Monday:
I should stay in bed… I should stay in bed… I should stay in bed…
I was trying to convince myself as I felt the consequences of my bad life decisions from the previous day. By now, at the age of 29, I would have thought I was smarter than this (and thought I would have learned from previous experiences).
I should stay in bed and not write the test… I tried to convince myself again.
As I ironed my chef’s jacket I decided that it would be stupid of me to stay at home, I should not have had that Rosé, so let me go and write my test and see how bad I would do this time…
Few hours later…
That wasn’t too bad, and this time I got Velouté right! I felt like I knew a lot more than I did the previous test. I did not once have the ‘wtf is going on’ feeling, until it came to the Coffee test… Wtf is that called?! I got this cringe when Chef said we are marking the tests in class to get immediate results. Is it worse to see now what I did wrong? Or is it better? In this case it was better. I did better than I expected, which ended my Monday on a good note.
Tuesday:
6 AM shift again, today was not that much fun. The only thing I made today was Smoothies… Delicious Smoothies I will add! Mango! When I saw the Mango I knew that would be today’s Smoothie, Mango Banana and Peaches, with a little Apple Juice to make the Smoothies a bit thinner.
After my Smoothie session I asked Chef if we could make Banana and Peanut Butter Bread but to no avail… I was put on the team to do end of year stock take, what a job. I do not know how my SO does that every month. It does help to know where everything is kept in the storeroom, the fridge, and the freezers. I do not want to bore you with the details of stock take so I will end the day with this… The Smiley is still in the freezer. To those who do not know what a Smiley is… it’s a Sheep’s Head, and when cooked it smiles.
Wednesday:
Ironed again. There is a lot of ironing happening. As I was busy ironing I thought about what my SO asked me last night, “What happened to Tobias?” What did happen to Tobias? I have no idea.
So far the big news is that it is Ash Wednesday, and this year I am giving up Meat and Alcohol… Going to be a tough Lent. I am already craving some Meat, even though my SO and I fully participated in Fat Tuesday last night. Only have an 11 AM shift, let’s hope today I make something great!
Crème Caramel… I have only ever seen the store bought Crème Caramels and they have never seemed appetizing. I did get a flashback of what Chef had said to me a few times as I f*cked up my ingredients… Concentrate on YOUR food and READ your recipe and have confidence. I was really worried about this one… Working with Sugar is easy, except when it is really difficult… I made the Caramel Sauce but it was too thick, seriously, I thought it looked good but apparently it has to be really runny, which completely boggled my mind. Then the pouring of the Custard based mixture onto the Caramel without it mixing and the only way you would know if it mixed would be when you flip it out on the plate. I don’t know why anyone would go through this effort for a Dessert that is not even half as great as Ice Cream, or almost any other Desserts that has Chocolate in it.
Well, here is mine… not perfect but it looks OK.
Thursday :
Absolutely nothing went right this morning. 6 AM shift and by 10:30 I had produced nothing. That is really frustrating, really. My pier and I tried the Fortune Cookies that I tried on Saturday, our Dough looked better than mine did on Saturday. The same happened in the oven than it did in my oven on Saturday, the outside of the dough gets brown but the inside not and the dough gets hard real quick as soon as you take it out so it is such a mission to fold the shape right. Again I failed with the Fortune Cookies! Chef and I tried to bake it at a lower heat and the dough seemed a bit doughy and very soft which made it easier to handle but the colour was still not correct… I have yet to succeed in the Fortune Cookie department. No photos of the end product… since there were none… Again!
Starting to think pastry is not for me and think Chef was accurate when he said that the dessert looks like a dessert in the bakery at a grocery store. Obviously we were all laughing at this but just feels like I wasted a day in my life and in the kitchen. I saw that the Cream we used for the Fortune Cookie dough was going to expire in a few days so I asked Chef if we could make something with it and Chef said how about a Lemon Cream Dessert, and I suggested that we put it on a Swiss Roll that has Salted Caramel in it (also left over Salted Caramel in the fridge waiting to be used). Chef said YES! I was excited, Swiss Roll is easy… Well… Not in culinary school… it too failed… and then we made it again and this was the end product.
We sprinkled Roasted Almonds over it because our Lemon Curd ended up being Lemon Butter… I suppose it’s like my days in the darkroom, some days you get 20 prints and some days you get contaminated chemicals.
At the Barista stand I at least made more progress with my coffees than I did with my dessert. I must say, I would leave the coffee making to the Baristas! As fun as it is to make Coffee, I’m no expert… or not yet! I did manage to make 2 Smiley faces on some of the Coffee orders I received, unfortunately I didn’t get time to photograph it. But here’s a look at my other Coffee creation…
Friday:
Today I seemed to just be another losing battle… although my Fritters were delicious, better than the previous times I made them, and my foods smelled good and tasted good, I was so excited and then the grill pan tipped, spilling all my oil on the open flame gas and I just dropped it and hoped for the best… luckily it went for the best and no one got hurt! I was slightly worried the 1/2 seconds I saw this flame coming from the stove but luckily I quickly realised I should close the stove immediately!
This week taught me something… I can safely say that I can make Veggies.
Once again Chef told me that mindset counts and you should get yourself out of the mindset that it is difficult and you can’t do something. This week I just felt like: Week – 1; Farçi – 0. I told Chef that I will admit that I was just not in my cooking world this week.
This week was just not mine in the kitchen.
Saturday:
I worked at a very fancy function today, got some kitchen experience and realised that maybe I am not cut out for a events kitchen of that magnitude. It was fun to work in the front and serving people Dessert, people always smile when they get Dessert… especially when there is Ice-Cream involved on a hot day!
Another week at culinary school done and dusted! Cheers!
FarciduPreez 