Final Week Spring Quarter

George Akau-first year instructor

Our last theory practice project is soft pretzels, savory with salt sprinkles and sweet with sugar sprinkles.

We have two quizzes this week, covering the chapters on yeast breads and cakes, and a final on principles of baking in the kitchen.

My assignment is the dining room. The first part of the day we help prepare the food to be cooked by CTO (cooked to order). After our 10am lunch we set up the tables and serve the customers, starting around 11. They say they have many regular customers, ( other than the staff who usually eat their lunch in the dining room), who come in at the same time every week.
One never knows how busy the dining room is going to be. One day the place serves only a few of the house staff and the next day every table is filled. I hear that the only one of the house staff who leaves a tip for the servers is our instructor, George. (His picture is at the top of this post).

Susan, the college employee who manages the dining room, allows me to have lunch with my friend from out of town on Wednesday. I think I'll be back as a customer many times. The food is much better than our cafeteria choices have been, and not all that expensive.

The traditional management course is three quarters. I hear from one of the third quarter management students that he plans to go on for a fourth quarter. He is on a subsidized program which pays his way, and with the tight job market I suppose school feels "safer". Another third quarter management student already has a job in one of the lodges at Mt. Rainier National Park.

The kids on the dessert station have a final day "bake off". They make molten lava cake, (which is literally death by chocolate), with strawberry sorbet and candied orange peel brownies.

Next Monday is the day of cleaning the kitchen, receiving awards and taking group pictures for the archives. I will receive my chef"s certificate by mail because I"ll be in New York City with my granddaughter.

Nineth Week Spring Quarter

Last week the health department inspectors came
to the kitchen and everyone scrambled to make
sure the place was spotless. I hear we received a
just about perfect report. The pizza warmer was
not keeping the prepared slices up to the correct
temperature, so they plan to order a new warmer.
Someone told me that Clark College has the most

money of any of the community colleges in the state, so they can pretty much order any equipment they find necessary. We have two commercial convection ovens that are new, and a 6 burner gas stove showed up in place of a huge soup kettle that was never used.

We are working our way through our heavy textbook, "On Cooking", with homework assignments and open book quizzes every other week. Since the quizzes are open book , I continue to get A's. It would require much more study and memorization if I couldn't look in the book for the answers.

Tuesday I signed up for a banquet from 1pm to 8pm. I decide to skip the day of school because 13 hours is like being a slave...been there, done that, don't plan to do it again. We can miss up to 3 days of school without it effecting our grade.

The only banquet I experience is created for the college alumni. It is held in the auditorium just outside the cafeteria and the food is served buffet style.

Before the event, the students make a delicious dinner for themselves of coconut shrimp, grilled new york steak, potatoes, rice pilaf , green beans, and salad. Worth working the banquet for the unusually good meal!

For the guests, we prepare chicken picatta, tri tip roast beef, manicotti stuffed with

ricotta cheese and covered with basil cream sauce, corn salsa served heated, caesar salad, a huge mixed fruit plate, rolls, and tiramisu for dessert. Some students cook and some set up the tables for 120 people, although there are several empty chairs. We are presented as a group at one point and thanked for our efforts. Because it is buffet style, we do not serve the tables, only pick up the used dishes and take them to the kitchen.
Once again there are too many students for too few jobs and the pace is half time with many breaks-not what it would be in the real job world.
When the banquet is over, and the speakers are finished, we clear the food and dishes and go home. Tomorrow is another day in the kitchen. I get to keep a beautiful red, white and blue bouquet center piece-another little perk to make my time worthwhile.

Eighth Week Spring Quarter

In theory practice this quarter, the focus is on baking in the kitchen. The dutch baby pancakes that my group makes from George's recipe are a learning experience. This recipe is among the many things we are baking that contain whipped egg whites prepared with a whisk. We decide that the convection oven does the best job, since we burn the bottom of the one prepared in the conventional oven. The one baked in the convection oven turns out perfectly. The school stoves are gas fired-the best kind of burner in my opinion. However, the electric convection oven is faster and has better controlled oven heat. The class also uses a recipe to make a gelatin candy-not too sweet, with fruit stirred in before it is set. Reminds me of the finger jello moms make for little kids.
Monday was the Memorial Day holiday with no school, so we have classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday only. This is my week for skills development class, which gives the management students a chance to teach, and a good review for me. We prepare seven different cuts of carrots, chop onions, peel and section grapefruit, and make hollandaise sauce with a whisk. (Something I would use an electric mixer to make at home).
My assignment is the soup station, with a manager and two other first year students. I cook a vegetarian soup with smoked vegetables that someone else had prepared. Soup creations are very versatile, in that chefs can add left overs from the other stations to exercise cost control. At the end of the day, when there's not enough food to reheat, the left overs are "dumped" on the soup station. We use many different commercial bases for the liquid part.
With so may students to do the work, one is not encouraged to work at top speed, which will be a real shock upon entering the real world of the commercial kitchen, I'm sure.
I cook a potato leek soup by peeling and boiling the potatoes, mashing them with butter and cream, and adding them to a chowder base someone else had fixed. There was very little left at the end of the day.

Seventh Week Spring Quarter

The menu for CTO, (cooked to order) is planned each week by the management student in charge of that station. We fix grilled halibut, rum glazed pork tenderloin, cajun chicken with mushroom sauce and grilled flank steak with gorgonzola cream sauce. The meat dishes are plated with rissotto and mixed steamed vegetables. On different days I have a chance to brown the pork tenderloin, stir the rissotto, (which takes forever to cook and leaves me sweating over the hot stove), and grill the halibut on the flat top grill. I receive several compliments from the dining room customers on the halibut I prepare, with the secret being the amount of clarified butter I use on the flat top grill to crisp the breading on the fish.
The dining room wait students take the customer orders and pass them to a manager who puts the ticket on a spindle for the cooking students. (There is a paid chef in this area who has the final word on everything, but is pretty much a figurehead). When the cooks have the order up , the manager adds the garnishes to the plates and yells the name of the waiter or waitress who delivers the food to the customer. I hear that this particular manager's voice is so loud and shrill that she is heard in the dining room by the customers.
In theory practice my current group consists of people who appear to know how to follow a recipe with skill. We create a jelly roll cake with vanilla pudding filling. Our steamed dumplings and custard with carmel sauce turn out looking professional.

Sixth Week Spring Quarter

Evidently my post for this week either didn't post, or I didn't get around to writing about my time in the veggie station area. The station manager is a vegetarian and comes up with many interesting recipes for us to try.We get quite a bit of chopping experience on this station and fix several dishes of swiss chard, including one with the chopped stems mixed with dried cranberries. The students working with me are pretty efficient, and we usually are able to clean up and leave right after we pull the left overs off the cafeteria line. Some left overs are reheated the next day and some are sent to the soup station to be used in the cooked soup.
In theory practice we make Baked Alaska dessert. We make delicious sponge cakes in small containers, put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle and cover the whole thing with whipped meringue, which we broil. I am so impressed that I make them at home for practice.
Sugar, sugar...I am not getting any thinner.

Fifth Week Spring Quarter

If theory practice has a motto, it's "organized chaos". We are making flour tortillas in groups of two or three people. The two others in my group just throw the ingredients together as fast as they can so they can be finished early. I am unable to complete the assignment to make three different kinds of tortillas, (chopped vegetable, vegetable puree, and plain), due to time constraints and the crowded conditions. One student gives up in disgust as her ingredients keep disappearing whenever she turns her back.
The day the students make flat bread I get to work on my own, making masa corn tortillas. I found the recipe on line and George wants a copy to use for his classes.
I am in the scatter station with three of us first year students and two managers. Students in the scatter area are responsible for serving on the cafeteria line as well as restocking all the areas around the line. We check all the drink cups and lids to make sure there are enough, make coffee, keep the milk and fountain drinks refilled, keep the straws, plastic utensils, napkins, salt, pepper, sugar, and condiments stocked, as well as wipe up the spills and periodically empty the garbage cans. Even with all that to do, having five of us in this area is too many bodies, so we are hard pressed to keep busy.

Fourth Week Spring Quarter

My assignment is the snack bar, where we have a chance to learn how a fast food operation works, which includes taking grill orders from customers. I rotate with "twitchy" to every station and he seems most comfortable making pizzas at this one. Once in awhile I get a chance to make a pizza or two, but mostly find myself flipping burgers and wrapping them. I am avoiding lifting the deep fry baskets, since the last time I worked the snack bar the repetitive motion of lifting them created an inflammation in my arm that has lymph edema.
Although we pay a hefty lab fee to cover our personal food consumption, there are specific rules about what food we are allowed to eat. The soups are always available to us and we can have anything off the cafeteria line when it is open for our lunch. Burgers and fried foods must be paid for out of pocket. Soft drinks are unlimited and we can eat the pizza only if we are working the snack bar. We can taste the food we make but are not allowed to take anything home unless we pay extra for it as an independent customer.
The cost of a full cafeteria meal, with an entree and two side dishes is $3.95. Desserts are generous sized and sell for 35 cents. The real deal is the bread that the bakery doesn't sell is priced at 3 loaves for one dollar. I have not replaced my broken bread machine because of the cheap bread I can purchase at school.
In theory practice we make biscotti and vegetables in pastry dough.

Third Week Spring Quarter

On the pantry station I spend three days making hors d'oeuvres to serve on the cafeteria line with the salads.
One day the management student doesn't show up, so George assigns me and one of the second term guys to manage the pantry station. This young man has a tendancy to throw things together in a haphazard manner. For instance the lettuce he cuts up for the dining room is in such big chunks they are impossible to eat. When I point out to him that the dining room manager has asked for smaller pieces, he gets an attitude.
This is just a glimpse of what the second year management course would be for me, trying to manage young people who want to do things their own way. I would feel like a salmon swimming up stream. I'm glad I will be finished in June with a chef's certificate.
The lemon meringue pie we put together in theory practice takes us two days to complete. The filling contains 8 egg yolks and the meringue topping contains the whites from those eggs. It is better looking than it tastes because we use margerine instead of butter and have no extracts to add to the lemon juice. We make the crust by adding the shortening to the flour by hand, making it flakey and the best tasting part of the pie. A real do again project for home cooking.

Second Week Spring Term

I am enjoying the skills development class-taught at 6:30 AM by the management instructor, Larry. We are concentrating on learning to cook breakfast foods. One of the new food techniques for me is flipping fried eggs. I have struggled to make over easy eggs for years and now I know several secrets to try. We practice in class and I even purchased a teflon omlette pan to practice at home. I can use that pan to make crepes as well, which are easier to flip than fried eggs. Larry suggests we make souffles in a round casserole dish if we don't have a souffle dish on hand.
Theory practice in the kitchen is muffins one day and biscuits another day. George figures I am experienced at making muffins, so I collect the ingredients (mis en place) for a sour cream banana cake while my class works on muffins. The biscuits we bake, deep fry and steam to show the different things that can be done with the dough. Somehow we are able to accomplish our tasks with the mass of students in the kitchen.
On another day of regular kitchen duty, I am assigned to the dessert area and make some killer brownies that turn out beautifully and are delicious. The chef on CTO (cooked to order) has the best recipes but is stingy with them, so I have to ask a student manager to sneak that brownie recipe to me.
George has assigned a new student to work along side me for the first 5 weeks of this quarter.
This guy is very strange. Apparently he has a nervous twitch because he turns his head and body every few seconds as if he is looking over his shoulder. I hear he is a homeless shelter frequenter and has a pregnant wife. The story goes: when there is food to be had, he grabs his share, immediately chows down, and his pregnant wife can fend for herself. (Of course every profession has its weirdos, but perhaps culinary arts attracts more of them?)

Spring Term

We celebrated birthdays over spring break. Spent some time at the house in Ilwaco and some time socializing with friends and family in the Everett area.
When I return to class, the room is so full of new and returning students, there are no chairs left.
I am able to help cook Shepherd's Pie on the chef's station, along with preparing things for others to cook. The chef's station has a hired chef named Drew, who makes the final decision what dishes to make and serve. The management students find recipes, order supplies, and direct us with the prep.
George demos the bisquit dough we will be making in theory class next week. Rather than throw it out, he gives it to me to try deep fried elephant ears. They turn out to be very delicious, but oh so cholesterol laden and fattening!
I have another letter from the Clark College Vice Pres., stating that my straight A's for Winter Quarter 2009 made me one of only 705 students of 11,079 enrolled students to make the VP list. The Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society sent me an invitation to join as well.

Last Week Winter Quarter

Since we are facing a three week Spring break, we try to create dishes on the vegetable/starch station from the last of the things in the refrigerator. We will start with new and fresh ingredients the next quarter, as well as having over 60 students in this kitchen. There will be 28 second year management students for 10 stations, and until some of the first year students drop out for various reasons, we will be falling all over each other as we endeavor to learn to cook.
Cleaning for the kitchen closure is more thorough than usual. We scrub and polish and wash equipment, counters, refrigerators, ovens, and overhead vents a little at a time all week, so we don't have to do it all at once. Almost everyone shows up on the last Monday of the quarter to finish spit polishing the department as part of their grade. One of my graduating friends, a second year management student who has interned in a restaurant in downtown Portland, returns with tales of the fast pace, low pay, slave type labor in a commercial kitchen.
We have an award ceremony for attendance and completion certificates on Monday as well, and I receive my second perfect attendance certificate. They take a group picture, give us a "fix your own sandwich" lunch, and we are out of there.

Nineth Week Winter Quarter

We are making pate en croute (stuffed
dough) fishes in theory practice. First
we make the crust, roll it out and let it
sit in the refrigerator over night. The
next day we cut out the pattern we
have drawn and stuff it with either a
rice filling or a pie filling.

My scholarship rejection notice arrives in the mail. It reads : thank you for applying.
We received many outstanding applications this year and the
screening committee had a difficult time selecting the finalists. Although
your application was not among those selected for an award, you should
be proud of your achievements.

So, I have decided that the Spring quarter will be my last one in school. I
will be earning a certificate of some sort, indicating I have finished 3
quarters of college cooking. Then it will be time to redirect my efforts.
A second year at Clark College would be a management course, and since I
don't plan to seek a management position, it would be costly and
superfluous. (How's that for a college word)? :>)

Eighth Week Winter Quarter

My assignment is called relief, which makes no sense because I am sent to the snack bar every day. Mostly I am deep frying the fries, onion rings, cheese sticks, tater tots, and potato sticks. We rarely have any left over at the end of the day after several baskets of each. I may have over done the repetitive lifting of the fryer baskets as I am now taking a big gun antibiotic for infection in my lymph edema arm.
The young man who is rotating through the stations with me rarely speaks a word to anyone. It is almost as if he is afraid of the sound of his own voice. Let's hope, if he becomes a chef, he can yell, "order up"!
In theory practice we are making clear gelatin called aspic. We make pictures out of carved vegetables on a paper plate, then preserve them with a layer of clear aspic. Another food art project is peeling tomatoes and making roses by winding the peel in a spiral. My friends are all interested in seeing how to make these food decorations to make plates more appealing.

Seventh Week Winter Quarter

We are watching a professional ice carver teach us what to do if we find ourselves in the kitchen of a cruise ship, providing the decorations for a midnight buffet. Obviously there is a big artistic component to being able to make ice look like a recognizable figure. Of course that eliminates many chefs. He tells us that ice sculpture is more of a lifestyle than a business, since insurance and equipment costs make it almost impossible to earn a living. He frequently enters international competitions and is planning to attend the next winter olympics to be held in Whistler, Canada.
Outside the building we watch him carve the standard size 20by40by10 inch block of ice with a chain saw. They use large tongs to move them in place and the second year students use scraping tools to complete the sculptures. They create figures of rabbits, penguins, fish, 4 aces of playing cards, and a bowling ball.
I get a chance to try making breakfast on the grill in the snack bar. It would take plenty of practice and plenty of butter to make over easy eggs turn out perfectly. Actually the hashbrowns and french toast I make look pretty good.

Sixth Week Winter Quarter

We are concentrating on artistic creativity with food in theory practice. We make little figures out of hard boiled eggs, with various carved vegetables for the appendages. A hollowed out orange becomes a chicken decoration for a plate of fruit.
I am spending my cooking time making vegetarian soup, a gallon at a time. George shows me how to set up and use the smoker, to smoke marinated vegetables to be used in a soup. When we plugged it in to try it inside, people kept yelling "something is burning"! We take the smoker outside to keep the smell out of the kitchen. I have to wear a jacket to check on the food or shut it down, because it's cold outside.
There is some freezing weather in the early morning, so Merlin drives me to school and picks me up afterwards, a couple of days this week.

Fifth Week Winter Quarter

My scholarship application is on the way through the system. I presented myself in such a glowing light, I don't recognize myself. After reading my application, my career counsellor said she thinks I have a good chance. On the parts that George was required to fill out, he gave me many positive comments. Of course it would be an honor for him if one of his students won the WAVE,
(Washington Award for Vocational Excellence). The awards are announced on April 9th and are a "full ride" for two years.
My first time in the snack bar is a learning experience. This area fixes breakfasts on the grill, where I try my hand at omlettes, link sausages, french toast and pancakes. I make pizza dough, let it rise and put together both vegetarian and meat pizzas to sell for lunch. Others make burgers, fries, fried cheese sticks, deep fried onion rings and tater tots. All this high fat food disappears off the shelves, consumed by hungry college students.
I have noticed the absence of several of the students who started the second quarter with me. Many of them change their mind and decide this is not the career they want after all. One of my friends has finished his management requirements and will be interning in a Portland restaurant for the last six weeks of the quarter.

Fourth Week Winter Quarter

We are learning to carve fruits and
vegetables in theory practice. This "bird"
turned out better for me than the
turnips or radishes.
My second experience with waitressing
in the dining room nets me $8.50 in tips,
which I am able to keep.
One of the days I am in the dining room,
my friends from Bible Study come to
have lunch with me. I am allowed to
join them and order off the menu

instead of the usual cafeteria meal.

Because we never get to order a

hamburger on a bun in the cafeteria,

that's what I choose.

Third Week-Winter Quarter

In theory practice we are cutting the bones out of chickens, removing the meat from the skin, pounding the meat thin, and rolling it back up in the skin. Later we will stuff these chicken rolls and poach them. This is called a galantine. All of the students are looking at their macerated bird and saying they are going vegetarian.
I am working three days this holiday week, in cooked to order. The regular chef who runs CTO is on vacation, and Larry the management instructor is in charge. What a fantastic teacher he is! The menu consists of 7 oz New York strip steaks (which he shows us how to cook on the grill) bacon wrapped scallops, (we burn the bacon and have to start over), pork chops stuffed with Fontina cheese and prosciutto, and vegetarian steamed dumplings. All of this is served in the dining room for less than $7 for the individual entree and soup or salad. Merlin has lunch in the restaurant Thursday and I give him the department tour.
Friday I do an extra cooking day to satisfy banquet hours. I get to cook chicken caciatore from scratch, just as I would cook it at home, and it is colorful and delicious. As I have mentioned before, the food is fresher and better tasting on Fridays. There are less students than on class days, and we have less to do. I am able to finish reading one chapter for the test on Monday.
I am working on a Washington Award for Vocational Excellence scholarship application, (as a challenge), and they don't make it easy. There are 6 sections with a requirement of at least 150 words stating things like what career and technical education has meant to you. After the student fills it out, it goes to the instructor to fill out his part. We'll see how this progresses....

2nd Week Winter Quarter

I am on the vegetable station, learning to create some dishes from a recipe, on my own. The manager hands me a recipe for cous cous with roasted vegetables and I am to do all the steps to assemble and cook the finished dish. Cous cous is a tiny pasta that is interesting in that you only have to pour the boiling broth over it. After absorbing the liquid in 10 minutes or so, it is ready to eat.
In theory practice we are learning to carve vegetables for garnish. Making figures of crabs out of zuccini and yellow squash, with grapes or green peas on toothpicks for the eyes, is challenging for the non artist that I am. I want to get better at carving so I can have a visible display of what I am learning, to show when I serve things to my friends. I borrowed the required book and carving tools from another student who is finished with this portion of the class.

First week of school '09

Woo Hoo!
Checking the on line transcript for the last quarter, I find I earned straight A's. The vice president of Clark College tells me in a letter that I am in the top 5% of 11,048 students enrolled fall quarter. This stimulates my interest in finding a scholarship for next quarter. Having looked at a few lists, I think one of the few that would take my application is the one for those who have not been in school for a long period of time. Even if I count anesthesia training, it has been 40 years since I have been in school.

Most of the students from my class return this quarter. Some of them have moved up to management, and I hear that there are 20 managers for 10 work stations. I count 7 new faces and the classroom and kitchen are filled with people. It is difficult, with so many cooks, to complete any project alone. Everything is a team project. I am able to put together a pasta salad for the cafeteria line, but other than that, my time in the kitchen is non productive. As the old saying goes: many hands make light work.

In theory practice we will be concentrating on vegetable and fruit carving plus fancy decorated food. George shows slides of winning chefs who have competed with sculpted and decorated food. The food was expensive and had to be thrown away after the judging, so now it is mainly done on cruise ships or for expensive banquets.