuesday night, which happened to be the night before the Basic Cuisine written final exam. What happens when you organize a school party the night before an exam? This:

Rocking the Dance Floor

To be fair the photo was taken at 9pm, but then the party started at 7pm, and was billed to end at midnight. As it was a Halloween party, students were encouraged to dress up. No one would be lame enough to actually show up with an outfit right? Well I did:

The "American Tourist"

I was going to go as the Chinese businessman, but I thought that the American Tourist would be a more popular crowd pleaser anywhere in the world. Anyways, I got to meet a lot of Basic Pastry folks, who had their written exam last week and could afford to come out. I learned a lot today, for example pastry folks don't actually have cooties, as was passed down in the folklore of Basic Cuisine! I mean, how would we know? We never come into contact with them at school. A few of them were actually quite friendly.

Anyways, the written exam was pretty straightforward. I don't think anyone who listened to class and somewhat studied would fail the thing. However, I don't regret all those hours memorizing cuisine vocabs, since they are quite useful to know in real life. IE when I go to the market or when I look at menus in French restaurants. Here are some words that I found useful.

Abats- Means the internal organs of a Chicken. When you buy a chicken from a farmer's market, they would ask you if you want your poulet avec or sans abats.

Allumette- Literally matchsticks. Describes the shape of a certain stick shape petit four, or very thin French Fries IE pomme allumette

Confit- food that is saturated with vinegar, sugar, alcohol or fat. IE Confit de canard is duck meat soaked in duckfat.

Consommé- clear soup that is served hot or cold, usually clarified

Crudités- raw vegetables sliced or cut served with vinaigrette or mayonnaise. You get these for appetizers. Also a popular sandwitch in france is a Sandwich Poulet Crudités= chicken mayo vegetable sandwich

Demi-glace- reduced espanole sauce plus madeira used to flavor dish or strengthen brown sauces

Hacher-  To chop into small pieces. IE Steak Haché is chopped up steak

Poêler-  Pan Fry. IE Poulet Poêlé is pan fried chicken

Vapeur- Steamed. IE: Raviolis à la Vapeur = steamed ravioli

Velouté- Cream soup similar to "Cream of" soups except it is also thickened with egg yolks.

Quote of the day:

Overheard
Student 1: Are you going to the school Halloween party?
Student 2: Dude, we have the written final the next day.
Student 1: But...... it's the HALLOWEEN PARTY!

Turning Japanese I Think I'm Turning Japanese I Really Think So...

I often kiss you when there's no one else around
(The Vapors- Turning Japanese)

Lesson 26- Fish Terrine

Today's dish is rather strange: Hot Fish Terrine with Beurre Blanc. A Beurre Blanc is a butter-based sauce cooked with shallots, reduced white wine and vinegar, and cream:

 Fish Terrine as Prepared by Chef Bogen

The final dish feels like a cross between a Japanese maki roll and the Japanese kamaboko that I ate as a child. Even the chef described the dish as a maki. However, instead of rolling the dish in nori, we rolled it in layers of poached spinach. The white part of the roll is the fish terrine, which taste shockingly like kamaboko, which is a kind of Japanese fish cake or fish paste. Point is the whole dish felt very Japanese-y. We should have served it with soy sauce.

However, the dish was surprisingly hard to cook. Out of 10 students in our practical, only 3 successfully had a good fish terrein. The rest of the students (myself included), had undercooked fish terrine that resulted in the white terrine appear more like toothpaste than solid fish cakes.

My Disaster as Layed Out on
My Cutting Board

My dish was already not the worst, as I was nearly there. 2 of my classmates had their fish cake collapsed when they took their products out of the molds. Their texture looked more like Greek Yogurt than cooked terrine.

I have two hypothesis in why my dish came out wrong, despite my leaving it in the oven for 12 minutes more than in the demonstration:

1. My oven is simply not hot enough- Our practical kitchen ovens is not as effective as the professional oven that they have in the demonstration classroom. And so maybe the amount of time needed in our practical chefs is much longer than what was shown in demonstration But this doesn't explain why 3 classmates were successful while 7 of us failed.

2. My spinach was too moist- We poached our spinach, lay out the leaves, and then put them together as a skin. After poaching my spinach, I kind of lazily let them sit on a tray soaking in water (sorry chef). I remember seeing a few of my classmates being just as sloppy as I was, and perhaps this explains why only 3 of us had successful products while most of us failed: perhaps the successful cases were by people who were more diligent of their items.

Point is, the dish was still good, and the ends justify the means.... right? Everything goes into your digestive system and comes out as shit anyways.

Lesson of the day: To thicken your sauce with butter, you have to prepare small cubes of very cold butter and have the sauce boil. We usually soak the butter in ice water just before we add them into the sauce. The reason is oil and water do not mix , and if you just melt butter into a water-based sauce, the fats will float onto the top of the liquid. By adding bits of ice cold butter into a boiling liquid (and whisking vigorously), you achieve a type of thermal shock to the butter and emulsify the fat. The end result is the butter mixes homogeneously in the sauce and gives the sauce a thick, buttery and heavenly texture.

Quote from this class:

"It doesn't matter whether you are in a 3 star Michelin restaurant, or a cheap bistrot ordering a 10 Euro dish. If your plate has stains, your client will send his food back to the kitchen. SO CLEAN YOUR PLATE BEFORE SERVING!"

- Chef-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named Yelling at A Hapless Student in Practical

I threw it on the GROUND! You must think I'm a joke!

I'm not part of your system, My dad's not a PHONE! DUH
(Lonely Island- Threw it on the Ground)

Lesson 25- Chicken Sauté

The dish of the day is Chicken Sauté with Tarragon and Italian Style Vegetables.

Kaboom!

"Italian style" just means that we cut the vegetables into angled thick pieces, roast it with olive oil and mix some basil leaves into the veg. This is not culturally stereotyping at all.

The chicken was pretty interesting because we've fileted chicken before, but this time we cut the chicken into pieces with the bones attached first, cook the chicken pieces with the bone to retain their shape and then cut out the bones just before serving Don't forget the Oyster, which is called "sot-l'y-laisse" in French because it means only a fool would leave it on the chicken. We pan seared the meat and then "sauté-ed" them, though in my book we were basically braising the bird since we were cooking it in a veal stock liquid over heat. Something I learned today- chicken breast takes about half the time needed by dark meat to cook, so if you don't want to overcook your chicken breast you should take them out ahead of time. As per usual the braising liquid is reduced and turned into a delicious sauce flavored with tarragon.

Our practical chef today was the wonderful Chef Ju. She's a very friendly chef from Korea who spoke perfect French and English. She gives a lot of helpful tips to students and likes to engage in friendly banter with us. For example she was complaining to me how painful and useless her Chinese Cupping therapy session was.

One thing you learn very quickly is to always clean and clear your station. One of the most frequent commands by the practical chefs is "Débarrassez-le!" (Clear that!), followed by a hapless student saying "Oui chef." Another thing you hear a lot is "C'est pas propre!" (It's not clean!), again followed by a hapless student saying "Oui chef." You learn to wash and wipe your knives, your cutting board, your table, your cooking station, everything all the time. You get rid of trash whenever you're not cutting. In fact, at the end of every class, one of the grading criteria is your cleanliness, in addition to your food. It's actually quite refreshing to always have a clean station ready for the next ingredient.

Nevertheless, one thing I noticed about the chefs is, despite their obsession with clean stations, they don't care much about the cleanliness of the ground. When the chef examines your station, he/she rarely inspects the floor. Obviously don't throw a banana peel on the ground, but we've been wiping bits of scraps off the table and onto the floor, and so far no one has ever complained about water or chopped shallots on the ground. Frankly I find it quite dangerous, even though we all wear slip-resistant kitchen shoes. Someone can easily slip and fall. But then we're not graded on how well we walk either, so I guess if one is pressed for time, throwing things on the ground is the most efficient way to clean your station!

Quotes from this class:

"All the cuisine chefs at Le Cordon Bleu are better than the pastry chefs. Why? Every chef here can teach at least the basic pastry classes. But can the pastry chefs teach basic cuisine?" *EVIL GRIN*

- Demo Chef Vaca

During practical class,  after Chef Ju explained something in French too quickly...

Me: Pardon Chef, est-ce-que vous pouvez le-répéter en anglais? (Excuse me chef, can you repeat that in English?)

Chef Ju: *GLARE* On est en FRANCE! (We are in FRANCE!)

Me: C'est vrai, chef. (That is true, chef.)

Chef Ju: Et en France, on parle en français! (And in France, we speak in French!)

Me: Oui Chef....

Chef Ju was just giving me a hard time, she eventually explained in English.