The kitchen is hauntingly quiet. I have been in skills for 13 days and I have never heard such silent in a production kitchen, just the quiet pawing of the knives on our cutting boards. It was our knife practical and we had an hour to make 18 different cuts- perfectly. In this hour we needed to julienne (1/8 inches x 1/8 inches x 2 inches) onion, small dice (1/4 inches x 1/4 inches x 1/4 inches) onion, mince (fine confetti) onion, mince garlic, mince shallots, mince parsley, concasse (peeled, seeded, and chopped) tomato, fine julienne (1/16 inches x 1/16 inches x 2 inches) potatoes, fine bruniose (1/16 inches x 1/16 inches x 1/16 inches) potatoes, julienne potatoes, bruniose (1/8 inches x 1/8 inches x 1/8 inches) potatoes, small dice potatoes, small batonnet (1/4 inches x 1/4 inches x 2 inches) potatoes, medium dice (1/2 inches x 1/2 inches x 1/2 inches) potatoes, batonnet (1/2 inches x 1/2 inches x 2 inches) potatoes, large dice potatoes (2/3 inches x 2/3 inches x 2/3 inches) potatoes, paysanne (1/2 inches x 1/2 inches x 1/16 inches-a tile shaped cut) potatoes, and finally the farmere (spelling is unknown here but I blame it on my chef's thick Swedish accent) cut for potatoes (a triangular cut that reminds myself of the superman logo). This all had to be done before 9:15.
Lets rewind to a few days ago. The difference is drastic. It is emulsion day and we have 2 mayonnaise to make, 3 hollandaise, and 1 ber blanc. Now emulsion sauces have several things that can go wrong. If an emulsion sauce breaks, its not the end of the world, but it is sure damn inconvenient for your grade. Emulsion sauces can break if they become to cold. Easy right? Keept it warm! Wrong. Emulsion sauces can break if they become to hot. They can also break if you add your fat too slow, too fast. Add too much fat, add too little fat. Have too much moisture, too little moisture. Basically, watch the damn sauce! Also, emulsion sauces happen rather quickly, you must be your best and you cannot stop whisking vigorously. Class had pots and pans
on and off the stove. Orders are being shout and the banging of metal on metals sounded like a firing range I was convinced I would face when I brought my sauces up to chef.
Still going further in the past is puree soup day...and my soup is lentil soup. It is our first soup to bring up to chef and lately I've felt....incompetent in the kitchen. Being surrounded with people who have been in a real kitchen for 5 years and my kitchen experience is ...nothing when it comes to them can really make a girl feel terrified. I watched and mothered the sauce, making sure I did every step as chef demonstrated, and seasoned throughout the process. I wanted my soup to have something that no one elses' had and I hoped my seasoning could do that. However, as I tasted my soup the horrible daunting thing that could have possibly happened lay in my soup. Too much salt. I gazed into my soup in horror. How in the world could I fix this? I hung my head and brought my soup to the blender to puree. Due to some miracle I do not understand this was exactly what I needed. My soup was too bland now, but at least I could fix that. As I added salt, pepper, and lemon awaiting the punch proper seasoning provides....nothing happened. Nada. Zip. Students lined up for grades and I was still dumb founded. Finally, out of some God given miracle chef shouts "if anyone would like to add some butter to their soup, it is in the low boy!" I make a mad dash to the butter grab just enough to satisfy my wooden spoon and slowly stirred it into my creation. I grab my tasting spoons and bam! The exact taste I had been striving for lay in my pot. I plate quickly and run it up to chef. "Delicious" he says to me.
Remember when I told you about emulsion day? Well lets take it back to that day. In that wild, exotic, exciting mess of a day I managed to get a "Beautiful" ber blanc, not to break one hollandaise (in fact I was excused from making a 3rd he appreciated my two so much), and my only criticism for mayonnaise was the first one was too thin... Not one break...not a bad day.
Finally back to my knife practical. The week has been long and tiring. Every day I watched my self and my class improve. We started out being an hour and fifteen minutes late to get our projects done and then we were finishing fifteen minutes early with extra projects. I watched myself grow from being absolutely terrifying to owning my position in the kitchen. My soups and sauces improved immensely and my addiction for this atmosphere grow. Now this moment was silent and each student trying to prove themselves in this summary of a project, in this basic of basics. Everything must be perfect.
"Times Up!" My heart jumps and I am the first in line. His nobby finger, covered in scars most likely from burns and cuts from his years of experience, mill over my hard work. "Beautiful work, young lady, beautiful." I recieved a 97 today on my knife cuts and my heart has never been lighter.
