Bringing order to chaos -- in the mind, in the kitchen

Orderly chaos or chaotic order: Which contradictory statement better describes the atmosphere in the kitchen at culinary school?

Both, is the answer. Initially, and still on some days, orderly chaos has ruled, although we are slowly moving to chaotic order. That is coming with increased skill and confidence and as we work in assigned stations. That allows us to get accustomed to one another's movements and style.

The station at which I work has classmates Rob Park (at right in photo) and Richard Johnson (not pictured) assigned to it, too. We share a 4-foot by 10-foot stainless steel work table, or "deck" as the chef calls it. We also have access to a dozen stovetop burners and two commercial ovens. The entire class of 10 students shares a grilltop, and when needed, we assemble a couple of makeshift deep fryers using big pots.

As the photo depicts, the stovetop is usually crowded with pots and pans and us hovering over them, hands gripping whips, spoons, spatulas and panhandles. Yet we all tend to move with some sense of order, calling out to one another letting others know where we are, especially when carrying a hot pot or bending down at an open oven. Collisions have been few, catastrophic spills nonexistent.

Will the chaos ever disappear as order prevails? No, not in culinary school and not in restaurant kitchens where meal service time is always going to have an element of rush to it.

(Photo courtesy of Kejoo Park Hong.)

Culinary school: from grammar lessons to life lessons

Who knew that going to culinary school would include a lesson in grammar?

More important, who knew it would include lessons in sorcery, spirituality and life’s transformational moments?

Today ended the first week of my third term and the 13th week overall of my studies at the California Culinary Academy, and it seemed appropriate to reflect back a little.

The grammar lesson came early, in Chef Tony Marano’s class in October, the beginning-level Culinary Foundations I.

“Sauté is a noun,” Chef Tony informed us as he taught sauté as one of the seven techniques of classic French cooking. A chef and grammarian, I thought. Perhaps this is the place for me.

Three months later and working toward earning a certificate in culinary arts in June, I know it’s the right place, grammar lesson or not.

Similarities between my journalistic and culinary passions have already been revealed to me. The adrenaline rush, for example, and the deadlines. The creativity, accuracy and precision in preparation and presentation, for another. How many elements must come together all at once for the finished product, whether a newspaper or a gourmet meal.

Yet, there are differences, and they are revealing new life lessons to me and driving a new kind of passion. Foremost is the magic in the culinary arts; the magic is enigmatic yet natural. Call me a wide-eyed novice, but I’m not alone in the belief. Experienced chefs and gourmands acknowledge its presence in tasting a new dish or a familiar one that’s made so well it tastes new.

Take Chef Tony’s marchand du vin. He taught sauté using a New York cut – “This could be too good for you guys,” he said assessing it – which he cooked quickly on high heat. He rested the meat and put a little red wine in the pan, deglazed and reduced, added veal stock and finished it with butter. Spooning it onto the sliced meat, chef announced: “Marchand du vin – merchant wine sauce – the simplest sauce there is.”

It was superb, worth the price even without the steak. “It’s magic,” Chef Tony explained with a shrug. That was evident: a few liquids, some heat, butter – presto! – a savory, deeply flavorful sauce.

Before culinary school, I was a fair cook, with abilities beyond the basics. I could braise a short rib and turn the pan juices into a flavorful sauce, make tomato sauce and pasta from scratch, even assemble a decent molé with its complex layering of seemingly disparate flavors. But I didn’t know I was working with magic.

Now, culinary school has helped me get a small glimpse of it. Understanding how it works? Maybe never. But the pursuit is now my passion.

My mind, my hands, my palate and most of all my spirit have entered a transformation, moving toward an inexact and still mystical end. I’m eager to continue the journey.

Sauciér in the making? Or magician?

Ever see on Top Chef or Iron Chef when something goes awry? The key ingredient burns, a sauce breaks or something simply doesn't work the way it was planned. Yet the chef manages to put together a decent-looking plate and often gets good marks for it. A different kind of magic in the culinary world -- the equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

Twice today in culinary school, I successfully rescued sauces that went awry, to put it mildly. This is another sign to me that my skills are on a steady improving track.

(But, you might rightfully say, if I'm getting better, why did I have to redo two sauces? That's a question for another day's blog. For now, please let me revel in my meager success.)

In the first case, my pork roast pan scorched badly on the bottom -- I'm talking burned black to carbon -- including burning the mirepoix and the roast drippings for use in making the pan sauce called for in the exercise. Why the roast itself didn't suffer that fate, I don't know. I started a new sauté, tossed in some diced pieces of pork to render the remaining fat and some brown -- or glaze -- into the pan, then deglazed with veal stock, added flour for thickening and butter to finish. Apple slices as called for in the original pan sauce recipe went in for a minute to soften. I strained out the pork bits. Presto! -- a nicely flavored brown sauce for which the chef gave me full credit.

In the second case, making a sauce vin blanc for poached bass and salmon mousseline, I did the opposite of what I should have, introducing egg yolk to the hot poaching liquid rather than the other way around. Result: cooked egg yolk in the sauce, not a good thing. I strained out the cooked egg and went the way I should with a second yolk, introducing a little of the liquid to it. It caught, I added cream and stirred the sauce to such a successful finish that the chef took two or three spoons of it and commented on its full flavor.

Before that, at home on Wednesday evening, I used a sauté to heat some leftover beef short rib meat with sliced onion, letting the pan brown a bit and then deglazing with a little chicken stock (I keep some home-made in the fridge now) and adding in flour and butter to make a quick pan sauce that was, if I may say so, delicious.

Combine those three sauce rescues, and -- presto -- we have the culinary equivalent of pulling a hat out of a rabbit!

Today's fallback menu: gourmet peanut butter

Today's culinary school challenge is to produce two fully plated meals, meaning five elements on each plate. We will have two hours.

Timing, as always, will be the key. In this instance, it will be of even greater import, because no one element of either plate will take more than 20 minutes to cook. Bringing it all together at once will be a scramble.

First plate: roast pork with sage, served sliced; sauce made from the pork drippings and a chicken stock deglaze; asparagus blanched in salt water and served in warm butter; bulgar wheat pilaf; garnish will be apple slices cooked with the pork and in the pan sauce.

Second plate: poached rockfish (also known as striped bass) rolled and stuffed with salmon mousseline; sauce vin blanc made from leftover poaching liquid, a liaison (cream and egg yolk) and finished with butter and lemon zest; broccoli florets blanched and finished in a butter sauté; quinoa pilaf; garnish will be chopped green ends of scallions and red and green bell peppers in the quinoa.

What's left after Chef tastes, appraises and scores can be brought home. Success means we will eat well tonight; less than could mean peanut butter sandwiches.

Prepping for a culinary holiday: Organization is a must

Among the many skills that the chefs at the California Culinary Academy teach their students is a key and primary one: organization. "Plan your work, and wrk your plan," Chef Dan Fluharty says repeatedly when we have a deadline cooking assignment.

Making and carrying out a plan, in writing, is a must. And I find myself doing the same at home now, not just leaving to chance that the beans will be done on time or the meat will thaw. There's a regimen, and if that sounds too anal for you, you may just have to go hungry!

Seriously, culinary school has not only given me the beginning-level tools to work in a restaurant kitchen, it has taught me good meal combinations, what can be cooked or partly cooked in advance and how to store it appropriately. Getting organized, starting with the mise en place, is the key to success in the home kitchen and on the hot line in any restaurant.

Tonight's dinner will be a simple potato and leek soup, and Friday's holiday meal will be the aforementioned traditional Mexican fare -- highlighted by home-made tamales. For all of it, I have a plan and the ingredients all laid out. Tha's the mise en place.

Tune in later this week to read how it all has gone.

Food presentation: 'art and theater'

Why such an emphasis on plating, that is, how food appears on the plate? my friend Catharine asked. She noted that not only do I mention it frequently in this blog, but she hears more about it now than in the past.

As Catharine poetically put it: " ... it seems to me that presentation has moved food from merely an art to art and theater."

My response was that in classic French cuisine, plate appearance has been an important element for a long time as part of the appeal to all five senses. "Professional Cooking," our main textbook in school, by Wayne Gisslen, includes a whole chapter on this topic, "Food Presentation and Garnish." Here are the first two paragraphs from that chapter:

   We eat for enjoyment as well as for nutrition and sustenance. Cooking is not just a trade but an art that appeals to our sense of taste, smell and sight.
   "The eye eats first" is a well-known saying. Our first impressions of a plate of food set our expectations. The sight of food stimulates our appetites, starts our digestive juices flowing, and makes us eager to dig in. Our meal becomes exciting and stimulating.

At the California Culinary Academy, plate appearance usually counts for 20 percent of the grade on any give project and overall in the cooking, pastry and baking classes. In cooking classes, that includes whether the plate is warm. If it is not warm, Chef will deduct one point.

The shallot: a celestial beauty

Consider the shallot.

This small, unobtrusive, sometimes hard-to-find aromatic may well be the Pluto of the culinary solar system. We know it's there, yet we accord it little respect, often ignoring it completely. We prefer the bigger, stronger Jupiter-like onion. Or, we're drawn to the shrouded mystery of the leek: Like Venus, we surmise, something amazing must lurk beneath all that layering.

Yet it is the shallot that provides a sweet balance to a sauté, a delicate flavor to a sauce, a quiet complement to a simmering soup. Just as Pluto provides a delicate balance to the solar system, complementing rather than competing with the bigger orbs. It is small but significant, celestially speaking.

A shallot brought me to a small but significant moment of awareness Thursday as I completed my culinary school competency exam on vegetables and starches. Behind schedule, I was rushing to get green beans and red peppers into a sauté. The bacon fat was rendered, and next came the shallot. But in my haste, I had neglected to dice a shallot.

When I began culinary school just 10 weeks ago, dicing a shallot would have been a show stopper. I would have wrestled with cutting it open, removing the papery skin and figuring out a way to slice into the small object without slicing into a digit. The entire operation might take five minutes.

But now, in a seemingly magical transformation, I do it with ease. On Thursday, without pausing, I grabbed a shallot, sliced it open, peeled off the skin and fine diced the 2-inch beauty with a 9-inch chef's knife, all in 30 seconds. Into the sauté went the diced shallot, and I completed my dish with minutes to spare.

The episode was an emblem of my culinary progress, a small but significant moment with a small but significant shallot. Kind of like that small rock way out there in the solar system -- Pluto. Small, yes. Yet it has its significance.

Third brain at work? It's the wonder of culinary arts

Culinary arts: from the right brain or the left brain?

The sometimes complementary, sometimes conflicting results that come from using one's right brain or left brain don't go far enough to explain the quest to understand the culinary arts.

The transition -- or, perhaps, it's a transformation -- under way in my life as I delve deeply into culinary school and the bigger picture of food as the source of life, culture and a constant striving for survival is best explained by what might be called a third brain that centers on spirituality rather than the intellectual and creative aspects of the left and right brains.

It takes faith to accept that idea. Nothing else will do, because even at my nascent stage in the process, I know that there really is no understanding it. Chef instructors with decades of experience make reference to the magic, the wonder, the beauty of how food is transformed in the preparation. Nothing can explain that except the spiritual.

Or, as the 13th century Persian poet Rumi put it, one must "surrender to the wonder." My loving, patient wife (photo above right) shared this with me from Rumi as a continuing part of her unflinching support for my culinary and life's pursuit:

The intellectual quest is exquisite like pearls and coral,
But it is not the same as the spiritual quest.
The spiritual quest is on another level altogether.
Spiritual wine has a subtler taste.
The intellect and the senses investigate cause and effect.
The spiritual sense surrenders to the wonder.

Knife skills exam delayed; I'm on 15-day DL

Being on the disabled list has delayed my taking the basic knife skills practical exam at culinary school. Chef Tony said Friday that he doesn't want me to take it until I have the stitches out of my thumb. That's likely as much as two weeks, according to my doctor.

Chef said he wants me to have full mobility in my thumb because one needs both hands for cutting. Currently, the thumb is somewhat immobilized -- splinted so it won't bend and crack open the cut.

Not that it gives me any kind of advantage over my classmates, all of whom took the exam Friday. By all accounts, they did well. Chef Tony ended the class by grading each and then declaring that everyone had made vast improvement in just two weeks.

A perfect score is 50 -- 5 points for each of the 10 cuts. I heard one student say she got a 49.5, another a 49 and several 48s. It will be tough to match those when I do get the chance.

The good news is that it's not a competition. Everyone is supportive of each other, and we all want to succeed and see one another succeed.

I am looking forward to taking the exam. Let the healing begin!

(Photo credit: www.theculinarysalon.com)

Culinary school: Daily quiz, yes; Anthony Bourdain, no

The changing room was vacant for a few minutes as I donned my uniform for the first day of classes at the California Culinary Academy today. I buttoned my jacket to the top, put on my commis and stood in front of the mirror.

I inhaled and exhaled two times -- normal breathing -- then took a third deep breath and let it out slowly. I walked out the door to my first class. Not quite Neil Armstrong's "one small step ... one giant leap ... ". Yet it was my own small but brave stride into a new, exciting world.

Chef John Meidinger and Chef Tony Marano greeted me and my classmates, and we plunged in. Even the fits-and-starts preliminaries -- a book or two missing from the book bags, a tool or two missing from the knife kits, the necessary building tour including how to get out and where to go in case of fire -- were moments we embraced. Each turn had a newness that kept us enthused beginning to end, the way a good meal does, from amuse bouche to dessert and coffee.

Day 1 brought the news that Day 2 and every day after it will mean a quiz in the Safety and Sanitation class, taught by Chef John.

Culinary Foundations I is being taught by Chef Tony in a demonstration kitchen where we will learn the bare-bones basics of terminology, kitchen organization, proper use of tools, basic food science principles -- finally, a mention of actual food! -- and foundational sauces and stocks.

Chef Tony wants a 250-word essay by next week reflecting on the inspiration each of us has gotten from reading a book on cooking. Mine will be on Julia Child's "My Life in France," which I have nearly finished reading. One caveat from Chef Tony: "I've had it with Anthony Bourdain, up to here," he said, slashing his hand across his throat. " Anything else is fine."

Second day of classes begins in 15 hours. I cannot wait.

(Anthony Bourdain photo credit: www.toliveandeatinla.com)

'You've got to earn your way into our kitchens'

We're about to find out how little I know about cooking.

Nine months of what promise to be grueling classes at San Francisco's California Culinary Academy, an affiliate of Le Cordon Bleu, begin in eight days. The opportunities and the challenges were laid before me and 100-plus other new students on Saturday at the Academy by the chefs in charge.

"The first six weeks will be the hardest," Chef Michael Weller said in an impromptu hallway conversation with a group of us during orientation. "You've got to earn your way into our kitchens."

In other words, no access to the CCA's gleaming kitchens until we learn a few basics. First and foremost is passing the safety and sanitation class, followed by the first-level culinary class.

Chef Weller, who is senior executive chef at CCA and oversees the culinary arts program, laid out some of the basics.

In safety and sanitary, we will learn how to cook and keep clean in the kitchen, the right (meaning safe) temperatures for cooking and serving meats and a host of other critical pieces of information.

In Foundations I, the first culinary arts class, we will learn kitchen terminology and definitions, including fundamentals of the seven classic French cooking techniques, the names and purposes of kitchen utensils and equipment and the descriptions of and uses for sauces, stocks and soups.

We will also learn, Chef Weller assured us in a booming voice, that the culinary industry needs us because it needs new blood.

"This school is not just about chopping things up," he said. "It's about learning leadership to keep changing our business."

With all due respect, Chef, I beg to differ, ever so slightly: It is about chopping things up, most of all the preconceived notions I'm carrying about how to cook and do it well.

It will be fun and challenging to find out just how much I have to learn. In more than five decades of hanging around kitchens, I think I have learned a good bit. The next nine months are likely to shed more light on that knowledge but to add a body of knowledge that will inflame my passion for cooking ever more so.

HELP WANTED: Cooks

Yes, the job market is rough, very rough. But for the right set of skills and the right circumstances, good workers are in demand.

Just today, craigslist for the San Francisco Bay Area has 10 good restaurant and cooking jobs, ranging from catering chefs and high-end restaurant sous chefs to prep cooks and restaurant managers.

Is it hard work? Yes. Do you have to start at the bottom and work your way up? Of course.

But it's working with food. It's creative. It's a great deal of fun and personal reward.

It's no wonder people -- including yours truly -- are queuing up to enroll in culinary school.

Countdown to cooking school - 25 days

My appetite for cooking classes is growing, my patience is on simmer, and my anticipation is akin to that before being seated for a sumptuous meal.

The amuse bouche: I have completed enrollment for the California Culinary Academy, including a mouth-watering tour of kitchen classrooms.

The hors d'œuvre: New student orientation will be Sept. 19, at which I will receive my class schedule and meet fellow students.

The entrée: Nine months of classes and externship will begin Sept. 28.

The good folks at the Academy ask each enrolling student to apply for a scholarship and write an essay in support of the application. The exercise initially seemed unnecessary to me; I don't anticipate winning a scholarship over others who likely have greater financial need. Nevertheless, the school's enrollment process requires completion of the essay.

Having done so, I found that it focused my vision for enrolling in and studying at culinary school. Here's an edited excerpt of what I wrote:

Studying for a culinary arts certificate will enhance, refine and fulfill my passion for the kitchen and for cooking and eating healthy and well. With that knowledge, I plan to build a career linked to food, using my newly obtained culinary skills to help meet the great need for skilled culinary artisans at the local level. My idea is to emphasize eating well and healthy.

In addition, my writing and publishing background will allow me to spread the gospel of good and healthy eating beyond those I can touch in person. I foresee writing regularly about food for leading area and national publications, as well as continuing this blog as a daily journal of my culinary school experiences and beyond.

Obtaining a culinary arts certificate will honor my late mother, Ofelia Islas Chihak, who taught me to cook and encouraged me in every endeavor I undertook. She was an excellent cook of Mexican Sonoran cuisine, learned on her mother’s wood-burning stove on a borderlands ranch outside of Nogales, Arizona. She taught my brother, my sister and me to cook, partly through osmosis and partly through direct instruction. She did not consider herself a creator of fancy food, but she used wholesome, fresh ingredients and cooked creatively with what was available and what she knew.

Study at the Academy is a mid-life transition that will allow me to combine my previous vocation as a writer and editor with my avocation for cooking, fulfilling my culinary passion.

(Photo credit: www.chefs.edu/san-francisco)

Back in the kitchen

Having passed the culinary school entrance exam, I can turn my attention to matters of greater import: What's on the menu today?

The farmers' market provided a blessing of bell peppers, including some little purple beauties, so I'll make a roasted red-pepper soup and use the purples as garnish.

But first, the stock: leeks, carrots, celery, onion, a branch of thyme.

Stop by later to see how it turned out.

Guess I'll eat a big, gourmet breakfast

How does one cram for the entrance exam at culinary school?

I will take that exam -- the Wonderlic Scholastic Level Exam -- today as part of the formal application process. I'm a bit nervous about it. No school-type exam with anything at stake has come before me in ages.

My assumption is that it will focus on language, math, geography and other basic information that any graduate of high school would know. I'm a graduate of high school AND of college, but those were in a previous millennium.

So if pi is still 3.1416 and the capital of South Dakota is still Pierre (pronounced peer, not Pee-air), I should be OK. Watch this space for an update.

Mom's home cooking

My brother, probably the best cook among the three offspring of that marvelous cook Ofelia Islas Chihak, used to tell a joke about going into a café by the name of "Mom's Home Cooking." Where, he cleverly asked the waitress, is Mom? Without pause, she met the smart-ass question with a smart-ass response: "Just where the sign says: She's home cooking."

That's where and how I remember my mom the most: home cooking. A young, beautiful, vibrant version of my mom dominated my dream the other night. She died five years ago next month, and yet I think about her every day.

Most especially, I think about her when I am cooking. My mom taught me, my brother and my sister to cook, partly by osmosis, partly by direct instruction. She cooked as part of her housewife duties, but underneath, one could see joy in the creativity, passion in the preparation, satisfaction in the outcome.

My passion for cooking came from her. It is to honor her and her passionate gift to me that I dedicate my venture to culinary school.

Into the frying pan

The feeling of new life is stirring within me. New life in the form of enrollment in culinary school, with all the opportunities, wonders and ideas it carries.

Oh, and the fears -- hundreds of them. But let's keep this recipe simple, with just the Top Four Fears:

No. 4: Can I handle five days a week of other people telling me what to do after all these years of my telling others what to do?

No. 3: Can I find something in this beyond the ability to dazzle family and friends by whipping up from scratch a tasty béchamel sauce in my kitchen?

No. 2: Can I unlearn my self-taught cooking skills, reserving the creative juices for later inclusion, to adopt the proper ways of the French kitchen?

No. 1: Can I fulfill my long-held desire to be a capital-C Cook?

Fears aside, a good cook tastes what he is making before serving it to others. I have been tasting this for a long time. It is good, and I shall serve it.

¡Que aprovecho!