Stewart Borden

TODAY’S TIDBITS

• If possible, put an odd number of a vegetable on a plate: it looks more symmetrical but creates a tension
• Add salt to fried potatoes at the end or the salt starts to interact with the starch
• Mussels ‘moules’ can be a big money maker, a 15 pound bag will serve 15 people but pay for itself with the first person, and they look great.

The picture above is of Chef John showing us how to light a pilot light – always a scary proposition, especially considering he used the butter wrapper as a wick!!!!!

I think I aced the test this morning – we find out next week. We spent most of the day learning about tournage, the art of shaping vegetables to look elegant and are all the same size so that they will each be cooked to exactly the same doneness – i.e. perfectly.

We were ‘tournaging’ cocottes which are 5cm long egg-like shapes. They HAVE to have 7 sides, and be the shape of a flattened rugby ball. I think I started to get the hang of it, but 7 sides is an unnatural number of sides – potatoes were the easiest to do, carrots the hardest. Pablo had a real tough time of it. I thought he was going to master this no probs because he got the hang of ciseler very fast, but this proved harder. We also learned how to prepare an artichoke cooked in a-blanc , acronym f-l-o-w-s (flour, lemon, oil, water, salt). These are going to go into a Garniture a la Bouquetier (nicely presented vegetables) on tomorrow’s plate.

 

We also started learning about stocks (look at all those veal bones). Roasting all the veal bones, and vegetables, then putting them in that huge ‘marmite’ and simmering for 8-12 hours while skimming regularly.

Lent out my extra chef’s uniform to Tim from Hawaii, who forgot his. Met the head dean, and said ‘bonjour’ in my best French possible. He caught the accent …Vous parlez le francais? I told him about living in Cannes and Paris, which went over well.

Grabbed some more bread (there ain’t no possible low-carb diet around this place), and off to practice tournage.

 

 

TODAY’S TIDBITS

• Add salt to a vinaigrette BEFORE the oil, as oil can prevent the salt from dissolving
• Sweat onions for a while BEFORE adding salt, the salt will dry them out too fast
• Serve a free canapé, you’ll sell an extra drink (where all the profit is)
• Endives and white asparagus are made by depriving them of the light preventing them from developing a stronger flavor
• Marigolds keep deer away from your garden (good to know for the cottage)

INTENSE – today was the first taste of pressure in the kitchen. Chef John demonstrated the tricks to making ratatouille, and then off we went to do it. It was a good lesson in team work because we had to prep all the ingredients as a team (you do the onion ciseler, I’ll do the tomatoes emonder, etc…), but then plate it individually.

We had to plate the ratatouille in 3 quenelles (which are three-sided-egg-like-shapes formed by consecutive squishing of the ratatouille between two spoons. I DID NOT get the hand of it very well at all – put it on the homework list.

Chef then demonstrated how to prepare and then assemble the beet/goat cheese timbale and we were off again. For this we had to roast beets, make a vinaigrette, make an apple vinaigrette, a frisee salad, and assemble all with goat cheese in a round form. I got it done, but not perfectly.

Picked up a free baguette and Italian loaf from the baking class, and headed home to recuperate and study for tomorrow’s test.

 

 

TODAY’S TIDBITS

• The pasteurizing of milk can actually make it MORE vulnerable, because often the natural bacteria give it defence.
• Many cheeses in Europe are un-pasteurized and taste better, they’re not allowed in North America however.
• Cooking will kill parasites, and bacteria, but not their toxins, not all viruses, not all spores.
• If you’re going to serve raw or uncooked fish, the safest is fish that has been frozen, because freezing kills parasites (but freezing doesn’t kill anything else).
• Don’t use copper or aluminum pots, particularly with acidic foods (uh oh, I’ve been using aluminum for years)
• Temperature Danger Zone (41 – 135 F)

OUCH, cut myself today – and not while doing anything fancy, just taking a knife out of the knife kit. Oh well, it wasn’t too deep. A band-aid and finger condom, and I was off to more chopping.

Many of us needed coffee to stay awake for part of today. It was safety day, so Chef Bauer (from Alsace) took us through the ServSafe curriculum, which, while important, was not that exciting. I think he knew it too, half way through, he said “You all need a break don’t you”, revealing that cool French sarcasm. The owner of Lutece popped his head in today. There are lots of French chef heavyweights walking the halls. I was “co-sous-chef” today which means you go upstairs and bring down lunch (who is cooked by another class) for the whole class. Today was steak with chimichurri –yum!

 

Off to write up my recipe cards for tomorrow. (We’re not allowed to have our textbook in the kitchen as it uses up too much space, so we have to write the recipe on a 3×5 card in advance of class). Our first recipe is ratatouille (coincidently the first recipe I did from Julia Child’s book).

 

 

 

What an incredible first day!!!!! After receiving our kitchen utensil set, and a demo on kitchen safety, sanitation and what to do in case of a cut and fire, we were soon learning the different vegetable preparations. Chef John said to take it slow, and warned us that there had never been a class without a cut. Sure enough, within minutes 6 students had cut themselves.

There were over 160 French terms in the book that we have to learn. Knowing French helps, but still many of the words were foreign to me. We learnt how to

Emincer (slice thinly)	Ciceler (dice)
Tronconner (cut into sections)	Parer (trim into a bloc)
Jardinière (4cm sticks ½ cm square)	Macedoine (1/2cm cuts of Jardiniere)
Julienne (6cm sticks 1mm square)	Brunoise (1mm cuts of Juliene)
Emonder (peel by blanching)	Concasser (dice of tomato)
Paysanne (1 mm tiles from Jardiniere)	Chiffonade (shreds of leaves)
Hacher (minced, e.g. herbs)

We also learnt how to cook carrots a L’Anglaise (which basically means boiled in salt water and then shocked cold, and turnips a L’Etuvee. OH MY GOD, THEY WERE SOOOOOO GOOD!!!!. Just with a bit of butter, s&p, half covered in water with a lid made of parchment paper. Incredible!!!!!

I got all emotional today when chef Herve came up to my station, looked at my carrots and said in a thick French accent “You av good cutting skilz, arr you frome a proffesssionall rrrrestorrrant?” (I learnt in the locker room we were really lucky to have him in class today, he’s one of the top chefs at the school). It’s a small world, Chef John (our head chef today) went to high school at UCC in Toronto.

My partner for the week is Pablo (20yo) from Queens – he’s really into food and we seem to work well together.

The only downer of the day was when we were shown how to put on our scarves – it’s EXACTLY LIKE TYING A TIE…. and I thought my years of tying a tie every morning were over with!!!!

Tomorrow is a whole course on safety and more knife skills. Off to practice cutting carrots, onions, and turnips!

It was initiation day at the ICC International Culinary Center. We signed all our forms, got our chef’s outfits and Level 1 course book. We were given various presentations on kitchen rules (e.g. no jewelry, no nail polish, no unkempt facial hair etc…), on attendance (have to have a 90% attendance to pass), on graduating (have to earn at least 70% in all courses), on externships, on picking up pay-what-you-can bread and patisseries from the baking class, and on finances. My answer on form 1 to “Who is your favourite chef” was….. Diana Colman!

I also went and talked to Robin about getting paid for externships (the 200 hours we do in a restaurant). Apparently, foreign students (which I am) can’t get paid for this. It’s $9 hour which isn’t a ton but it would add up. On the flip side, it opens a lot more places to do the externships, because there are some really good spots that want people but can’t pay. We’ll see how that turns out.

There’s all types in my class of 24. I thought the maximum class was 12-15, but apparently its 12-15 PER INSTRUCTOR. I’m ok with that, it makes for more personalities which is going to make it exciting. It was a short day (3 hours), but the most exciting part was at the end when a couple of people had to wait for additional things, and we all started talking, and it was all food, food, food. Very cool.