Culinary School - WINTER TERM Part 2

It’s finally spring break! I’ve made it through two terms at Johnson and Wales University’s Charlotte campus, and am now officially a sophomore!

Our last cooking class of the term, and our next to last class of the term was Fundamentals of Food Service Production (FFP). This class reminded me a lot of New World because all of the food was really fun to make and really fun to eat. Also, it dealt with a lot of food that we were all really familiar with, but maybe didn’t really know how to make properly or didn’t know about all of the varieties. We did breakfast the first two days, and then moved on to baking and shallow frying. I’m not the biggest egg person, I can thank my mother and grandmother for that, so it was the first time that I had made an egg over easy. We also made fabulous biscuits. We started this class on a Friday and over the weekend I went home right after class because my grandmother, who has been sick with Alzheimer’s for over a decade, was close to passing away. She actually passed away that Sunday, I had just left home to return to school because I had probably the biggest project assigned to us due in Menu Planning and Cost Control (I’ll tell you about this class later) the next day and I had to finish up my demographics information. So I found out when I got home, somehow finished the project, and had the go to school the next day, Monday, before the whirlwind wake, service, and burial on the other side of the state on Tuesday.

Here starts the second day that I cried. We have to take these math tests because a lot of what we do this term is really math intensive, and I wasn’t really paying attention on that Friday when I took the test and was pretty sure that I had done an entire section wrong (I knew the section, I knew what I did wrong, and I knew how to fix it), but I got called up in front of everyone and given my little green slip that said that they wanted me to go to this math class that was actually during my afternoon class and either way, there was no way I was taking actually going to waste my time taking it. Now, I’m not knocking the system, but when you know the who and what and you know how to fix it and you already have a bachelors degree and have completed advanced calculus at a real academic college, you aren’t going to take this 18 year old centered, bad high school, 4x81=? type crap. Anyway the start of that Monday was getting this slip, so then we skipped lecture and started cooking. Our first step of the morning is to do our cuts, which we practice on potatoes. I had cut them all long way and was cutting them the other way when I got myself. I didn’t even really feel it, I knew I cut myself though, and I turned around immediately to go to the sink and then I saw some white down in my thumb—I cut the tip off! Shit! I wrapped it in paper towel and started squeezing because the blood was now flowing, went back to my cutting board, got the tip off of it, and went to the nurse. Oh my god did I get myself! They had to put this sulphur-ish powder on it to clot it and I swear it hurt less than the actual cutting of my thumb hurt…one of the few times in life that I’ve screamed the ‘f’ word. My teacher was so nice about it, maybe a little too excited because he wanted to see the tip, which we had already discarded because they weren’t going to try to reattach it or get stitches (it would have been my first stitches ever! (not counting surgery) I almost got them once over my eyelid but that’s a totally different story).

I got to a breaking point about two hours later because all they gave me was two ibuprofen tablets, and not even big ones, and I started to breakdown in dish pit. I found my out and sneaked out to the hallway and the tears just started to stream—right when my teacher is walking by returning to the classroom. So embarrassing!! I hadn’t even told him about missing the next day because of my grandma yet, so I sniveled that out, and he actually told me that I could leave and he wouldn’t count it off. I was pretty surprised because he was pretty hard-core, see, he had come from a strong restaurant/line cook/executive chef background, those guys are usually a little gruff and rough around the edges anyway—because they have to be. I think it was probably because I’m a girl, and on that same note, I didn’t leave partly for that reason, at least to prove myself, and mostly because if I was at home I would have just been sitting there looking at my TV, while all I felt was my heart beating through my thumb. Also, I had to turn in my Menu Planning project later that day, and I had to print everything out and turn it in (I literally handed the project to the chef in his office and was like, “My grandma died yesterday, I cut off my thumb this morning. Here’s my project, I am unable to make it to class today. Bye”. It was a bad day! Plus it got my group out of doing dishes everyday because we couldn’t get it wet. But the rest of the class was fantastic, I enjoyed all the lectures, I absolutely loved the cooking, and I really appreciated the teacher, not only for his teaching, but also because even to this day, a couple weeks after his class, he asks me every time I see him how my thumb is! We had a lot of practicals for this class, we had one for shallow frying, we had to fry catfish, veal, shrimp, cubed steak, and pork, and then present him a plate with one of each on it. Then we did one for baking, we got salmon, which was awesome because we got to break down the salmon, and then wrap it in puff pastry. The only problem with puff pastry is that you have to create a design on top—when I’m put on the spot to be creative I can’t do it. Or more to the point, I have no skill, so even if I had a good idea it would come out looking like plato designs of a three year old. Then we did a practical for sautéing and made a sauce to go with it, we had to do lamb with a yellow pepper red wine demi glace sauce; two of us would do it in front of the chef, who would just call us out of nowhere and you would have to drop everything and perform. I love the rush of all this, but I usually do something stupid that I wouldn’t otherwise do, like use too much oil to sauté my lamb in. We also had to do a French omelet, which was totally hard for me, it took me a minute to do one without any brown on it.

Our final class together was Skills of Meat Cutting. In this class we would start out in a classroom, and then go down to the basement where we had the Product ID class, into a refrigerator classroom ideal for dealing with meat. We started out with chickens, which I loved, because I’ve already taken to just buying a whole chicken at the grocery store and breaking it down to cook, or roasting it whole—its so much more cost efficient! We learned how to make them boneless skinless, and statler style, I actually just broke down one boneless skinless yesterday. You just wrap everything up separately and freeze them, its great if you live alone. Anyway, on day 3 we came into class and had these huge hunks of beef waiting for us, and the next it was a whole pork loin. It was great—20 pounds to break down and I realized that I really enjoy breaking down a huge chunk of meat, or a primal cut, as I learned. I only wish that I had the opportunity to do it on a regular basis so that I knew all the steps by heart. It was great pulling out the beef and pork tenderloins, how freaking cool. Plus we got to fabricate baby back ribs, so yummy. This was definitely my favorite chef since I got here, he knows what he’s talking about, he’s liberal and anti-government/USDA, don’t get me wrong, it was just more that he would open your eyes to the standards that are in place in our country and the potential for outbreak, and try to inspire us to make changes. We cooked some of each, steaks, ribs, lamb, sausage, only with an addition of salt and pepper and it was so good. Especially when you’ve been up since 5:45am, you haven’t eaten anything, and its 10:15am—crucial. Then we did veal, which was okay, not as exciting, just a huge hunk boneless veal that we scraped the fat off of and then cut into roasts for stew or to be ground. All the while we got to make pork sausage too, our group made breakfast sausage, and some groups got to make things like chorizo and one group made a sweet sausage I think. We got to fill them in the casings and everything. Then we got to do a lamb rack and a lamb leg which was really great, it’s always good to get practice frenching. For our practical we had to break down two chickens, one statler style and one boneless skinless, pretty crazy. My chef decided it would be really funny to have a bullhorn in class and I ripped my oyster jumping from it—crap!

Throughout the entire term I had to take two afternoon classes, they were Sanitation and Menu Planning and Cost Control. Sanitation was kind of boring, but I really don’t think that it couldn’t be. Most of it was like 18 hours of an online program, so I’m not really sure why we had to go to class. Wow, these kids were pretty immature in this class, mostly freshman, mostly really young. I really liked my teacher though, she was so straight up; some kids really didn’t like here, but they are the type of kids that are told three times to do something, don’t do it, and then give lip back when someone gets on them for it. Did really learn a lot though, it is amazing how many evil things are lurking in and around a kitchen, or are brought in from an outside source. I did pass the test, and actually just today was sent my official certificate for Food Safety Management.

In Menu Planning we basically learned how to run the business side of a restaurant. I could write forever on this class, I learned so much. Cost cards, profit and loss statements, edible yield charts, on and on, it was a lot more math than I like to deal with, but it was all worth it. I didn’t take any sort of business classes in undergrad really so I was pretty ignorant about all this before taking the class. My teacher was a chef from New England, and I loved his accent! It was so Boston; my only regret is that I didn’t have him for a lab class. He really does have a knack for teaching math though, and he’s hilarious, could listen to him for hours. We did a project in this class where we had to create a restaurant, a concept, menu, location, research demographics studies, create cost cards for menu items, and even a profit and loss statement. Crazy! I actually started working on the menu part of it pretty early, I knew I wanted to do a Spanish/Latin restaurant, with common enough menu items not to throw anyone off too much, like empanadas and paella. I decided to put mine in Wilmington, NC, where I went to college, because there are absolutely no Spanish restaurants in that town, outside of your family style Mexican restaurant. I did really well on the project, the best part is that it’s basically a business plan to use for the future, and only has to be tweaked—good stuff!