Man (and woman) as food-making machine

Soup production techniques began in earnest today in culinary school, and as it did, I was struck by the continuous push by the teacher chefs to get us to multi-task and do things in a hurry.

Not a complaint, necessarily. Merely a note that this is training not only in how to prepare foods well, but how to prepare them quickly and in repetitious steps that mean one plate of French onion soup is like the previous one, and the next one and so on.

Today we produced three soups -- French onion, consommé and caldo verde -- in about 75 minutes, including prep work, cooking and plating for presentation. Thursday's production will be the same, with shrimp bisque, cream of mushroom and clam chowder on the menu.

The chef instructors clearly are pushing to replicate the pace of restaurant work. Again, no complaint about it. Just a recognition of that reality.

(Photo shows my soup production for today: French onion in the foreground, consommé left background, caldo verde right background.)

Conquering those stove-top bullies: classic sauces

Hollandaise sauce is mine; I have conquered it. Same with Sauce Robert, mornay and an array of other leading and small sauces in the repertoire of classic French cooking.

Even that stubborn stove-top bully beurre blanc has been felled.

What they call in culinary school a competency exam, also known as a practical exam, was held today for sauces. I proved competent in all four, as did every other member of my class in Culinary Foundations II at the California Culinary Academy.

Laying down French sauces as the basis for a culinary education is a smart approach. They feed (pun intended) most of what will follow in fairly rapid order, starting with soups.

Chef Dan Fluharty dove in today, immediately after the competency exam and cleanup. He demonstrated classic French onion soup -- "It's still in vogue, and it's a national soup: French," Chef declaimed -- and cream of mushroom soup simultaneously. There's that darn multi-tasking again.

On Monday, he had sneaked in a demo of the classic of classics in soups, the consommé. It's a highly flavorful clear broth, and most chef educators and restaurant chefs would agree that it's one of a handful of fundamentals that a chef needs to know.

(Photo shows the remnants of my sauce practical exam. That's beurre blanc in the top pot, foreground.)

Drawing a blank on beurre blanc

Two tries in practice and two broken beurre blanc sauces. That means I will go into Tuesday's sauce competency exam in Culinary Foundations II having to do it right for the first time under the pressure of being graded.

The good news is that I know what I did wrong both times in making the sauce. I neglected to "pat the head and rub the belly" as Chef Dan Fluharty taught the coordinated, simultaneous double motion needed to make the butter form an emulsion in the pan.

While today's practice session left me without a successful beurre blanc, I did complete the other three required sauces -- mornay, hollandaise and Sauce Robert -- in fine fashion and with plenty of time to spare. Adhering to that timeline will allow for two tries at any one sauce -- if any, it will be beurre blanc -- during Tuesday's practical exam.

Pat head, rub belly at same time? You can be a saucier

To make beurre blanc, Chef Dan Fluharty instructs, "you have to pat your head and rub your belly."

The age-old motor-skills coordination game for kids works for we adults learning to be chefs at the California Culinary Academy. For one must do the equivalent to have a chance at getting beurre blanc right.

Beurre blanc requires that after the wine, wine vinegar and shallot reduction, introduction of cold butter followed immediately and continuously by a to-and-fro motion with the sauté pan across the stove burner and a simultaneous round-and-round stirring of the pan's contents with a spatula. That brings about the desired emulsifying of the butter with the flavorful parts of the reduction, and it is the essence of beurre blanc.

The pat-head, rub-belly coordination has become an apt metaphor for the multi-tasking it takes to handle the jobs in a commercial kitchen -- or any kitchen, for that matter.

"You are learning how to cook, how to be cooks ... ," Chef Dan said. "You have to do five or six things at once."

(Photo credit: www.gamerevolution.com)

Sauces challenge comes to a boil

All those sauces we learned and practiced last week will be on the agenda again Monday and Tuesday in Culinary Foundations II class. Only this time, it's for real.

Chef Dan Fluharty is generously giving us Monday as a dress rehearsal for making four key sauces -- mornay, Robert, hollandaise and beurre blanc -- in a timed exercise of 90 minutes. On Tuesday, we will have 90 more minutes to make them for grading, with 10 points for each sauce (4 for consistency and wheter it is emulsified or broken, 4 total for the right levels of seasonings and acid, 2 for temperature).

The practical exam will be 40 points total, or about 7% of our grade.

My Sunday has included practicing hollandaise, for a breakfast of eggs benedict. The effort went well until the end, when too much heat "broke" my sauce, meaning the emulsified egg yolk and butter separated. My second effort ended with an intact sauce, but it was too thick and would not have passed muster with Chef Dan.

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 7

Churchill's worst kind of government
"Kitchens are not a democracy. It's, 'Yes, Chef.' That's true in restaurant kitchens; it's true in my kitchen."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty (right) spelling out class rules for Culinary Foundations II, then giving us a say in when we want to take the midterm exam -- before or after Thanksgiving break.
 
Not ready for prime time
"It's like Top Chef except we don't know what we're doing and they do."
-- Culinary student John Briggs, commenting on the timed cooking exercises and increasing pace and complexity of work in Culinary Foundations II.

What would Trini Lopez do?
"Bring a hammer."
-- Culinary student Fontaine McFadden's facetious solution for pans whose warped bottoms cause uneven heating. "Won't help," Chef Dan responded, suggesting use of flat-bottomed pans.

Selecting the right vintage
 "You don't want it to taste too good, because the help drinks it."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty discussing the quality of wine used for restaurant cooking.

Love of learning
"I remembered the ingredients and didn't have to look at the recipe."
-- Culinary student Jorge Olmos on one benefit of having to repeat making a sauce to get it right. (We all have had to; Jorge merely was big enough to 'fess up to it.)

One template; two paths

The challenge of intensely hard work on strict deadlines is not strange to me. Add a measure of creative need to the challenge, and it looks a lot like my previous career as a newspaper editor.

Seen through that lens, the culture of professional cooking is more familiar, and that is lenitive:

* The organized chaos at the start of a day's work. In cooking, do I have my knife and mise en place? In newspapering, what's my assignment, whom will I interview and what's my lead?

* Making adjustments on the fly through improvisation. In cooking, how do I bring back a sauce that I reduced too far? (Add a little water). In newspapering, what if my source doesn't call me back? (Call someone else or write around it).

* Bearing the scrutiny of the boss prowling the room. In cooking, it's the hot line, where the pots and pans are filled and heating. In the newsroom, it starts at the city desk and moves to the copy desk as deadline nears.

* Strictly adhering to deadline. In cooking, it's plating the food and getting it to customers' tables. In newspapering, it's getting the press started and the trucks rolling so people can read with breakfast.

Many other parallels come to mind, yet so many of the details are new -- simmer vs. rolling boil, when to use whole butter vs. clarified, how to counteract acid (add sugar), what does "done" mean, the benefits and perils of moisture -- that I feel as if I were back at Week 1 of my newspaper career. That week in June 1970, a veteran reporter got fired, jolting me to attention that this was reality.

This nascent cooking career is still at the school level and only the end of the seventh week, but it has a tangible sense of reality. It comes starkly in the heat of the 65,000 BTU stove burners (4 times what you get from your average home stove) and the quick sharpness of the knives. It comes subtly in how a low-heat wine reduction releases its perfume or how the sizzle of a sauté gains a few decibels when the meat is done.

It comes most of all in the rush of adrenaline when one's senses are triggered by sight, sound, smell, feel and taste of food that when eaten will make a difference in someone's day.

The same rush that came when one's senses about fair play, good vs. evil, enlightenment and justice were triggered by getting a news story that would make a change or set someone into action for the better.

One template; two paths.

(Top photo shows me in December 1983 as business editor of the Tucson Citizen; bottom photo shows me in October 2009 as a culinary arts student at the California Culinary Academy.)

Multi-tasking: making 3 sauces at a time

Chef Dan Fluharty has set a pace of production work in Culinary Foundations II that demands multi-tasking. The idea is that it's what happens in restaurant kitchens, so we best learn it now.

And learn it we are. On Tuesday, we made fish fumet (a fish stock) and prepped the ingredients for veal stock at the same time, followed quickly by making roux.

Today, we stepped it up: Three white sauces to be made to appropriate texture and flavor in 90 minutes. From a béchamel base, we made mornay sauce; from fish velouté, we made vin du blanc; from chicken velouté, we made sauce supreme.

An aid to multi-tasking is that the three sauces include several common ingredients, starting with white roux (butter and flour thickening agent), and including cream, butter and lemon juice.

Chef pointed out that the classic French sauces have foundations that are created over and over, with dfferentiation coming from introduction of flavors from other ingredients. Fo example, the supreme sauce is based on chicken velouté with cream and butter added for flavor; the vin du blanc is fish velouté with a white wine reduction.

Thursday comes an accelerated challenge: four sauces in 90 minutes. We wll be visiting the deeply flavorful family of brown sauces and a tomato sauce.

(Photo shows my versions of sauce supreme at lower left, vin du blanc at top center, mornay sauce at lower right.)

Production kitchen: veal stock, fish fumet, roux

Well-made sauces in five categories are the basis for classic French cooking, and we started in earnest down that path today in Culinary Foundations II.

* The roasting of 50 pounds of veal bones and 10 pounds of mirepoix (onions, carrots, celery) for creating brown stock was the first task of the day. (Roasted veal bones at right; brown stock simmering below right.)

* Using the bones of a large halibut, we also created a fish fumet, or fish stock, with a mirepoix of onions, leeks and celery and a bit of white wine.

* Stocks are combined with a thickening agent, most often a roux (fat and flour). So we made roux, cooking it to three distinct colors, each with a use in a different sauce. (Photo below shows my white, blonde and brown roux efforts.)

Chef demonstrated the makings of two "mother" sauces, béchamel and velouté and two secondary or small sauces from them -- mornay from the béchamel, vin blanc from the velouté. On Wednesday, we will be tested on the making of béchamel, fish velouté and chicken velouté, mornay, sauce supreme and vin blanc sauce.

Culinary schooling picks up speed

The first six weeks at the California Culinary Academy were equal to a steady drive along a two-lane highway, at 55 mph. Today, with the opening of school's second term, we started up the freeway on-ramp, almost instantly realizing we need to drive faster and with much greater intensity.

Not that the first term wasn't intense. But now that we have basic skills from that term, much more will be expected of us in Culinary Foundation II, Chef/Instructor Dan Fluharty told us.

"This week will be like this," he said, moving his flattened palm horizontally. "Next week will be like this," he said, tilting his palm up at a 45-degree angle. "And that way each of the next five or so weeks."

Chef opened class by administering a 25-question quiz, testing us on what we learned in Culinary Foundations I and Safety & Sanitation classes last term.

Second, we found out that we will cook every day. That included today, when each of us made a pot of chicken stock, after Chef's demonstration.

We're about to merge onto the fast-moving freeway, and our seat belts are fastened.

(Photo shows Chef Dan demonstrating the making of chicken stock, after which eac h of us made our own pot.)

The religion of cooking, the spirituality of creating

Cooking is religion.

To those who might call this blasphemy, I say that no other description fits. "Avocation" sounds like an add-on; "hobby" has a spare-time ring to it; "pastime" drops from contention by self-description.

Religion -- "an object of conscientious regard and pursuit" -- suitably describes how I practice cooking.

That fact established, then, "Professional Cooking," the sixth edition, by Wayne Gisslen, including about 1,200 recipes, is my bible.

In this bible, one can learn the ingredients and instructions for everything from Allemande Sauce to Zucchini Sauté Provençale. (Key to the technique of sauté: Don't overload the pan.)

The first six-week term at the Academy revealed that getting religion isn't a matter of learning just chapter and verse in those 1,200 recipes.

The chef/instructors consider the collection of recipes only an entry point for the techniques they allow us to carry out. This is the beginning of creativity, moving toward the spirituality of combining fresh, uncooked ingredients into something flavorful.

"The point of what we're doing is improvising," Chef Tony Marano told us in Culinary Foundations I as he taught the fundamentals of all seven Les Cuissons Francaise. "What we try to do is show you at a minimum the most basic steps. Then you go from there."

In our last class, Chef Tony set the charge for us: "It's been my desire to create a space for you to do great things. I hope I have done that."

You have, Chef. You have instilled the religious fundamentals in us, allowing a spirituality to emerge. And it will, over the course of the rest of our lives.

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 6

Making note
"You have great notes, (student No. 1). Let me see your notes, (student No. 2). Oh, you were sleeping that day."
-- Chef John Meidinger (right) tells students to rely on their notes as part of reviewing for final exams.

Game over; face the music
"Stop playing with your food and just bring it up here."
-- Chef Tony Marano showing his eagerness to taste and judge the gazpacho and mayonnaise dishes that students were hovering over for too long during the skills test final exam.

Modesty is the best policy
"The changing room on the second floor is empty."
-- Executive Chef Michael Weller's hint to students he saw in various states of undress at their lockers in a public space in the third-floor hallway of the Academy.

Punctuality or power?
"The chef is never late."
-- Chef John Meidinger's response to a student who said, "You're late," when Chef walked into the 1 p.m. class at 1:02 p.m. to administer the final exam.

More than a dash of wisdom
"Here's a hint: I've never rejected a dish for having too much salt in it."
-- Chef Tony Marano (left) as he watched students stressing over salting their gazpacho and mayonnaise dishes for the skills test final exam.

A Grand Marnier ending to culinary school's first term

Hands that shook with nerves six weeks ago were rock steady today in wedging oranges for a celebratory "orange carpaccio with Grand Marnier sabayon" in Culinary Foundations I.

Fittingly, it was the final day of our first term at the California Culinary Academy. How far our skills and self-confidence have come since the first day of classes Sept. 28.

Having already taken us through our written final exam and skills tests, Chef Tony Marano proposed the delicious and refreshing dessert for our last class, and several of us took part in the prep work. Chef Tony did the honors in whipping the sabayon, a silky combination of egg yolks, orange and lemon juices, orange zest, Grand Marnier and sugar. The sauce was emulsified and ladled onto plates of delicate orange slices macerated with rose water and garnished with chopped and toasted pistachios.

The word "chef" is from the French, and it means "chief." Hence, the chef de cuisine is the chief of the kitchen. Chefs Tony and John Meidinger have clearly and assertively been our chiefs for the first term at the California Culinary Academy.

Each made a sincere offer of mentoring as we wend our way through the next seven-plus months of studies.

(Photos show the sabayon at upper left; orange slices being prepared on the right; at the bottom Chef Tony on the left and students preparing the treat.)

90 questions till first term ends at culinary school

One more exam, the all-important ServSafe certification test, is on the docket at the California Culinary Academy for the culinary arts certificate group that began six weeks ago.

The test will be 90 questions all about food and restaurant safety and sanitation. Passage, with a minimum score of 75%, gives the student a five-year certification by the National Restaurant Association. It's considered an important entry point for those seeking work in the restaurant business as cooks and chefs.

Chef John Meidinger will administer the test, giving us one hour and 10 minutes. The results will be posted on the ServSafe Web site in about two weeks.

Today, Chef John gave us the final exam for hisSafety & Sanitation class, and Chef Tony Marano oversaw a skills test requiring us to make mayonnaise and gazpacho by hand. Both of mine turned out well, and  Chef Tony gave me high marks.

More important, I felt comfortable with how both dishes came together, and I completed the tasks in well under the one-hour time allotment.

Can't wait to complete the safety and sanitation certification. Then onto daily cooking in Les Cuissons Francaise in Culinary Foundations II class starting next Monday.

Battle of the bulge still on, but I'm winning for now

Still no weight gain for me -- in fact, a self-impressive 3-4 pound loss -- after six weeks of culinary school.

As has been said to the point of cliché, given a situation in which one must literally eat his homework and his in-class work, putting on pounds would seem to be part of the program. Executive Chef Tim Grable of the California Culinary Academy warned us about the issue at the beginning of the term, as shown here.

The scale read a hair over 180 pounds this morning. On Sept. 28, the first day of class, it hovered at 184.

Bigger tests are yet to come. In Culinary Foundations I, we didn't cook every day, and with one or two exceptions, we consumed only bits of what we made, adhering to Chef Grable's admonition to "taste, don't eat."

Starting Monday, in Culinary Foundations II, we will be cooking nearly every day, over a four-hour span. That will increase the challenge.

And, yet to come, in the early spring, is high potential for falling off the wagon: Baking and Pastry class.

Post Script: Any reader who interprets my small weight loss over six weeks as a sign that my cooking isn't all that good won't be invited to the next feast of braised short ribs with a wine sauce, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans in béchamel sauce.

Practice is over; time to stand and deliver

We practiced, practiced, practiced. Now comes the payoff.

The knife skills final exam went lickety-split today in Culinary Foundations I. All went well, and now we move on to the toughest day in finals week.

Thursday will bring the 100-question final exam in Safety & Sanitation class, followed by a two-step practical kitchen skills exam in Culinary Foundations I. We must make mayonnaise and gazpacho, both from scratch, both without the aid of electric blender or food processor.

Photo shows several of my classmates in one last practice session, making mayonnaise and gazpacho, earlier this week.

Basic culinary arts skills? We're ready to be tested

Chef Tony Marano's Culinary Foundation I class is ready for the practical exams on the fundamental skills. Wednesday will be knife skills, and Thursday mayonnaise and gazpacho, both to be made without the aid of blender or food processor.

Today was all practice, and everyone was energized and on the right track.

Photo shows the results of the 10 knife cuts I practiced today. Clockwise from upper left: tournée of potato; tomato concasse; minced parsley; minced garlic; chiffonade of spinach; cisseler of onion; brunois of carrot; julienne of carrot; batonnet of potato; small dice of potato. In the center is the curve-bladed paring knife that I use for tournée, at right the regular paring knife. Most of the cuts are done with a 9-inch chef's knife (not shown).

Of parsley stems, bay leaf, hand-made mayonnaise

What's in a sachet? Thyme, whole clove, peppercorns, bay leaf, parsley stems.

For that question on the final exam in Culinary Foundations I, I remembered all except the bay leaf. A sachet, by the way, is the above ingredients in a cheesecloth bag tied shut and put in stock to help build flavor.

For one other question, the difference between saisir and raidir, I drew a blank. The former is searing and browning in precooking; the latter is searing without browning in precooking.

Other than those, the written final exam went well, followed immediately by a quick practice session making mayonnaise by hand. Mine whipped up well (photo above), although it had a bit too much vinegar in it. I'll adjust for the final exam when I whip it again on Thursday.

One final exam down, four to go.

Being 'top chef' means never having to do dishes

What they don't show you on Top Chef or Iron Chef but that we're learning at the California Culinary Academy:

* Cooking is messy, and someone has to clean. At culinary school, we clean in orderly fashion and in accordance with accepted safety and sanitation practices. As Chef John Meidinger told us in Safety & Sanitation class: "This isn't romantic, is it? You're not going to see this on the Food Network. But you will spend 3% of your revenue cleaning everything in your restaurant."

* All those rich, flavorful sauces take time, lots of time, to make. When a chef opens a container of stock on television, he/she is bypassing the long, hard work it takes to make the stock. Additionally, using off-the-shelf stocks probably introduces a lot more sodium to cooking than should be there.

* Back to sanitation: Saying scant attention is paid to it on the cooking shows would be unfair. But it does tend to get nudged aside regularly. A couple of examples: Double-dipping by chefs when they are tasting something; on Top Chef, head judge Tom Colicchio likes to drop in on the competitors at the height of food preparation. He often ends those brief visits with a handshake, and the chef goes right back to the food, not washing his/her hands.

* Good cooking doesn't always take a lot of time, but some of it does. The condensed amount of time on the shows -- a one-hour time limit for Iron Chef and generally no more than two hours to prep and cook a meal on Top Chef -- makes a number of cooking techniques unrealistic, or it telescopes the work involved so that the viewer isn't getting the true picture.

* There's a good bit of humility and modesty among chefs. At least that's so with the chefs at the Academy. The arrogance, bravado and strutting one sees among contestants on Top Chef and Iron Chef must be for entertainment value; they add nothing to the sauce.

(Photo credit: www.tenhundfeld.org)

Culinary school finals week; let the cramming begin

Week 6 at the California Culinary Academy is the end of the term for students in the culinary arts certificate program. That means final exams.

* Monday will be the written exam in Culinary Foundations I, covering culinary history, kitchen equipment and the kitchen "brigade," sauces and stocks, knife cuts, basic measurements and proportioning recipes, the seven techniques of Les Cuissons Francaise. (We learned a lot of stuff, more than I would have guessed.)

* Tuesday will be a review and study day.

* Wednesday will be the practical exam in Culinary Foundations I for knife skills, demonstrating the 10 basic cuts.

* Thursday will be the written exam in Safety & Sanitation and the practical exam in Culinary Foundations I for sauces and soups. We will be required to make mayonnaise as the sauce and gazpacho as the soup, all in 90 minutes.

* Friday will be the written ServSafe food safety certification exam. Passing the exam means National Restaurant Association certification for five years. Having certification is required by many restaurants for chefs and cooks.

Will "cram" and "practice" today by making cream of mushroom soup, scallops sautéed in butter and oil and a mix of peas, carrots and pearl onions.