I forgot to update about last week's class!
Last week (week 2), we had 10 of the 15 initial participants to return (YAY!). They even brought their reusable grocery bags so that they could receive their produce for the week, in order to help recreate the present class's recipe. There was one participant, though, who came in when most of the prep work for the lasagna was done...*sigh* She is also the one who tends to make the "we're black" or "'cause I'm black" comments...since I am the only black chef in the classroom (but not the only black person on staff, as one of the class assistants is black and the translator is half black/half Mexican). She makes these statements in an attempt at solidarity (along with truth-said-in-jest offers for me to come and cook for her and her kids), but it gets a bit irksome at times. The class is evenly divided between black and Hispanic/Latino participants, so the solidarity thing is a bit redundant. Alas...
Anyway...we made tortilla lasagna, which turned out pretty well! It was a meatless dish in which the traditional lasagna noodles are replaced with whole-wheat or corn tortillas. We also paired it with a jicama corn salsa...YUM!
Guess you want the recipes now, huh? :D
Tortilla lasagna (yield: 8 servings)
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 lb. mushrooms, sliced
1 medium green bell pepper, cut into thin strips
(**I personally like to use red or yellow bell peppers**)
1 medium yam or sweet potato, peeled and grated/shredded
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes (with juice)
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
10 oz. cheese blend (mix or match: Feta, Queso Fresco, Monterey Jack, cheddar, Mexican blend)
12 corn or whole-wheat tortillas (5-in size)
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Heat large pan over medium heat. Add oil and onions and cook until transparent (5-7 minutes).
3. Add garlic, mushrooms, bell pepper, and oregano. Cook for 5 more minutes
4. Add grated yam/sweet potato and continue cooking till all vegetables are soft (approx. another 10 minutes)
5. Stir in tomatoes and bay leaf. Bring mixture to a boil.
6. Reduce heat and simmer mixture for 20 min.
7. Remove bay leaf and stir in salt and pepper. Remove from heat.
8. Cover bottom of a 9x13 baking dish (or whatever size you deem appropriate) with the vegetable sauce. Layer four tortillas over the sauce. Sprinkle 1/3 of the cheese over the tortillas.
9. Repeat layers 2 more times
10. Spray a piece of aluminum foil with nonstick cooking spray, or oil with any type of vegetable oil. Cover baking dish with foil, oiled side down.
11. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove foil. Continue baking for another 10 min or until the cheese on top is lightly browned.
12. Remove from oven and let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving.
Jicama corn salsa
Two medium jicama, peeled and diced
1 bag frozen corn
2 medium limes OR 3 small limes
1 bunch fresh cilantro OR 2 T. dried cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Heat oven in microwave for 2 min.
2. In a bowl, mix jicama, corn, cilantro, salt and pepper
3. Add juice of limes
4. Mix everything together and refrigerate for at least one hour (to let the flavors meld properly).
Let me know if you try either of these recipes at home! As always, thanks for stopping by.
T.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
'Tis the season: Butternut Squash!
By popular demand, I will be posting weekly with information on seasonal produce, what to do with it, and cool recipes for you to try at home and dazzle your friends. :D
****************************************
Just in time for the Thanksgiving holidays!
WHAT's GOOD (what's in season)? Butternut squash is a big thing this time of the year. It looks like an overgrown peanut, but the flesh is a deep golden yellow (almost orange) and is slightly sweet.
WHAT DO I DO WITH IT? Butternut squash is good roasted alone, or incorporated into stuffing (recipe below). It's also excellent as a soup or a sauce (if you want the recipe, PM me).
HOW DO I KEEP IT? You can store unpeeled, uncut butternut squash at slightly cooler room temperatures (55-60 degress). If you cut it and don't use it all, you have two options: 1) wrap the peeled, raw, unused squash tightly in plastic wrap (or place in an airtight container) and refrigerate. It will keep up to 7 days.
2) cut up the peeled squash and either simmer on the stove until soft (about 20-30 min), or roast in the oven at 350 degrees until soft (about 45 min). Let cool, then place in a freezer bag and freeze. It will keep in the freezer up to 6 months.
HOW DO I COOK IT?
Roasted butternut squash (suggested method):
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Oil the bottom of a pan large enough to fit the squash; you can use olive oil, vegetable oil, canola oil--whatever you have on hand. Peel and cut the squash lengthwise and place the amount you want to cook, cut-side down, in the oiled pan. Bake for 30-45 min or until soft. Let cool, then cut up and add salt and pepper to taste before serving.
Butternut Cranberry Stuffing (yield: 6 servings, 1/4 cup per serving)
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup raw chopped butternut squash (about 1/3 lb; use what you need and store the rest as noted above)
2/3 cup dried cranberries (can substitute raisins or currants)
2 teaspoons dried rosemary or ground/rubbed sage
3 tablespoons dry bread crumbs
3 tablespoons chicken or vegetable broth
Salt and pepper to taste
1. In a large pot, melt butter over medium-high heat.
2. Add onion and squash. Cook for 3-4 minutes or until squash is semi-soft.
3. Add cranberries/raisins/currants and rosemary/sage
4. Continue cooking until the squash is completely soft.
5. Stir in bread crumbs and mix thoroughly
6. Add broth, one tablespoon at a time, until mixture is at preferred moisture level
7. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm.
RECIPE OPTIONS:
--Need that pork flavor? Saute three chopped-up strips of bacon in the pot before adding butter, onion, and squash.
--Feeling fancy? Substitute chopped dried figs, apricots, or persimmons (also in season)
--Got nuts? Add 2 T. chopped toasted walnuts or almonds when you add the bread crumbs.
Let me know how this worked for you! Hit me up with your questions and comments.
As always, thanks for stopping by. -- T.
****************************************
Just in time for the Thanksgiving holidays!
WHAT's GOOD (what's in season)? Butternut squash is a big thing this time of the year. It looks like an overgrown peanut, but the flesh is a deep golden yellow (almost orange) and is slightly sweet.
WHAT DO I DO WITH IT? Butternut squash is good roasted alone, or incorporated into stuffing (recipe below). It's also excellent as a soup or a sauce (if you want the recipe, PM me).
HOW DO I KEEP IT? You can store unpeeled, uncut butternut squash at slightly cooler room temperatures (55-60 degress). If you cut it and don't use it all, you have two options: 1) wrap the peeled, raw, unused squash tightly in plastic wrap (or place in an airtight container) and refrigerate. It will keep up to 7 days.
2) cut up the peeled squash and either simmer on the stove until soft (about 20-30 min), or roast in the oven at 350 degrees until soft (about 45 min). Let cool, then place in a freezer bag and freeze. It will keep in the freezer up to 6 months.
HOW DO I COOK IT?
Roasted butternut squash (suggested method):
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Oil the bottom of a pan large enough to fit the squash; you can use olive oil, vegetable oil, canola oil--whatever you have on hand. Peel and cut the squash lengthwise and place the amount you want to cook, cut-side down, in the oiled pan. Bake for 30-45 min or until soft. Let cool, then cut up and add salt and pepper to taste before serving.
Butternut Cranberry Stuffing (yield: 6 servings, 1/4 cup per serving)
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup raw chopped butternut squash (about 1/3 lb; use what you need and store the rest as noted above)
2/3 cup dried cranberries (can substitute raisins or currants)
2 teaspoons dried rosemary or ground/rubbed sage
3 tablespoons dry bread crumbs
3 tablespoons chicken or vegetable broth
Salt and pepper to taste
1. In a large pot, melt butter over medium-high heat.
2. Add onion and squash. Cook for 3-4 minutes or until squash is semi-soft.
3. Add cranberries/raisins/currants and rosemary/sage
4. Continue cooking until the squash is completely soft.
5. Stir in bread crumbs and mix thoroughly
6. Add broth, one tablespoon at a time, until mixture is at preferred moisture level
7. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm.
RECIPE OPTIONS:
--Need that pork flavor? Saute three chopped-up strips of bacon in the pot before adding butter, onion, and squash.
--Feeling fancy? Substitute chopped dried figs, apricots, or persimmons (also in season)
--Got nuts? Add 2 T. chopped toasted walnuts or almonds when you add the bread crumbs.
Let me know how this worked for you! Hit me up with your questions and comments.
As always, thanks for stopping by. -- T.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Cooking Matters!
Last night, I taught my first adult cooking class, and it was fun!
For those of you not in the know, I used to teach children's nutritional cooking classes at area farmer's markets in upstate NY, through Cooking Matters (formerly Operation Frontline). This is an organization that is funded by Share Our Strengths, which is committed to fighting hunger in children.
The classes are for low-income people and its purpose is to encourage them to eat healthier, as we all know that it is very expensive to eat healthy (but that's a whole 'nother blog entry altogether).
Each class takes place once a week, for two hours, for the next 6 weeks. in each class we provide nutritional education (done by a nutritionist), then cooking, food safety, and food budgeting. We cook (as a class) recipes that incorporate a lot of whole grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, and at the end of each class, each participant is given a bag of fresh produce and a copy of the recipe to take home, so that they can recreate the recipe in their own kitchens. Each class will cook more complex recipes, so that the participants can really get into cooking different things, and also eating different things.
(I didnt' see this done in NY but, then again, San FRancisco has year-round food markets plus the SF Food Bank, which gives out fresh produce. But I digress).
Last night we had 15 people show up: mostly women (though two men were there), and some had their children there. The class was bilingual (had to dig my college Spanish out of the mothballs), but most spoke English. The first class, we just introduced ourselves, our respective roles in the class, and what they could expect in the class. Then the nutritionist did her thing, talking about the Food Pyramid (it changed! Who knew?). I then talked about knife and kitchen safety while my co-chef instructor talked about hand washing. While all this was going on, our class assistants were washing vegetables and getting the take-home bags together.
Finally, we were ready to cook the evening's recipes. Since it was the first class, the recipes were easy: Blackeye Pea Chili and Green Salad with vinaigrette dressing. Before the class began I noticed that the recipe would not make enough to feed so many people (the recipe, as it was, only fed 4), and that we would need to double it. Of course, we barely had enough to do so, which was a good teaching opportunity to demonstrate how recipes could be stretched by adding extra vegetables. :D Unfortunately, we had to use canned beans (fresh are always preferred, but blackeye peas are out of season, and it would have taken too long to use frozen), and we explained why canned beans were not the best to use.
I demonstrated how to cut certain items as the recipe called for them (such as diced, half-moon, etc.), and the participants really got into the cooking aspect. I especially took time to show the safe way to chop carrots (hint: cut carrots in half, then make sure the flat side is on the cutting surface).Some chopped onions, some mushrooms, some cilantro, some zucchini. The rainbow chard used in the recipe caused a lot of buzz, and I explained how it was similar to collard greens except they cook much faster and the stems are edible and not as tough as collard stems.
Making a vinagrette was also exciting for the class, as they were amazed at how simple it was to make salad dressing at home.
In the end, the chili turned out really well. The participants were pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted, and how filling. Some already talked about how they would tweak the recipe when they got home. We'll get field reports next week.
I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed teaching. This is going to be a good thing.
Thanks for stopping by.
For those of you not in the know, I used to teach children's nutritional cooking classes at area farmer's markets in upstate NY, through Cooking Matters (formerly Operation Frontline). This is an organization that is funded by Share Our Strengths, which is committed to fighting hunger in children.
The classes are for low-income people and its purpose is to encourage them to eat healthier, as we all know that it is very expensive to eat healthy (but that's a whole 'nother blog entry altogether).
Each class takes place once a week, for two hours, for the next 6 weeks. in each class we provide nutritional education (done by a nutritionist), then cooking, food safety, and food budgeting. We cook (as a class) recipes that incorporate a lot of whole grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, and at the end of each class, each participant is given a bag of fresh produce and a copy of the recipe to take home, so that they can recreate the recipe in their own kitchens. Each class will cook more complex recipes, so that the participants can really get into cooking different things, and also eating different things.
(I didnt' see this done in NY but, then again, San FRancisco has year-round food markets plus the SF Food Bank, which gives out fresh produce. But I digress).
Last night we had 15 people show up: mostly women (though two men were there), and some had their children there. The class was bilingual (had to dig my college Spanish out of the mothballs), but most spoke English. The first class, we just introduced ourselves, our respective roles in the class, and what they could expect in the class. Then the nutritionist did her thing, talking about the Food Pyramid (it changed! Who knew?). I then talked about knife and kitchen safety while my co-chef instructor talked about hand washing. While all this was going on, our class assistants were washing vegetables and getting the take-home bags together.
Finally, we were ready to cook the evening's recipes. Since it was the first class, the recipes were easy: Blackeye Pea Chili and Green Salad with vinaigrette dressing. Before the class began I noticed that the recipe would not make enough to feed so many people (the recipe, as it was, only fed 4), and that we would need to double it. Of course, we barely had enough to do so, which was a good teaching opportunity to demonstrate how recipes could be stretched by adding extra vegetables. :D Unfortunately, we had to use canned beans (fresh are always preferred, but blackeye peas are out of season, and it would have taken too long to use frozen), and we explained why canned beans were not the best to use.
I demonstrated how to cut certain items as the recipe called for them (such as diced, half-moon, etc.), and the participants really got into the cooking aspect. I especially took time to show the safe way to chop carrots (hint: cut carrots in half, then make sure the flat side is on the cutting surface).Some chopped onions, some mushrooms, some cilantro, some zucchini. The rainbow chard used in the recipe caused a lot of buzz, and I explained how it was similar to collard greens except they cook much faster and the stems are edible and not as tough as collard stems.
Making a vinagrette was also exciting for the class, as they were amazed at how simple it was to make salad dressing at home.
In the end, the chili turned out really well. The participants were pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted, and how filling. Some already talked about how they would tweak the recipe when they got home. We'll get field reports next week.
I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed teaching. This is going to be a good thing.
Thanks for stopping by.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Back in the saddle...
Hi all,
I know it's been a long time since I blogged. After culinary school and my internship, I pretty much lost all the joy of cooking. Dont' get it twisted, the experience was good, and I learned a lot. But it was also reiterated that everything ain't for everybody, and cooking at a certain level most definitely isn't for me. It's only been recently that I rediscovered that joy, and I'm doing my own thing: catering tea service for small groups! Since I can't seem to work for anyone else, and I like learning on my own time, it's the best thing for me.
Building a business from the ground up is time-consuming and expensive, but I've done it before and can do it again. Of course, being the creative sort, I have more than one creative iron in the fire...but you can read about that here.
I'll check in more frequently as time goes on. As always, thanks for stopping by.
T.
I know it's been a long time since I blogged. After culinary school and my internship, I pretty much lost all the joy of cooking. Dont' get it twisted, the experience was good, and I learned a lot. But it was also reiterated that everything ain't for everybody, and cooking at a certain level most definitely isn't for me. It's only been recently that I rediscovered that joy, and I'm doing my own thing: catering tea service for small groups! Since I can't seem to work for anyone else, and I like learning on my own time, it's the best thing for me.
Building a business from the ground up is time-consuming and expensive, but I've done it before and can do it again. Of course, being the creative sort, I have more than one creative iron in the fire...but you can read about that here.
I'll check in more frequently as time goes on. As always, thanks for stopping by.
T.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Daytime in the Garden of Food and Children
Today my externship continued as I visited the Edible Schoolyard at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, CA. The Edible Schoolyard is a national pet project of the Chez Panisse Foundation (which has a mission to basically bring quality, nutritious, fresh foods to school lunches).
Early-morning view of the Edible Schoolyard (herb garden in the front!)The garden contains a pond, a compost pile, a chicken coop (which I found out about later that afternoon), a greenhouse, and solar panels to (presumably) provide light in the evenings.
Edible Schoolyard pond (solar panel visible in upper right corner!)Kids get to take a class once a week in either the garden (where food is grown for the kids to cook and eat) or the kitchen (where the kids cook recipes that include the food they grew). I got to sit in and participate in both types of classes. Woohoo!
The kitchen class was first: as I said, produce from the garden is used to prepare basic recipes. The kids (6th and 7th graders) do most of the prep work with real knives (which aren't that sharp) and other kitchen utensils, and follow the recipes (with assistance from the teachers and volunteers) while cooking on a nearby 2-burner electric stove. (Gas is always better to cook with, but God forbid if some overzealous or inattentive child accidentally sets him or herself on fire from the flames).
Edible Schoolyard kitchen classroomToday we cooked vegetable fried rice, which included Napa cabbage, carrots, scallions, garlic, ginger, eggs, and Tokyo turnips (little white, round turnips)--everything but the ginger and the cooked brown rice was from the school garden.
(yes, brown rice...this was Berkeley, y'all).
The first class was a group of ELL (English Language Learner) students. The group was broken up into three sub-groups, each of which made their own batch of rice. Our particular subgroup was a mini-UN: students from Algeria, France, India, Norway, Eritrea, Peru, Dominican Republic. Most spoke English enough to get by, but one boy clearly told me (in response to a question) "I don't speak English." He was cooking his little heart out, though, language barriers be damned. They even set the table with napkins tri-folded in the water glasses...yes, I see a future in fine dining for this group!
All vegetable scraps were saved for the compost pile in the school garden, and kids were encouraged to clean as they went along (which is very important in any culinary career). While they took turns cooking, other members of the group set the table for the meal. The rice turned out very well (we ate with chopsticks), and leftovers were sent home in little Chinese takeout-style boxes.
We attended a school play that highlighted the importance of dreaming your reality. The script was a collaboration among the students in a drama class, and the teacher simply wrote the students's ideas in a script format, which they performed in full costume, and with a rather professional-looking set (which, I later found out, was lovingly done by the drama teacher's wife, who is an artist). The kids really got into the performance, although the jumble of ideas sometimes led to things being lost in translation. I had a flash of that scene in the Eddie Murphy movie Boomerang, where he visits a children's art class and thanks one girl for her interpretation of her collage (which he didn't understand at all). LOL
After the play, I sat in on a garden class. The garden was a hodgepodge of different fruits (including lemons, persimmons, figs), vegetables (including kale, chard, artichokes [!!!]), and herbs (including garlic, rosemary, sage). The colorful signs--some of which were bilingual were made by the kids to identify different plantings, and the whole garden showed signs of being cared for.
Sign for the garlic patch (the long shoots are garlic plants)
Bilingual (English/Chinese) garden signToday's class began with a lesson on mushrooms (I did not know that those little fuzzy white patches in dirt were actually pre-mushrooms: they give rise to the capped mushrooms that we know and (sometimes) love!) before they were divided into groups to perform various garden maintenance tasks: replanting seedlings in the green house; properly connecting the solar panel to the pond, and chopping fennel; weeding the herb garden; threshing and milling millet. I was in the herb garden group, and we pulled weeds from a stand of rosemary and a patch of various sage plants. While doing this, I heard some of the most interesting conversations. The most memorable was this:
Girl 1: A spider! Eww! I'm arachnaphobic!
Girl 2: I didn't know you were arachnaphobic.
Girl 1: Well, it may not be that serious, but I am afraid of spiders.
(yes...sixth grade, y'all. LOL).
I freely admit that I chuckled at this conversation.
After the garden class was over and tools were returned, chickens returned to the coop (yes, there is a chicken coop, and chickens are allowed to roam free during garden maintenance; most like to hang out around the compost area, and some of the kids pick the chickens up and carry them around as if they were cats or dogs...and the chickens let them. Wow.). The kids then returned back to the ramada (the main, round meeting area--it's visible in the garden picture posted earlier in this entry) for a rousing game of Garden Jeopardy. Team 1 managed to rack up 40 points to Team 2's 20 points before the bell rang for them to return to class.
I returned to the kitchen for the afternoon's class, which was also making vegetable fried rice. This particular group (and my subsequent subgroup) were smaller due to some kids attending a party for another student, so I did more hands-on prep than I normally would. The rice turned out very well for this group, and they had more leftovers to take home for the weekend since there wasn't enough people to eat it all in one sitting. I like the kitchen classes better than the garden ones because I get more one-on-one interaction times with the kids.
Because this garden is open to the public yet is for the children, people have to be admonished not to take things from the garden (you'd be surprised how many people feel that they can, because the garden is so accessible to the public).
"Do Not Pick" signs hanging on various plants and treesStill, it's a nice place to see and it's even better when one can experience the kids really taking an interest in gardening and cooking, and getting the connection of where their food comes from before it gets to their plates.
It was a truly rewarding experience that nourished my spirit; I'd forgotten how much I missed teaching kids in that type of setting. I am definitely going back to volunteer there on one of my days off.
Thanks for stopping by.
T.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Old [MacDonald] Had a Farm...
Author's note: due to increasing busyness, pictures of meals and desserts may be sporadic. Thx for your understanding! -- T.
Hello all!
It's been what...a couple of weeks since I last wrote? *YIKES!* But between fighting a cold (courtesy of multiple someones who worked at the restaurant), extreme busyness due to people being out sick because of said cold, and a sudden toothache (darn fillings!), I haven't had much time to blog. Which perhaps is just as well because while the menu was starting to change a bit, the overall operations (and my progress) at Chez Panisse have not. The highlights of the past two weeks was the appearance of Yo-Yo Ma for dinner in the kitchen, and another Alice sighting; this time, she sought me out where I was making crabcakes, and asked for an unbreaded one. Woohoo!
(for those of you who don't know who Yo-Yo Ma is: if you've ever seen the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and heard all those cellos playing in the background music--that was Yo-Yo Ma. He's an outstanding cellist! Google him if you want more information).
Today things got switched up a bit when I visited Cannard Farms in Sonoma, CA and Green String Farms in Petaluma, CA (about 10 minutes from Sonoma). These two farms, owned by Bob Cannard, provide a significant portion of the produce to Chez Panisse. So I got to see where the pre-magic happens!
I met Mr. Cannard, who gave me a tour of Cannard Farms. I got to also meet two of his interns, Oliver and Claudia, who were cleaning the leeks they'd recently picked. Cannard Farms covers about 25 acres and has been in existence since 1976. It grows everything from potatoes, to lemons and oranges, to leeks, to beets, to olives, to sage and rosemary...and everything in between.
Lemon and Mandarin orange trees on Cannard Farms
Produce is picked, sifted through for the best, then washed in a large, flat sink with attached hoses, to get most of the dirt off (they are washed again once they arrive at Chez Panisse, prior to preparation). Cannard Farms delivers to Chez Panisse about twice a week: the driver, Mr. Dhomhaup, drops off plastic flats filled with vegetables ("Farm boxes") that are used for meals in both the restaurant and the cafe.
Farm boxes of freshly picked produce--on it's way to Chez Panisse!
He also picks up vegetable peels and other produce by-products that go into the compost used at Cannard. This compost provides a lot of extra nutrients to the soil, which helps those amazing fruits and vegetables grow. (all those extra nutrients in the compost also make for a very...fragrant drive to the farm).
Part of Cannard Farms (freshly planted potatoes on the left; compost and soil mounds; kale and endive in the distance)
Green String Farms is a whole lot bigger than 25 acres; in fact, once you're on Green String property (at the main station, that is, where the public can buy fresh, seasonal produce on site, every day, 10am - 5pm), I was informed that Green String owns all of the land, as far as the eye could see...and that's a lot of green, rolling hills dotted with trees, grass, planted rows, and cows!
Part of Green String Farm property (as far as the eye can see!)
Cabbages, kale, and lettuces at Green String Farm
Green string also has chicken coops on site, with different types of chickens (one coop had these extremely fluffy-looking chickens, like their feathers had been groomed and teased with a blow dryer). There must have been some sort of timer or something inside the chicken coop, because there were actually roosters crowing "cock-a-doodle-doo!", which I thought was only done at dawn.
Various chicken types at Green String Farm
Finally, we made a stop at the Marin Farmers' Market at the Marin Fairgrounds in Marin, CA. This was one of the nicest farmers' markets I've ever seen...and I consider myself a farmers' market aficionada (so far, the one in Woodstock, NY comes a close second). The produce was off-the-hook good, and I'm not ashamed to say that I sampled my way through every booth (Asian pears, strawberries, samosas, a strange sort of spanakopita-type thing, and some homemade butter--YES! Not to mention the homemade chocolate peanut butter sorbet and the homemade espresso truffle chocolate. Mmm mmm GOOD!). One would be hard pressed to go home without an empty wallet; in fact, I saw a lot of people there on their lunch breaks (dressed in power suits, since the market closed at 1pm) and others, who were also getting things for tonight's dinner, or perhaps a snack later on.
That was the last stop of the day and I was returned to the restaurant, then to home. Tomorrow, I get to visit the Edible Schoolyard (a pet project of the Chez Panisse Foundation) and check out the lay of the land there. Woohoo!
Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow!
T.
Hello all!
It's been what...a couple of weeks since I last wrote? *YIKES!* But between fighting a cold (courtesy of multiple someones who worked at the restaurant), extreme busyness due to people being out sick because of said cold, and a sudden toothache (darn fillings!), I haven't had much time to blog. Which perhaps is just as well because while the menu was starting to change a bit, the overall operations (and my progress) at Chez Panisse have not. The highlights of the past two weeks was the appearance of Yo-Yo Ma for dinner in the kitchen, and another Alice sighting; this time, she sought me out where I was making crabcakes, and asked for an unbreaded one. Woohoo!
(for those of you who don't know who Yo-Yo Ma is: if you've ever seen the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and heard all those cellos playing in the background music--that was Yo-Yo Ma. He's an outstanding cellist! Google him if you want more information).
Today things got switched up a bit when I visited Cannard Farms in Sonoma, CA and Green String Farms in Petaluma, CA (about 10 minutes from Sonoma). These two farms, owned by Bob Cannard, provide a significant portion of the produce to Chez Panisse. So I got to see where the pre-magic happens!
I met Mr. Cannard, who gave me a tour of Cannard Farms. I got to also meet two of his interns, Oliver and Claudia, who were cleaning the leeks they'd recently picked. Cannard Farms covers about 25 acres and has been in existence since 1976. It grows everything from potatoes, to lemons and oranges, to leeks, to beets, to olives, to sage and rosemary...and everything in between.
Lemon and Mandarin orange trees on Cannard FarmsProduce is picked, sifted through for the best, then washed in a large, flat sink with attached hoses, to get most of the dirt off (they are washed again once they arrive at Chez Panisse, prior to preparation). Cannard Farms delivers to Chez Panisse about twice a week: the driver, Mr. Dhomhaup, drops off plastic flats filled with vegetables ("Farm boxes") that are used for meals in both the restaurant and the cafe.
Farm boxes of freshly picked produce--on it's way to Chez Panisse!He also picks up vegetable peels and other produce by-products that go into the compost used at Cannard. This compost provides a lot of extra nutrients to the soil, which helps those amazing fruits and vegetables grow. (all those extra nutrients in the compost also make for a very...fragrant drive to the farm).
Part of Cannard Farms (freshly planted potatoes on the left; compost and soil mounds; kale and endive in the distance)Green String Farms is a whole lot bigger than 25 acres; in fact, once you're on Green String property (at the main station, that is, where the public can buy fresh, seasonal produce on site, every day, 10am - 5pm), I was informed that Green String owns all of the land, as far as the eye could see...and that's a lot of green, rolling hills dotted with trees, grass, planted rows, and cows!
Part of Green String Farm property (as far as the eye can see!)
Cabbages, kale, and lettuces at Green String Farm
Various chicken types at Green String FarmFinally, we made a stop at the Marin Farmers' Market at the Marin Fairgrounds in Marin, CA. This was one of the nicest farmers' markets I've ever seen...and I consider myself a farmers' market aficionada (so far, the one in Woodstock, NY comes a close second). The produce was off-the-hook good, and I'm not ashamed to say that I sampled my way through every booth (Asian pears, strawberries, samosas, a strange sort of spanakopita-type thing, and some homemade butter--YES! Not to mention the homemade chocolate peanut butter sorbet and the homemade espresso truffle chocolate. Mmm mmm GOOD!). One would be hard pressed to go home without an empty wallet; in fact, I saw a lot of people there on their lunch breaks (dressed in power suits, since the market closed at 1pm) and others, who were also getting things for tonight's dinner, or perhaps a snack later on.
That was the last stop of the day and I was returned to the restaurant, then to home. Tomorrow, I get to visit the Edible Schoolyard (a pet project of the Chez Panisse Foundation) and check out the lay of the land there. Woohoo!
Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow!
T.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
(Con)Fit to be tied...
Dinner 01-20-10 ($75/person)
Buckwheat blinis with Dungeness crab and watercress salad w/ creme fraiche
Rabbit ravioli with black trumpet, hedgehog, and chanterelle mushrooms
Grilled grouper with Meyer lemon and olive salsa, fried artichokes, and Savoy cabbage
Pink Lady apple puff pastry tartlet with Sicilian sabayon
Buckwheat blinis with Dungeness crab and watercress salad w/ creme fraiche
Rabbit ravioli with black trumpet, hedgehog, and chanterelle mushrooms
Grilled grouper with Meyer lemon and olive salsa, fried artichokes, and Savoy cabbage
Pink Lady apple puff pastry tartlet with Sicilian sabayon
Author's note: the batteries died in my camera, so no pics today! :( Not that I had time to take any, I was running around so. -- TMD
The day went fairly well today; started with cleaning chanterelle mushrooms for the ravioli, then moved to trimming sunchokes. Sunchokes are starchy root vegetables with a bunch of knobs all over; they are similar in consistency to a turnip, or an underripe potato. You can cook sunchokes much as you would a potato: fry it, mash it, puree it, etc. They taste a bit bland (like a potato). I also had to cut up artichokes (at least I didn't have to peel them! Woohoo!) and I look forward to next month or so, when they go out of season. :D
Later on, I picked Dungeness crab for the first course. The hors d'oeuvres were simple Lucques olives (big, oval, light- to medium-green colored ones) mixed with olive oil, red pepper flakes, thyme leaves, and lemon zest. These same olives were used in the olive salsa that accompanied the grilled grouper.
The highlight (?) of the evening was preparing duck legs for duck confit [pronounced "cone-FEE"], and butchering turkeys. A confit is when a meat or fruit is preserved in its own fat or juices; you can confit duck, lemons, etc. To confit the duck, the excess fat first had to be removed and the meat seasoned. Even all that fat is not enough to confit the meat (you need a LOT), and to this end packages of duck fat are sold separately. I roughly chopped five 1-lb. packages of duck fat for the confit; this fat was then rendered (melted slowly) in the oven. This melted fat was then poured over the seasoned meat and put in the walk-in to solidify. Confit is a preservation technique from back when people didn't have refrigerators, and needed to somehow keep their meats from spoiling.
(I have to send a thank-you to Heather, one of the evening's servers, who was nice enough to make me a cup of espresso with milk...to which I had to add sugar. :D I'm not normally a coffee drinker, but that espresso hit the spot, and didn't make my heart race like normal coffee does! Then again, espresso actually has LESS caffeine than regular coffee since they are roasted so darkly; the darker the roast (and the longer the roasting time), the less caffeine in the bean).
We also butchered 12 turkeys in preparation for tomorrow's meal. Just had to remove the legs, parts of the wings, and leave the breasts on the bone. Simple, right? NEGATIVE. Turkeys are big birds (and each of these turkeys weighed about 10-12 lbs. each), and their skeletons are a bit heavier and tougher than those of chickens. It took some extra muscle to push my knife through the rib cage to separate it from the breastbone. Plus, I kept struggling to find the sweet spot on the wings (it's that area on the "elbow" of the wing where there is cartilage between the two wing joints, and where it is easy to cut and separate the wing in that area). Anyway, I did have some help in getting them done, and the bones were roasted to make turkey stock (also for tomorrow's meal).
[sidebar: I felt like a turtle when the chef and another cook came to do some of the confit legs...they were churning out five duck legs to my one! And that same cook butchered four turkeys in the time it took me to get through one. *sigh*]
I rounded out the evening by preparing two containers of creme fraiche from scratch (approximately two gallons), doing the turkey stock, and doing a last-minute chicken stock. It doesn't sound like much, but I was running back and forth. I told y'all, the Restaurant Workout Plan is a winner!
That's about it for today. As soon as my laundry finishes, it's bedtime for Bonzo! Thanks for stopping by, and see you tomorrow.
T.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Under the sea...
Dinner 01-19-10 ($75/person)
Grilled Gulf shrimp with parsley/garlic butter and chicory salad
Black risotto with squid, clams, and olio nuovo
Roasted pork loin with star anise fried onions, and mache salad
Citrus soup with blood orange and Page mandarin sherbets
Grilled Gulf shrimp with parsley/garlic butter and chicory salad
Black risotto with squid, clams, and olio nuovo
Roasted pork loin with star anise fried onions, and mache salad
Citrus soup with blood orange and Page mandarin sherbets
Grilled Gulf shrimp with parsley garlic butter and chicory salad
Black risotto with squid, clams, and olio nuovo
Roasted pork loin with fried onions and mache salad
Citrus soup with blood orange and Page mandarin sherbetsYes...Meryl Streep (Julie and Julia, It's Complicated, Sophie's Choice...yeah, THAT Meryl Streep) had lunch upstairs in the cafe, then came down and took a brief tour of the kitchen, led by Alice Waters (yes...Alice sighting!). All I have to say is, she's as regal in person as she appears on screen. I only gawked a little bit, I'm proud to say. :D
The menu is starting to have a lot of seafood, for which I'm grateful (kinda...I love seafood, but prepping it can be a beast, what with shells, multiple legs, and whatnot). Sometimes a dinner menu will feature seafood in all three courses, which is very filling because of all the protein. I helped prep Gulf shrimp for the first course...and let me tell you, these shrimp are so huge, they creep out of "shrimp" territory and head into "prawn" territory.
Gulf shrimpHopefully, I get to work on the squid in the near future. I watched as the cuttlebones etc. were removed. However, a jar of cuttlefish ink (cuttlefish are closely related to squid) was used to turn regular risotto black...didn't take that much of it.
Before this, I had the pleasure of unloading eight (count 'em) pork loins, plus four pork shoulders. People don't really appreciate how BIG a pig is...two pork loins took up ONE large box (and we won't even get into the time consumption of breaking down those large boxes). Each box weighed at least 50 lbs. The boxes were stacked outside and I had to haul each box's contents inside, one by one. Alice Waters (!) came by, saw me breaking down a box and said, "All those big boxes!" (it's the little things that keep me excited). Then I unloaded two boxes which each contained two pork shoulders...again, roughly 50 lbs. per box. All this in intermittent rain showers. Did I mention that I only weigh 135 lbs?
The Restaurant Workout Plan...coming soon to stores near you!
A vendor came by, trying to unload some black truffles. The chef was unimpressed with their quality, and definitely not with the price (although he said the price was good and relatively cheap), and passed on their purchase.
Black trufflesThe evening ended with the shredding of rabbit meat for rabbit ravioli and an early cleandown.
That's it for now; time to get ready for work and brave the cold, rainy, windy weather (welcome to "winter" in the Bay Area). Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you tomorrow!
T.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Wascally Wabbits
Dinner 01-16-10 ($95/person)
Smoked steelhead salmon salad with watercress and horseradish cream
Steamed salted ling potato and cod fritters with black olive salsa
Grilled lamb with tarragon sauce, roasted potatoes, and sauteed artichokes
Kirsch, bittersweet chocolate, and pistachio ice cream bombe
Smoked steelhead salmon salad with watercress and horseradish cream
Steamed salted ling potato and cod fritters with black olive salsa
Grilled lamb with tarragon sauce, roasted potatoes, and sauteed artichokes
Kirsch, bittersweet chocolate, and pistachio ice cream bombe
It's been a few days since I last wrote (or has it been a week?), and I apologize for leaving you hanging. A stomach bug had me down for two days last week (Wed and Thurs), and Friday I worked in the morning while training on Garde Manger duties in the cafe...and Saturday was so busy, I didn't have time to take any pictures! This installment may be a bit boring, but hopefully I'll bring more flavor next time.
When I finally returned to work on Friday morning (1/15), I had to arrive at 6 a.m. (yes...GET THERE at 6 o'clock in the morning) to train on Garde Manger. What is that, you may ask? The Garde Manger ("guardian of eating", loosely translated from French) is the person who is responsible for whatever is purchased and stored in house. The GM checks in the produce deliveries; strains stocks; stores creme fraiche; prepares pasta and other items for the cafe meals; and whatever else has to be done.
(in case you didn't know: Chez Panisse has both an upstairs cafe, which is a bit less formal and has a more traditional a la carte menu [which is less expensive] that changes daily; and the downstairs restaurant, which is more formal [and more expensive] and has a fixed menu that changes daily)
These duties can further be broken down into Pasta and Lettuce duties, which sounds just like it is: making fresh pastas and washing/trimming lettuces. It may sound simple, but it's actually quite time-consuming. Do you know how many different lettuces can go into a salad at any given time? And each of these lettuces is prepared differently; all have to be washed (these things are DIRTY! Remember, they're picked then brought directly to the restaurant) and portioned into bite-sized pieces. Some have to be trimmed before they get to that point, especially if the leaves are small enough to be eaten whole.
Rosa Veroni lettuce (closeup)As for the pasta...well, you have to make the pasta dough, put it into the machine, and cut it into equal bundles of pasta...enough for lunch AND dinner service. There are different types of pasta, depending on what is being served. Spaghetti is always made, but sometimes lasagna and ravioli pasta have to be made as well. And lastly, green garlic has to be minced (and suspended in olive oil) for the cafe line cooks, and cheese grated for the pizzas that are offered daily.
(green garlic is immature garlic; while most people are used to the big, multi-clove crowns of garlic, immature garlic has a crown that is only one clove big. Green garlic is good for when you want garlic, but not as strong a flavor as mature garlic.)
The GM duties are where everyone starts when they get hired for Chez Panisse, and it's a good way to learn where everything is located and how the entire operation flows. I also got to help prepare the staff meal, which was cool. :D Some interns in other restaurants don't ever get near a stove, let alone handle meat and fish, so I'm pretty blessed to be where I am and doing what I do.
Saturday was back to my normal duties in the downstairs restaurant. The menu was a variation on a previous theme, and the plating was practically identical to pictures I've posted before...even if I had time to take pictures. I did manage to take a picture on Friday of the fireplace where the meats are grilled.
Chez Panisse downstairs kitchen fireplace
Baby tatsoi
The highlight of the evening was butchering rabbits. The rabbits come skinned, beheaded, and individually placed in bags; they look like big fetuses. I thought it best not to include pictures, lest the PETA mafia come after me. Anyway, I had to remove the big pockets of fat from inside the rabbits, and also the livers and kidneys; these were all saved for later use. Then we had to remove the back and hind legs (with a knife), and separate the ribs from the back (with a cleaver). These were for Monday's (today's) menu.
Rabbit is a bit harder to butcher than chickens because, well, rabbits hop; thus, their muscle and bone structure of their hind legs is way different from those of chickens, which simply walk. You have to really maneuver a SHARP knife around the joints in order to get the legs off. Plus, since rabbits don't have much meat on them anyway, you have to make sure you don't remove too much of what little meat there is.
Chez Panisse is just like a typical French (or European) kitchen in that nothing is really wasted: bones get used for stocks; organs (livers, kidneys, etc.) get used for pates, rillettes, mousselines, mousses, and terrines; vegetable tops (especially beets, turnips) get cooked as side dishes or included as extra flavoring (e.g., leeks, green garlic, fennel). Anything else is put aside to be made into compost, which fertilizes vegetables at the farms and the Edible Schoolyard. It's recycling at its best.
That's about it for today. I'm enjoying the rest of my day off, and I'll be back on the grind tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by, and see you on Wednesday!
T.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Just 'Shrooming
Dinner 01-12-10 ($75/person)
Belgian endive and mache salad with beets and farm egg
Wild mushroom ravioli with escarole
Grilled striped bass with anchovy butter and artichoke puree, Savoy cabbage and pommes frites
Coconut tapioca with passionfruit ice cream and tangerine sherbet
Wild mushroom ravioli with escarole
Grilled striped bass with anchovy butter and artichoke puree, Savoy cabbage and pommes frites
Coconut tapioca with passionfruit ice cream and tangerine sherbet
Belgian endive and mache salad with beets and farm egg
Wild mushroom ravioli with escarole
Grilled striped bass with anchovy butter, artichoke puree, Savoy cabbage and pommes frites
Coconut tapioca with passionfruit ice cream and tangerine sorbetToday was a fairly low-key day...or maybe since I wasn't feeling well, the day was just somewhat of a blur. It was probably a combination of both: my health, and also the non-delivery of some items that were to be prepped this evening for tomorrow...which means they'll have to be done very quickly tomorrow. *sigh* It's quail, though, and that doesn't take long at all (I'm a quail machine!).
Speaking of quails and their cousins...today a shipment of 116 squab came in (actually 126); they're on the menu later this week. I had to check them in, put them in a protective bin, and store them in the meat walk-in in the meantime.
Prior to this, I cleaned more mushrooms: this time, chanterelles, hedgehogs, and black trumpets. All of these went into the homemade ravioli, which was made and then rolled on an automated pasta machine. I always shake my head in amazement at such machines because in school, we use the old-fashioned kind that you crank by hand, and is sold more for home use. In fact, we do so much by hand at school, I'm surprised when people look at me funny and ask why I didn't use some piece of kitchen gadgetry (such as a Robo-Coupe/food processor) to chop or mix things up.
I once again got a chance at a more integral part of a meal by helping to make the anchovy butter for the grilled striped bass (trivia moment: wild striped bass have perfect dark stripes along their sides, while farm-raised bass have slightly zig-zagged stripes...like someone was painting stripes along their sides and got their arms bumped during the process). I love wild striped bass, so I was glad to have this for dinner (and it was SLAMMING! That anchovy butter was the truth!)
[sidebar: while mincing shallots with another chef's knife, I realized that I really need to work with smaller knives...definitely a 6" chef's knife, and maybe even a 4" one for smaller vegetables and herbs such as shallots and garlic]
The rest of the evening was uneventful, except for making sure that we had enough mini pieces of toast for the evening snack and me scalding my hand on a VERY hot oven door. It's a borderline 1st-degree burn (a couple of tiny blisters), but I'm okay. No finger cuts today! We also made creme fraiche (I came in late in the process last time; this time, it was from the bottom up!) and two pots of chicken stock (this time, whole chickens were just put into the pot to simmer--they had not been broken down into parts. WOW.).
Okay...that's about it for today. I'm going to lay it down and hope I feel better. Thanks for stopping by.
T.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The Sausage Diaries
Dinner 01-09-10 ($95/person)
Warm chicory salad with goose prosciutto, chestnuts, and chanterelles
Roasted scallops with cauliflower saffron puree and parsley coulis
Grilled quail stuffed with duck liver and raisins; with gratin dauphinois and wilted escarole
Bittersweet chocolate and hazelnut torte with Cognac ice cream
Warm chicory salad with goose prosciutto, chestnuts, and chanterelles
Roasted scallops with cauliflower saffron puree and parsley coulis
Grilled quail stuffed with duck liver and raisins; with gratin dauphinois and wilted escarole
Bittersweet chocolate and hazelnut torte with Cognac ice cream
Warm chicory salad with goose prosciutto, chestnuts, and chanterelle mushrooms
Roasted scallops with cauliflower saffron puree and parsley coulis
Stuffed quail with gratin dauphinoise and wilted escarole
Bittersweet chocolate and hazelnut torte with Cognac ice creamToday was a steadily busy day. I actually got to be more involved with the meal preparation by stuffing all those quails that I prepped the other night (yep, all 110 of them!). It was kind of cool, seeing how something I did the prepwork for just moved along the production line; it lended a sense that the scutwork that I do really is somewhat important.
The stuffing for the quail was pretty good: bread, duck livers, golden raisins, currants, parsley, thyme, and a generous amount of Marsala wine (which was also sprinkled on the birds themselves). Mmm mmm GOOD! The quail (as are all of the meats) are grilled over an open fireplace...yes, a wood-burning fireplace! As anyone who's eaten grilled items can tell you, that smoky wood flavor just can't be beat. [I'll get a picture of the fireplace for Wednesday's blog entry.]
I learned to make crepes too! They were the hors d'oeuveurs for this evening, filled with a ricotta/lemon/parsley mixture. I didn't get to actually make any crepes, unfortunately, but I did watch closely while they were done...and I filled and folded the finished product.
One of the main things I did today was make sausage. I'm sorry: I have a block against the fabrication of red meat...probably because in school, I was one of the slower learners when it came to breaking down beef, lamb, pork pieces (ribs, butt, legs, etc). My instructor would get impatient and frustrated with me, like, "don't you GET it?! Why don't you get it?!" He'd been butchering for so long, what's second nature to him was light years away for me...and he haf no idea how to break it down for those who don't have a passion for butchering (like me). Not to mention, I'd fervently hoped that those two days of sausage in Garde Manger (for which I received my lowest daily marks for the class) were the first--and last--time I'd have to deal with sausage making in this lifetime. :D Ha...joke was on me!
To compound the issue, I am not a fan of the large, complex machinery used to do things like make sausage, saw hard,, large bones in meat, etc. (the meat grinder and the bench saw, respectively). Visions of severed limbs dance in my head (BIG sharp parts!), not to mention the drama involved in using said machinery. For example, to make sausage, you have to take the myriad parts and put them on ice for at least 30 min to an hour prior to using (it helps the meat pass through the grinder better)...and if you even let it sit out for over 10 min., you need to chill it again. DRAMA.
And let's not get into the casings used for sausage. Sausage casings are nothing else but the intestines of certain animals. The animal casing you use is dependent upon the size of sausage you want. For one of those Johnsonville bratwurst sausages, you'd use a hog casing (like we used tonight). Most other sausages (like breakfast sausages) use sheep casings. Really big sausages (like salami) use beef casings. Anyway...tonight we used hog casings, and like all casings, they are usually separated after delivery, knotted in bunches stored in salt and soaked in water before using. Well...these hog casings were all in a tangled, snarled knot that made it difficult to find where the beginning of the knot was. And they were filled with salt, which made it difficult to slip them over the nozzle of the sausage stuffer. We had to re-rinse the casings of salt so that they could slide over the nozzle easily.
(anyone who thinks that sausage making DOES NOT have a phallic component is fooling themselves).
Once the casing was on the nozzle, I turned the plunger slowly that it went down into the canister full of ground meat mix and pushed it down so that it would ooze out of the nozzle opening and into the casing. This continued until the meat was out of the canister. The chef went and cooked two samples of the sausages, then came back and we proceeded to stuff a lot of sausage...three LARGE coils (like the one below) and two smaller coils...had to be over 100 sausages when we were done portioning the coil into individual links and tying them with twine, so they could be hung to dry over the weekend (they are on the menu for Monday..
Pork sausage (large coil)
So, I got through the sausage making. I was nervous when I saw legs and shoulders of lamb in the walk-in...at least I didn't have to do those today, though I know my day is coming. *sigh*
Okay...my eyes are getting heavy, so it's time to wrap this up and get some sleep. I need to sharpen my knives (two of them got pretty dull this evening), take some unnecessary stuff out of my knife bag, and enjoy my days off. Thanks for stopping by, and see you on Wednesday!
T.
The stuffing for the quail was pretty good: bread, duck livers, golden raisins, currants, parsley, thyme, and a generous amount of Marsala wine (which was also sprinkled on the birds themselves). Mmm mmm GOOD! The quail (as are all of the meats) are grilled over an open fireplace...yes, a wood-burning fireplace! As anyone who's eaten grilled items can tell you, that smoky wood flavor just can't be beat. [I'll get a picture of the fireplace for Wednesday's blog entry.]
I learned to make crepes too! They were the hors d'oeuveurs for this evening, filled with a ricotta/lemon/parsley mixture. I didn't get to actually make any crepes, unfortunately, but I did watch closely while they were done...and I filled and folded the finished product.
One of the main things I did today was make sausage. I'm sorry: I have a block against the fabrication of red meat...probably because in school, I was one of the slower learners when it came to breaking down beef, lamb, pork pieces (ribs, butt, legs, etc). My instructor would get impatient and frustrated with me, like, "don't you GET it?! Why don't you get it?!" He'd been butchering for so long, what's second nature to him was light years away for me...and he haf no idea how to break it down for those who don't have a passion for butchering (like me). Not to mention, I'd fervently hoped that those two days of sausage in Garde Manger (for which I received my lowest daily marks for the class) were the first--and last--time I'd have to deal with sausage making in this lifetime. :D Ha...joke was on me!
To compound the issue, I am not a fan of the large, complex machinery used to do things like make sausage, saw hard,, large bones in meat, etc. (the meat grinder and the bench saw, respectively). Visions of severed limbs dance in my head (BIG sharp parts!), not to mention the drama involved in using said machinery. For example, to make sausage, you have to take the myriad parts and put them on ice for at least 30 min to an hour prior to using (it helps the meat pass through the grinder better)...and if you even let it sit out for over 10 min., you need to chill it again. DRAMA.
And let's not get into the casings used for sausage. Sausage casings are nothing else but the intestines of certain animals. The animal casing you use is dependent upon the size of sausage you want. For one of those Johnsonville bratwurst sausages, you'd use a hog casing (like we used tonight). Most other sausages (like breakfast sausages) use sheep casings. Really big sausages (like salami) use beef casings. Anyway...tonight we used hog casings, and like all casings, they are usually separated after delivery, knotted in bunches stored in salt and soaked in water before using. Well...these hog casings were all in a tangled, snarled knot that made it difficult to find where the beginning of the knot was. And they were filled with salt, which made it difficult to slip them over the nozzle of the sausage stuffer. We had to re-rinse the casings of salt so that they could slide over the nozzle easily.
(anyone who thinks that sausage making DOES NOT have a phallic component is fooling themselves).
Once the casing was on the nozzle, I turned the plunger slowly that it went down into the canister full of ground meat mix and pushed it down so that it would ooze out of the nozzle opening and into the casing. This continued until the meat was out of the canister. The chef went and cooked two samples of the sausages, then came back and we proceeded to stuff a lot of sausage...three LARGE coils (like the one below) and two smaller coils...had to be over 100 sausages when we were done portioning the coil into individual links and tying them with twine, so they could be hung to dry over the weekend (they are on the menu for Monday..
Pork sausage (large coil)So, I got through the sausage making. I was nervous when I saw legs and shoulders of lamb in the walk-in...at least I didn't have to do those today, though I know my day is coming. *sigh*
Okay...my eyes are getting heavy, so it's time to wrap this up and get some sleep. I need to sharpen my knives (two of them got pretty dull this evening), take some unnecessary stuff out of my knife bag, and enjoy my days off. Thanks for stopping by, and see you on Wednesday!
T.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Cluckin' along...
Author's note: I forgot to take pictures of the oysters! My bad. -- T.
Ricotta gnocchi with escarole, chanterelles, black trumpets, and olio nuovo
Grilled lamb, potato cake, artichokes and new onions
Cara Cara and Blood Orange Tartlet
Today went pretty well, considering that I wasn't told that I needed to be there 30 minutes later than usual...so I showed up about an hour earlier than I needed to be. Oh well...I got productive and peeled artichokes. *sigh*. Cleaned chanterelle mushrooms and black trumpet mushrooms a lot. Black trumpet mushrooms are very long, thin, and black...and they tend to harbor dirt inside. So I split them open and flicked out any dirt I could see, so that they could be washed later. Black trumpets also don't taste bad at all! And, a baby scorpion was actually inside one of the trumpets! It must have been newly hatched; it was so small, it could fit on the head of a pencil eraser. I also flicked out the occasional worm that was trying to hide out in the mushrooms.
I also got to practice making quenelles (the football shapes that the gnocci is in). I made them once in Garde Manger, and did an okay good job at it. Doing them again proved to be a bit more of a challenge because 1) didn't remember 2) used a bit more product 3) actually had someone TEACH me the technique. It was fun, quick and easy.
Dinner was off the hook tonight: in addition to the lamb, gnocci, and oysters, we got to try four different types of wine: a sancerre (DELICIOUS), another red (something with a G...Girdome or something. It was really good!); a chardonnay; and a muscatel. Mmm, mmm, good! We also got to try a really good pate that was made by the outgoing extern. A good time was had by all, for sure.
Later on, I finished SUCCESSFULLY prepping the quail for tomorrow (110 quail...WHAT!). I also got a surprise project: the upstairs cafe wanted 50 chickens cut up into parts (leg quarters and breasts).
*SIGH*
I didn't mind doing the birds, but since I received this project around 8:40 pm, I was feeling a bit bummed because I knew it would take a while. I was averaging about a bird every 15-20 min...not good, timewise. (and yes, they had to be done by tomorrow).. The chef watched me a for a while, made a suggestion about cutting the legs...which promptly cut 5-10 min. off my per-chicken prep time. Then, after a while more, he gave another tip for removing the breast...which knocked another 5-10 minutes off my time. By the end of the evening, I was breaking down whole chickens in 5 minutes. FIVE. MINUTES. HOLLA!!! I only ended up doing 30 of the 50 birds, but that was pretty good considering my late start time. Even the chef told me I did a good job, miracle of miracles. I was feeling pretty good. Me, the Chicken Slayer. What a turnaround from 2 days ago...recognize! :D
I did two chicken stocks this evening (peeled the carrots to avoid drama) with the feet and carcasses of the chickens I broke down, and ended my day with relatively little drama, unless you count the aching forearm muscles from my scrubbing frenzy with the mussels yesterday. And more cuts (albeit superficial ones) on my thumb...they must have come from testing the edge of my knife while breaking down the chickens.
Another Alice Waters sighting as I was walking back from the staff locker room...and she spoke to me! Again! She said hello, smiled, and exchanged pleasantries. WOOHOO!! Yes, it's official: I am an Alice Waters groupie. Hey, I have nothing but admiration for anyone who claws out their own little niche in the world and dares anyone to take it from them.
Speaking of Alice Waters...one of the chefs told me that they may be looking for volunteers at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Junior High School, which is a site for one of the Edible Schoolyards. Seems like they may need someone to help teach culinary skills classes to the kids. Hmm...did I not do that over the summer, for the national program Operation Frontline/Share Our Strengths? Yep, I sure did! It's about to be on like a pot of neckbones!
Okay...now that I'm caught up on my postings, I need to catch some Zs...at least I get to sleep a bit later tomorrow! One more day of work, then 2 days off.
Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow!
T.
Dinner 01-08-10 ($95/person)
Warm Tomales Bay oysters with leeks and fennel sabayon
Ricotta gnocchi with escarole, chanterelles, black trumpets, and olio nuovo
Grilled lamb with potato cake, artichokes, and new onions
Cara Cara and blood orange tartlet
Warm Tomales Bay oysters with leeks and fennel sabayon
Ricotta gnocchi with escarole, chanterelles, black trumpets, and olio nuovo
Grilled lamb with potato cake, artichokes, and new onions
Cara Cara and blood orange tartlet
Ricotta gnocchi with escarole, chanterelles, black trumpets, and olio nuovo
Grilled lamb, potato cake, artichokes and new onions
Cara Cara and Blood Orange TartletToday went pretty well, considering that I wasn't told that I needed to be there 30 minutes later than usual...so I showed up about an hour earlier than I needed to be. Oh well...I got productive and peeled artichokes. *sigh*. Cleaned chanterelle mushrooms and black trumpet mushrooms a lot. Black trumpet mushrooms are very long, thin, and black...and they tend to harbor dirt inside. So I split them open and flicked out any dirt I could see, so that they could be washed later. Black trumpets also don't taste bad at all! And, a baby scorpion was actually inside one of the trumpets! It must have been newly hatched; it was so small, it could fit on the head of a pencil eraser. I also flicked out the occasional worm that was trying to hide out in the mushrooms.
I also got to practice making quenelles (the football shapes that the gnocci is in). I made them once in Garde Manger, and did an okay good job at it. Doing them again proved to be a bit more of a challenge because 1) didn't remember 2) used a bit more product 3) actually had someone TEACH me the technique. It was fun, quick and easy.
Dinner was off the hook tonight: in addition to the lamb, gnocci, and oysters, we got to try four different types of wine: a sancerre (DELICIOUS), another red (something with a G...Girdome or something. It was really good!); a chardonnay; and a muscatel. Mmm, mmm, good! We also got to try a really good pate that was made by the outgoing extern. A good time was had by all, for sure.
Later on, I finished SUCCESSFULLY prepping the quail for tomorrow (110 quail...WHAT!). I also got a surprise project: the upstairs cafe wanted 50 chickens cut up into parts (leg quarters and breasts).
*SIGH*
I didn't mind doing the birds, but since I received this project around 8:40 pm, I was feeling a bit bummed because I knew it would take a while. I was averaging about a bird every 15-20 min...not good, timewise. (and yes, they had to be done by tomorrow).. The chef watched me a for a while, made a suggestion about cutting the legs...which promptly cut 5-10 min. off my per-chicken prep time. Then, after a while more, he gave another tip for removing the breast...which knocked another 5-10 minutes off my time. By the end of the evening, I was breaking down whole chickens in 5 minutes. FIVE. MINUTES. HOLLA!!! I only ended up doing 30 of the 50 birds, but that was pretty good considering my late start time. Even the chef told me I did a good job, miracle of miracles. I was feeling pretty good. Me, the Chicken Slayer. What a turnaround from 2 days ago...recognize! :D
I did two chicken stocks this evening (peeled the carrots to avoid drama) with the feet and carcasses of the chickens I broke down, and ended my day with relatively little drama, unless you count the aching forearm muscles from my scrubbing frenzy with the mussels yesterday. And more cuts (albeit superficial ones) on my thumb...they must have come from testing the edge of my knife while breaking down the chickens.
Another Alice Waters sighting as I was walking back from the staff locker room...and she spoke to me! Again! She said hello, smiled, and exchanged pleasantries. WOOHOO!! Yes, it's official: I am an Alice Waters groupie. Hey, I have nothing but admiration for anyone who claws out their own little niche in the world and dares anyone to take it from them.
Speaking of Alice Waters...one of the chefs told me that they may be looking for volunteers at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Junior High School, which is a site for one of the Edible Schoolyards. Seems like they may need someone to help teach culinary skills classes to the kids. Hmm...did I not do that over the summer, for the national program Operation Frontline/Share Our Strengths? Yep, I sure did! It's about to be on like a pot of neckbones!
Okay...now that I'm caught up on my postings, I need to catch some Zs...at least I get to sleep a bit later tomorrow! One more day of work, then 2 days off.
Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow!
T.
Nobody knows the mussels I've seen...
Author's note: I was late with this posting...I apologize! -- TMD
Shellfish gratin with spinach, chanterelles, black trumpets, and breadcrumbs
Cream of Lentil soup with chorizo, sour cream, and cress oil
Spit-roasted herb butter chicken and winter vegetable ragout
Pomegranate-lime and candied tangerine ice cream bombe
After a sucky Wednesday, the Universe decided to give me a break. For starters, I got to work on quails, which I did pretty well on. So I am not a total butchery screwup (but as I mentioned, I did better at poultry than red meat). Speaking of red meat, I didn't have to work on any because the lamb (yeah, that lamb, the one I screwed up a piece of) was already done for Friday's dinner. YAY ME!
I helped peel more artichokes (*SIGH*) and picked more crabs for the shellfish gratin (which also included scallops and lobster...YUM!). Finally, I got to scrub mussels. Mussels are related to clams and oysters; they have shells that open and close on a hinge. They were really pretty (forgot to get a picture...sorry!), but rather dirty. Mussels have beards -- hairy projections from inside the shell -- that have to be pulled off before eating, not to mention scrubbing all the seaweed, etc. that has adhered to the outside of the shell. That took up most of my evening (including three changes of the mussel water), but I got those suckers rather spic and span. Maybe I have a future as a mussel washer!
I started working on hors d'oeveures last Saturday (YAY), and today was no exception, since it is now part of my duties. These hors d'oeveures change daily and usually is some sort of nut, radish, or pate. It was olives today (Lucuque olives, to be exact: a French green olive, soaked in thyme), and they are prepared using olive oil, red pepper flakes, thinly sliced lemon peel, and bay leaf. Small dishes of these are given to each customer to whet the appetite for the first course.
After dealing with the crabs, I noticed later (when cutting the lemon peel...OUCH!) that there were a myriad of cuts all over my fingers. One in particular kept paining me: a cut right over the knuckle of my thumb (got it while butchering a chicken or something, a couple of days ago). One never realizes how important and how THERE a thumb is, until you keep banging it into things. I took for granted how much I needed my thumb till the cut, bandaged part kept getting caught in my belt buckle while fastening my belt; when picking something up, when reachign in my pocket. Note to self: find a less active area to cut myself next time.
One thing that was interesting yesterday was the number of dietary requests for dinner: no salt, no butter, etc. Now, I don't knock anyone's personal food preferences, especially if they have an illness such as celiac disease, or food allergies. But when you come to a restaurant wiht a fixed menu, and you KNOW the kind of ingredients they use on a regular basis (this is classic French cooking, so lots of garlic, leeks, onions, carrots, fennel, and shallots) why quibble? . Better yet, why go to any fine dining establishment with such a list of demands? Part of the joy of fine dining is in ENJOYING what is put before you...why ruin the occasion just because YOU don't like a teeny portion of what's on the menu? Also, fine dining places tend to make as much as possible IN ADVANCE...especially meats. Meats that need to be marinated are often done early in the day or the night before, so the flavors can soak in . At places like Chez Panisse, where the week's menu is printed in advance, it's easy to see what's being served: just CALL THE RESTAURANT (what a novel idea!) and ask what's in the food being served. That way, you can make the decision to dine there or not. But I just dont' get it when people don't want to fully take advantage of both the food and the experience. *shaking head* Then again, some people fee
I'll leave you with this thought: love is a lot like cooking: if you can't get down and dirty, and get your hands dirty as well, then what's the point?
Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow.
T.
Dinner 01-07-10 ($75/person)
Shellfish gratin with spinach, chanterelles, black trumpets, and bread crumbs Cream of Lentil soup with chorizo and cress oil
Spit-roasted chicken with herb butter and winter vegetable ragout Pomegranate-lime and candied tangerine ice cream bombe
Spit-roasted chicken with herb butter and winter vegetable ragout Pomegranate-lime and candied tangerine ice cream bombe
Shellfish gratin with spinach, chanterelles, black trumpets, and breadcrumbs
Cream of Lentil soup with chorizo, sour cream, and cress oil
Spit-roasted herb butter chicken and winter vegetable ragout
Pomegranate-lime and candied tangerine ice cream bombeAfter a sucky Wednesday, the Universe decided to give me a break. For starters, I got to work on quails, which I did pretty well on. So I am not a total butchery screwup (but as I mentioned, I did better at poultry than red meat). Speaking of red meat, I didn't have to work on any because the lamb (yeah, that lamb, the one I screwed up a piece of) was already done for Friday's dinner. YAY ME!
I helped peel more artichokes (*SIGH*) and picked more crabs for the shellfish gratin (which also included scallops and lobster...YUM!). Finally, I got to scrub mussels. Mussels are related to clams and oysters; they have shells that open and close on a hinge. They were really pretty (forgot to get a picture...sorry!), but rather dirty. Mussels have beards -- hairy projections from inside the shell -- that have to be pulled off before eating, not to mention scrubbing all the seaweed, etc. that has adhered to the outside of the shell. That took up most of my evening (including three changes of the mussel water), but I got those suckers rather spic and span. Maybe I have a future as a mussel washer!
I started working on hors d'oeveures last Saturday (YAY), and today was no exception, since it is now part of my duties. These hors d'oeveures change daily and usually is some sort of nut, radish, or pate. It was olives today (Lucuque olives, to be exact: a French green olive, soaked in thyme), and they are prepared using olive oil, red pepper flakes, thinly sliced lemon peel, and bay leaf. Small dishes of these are given to each customer to whet the appetite for the first course.
After dealing with the crabs, I noticed later (when cutting the lemon peel...OUCH!) that there were a myriad of cuts all over my fingers. One in particular kept paining me: a cut right over the knuckle of my thumb (got it while butchering a chicken or something, a couple of days ago). One never realizes how important and how THERE a thumb is, until you keep banging it into things. I took for granted how much I needed my thumb till the cut, bandaged part kept getting caught in my belt buckle while fastening my belt; when picking something up, when reachign in my pocket. Note to self: find a less active area to cut myself next time.
One thing that was interesting yesterday was the number of dietary requests for dinner: no salt, no butter, etc. Now, I don't knock anyone's personal food preferences, especially if they have an illness such as celiac disease, or food allergies. But when you come to a restaurant wiht a fixed menu, and you KNOW the kind of ingredients they use on a regular basis (this is classic French cooking, so lots of garlic, leeks, onions, carrots, fennel, and shallots) why quibble? . Better yet, why go to any fine dining establishment with such a list of demands? Part of the joy of fine dining is in ENJOYING what is put before you...why ruin the occasion just because YOU don't like a teeny portion of what's on the menu? Also, fine dining places tend to make as much as possible IN ADVANCE...especially meats. Meats that need to be marinated are often done early in the day or the night before, so the flavors can soak in . At places like Chez Panisse, where the week's menu is printed in advance, it's easy to see what's being served: just CALL THE RESTAURANT (what a novel idea!) and ask what's in the food being served. That way, you can make the decision to dine there or not. But I just dont' get it when people don't want to fully take advantage of both the food and the experience. *shaking head* Then again, some people fee
I'll leave you with this thought: love is a lot like cooking: if you can't get down and dirty, and get your hands dirty as well, then what's the point?
Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow.
T.
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