Redemption comes on the wings of a ... turkey

Another cooking skills challenge is in the offing on Wednesday at culinary school, and I will seek redemption for my mediocre performance of Monday.

Two plated meals are on the menu, and we prepared the mise en place for them today.

First will be turkey scaloppine, dredged in egg and coated with bread crumbs before a quick sauté. Accompanying it will be a basic pan sauce of oil and butter, white wine, shallot, shitake mushroom caps and, as needed, chicken stock. The starch is potato croquettes, which essentially are balls of breaded mashed potatoes which then are deep fried. A mixed green salad will be garnished with a hand-made mustard vinaigrette. i already made the vinairette, and it is pretty tasty.

Second plate will be duck confit, with a sweet bigarade sauce. That is a sauce of caramelized sugar, lemon and orange juices and a little demi-glace, which is reduced veal stock. The starch will be rice pilaf confetti, with the confetti for color being celery. Root vegetables -- rutabaga, carrots, turnip -- will be blanched and then put in a sauté of butter. I plan to garnish with a parsley and thyme compound butter, made by classmate Richard Johnson.

I will spend the morning putting together my production plan and timeline and the afternoon cooking to fulfill this ambitious assignment.

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.

Culinary arts: my new world

My new world is heated with cast-iron burners throwing off 65,000 BTUs of flame with the flick of a wrist.

It has the inviting smell of roasting veal bones, the hiss of sweating shallots, the pale yellow of hollandaise sauce. It is a world of creamy soups that come about as if by magic from seemingly disparate pieces.

My new world is knife blades that rapid-cut carrots and onions, leeks and celery. It is is framed in gleaming, sterile-looking stainless steel.

It is butter that's clarified, pepper that's white, sauce that's deliciously brown.

My new world has a language all its own -- "umami" and mise en place, onion piquet and cartouche, velouté and demi-glace.

This new world tugs the imagination out of one's soul and turns it into a new reality, of flavors and seasonings, all evoking even more imagination that in turn brings more new realities in what is literally becoming a delicious cycle.

(Photo shows the "hotline" -- row of stovetops dominating the center of our kitchen classroom.)