More Carbo-loading

After Monday’s potato bonanza, we moved onto other starches…. rice and pasta. If Monday was our longest class, it’s only fitting that the day after was our shortest. After a quiz and short lecture, dove straight into our rice preparation.

Steamed rice……… uh… wash it, bring it to a boil, cover and simmer for 25 min. Yep, that’s it.

Rice pilaf….. same as above except that you add the rice to sweating onions to coat and flavor the rice with fat (usually butter). The fat brings out a nutty flavor in the rice and the coating prevents the rice from sticking together.

The takeaway on rice prep, rice to liquid ratios:
Steamed Rice: 1 cup rice – 1 ¼ cup liquid
Pilaf Rice: 1 cup rice – 1 ½ cup liquid

30 min into class and we’re done with 2 of 6 of our dishes.

I got started on spaetzle. Spaetzle is a German pasta that is a mixture of flour, eggs and water with the consistency of thick pancake batter. The dough or batter is then basically run over a cheese grater into a pot of boiling water. This process creates little batter drops that cook and surface within 60 secs. The noodles are then shocked in an ice water bath to keep from over cooking. We then held these until near service time when we and reheated them in a pan of clarified butter. I remember having this before and it being very buttery and light. In our class, everyone’s seemed to be tougher than I remember and not quite flavorful enough. Because it was not as popular, I was able to take a portion of it home. When it sat overnight and I seasoned it again with more salt and cooked it with a lot more butter, it was much better.

In addition to our fresh pasta, we also made a dried pasta dish, Pasta “Alla Carbonara”. First things first, here are some handy measurements to have regarding cooking pasta:
Pasta: 1 lb pasta – 8 cup of water
Dry Pasta: 1 lb dry pasta = 2 ½ - 3 lbs cooked pasta; 8-10 min cook time
Fresh Pasta: 1 lb fresh pasta = 2 – 2 ½ lbs cooked pasta; 30-60 sec cook time

Adrianna prepared ½ lb of dry spaghetti in a pot and sautéed bacon in another. When the bacon fat had rendered she added the pasta into the sauté pan. The heat is turned down to low and finished the pasta with a liason (if you remember from Soups 2, this is 1 part egg + 3 parts cream). Unfortunately, our pan was a bit too hot and the liason broke a little bit and you could see dots of the coagulated egg scattered on the pasta. It still tasted fantastic but did not have the thick cream sauce that it should have.

Carling took the lead on the polenta. I have never made it before but had seen a Michael Chiarello’s Food Network show Easy Entertaining where he hosted a polenta party. Polenta = cornmeal + butter + liquid and can be served 2 ways. When first cooked, it’s most like oatmeal or grits and has the texture of a thick batter. Basically, it should run but have a doughy-ness to it that prevents it from breaking up. The most common restaurant preparation of polenta is to cool the polenta and let it harden. Then it is cut into shapes, re-heated (fried to add color) and served as a layer in a stack of food. At the “Polenta Party”, Chiarello served the polenta while runny. He poured it out over his table and had dishes of other ingredients like roasted vegetables that his guests served themselves directly onto the table and mixed in a portion of the polenta. It looked pretty awesome and is still something I’d like to do in the future. We served our polenta in its runny state and Adrianna formed it before plating and made ours look pretty. Mental note: this form of polenta needs to be served very hot; if it cools, it hardens and is like eating sandy jell-o.

The last dish before service was risotto. This dish is traditionally difficult because it requires constant attention to finish properly and is best served immediately. Apparently, there are several ways to prepare it though. Some people add all of the liquid at once, some add it gradually; some people stir consistently, some stir in intervals; some people add the wine up front, others finish with the wine. I followed the traditional preparation, liquid added gradually while stirring constantly and adding the wine at the end.

The reasons for these steps:
1. Adding the liquid gradually: to keep the pot at a constant simmer
2. Constant stirring: with a small amount of liquid stirring prevents the bottom from burning and/or over-cooking
3. Adding the wine at the end: to keep the white wine flavor

The desired texture is creamy and tender but with al dente centers to the rice grains. My arm started to get tired by the end but it was well worth it. This was my favorite of the day. Once all of the liquid is incorporated (1 cup rice – 3 cups liquid), parmesan cheese and butter are stirred in until melted. Service time. Oh man, was this good.

Today we were done early, and good thing, cuz we had a lot to eat.

Rees

Potato Monday

This week, we got new teams. As part of learning to work in a commercial kitchen, Chef Pierre wants us to learn to work with different people. I am now a member of a 4 person team with 3 girls. The hardest part about a new team is getting used to the way each person likes to work. In my last group it took 2 weeks to determine the roles each person would take based on each other’s personalities. This time around, we have a lot more on the menu and don’t have the luxury to take that kind of time. 2 of the girls in the group, Carling and Adrianna, are smart but quiet; it’s obvious that they will be good team members but will likely not take charge. The 3rd, Kenesha, is very independent; she is outgoing enough to take charge but would rather take her duty and just manage her own responsibilities. This leaves me to oversee the group and to make sure that all items are prepared and served on time. It’s my first kitchen management role, a role that I wasn’t sure I was ready for but needed to learn at some point.

Monday was all about potato preparation.
We cooked potatoes 6 different ways.
1. Mashed: Duchesse potatoes
2. Deep fried: Croquette potatoes
3. Baked: yes, it’s that obvious, baked potatoes
4. Potato pasta: Gnocchi
5. Sautéed: Pommes Lyonnaise
6. Boiled: Pommes Anglaise

For the Duchesse, Croquette and Gnocchi, we used the same type of potatoes and prepared them the same way. This meant that we could save time by starting them together and then splitting them up when it came time to finish them. The 4 of us began by washing and peeling 5 lbs of russet potatoes. For these preparations you want to use starchy potatoes (usually russets) because when they are cooked they break down and are easier to mash. The peeled potatoes are then put in cold, salted water and brought to a boil and simmered for 25 min. The potatoes are then drained and dried (put in a 350° oven until the steam is gone) and put through a food mill. We then separated the potatoes into 3 batches: 2 ¼ lbs for the Duchesse, 1 lb for the Croquette and 1 ¼ lb for the Gnocchi. By the way, at this point in the class I had already used the “hot-potato” comment 3 times. Potatoes do get really hot. I decided that after milling all the potatoes that I needed to cool my hands so I went to do dishes while the girls started the preparations for the 3 different potatoes.

To the still-hot 2 ¼ lb portion of mashed potatoes, egg yolks and softened butter were added and put into a piping bag with a star tip to make Duchesse potatoes. Then, we each got a chance to make 4 oz mounds. Mine looked terrible; somehow it wasn’t round on 1 side; Carling’s attempt was way too small; Kenesha’s tower started great and then turned into the leaning tower of potato; the best of our group was Adrianna. The tops are then drizzled with melted butter and broiled for 15 min.

To the 1 lb portion of hot-mashed potatoes, we added a different proportion of egg yolk and softened butter and put this into a pastry bag as well to make Croquette potatoes. For this one though, we did not need a tip. We wanted to make long sausage-like tubes. These tubes were cut into 2” long pieces and breaded using the Standard Breading Procedure (the procedure for coating foods with crumbs or meal by passing food through flour, then an egg wash and then the crumbs). These pieces are then put in the deep-fryer at 350° until golden brown. These were awesome; they are like mozzarella sticks but filled with mashed potatoes!

To the 1 ¼ lb portion of hot-mashed potatoes, we added flour and an egg to make a pasta dough for the gnocchi. This pasta is rolled into 16” long sticks about an inch wide and cut into ¾” pieces. Painstakingly, each little piece is rolled over a fork, leaving indentations and making texture. Just before service, these are dropped into boiling salted water. When they rise to the surface, about 30-60 seconds later, they are done. These were served over fresh tomato sauce that Kenesha had prepared and topped with parmesan cheese and beurre noisette (brown butter). The brown butter preparation was cool. To an already hot pan you add the butter and wait until it almost burns and then pour over the food. If the pan is not already hot, you will just melt the butter.

To ensure that everything would be cooked on time, we made sure to get the baked and Lyonnaise potatoes started, adding them to the oven at 400° as soon as the first three had been pulled out of the oven after drying. To prepare the potatoes for baking, you simply rub the skins in oil and a bit of salt if you choose, pierce the skins with a fork and throw in the oven for an hour (yeah, it’s that easy). Kenesha also fried up some bacon and found sour cream and green onions to top our potatoes. Mmmm…

On a side note, baked potatoes are almost always disappointing, because about halfway through it, you realize that you have already eaten all of the toppings.

For the Lyonnaise preparation, we used waxy potatoes because they are more moist and firm and hold their shape well when cooked than the starchy potatoes. We had a choice of white-skinned or red potatoes. I chose the white-skinned because it seemed that most everyone else was using red (I’m sure they picked them for the color, but we were peeling them so the color really didn’t matter). We partially cooked the white-skinned potatoes for 15 min. We then removed them from the oven leaving the baked potatoes in for another 45 min (hot-potato comment count: 5). We peeled these potatoes and cut them into ¼” thick slices for sautéing. These potatoes were the best of the group. To start, onions are cooked in butter until tender but not browned. The onions are then set aside and the pan is filled with the potato discs and more butter. The discs are cooked and tossed until all sides have browned and then the onions are added back in to combine the flavors.

The Anglaise preparation is relatively simple: boiled potatoes topped with butter and parsley. The reason we did this in class was to learn another new knife skill, the tourné. A tourné is a football shaped cut with seven equal sides and blunt ends. We had to practice this cut from quartered potatoes. This cut is very hard at first but once you get the hang of it……. it’s still very hard. The motions get easier and you get more comfortable holding the knife and the potato, but the sides still looked uneven and very UN-smooth.

Monday was by far, the longest class we had and we didn’t get out until after 10:30, but when we’re that busy it didn’t really seem that long.

Rees

Veggie crazy!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I finally understand why the vegetables I cooked went from raw to over-cooked like that [insert finger-snapping here]. This week was focused on the proper preparation of vegatables. C'mon, I know everyone has ordered green beans at a restaurant and said to themselves, "I can do that. It's beans and oil." I also know that when you try it at home, you get one of these results:
1. Army green/khaki colored, mushy green beans
2. Brightly colored and undercooked burnt beans

I don't care if you do or do not understand food science but it's really helping me, so I'm gonna write about it and it explains how and WHY everyone gets those same results at home.

Lots of vegetables get boiled right? Of course; but nobody knows how long. Wanna know
why? .......

Each vegetable has a very different structural integrity; from species to species and size to size, each vegetable is different.

Rule #1: Cut all your vegetables into uniform sizes and shapes so that each piece cooks evenly. This addresses the problem with weird shapes: make them all the same relative size and they will cook at the same speed (among the same type of veggie).

Rule #2: Cook as short as possible to preserve texture, color and nutrients. Most vegetables get overcooked!

Rule #3: When cooking different vegetables in a medley, cook them separately. Cook them in order of starch content and add less starchy vegetables after more starchy ones.

Now, here is the big science piece that helps me understand this best. All vegetables have at least some level of cellulose, which is an undigestable fiber that makes up the cell walls of vegetables. Cooking vegetables breaks down that cellulose. Some vegetables need to break down more or less than others. My favorite examples are zucchini and beets. Zucchini can be sliced and eaten raw (doesn't need to be broken down); beets on the other hand, need to be cooked to have a desireable taste (needs to break down lots of cellulose). Basically, if you'd eat it raw, it needs less cooking than those that you wouldn't. This week in class we applied that common sense and put it to action. This is the main factor in vegetables.
Know your food.
Know which take longer to cook.

Other than vegetable science, this week, we learned and applied several different cooking methods to vegetables in order to display their versatility. There are 3 types of cooking methods:

1. Dry-heat method
2. Moist-heat method
3. Combination method.
To kill 2 birds with one stone, we learned both vegetable preparation and cooking methods.

On Monday, we prepared:
Grilled Vegetables
- Grilling is a dry-heat cooking method.
- Rule #1 is the most important when grilling. We marinated onions, zucchini and mushrooms. Each of these have different cellulose contents, but with grilled foods, you'd expect different textures but uniform heat and char. Size is the most important issue becuase if one item is thicker than the rest, the other don't get the same heat and/or grill contact as the thinner items. don't get the same heat and/or grill contact as the thinner items. When grilling, you should be aware of the cellulose content of the items grilled together. Grilling is best for higher heat, lower cellulose veggies. Can you imagine grilling a potato or beet? You'd need to pre-cook something with that much starch. To get the appropriate look, uniformity of shape is imporant, because when you lay skewers down on the grill, you want all of the veggies to get good grill marks. If they are improperly cut, some veggies touch the grill, other end up suspended.

Sauteed Green Beans:
Finally, we are back to my original example. Sauteeing is a dry-heat cooking method. The way to avoid bad beans is to understand that the integrity of this vegetable requires a little bit of breakdown before it can be enjoyed. Raw beans taste chewy and bitter. To counteract this, they should be par-boiled (par-boiled = blanching + extra time) to break down the cellulose. The beans are then shocked in a cold water bath to stop the cooking. If not shocked, the hot beans will continue cooking themselves and make themselves mushy (mushy = bad, for the most part). Just before service, you add the cooled, par-boiled beans to a heated, buttered pan and saute until hot. Minimal cooking retains more nutrients and maintains color.

Roasted Acorn Squash:
- Roasted = Baked. They are both a dry-heat cooking method.
- This was the least exciting food to prepare on Monday. Cut in half; cook; flip; season (the only fun part: butter,brown sugar and orange juice); cook more. The service was cool though; it came in it's own bowls!



Braised Lettuce: - Braising is a Combination cooking method. - Wilting greens is not new. Very common cooked wilted greens are spinach, mustard and collard greens. I had not ever heard of wilted Romaine until this week. Apparently, Europe does not see Romaine as a cold salad lettuce the same way as we do in the U.S. For this dish, we blanched the lettuce in already boiling water (blanching = add vegetable to boiling water and remove when water returns to a simmer). After the water returns to a simmer, we removed the lettuce from the heat and shocked it in ice water. Boring, so far, right? Then, I halved the head without cutting it in half... basically unfolded it. With the unfolded lettuce, I broke the stems in thirds and folded it into itself (fold the bottom third up and the top third over the bottom third) to create a long rectangle. I quartered this rectangle into 4 servings. These then went into a pan, topped with mirepoix, and finished in the oven. Suprisingly awesome. Dude, it's cooked lettuce and it really tastes good. -- Mom, I'll make this at a family event and people will think it's gourmet.... it's braised lettuce!--


Broccoli Hollandaise:
- Par-boiled Broccoli is a moist-heat method.
- Again, par-boiling = blanching + more time. Par-boiling is used on tougher vegetables. The general rule is that if it grows below ground (root veggies, etc.), you should par-boil it. We all know that broccoli is more tender cooked but can get a little flavor-less all by itself. Here, we added Hollandaise sauce (yes, we applied our previous learning to make Hollandaise) to the broccoli. mmmmmmmmmmmmm.... much better.

Tempura Vegetables:
- Frying is a dry-heat cooking method. Yes, you heard right. This is because dry-heat = direct contact. In this case, the frying oil becomes the heating element. The heating element is in direct contact with the cooking food, therefore it is a dry-heat method.

- To prepare tempura batter, Stormy mixed egg yolks, sifted flour and cold water. She skewered her veggies and dipped them in flour and then the batter (the flour removes moisture which helps the egg-yolk-based batter adhere to the veggies) and placed them in the deep fryer. For battered items, you want employ the "swimming method", where the cooking items just float in the hot oil, so that they don't stick to the fry-basket while cooking.

On Tuesday, we prepared:

Glazed Batonnets of Carrots:
- Sauteing is a dry-heat method
- Batonnet = 1/4" x 1/4" x 2" cuts
- This preparation is a fairly easy glaze. Chicken stock + butter + sugar added in a saute pan to the carrots. When the liquid reduces to a syrupy texture, you're done. Very simple, very tasty and sweet.

Glazed Beets:
- Another glaze, another dry-heat method saute.
- Not a lot of people in class were beet fans. I am. I took charge of the beet preparation. I couldn't wait. And......then I screwed up twice. I broke my glaze 2 times. Glaze is a reduction of the cooking liquid. In this case, butter, lemon juice, sugar and beet juice. The first time, I had too much fat to reduce and when the liquid (lemon juice) evaporated, the sauce broke. To fix it, I should have added more liquid. I made the mistake of adding more butter; it was melted, so I figured melted = liquid. However, butter = fat. And fat is a dry cooking method. Ooops. Chef Pierre had me pull out the beets and tried to restart the glaze with water (Water = liquid). Unsuccessful. He had me toss this glaze and restart it. This time, I used less fat to get the glaze started. The glaze was working well the 2nd time when I added back the beets. By the 2nd application to the saute pan, the beets were near done so I didn't cook the 2nd glaze long enough. Upon service, the beets were well cooked (slightly colored) and sweet enough (I used the sugar twice), but did not have the thick glaze coating it because the 2nd glaze didn't have enough time to reduce. Lesson learned; be patient and do it right the first time.

I think the funny story of the week had to be beet-related though. To start the beets, we needed to par-boil them and peel them. After they become tender, we shocked them in cold water and then I started peeling. In case you didn't know, beets bleed. That red, blood-stains everything. I wore gloves when I peeled them and had plastic wrap on the cutting board that I was peeling onto. On one of the corners however, an air pocket had developed and while peeling my gloved thumb pressed the air pocket and it burst like a pimple. Gross!! Drops of purple juice shot in every direction, including directly back at me. My chef's coat got drilled with staining blood. And unlike blood, this doesn't come out with cold water. During a break, I worked it over with the Tide-Pen that I keep in my car, thinking I was a genious for having one. It turned a purple dots into a huge pink target!!! Here I am 2-days later after overnight soaks in Oxy-Clean and it's finally white again. Lesson learned... don't mess with beet juice.

Ratatouille:
- It's a glamour stew. Stewing is also a combination cooking method.
- Of course, the first thing you think of is the Disney-Pixar movie. And just like the cooks in the Gusteau kitchen, ratatouille is viewed as a dish for the commoner.
However, when done well and not over-cooked, it can be a tender summer favorite. Now, to be traditional, our vegetables were a large dice (3/4" cubes) to reflect the rustic origins, not the "fussed-up, fancy, thin-sliced" disney preparation. This is a dish that I will keep on had though. It is an amazing conglomerate of vegetables caught directly between undercooked and mushy... really hard to describe beyond that and the word "Awesome".

Summer Squash Stir-Fry:
- Stir-fry foods are prepared in a wok on high heat. This is fast-frying or fast-saute and is a dry-heat method.
- For this dish, we cut the veggies (leeks, zucchini and yellow squash) into long julienne. Long Julienne = 3" x 1/16th" x 1/16th" = painstaking. The point is to make the veggies look like noodles. I'm just going to let you know (without the in-class emotion) that these cuts take FOREVER to do properly! This preparation is a good example of rule #3. Zucchini and Yellow Squash cook much faster than leeks. The leeks need to be added first and when the start to get tender, we added the faster cooking summer squashes.

We stir-fried these in oil and basically served them garnish-less. For the most part, I went into class understanding that wok cooking = high heat + constant movement. However, Stormy, having grown up in Hawaii, gave me a little extra insight. I had the heat on Medium-High and knew that they needed to keep moving in the pan; Stormy says, "high-er heat and move it faster. Don't let it sit". She also added extra oil, appropriately using sesame oil, adding an extra flavor component that many of the other teams didn't have.

Cauliflower "Au Gratin":
- Au Gratin basically means topped and browned. Most often with cheese and bechamel and broiled in the oven.

- The whole cauliflower is par-boiled until tender and cooled. Before service, it is covered with bechamel sauce (yes, we made that before too) and parmesan cheese and broiled in the oven until the sauce and cheese start to brown.

--Aside: I haven't mentioned it yet because there is no magic time for tenderness on vegetables. Al Dente doneness is determined when you spear the toughest spot of the vegetables with a paring knife. If it pulls out without sticking, you're done. If it sticks, it needs more cooking. If it destroys the structure, you've over-cooked it unless you plan on pureeing it.--

They are grinding it in me, I'll pass it on to you.
Science + Technique = good cooking

-- Rees

Breakfast

Q: Do you know why a chef's toque (tall white hat) has so many folds?
A: Traditionally, there were 101 folds in a toque, 1 for every way to prepare eggs.

Q: Do you know how many ways you can prepare eggs in 5 hours?
A: We were able to prepare 10: poached eggs, hard cooked eggs, soft cooked eggs, sunny side up eggs, over easy eggs, omelets, quiches, frittatas, crepes and hollandaise. And we still had time for a lecture, clean up and a feast!

Now, just about everyone can make an egg breakfast. I was thinking that this class was going to be fairly unimportant or that I wouldn't learn much. After this class period, I realize that yes, I do know how to make most of these, but now I know a few tips and tricks for each to make them all a bit better.

I'm pretty sure most people are confident in how to make a hard cooked egg. 3 things I took away from this preparation:
1. Never boil them. They should be cooked in water that is simmering at 185-190° water.
2. There are 3 ways to cook them. Pick one and do it that way every time.
-Add the eggs to already simmering water (~10 min)
-Start the eggs in cold water and bring them to a simmer (~12 min)
-Add the eggs to boiling water and turn off the heat and let them sit in the hot water (~15 min)
3. Adding vinegar to the water keeps the egg white from expanding in the shell making it easier to peel.

Soft Cooked Egg = 3 min egg
Its' like a hard cooked egg but only cooked for 3 mins. The protein in the egg white coagulates but the yolk is still runny in the middle. Great for dipping toast!

Poached eggs are cooked 3-5 min using the same procedure as a hard or soft cooked egg. The easiest way to keep the egg together when adding it to the water is to break the egg into a cup or bowl and slowly lower it into the water.

Here is our plate of hard cooked halves and poached eggs. I whipped together a hollandaise sauce just before service and added it to the poached eggs. The crack in one of those poached eggs is from Chef Pierre. He opened it up to check and make sure that the yolks were still runny. They were; and they were delicious. I could have used some English Muffins and Canadian Bacon right about there too.

The trick with fried eggs is that if there is any color on the egg white, it has been overcooked. This becomes a time and temperature challenge when preparing. For example, for our over-easy eggs, Stormy had the 2 eggs sitting in the pan and were ready to flip. However, she couldn't muster up the courage to fling 'em. While preparing to do it, she waited too long and when we finally flipped it, they had started to brown. Even though, we managed to flip it without breaking the yolks, we didn't want to serve the browned eggs. So we tried again, this time, the pan had gotten hotter so the bottom cooked faster. So, when the bottom was ready to be flipped, the top was still too loose and when I flipped the eggs the yolks broke. 0 for 2 on Over Easy. We had a plate of "no-serve".

The sunny side up egg was a different story. This has to be cooked on low heat so that the bottom doesn't out-pace the top. The egg white has 2 parts: thin white and thick white. The thin white is the outer most part of the egg white and cooks quickly. That's the stuff that turns white as soon as it hits the pan. The thick white is the part of the egg white that
surrounds the yolk. That has to coagulate before the bottom of the thin white turns brown. In order to avoid another "no-serve" fried egg, we were very careful and very patient with our Sunny Side Up and it turned out really well.
Stormy got creative with our plating and wrapped the eggs with a "handle" of bacon creating a little Sunny Side Basket.

The omelet preparation taught me 2 new things too.
Most people when making an omelet use milk with the beaten eggs to help make them fluffier and then once the eggs are poured into the pan, the eggs sit still to form the disc. In our class, we used egg only. Chef Pierre demo'd an omelet and he kept moving and scrambling the eggs so that they puffed up and cooked all around. As they started to set, he set down his spatula and just shook the pan until the whole pan set. Then he flipped and rolled the omelet and served it upside down. so that you couldn't see the seam. It didn't need to be flipped because the eggs had cooked all the way through as he was moving them around in the pan. And because they had been moving, they were very soft and fluffy eggs. It was pretty awesome. The other thing to remember is that all of the ingredients for your omelet should be cooked before adding to the omelet. Eggs cook a lot faster than anything you're going to add to the omelet.

I have never made a frittata or crepes before. So the process was new to me for both. Bobby took control of the crepes and turned out some great looking ones. Crepes like most of the egg dishes are not supposed to have any browning. So… he just ladles in the tiniest bit of batter, just to coat the bottom of the pan and lets it set and flips it; a matter of minutes for each. With both of these items, each team was allowed a bit of freedom and creativity. The crepes were allowed to be filled and topped with anything and the frittata was allowed any number of ingredients as well. The frittata is a Spanish dish that’s a mix between and omelet and a quiche. First you sauté all of your ingredients in an oven-safe pan, pour the eggs over it and put it in the oven to finish. We used mushrooms, cheese, tomato and onion. I think that might be my new favorite egg preparation.


We filled our crepes with a cream cheese and sugar mixture and topped it with berries and powdered sugar; Stormy, again with great plating. I actually overheard Chef Pierre at the end of class talking about plating and he said that many of the groups went a little over-the-top with the garnish but pointed to our table as an example of good plating without over-garnishing. Boo-Yah!


And the last thing we made was Quiche Lorraine. Secretly, my mom has been making quiches since I can remember and there was nothing new about the preparation. Advantage me; thanks Mom. I let Bobby handle the quiche because I had nothing to gain by preparing it.

-- Rees