Still Very Behind...

Hello!

I'm still here! Been extremely busy! But also lazy :-D

I am exactly one week behind in my posts, but on the plus side I have a few of them in the process of being written. Realistically it won't be until this weekend that I am almost caught up. The post for September 22-23 is like 75% done. I have a bonus post that is in the works, and the days we spent this week in the kitchen don't have a ton going on in them so they shouldn't take very long to put together.

On the negative side, tomorrow is another 20 hour day (today was too, that's my Thursday and Friday!) so we will see how productive I am in the middle of the day. I need to run by Oak @14th and see if I can set up a time next week possibly to interview the Chefs there. But I might also sleep for 3 hours, I haven't decided yet.

Hopefully I don't have any more crazy last minute hold ups like last weekend. If I don't, Sunday should be a fairly productive day. I can at least get 2 things published and then maybe work on another.

Work has been great! I'm really having a good time! I am going to try and take the next few Sundays off and see if that will help me stay on track. I also want to do a major post on the incredible team there that makes Eureka! Boulder tick. Just another thing to add to my ever growing pile of things to do!....

I will get caught back up soon though, and then you can read this daily as I go along. For now it's bed time, this post was a bit hard to write, I have had to correct so many mistakes. Way too tired!!!

Here is a picture of my dog for you to enjoy!

He is absolutely pathetic!

Kitchen Day 22

There was this mollusk...

(and he walks up to a sea cucumber, normally they don't talk sea cucumbers, but in a joke, everyone talks...)

We made a multiple kinds of shellfish. Shrimps, mussels, oysters...

Today (September 21st) is the LAST full day of Culinary Foundations! Crazy!!! Tomorrow we start our final for the block. I can't believe it has come. What a whirlwind it has been! Just 8 weeks ago I had no idea, none at all, that I would be here today. I can't even imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't gone at this full throttle. Probably would be in my blue shirt, selling a television... :-P

Anyways...

Today we prepared shellfish and a few mollusks, no sea cucumbers though... Again, it was a tasty day! Shrimp is very good, nothing beats a good shrimp cocktail!

 Chef Marcus teaches us how to shuck an oyster

It isn't a super easy thing to do, but over time we will become masters! The key is to slowly pry in your knife, then turn it gently but firmly. Don't break the shell!

 Braxton tries his hand at it!

Laurice has it! Slowly take your knife down the seam and "crack" it open!

A lot of people in the class didn't like the oysters. I admit it is a bit of a strange thing, to just eat it raw out of the shell with a little bit of lemon and maybe some Tabasco sauce. It is an interesting texture thing, but hell, taking a shot isn't the best thing either...

Anges a Cheval (Angels on Horseback)

The best way we had for oysters today was the Anges a Cheval. I would love to know why in the world that is the name, who came up with that?!? Probably had a bit too much honeyed wine in the kitchen! It is a really good dish though; as I've said before, bacon is the BEST!

• 16 Oysters - shelled
• 1 Baguette - sliced
• 1 lb. Bacon - thin sliced
• 8 oz. Breadcrumbs - fried
• 1 Sprig Rosemary - leaves removed from stem
• Wooden Skewers - as needed
• Cayenne Powder - to taste
• Salt & Pepper - to taste

1. Toast baguette pieces.
2. Roll each oyster with 1 rosemary leaf in bacon. Impale on skewer and season with salt and pepper.
3. Cook oysters on a grill until fully cooked, 3 minutes on the first side, 1-2 on the second side.
4. Remove from grill and place one oyster on each piece of toast. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and a pinch of cayenne.
5. Serve and enjoy!!!

Our little Anges before grilling

Knife Skillz!

Today we also had a practical test on knife skillz (yeah, that is a Z!). Chef Marcus cut an equal piece of celery for each of us and cut it extremely thin, into 165 pieces to be exact! Of course he did it in about 30 seconds, no one here has the skill and especially the guts to do that! His knife flew through that thing!

For the practical we had to prove that we could be almost as precise as him. It wasn't a test of speed, we all took our sweet time, I spent like 30 minutes on it. Chef told us that if we could surpass his count, we would get an A+ in the WHOLE block... I was for sure not going to pass up that opportunity! 

I took my time on it, being as precise as possible. I'm still working on my skill with the knife but I'm getting better. You can see I did make a few terrible cuts, there is a small mess-up pile on the left of my cutting board. I came close, closer than anyone else did :-D with 152 pieces. Ugh I was almost there! The perfect grade was in my grasp! Oh well, it was fun cutting the tiny pieces, amazing how you can get a whole piece that is as thin as a strand of hair!

Only 14 more to win... :'(

 Those shrimp kabobs look tasty!

 Braxton made a really good vegetable puree that he placed in the oyster shells. I thought it was a really creative presentation. We didn't have enough oysters for him to include them in this dish, but I bet if we did it would have been even better.

Aston (left) and Jakob (right) prepare their dishes. Ashton made a nice garlic buttered shrimp, while Jakob utilized spinach in his!

 A great action shot of the class! From left to right: Kurtis, Megan, Dylan, Celeste, Ashton.

Food Responsibility and Safety

As we move along this journey, one of the most important things we constantly address is safety. Not just kitchen safety; how to safely handle knives and other sharp equipment, how to ensure there is no cross-contamination of foods. But that also includes safe food, food that is free from contaminants, physical, biological, or chemical that can harm us.

Today we ran into an extremely rare food safety hazard. One that Chef Marcus, with his 20+ years of culinary experience, had never encountered until today.

Raw Crude Oil

The above photo, (although I didn't get the mussels in this photo) is of raw crude oil that was found in a batch of our mussels. Mashke was plating her dish and found a black, oily substance coming out of a few of the bivalves. Chef Carlos from K1 came in and took one for the team, tasted it to confirm that it was indeed oil. 

This is a stark reminder of the challenges we will face once we go out into the wild. As a society we are just now beginning to realize the damage we have caused to our planet. This is an example of how an oil spill really does leech into everything it touches. Again, Chef Marcus has NEVER seen this before; who knows how many mussels and other mollusks he has prepared in his career without running into this. Crazy, absolutely crazy odds!

On the plus side, thanks to requirements set by the government, we keep the harvesting information on all shellfish. This means we know where and when these mussels were farmed and are able to inform that supplier so they can check on the size of the damage. I really hope this is kind of a freak thing and that none of the other beds around this particular creature were effected, definitely not a good thing for them as creatures!

Back to the food :-D

This was a super tasty orange crusted shrimp. It was my favorite dish of the day!

You can barely see it, I did a terrible job taking a good photograph of it, the middle plate is Rosemary Skewered Shrimp.
We used a sprig of rosemary as a skewer and then grilled the shrimp.
As a HUGE fan of rosemary, this is definitely a dish I will make
in the future!

Another amazing buffet about to be devoured!!!

Gravlox

The last thing we prepared today was Chef's special Gravlox. I'm not going to give away this secret recipe (Ha it's mine now!) but it isn't a secret to make lox. We prepared this today and got ready to let it rest and season for the next 48 hours to eat on Friday. OUR LAST DAY IN FOUNDATIONS!!!!

Overall this was a great day. Preparing and then eating all the shellfish was fantastic! And although it was a bit of a dark spot, pun intended, finding the oil in the mussels was a very interesting and crazy experience. You really can't script all of this!

Kitchen Day 21

Here in K3, we cook with Sole!

Each time I upload a photo... I get so HUNGRY! I can still smell that white wine sauce!!!

Today (September 20th) was probably one of the more easy days that we have had in weeks. It was definitely a technical day still, we had to fillet a Dover Sole, a flatfish. That took us about 30 minutes, one of the most time consuming tasks of the day, but it wasn't a bad day!

 Here fishy, fishy!...

Today was a sad day for our wonderful photographer, Bubba. You can just see him (above, right photo just behind Chef Marcus Lepke) as he watches Chef ruin his side towel! The best part of this demo for the rest of us, was watching the use of the towel! Bubba lamented as Chef requested a towel to help him peel off the skin of the sole, Chef's response was to use the towel liberally. I mean he smeared as much of that fish on the towel as he could, with no holds barred. It was, honestly, hilarious! Sorry Bubbs... :-/

Getting a good grip on the skin to peel it back was tough! But I am amazed how easily it came off once you got it going.

As Bubba groaned about the fish all over his towel, Chef just put in on the cutting board, right in that stuff!!! :-D

(Bubba ended up ending that towel...)

I did a much better job today with the cutting of the fish than yesterday. It was a bit different, flat fish are build differently and thus have 4 fillets instead of 2. But just getting that experience from the day before, going into this project with a base amount of knowledge really helped get the project finished faster and better.

The first two were alright (bottom two) but as I went it got a bit better. It's still crazy the small amount of meat that you get from a whole fish!

Megan prepares to flute mushrooms, not something I have that kind of finesse for...

As far as cooking went, we prepared the fish in two ways to compare the flavors and cooking techniques of each dish. Sole Dugléré and Sole Meunière, two very different but great ways to prepare this fish. 

Sole Dugléré

This one was my favorite type of dish for the day. As a Kitchen we are still a very large class, we have four teams of about six people each, so we get to prepare the dishes differently. I enjoy this, it is really cool to see how someone started with the same ingredients and basic idea, but came up with their own way, their personality of that dish. So we had four slightly different versions of this dish, all were really good, I LOVE wine sauces so this one was a hit for me (some people didn't take to it, but I have an idea that might be related to the mean age of our class, it is quite young). 

I also love to caramelize onions, they are my FAVE!!!!!! So doing that and then adding white wine to simmer and reduce, mmmmm...... These are they days I look forward to, after all John Snow has been telling us: Winter is Coming. A good, hearty dish with a nice wine broth warms me right up!!!

Sole Meunière

(It is the dish on the bottom left of the photo)

This dish reminds me of the days long gone. It isn't quite the same, but it is close to one of my childhood favorites. Back, years and years ago, my grandmother would make her incredible butter fried Flounder. The Danes really know how to use butter, Chef Marcus can attest, the Germanic cooking traditions are so, so, so good! I don't have the recipe yet (I am going to try and get it soon!), so I don't remember quite the amount of butter needed for our full meal but it was A TON! Anyways, that was a bit of a tangent...

Sole Meunière is made by searing the Sole, and resting them. You then brown some butter 

in a pan and add some lemon juice. Once that is hot your immediately pour it over the fish and serve. It is quite delicious!

We are still learning. The fluted mushrooms (above, left) were pretty and well seasoned; however they were not close to fully cooked. Each team had a slightly different prep for them and some were a bit better than others, but at the end of the day we did not perfect them. Next time!

Mashke and Sarah made a wonderful salad with grilled pears. It was SUPER good! 

 Different plating techniques for the fish (above, left). Kelly made a wonderful Salmon Cobb salad. This was one of the first dishes to be fully devoured!

Not quite sure what that is, possibly a sense of overwhelming, "shut it!" Our class is not the best at being quiet when we should be, we are working on it!

We only have days left, DAYS, in this block! It's a 6 week block, where did it all go! I can't believe that it's happened. I wonder how many hours I have now been awake and have tried to sleep compared to my old life. Maybe I will find out and tell you! It might just make me super depressed though so maybe not. Sleep beckons as I write this... Still more work to do..........