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.