Weights and Measures/Blanching and Shocking (Dicey Dices)

The day opened with a quiz on sanitation and herb ID. Ten herbs were spread out around the room with numbers for identifying, and the multiple choice questions were no big deal. Upon review of the answers, I somehow mistook Cilantro for Chervil. Ninety-five percent ain't bad.

An ounce is an ounce is an ounce, unless you're measuring volume (the amount of space a material takes up), then it's a fluid ounce. Today's lecture defined the English Standard series of measures for weight (lbs and ozs) and volume (tsp to G), and the simple math need to convert recipes to larger or smaller amounts. Lip service was given to the metric system -- if a chef were to give you a recipe in metrics, all measures in the kitchen would be metric so there would be no need to waste time and lessen accuracy with conversion.

Chef M discussed blanching, defined as boiling in salted water until just-cooked. This reduces strong flavors or smells, sets color, makes skins easier to remove, and prepares vegetables for other cooking methods that may not otherwise cook thoroughly on their own. We proceeded to dice a large amount of potatoes; prepped haricot vertes and broccoli; blanch the vegetables and shock them in ice baths (to stop the cooking); and boil the potatoes before running them through a food mill. The vegetables were thrown into a hot pan with a little bit of water and butter, then coated (or, as the method is known, glazed). Copious amounts of cream, butter, and salt went in to the potatoes. According to Chef M, you keep adding salt until it tastes 'good' -- not necessarily salty, but right before that point.

At the end of class, potatoes were distributed for us to take home and practice on. My diced potatoes were relatively cubical, and the chef complimented me on a nice dice. One other student's dice was weirdly flat and chip-like -- how does someone mess this up? I'm going to practice on my taters tonight and try to dice them with some speed; in a real-life situation, I'm not going to have all the time in the world to achieve a nice dice so my boss can pat me on the back.

ADDENDA:
Speaking of weights & measures, I tipped the scales at 229 this morning, a pound up from last week. A few people who read this blog congratulated me on my 7lb weight loss, but I shrugged it off -- I didn't really try too hard and know it'll fluctuate with water, the weather, etc.

As I was engraving all my tools with a symbol to indicate my ownership (as every student's tools are identical), I dropped the bread knife by accident. It bounced off my leg and I barely gave it a notice. As I picked up the next blade to engrave, I noticed a not-small trickle of red down my thigh. Damn, these things are sharp!

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, organic cheerios with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 9am, fresh french bread, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM TASTING: 11:15am, broccoli and haricot vertes with mashed potatoes, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 2pm, homemade cheese ravioli with homemade tomato sauce, quart of seltzer, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5:15pm, Ben & Jerry's "Half Baked" icecream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Went to the local conventional supermarket to pick up cleaning supplies and paper for note taking. Felt sugar cravings and the need to treat myself. Took a long look at the freezer section, B&Js is not organic but has about half the number of ingredients of some other brands. This weed-themed treat is half chocolate, half vanilla, half chocolate chip cookie dough and half brownie. A bit of a mess, and all the chunks of stuff left a chalky taste in my mouth against the indistinct ice cream flavors. But I imagine it would be amaaaaazing if I was stoned, maaaaan.

DINNER: 7:15pm, baby carrots & cucumber with ranch dressing, 3 ears of fresh corn with sea salt and the good butter, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5

WEEKEND REPORT:
Ate lots of healthy vegan and vegetarian food from a nice buffet at Omega with B & the HVS. Being that it was all-you-can-eat, I wasn't really watching how MUCH I ate -- good nutrition yes, low-calorie no.

On Saturday I went out on my bicycle and did a large loop around Rhinebeck and Red Hook. I passed Migoreli (sp?) Farms, which I buy a lot of produce from at the Union Square farmer's market. After a few hours I was hungry and my map said I wasn't near any towns. So I went with what was available: a gas station. I bought a bag of lightly salted 'kettle' potato chips and a 2-pack of Entemann's chocolate-coated donuts. I ate a lot of them as a kid, my parents would get them for dessert. When I grabbed these two things, I briefly looked at the nutritional info -- 400 calories, not too bad. When I sat down and started reading, I noticed both of these bags were TWO servings - 800 calories and about 50% of my daily sodium. On top of that, the donuts tasted kinda of....plastic, a coating of wax all over my mouth. It had more than 2x the salt as the chips, but you wouldn't know it by taste. Fractionated palm oil is not a delicacy.

Basic Knife Skills (There Really IS More Than One Way to Peel an Onion!)

Even though I arrived in the classroom at 7:58am, I was the next to last to arrive. "On time is late," indeed. The first half hour was dedicated to the thought behind good knife skills -- consistency in your cuts is a) attractive and b) allows the food to cook evenly. How consistent and accurate your brunoise (1/8" cube) and batonettes (1/4 x 1/4 x 2+" strip) is how a chef would size up a candidate for a gig. We discussed 'Mire Poix', the basic flavor base of many soups and sauces (1 part celery, 1 part carrot and 2 part onions). These ingredients are usually cooked down or removed after they've given their all; edible scraps created by turning round and tubular vegetables into squares can go in the 'Mire Poix Bucket'.

Finally, a brief talk on salt. According to my M.D., ideally I should cut out all salt from my diet. According to Chef M, ideally all food should have some salt, as it is essential for good taste in all things. Handouts of articles from a few foodie magazines were distributed; each waxed poetic about the varieties of salt I've never even heard, and from all over the world. I now know why any chef worth his salt uses kosher instead of table salt. (And Roman soldiers used to be paid in salt, very rare then, hence the term 'worth your salt.')

And then the chairs were put away, the knives came out, and off we went dicing onions and garlic, cubing carrots, slicing through tomatoes, putting on plastic gloves for jalapenos, balling up and dicing parsley and cilantro and watching demos from the chef all the while.

We used two knives: the 9" chefs knife and the paring knife. I know my way around the big knife due to a knife-skills class I took a few months ago. The little paring knife is something of new thing -- I actually was given a set of three really sweet Global knifes (chefs, utility, paring) and to be honest never use the little one. Chef showed us how to grip the whole blade with our hand so the point and the thumb become like tweezers. Even though you are gripping across the sharp edge, as long as you don't move the blade back and forth, a little firm pressure will not cut your skin. After slicing off the non-root end of the onion, using the paring knife we worked the skin off the onion with thumb and paring knife point. Hark, a new way to peel an onion! Also, by putting my thumb on the core of a tomato and spinning it while the point of the paring knife came in under it at an angle cleanly and easily cored the vegetable. Paring knife, you are sassy!

Now that we had all these mounds of vegetables, we scooped them into prep bowls, doused them with red wine vinegar (1 part) and olive oil (3 parts) and salted to taste with sea salt. Voila, the $30K quart of salsa!! Buy one quart, get a culinary education free of charge...

After cleaning our dishes and stations, the chairs came out again and a woman from the career department came down to talk to us about the future. What we can do with our $30k quart of s...culinary degree once we graduate. Restaurant grunt, hotel cook grunt, corporate dining, personal cheffing, catering, and my own personal interest: "alternative food careers." Hopefully more on that later.

After happily chopped vegetables with a pleasingly sharp knife for an hour, it was a bit of a 'back to earth' moment. What am I going to do once this blog has run its course? She spoke of how the 210-hour externship (after classroom work is over) can lead to a job. She also mentioned various volunteer opportunities -- next week, I think I'm going to sit with someone there and talk about volunteering. I think I need real-world experience of some sort before I get to the externship -- not to be an overachiever, but to help me figure out what I want to do. Nutrition and the politics of food has really gotten my brain-pan firing for a while now...

ADDENDA:
After class, dropped off the quart of salsa with B, took an appointment, then went to yoga -- my first open class. People were spinning on their heads without hands and pulling their feet behind their backs and over their shoulders like licorice. I, on the other hand, sweat profusely as I attempted to touch my ankles.

The thrill of culinary class left my stomach tight, hunger not really coming to me until home. The salsa we made was actually really tasty, as anything simple and fresh can be, but it made me think -- it was not really my choice to eat salsa, it's not something I eat too often. For the next six months, what I choose to eat for four hours a day will be dictated by school -- in fact, I'll be eating some things I've never chosen to eat. Tomorrow, we'll be slicing our way through assorted fruits, some of which I've never eaten before....

B, the HVS and I are going upstate together tomorrow to the Omega Institute -- they're doing a 'women of yoga' program, I'm bringing my road bike and plan to explore the hills and the Hudson. And eat lots of good vegan food.

BREAKFAST: 7am, farmer's market granola with good milk, banana, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 9:15am, piece of french bread, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10:15am, another piece of french bread, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 10:45am, several spoonfuls of salsa crudo, a small handful of tortilla chips, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 1pm, hot dog with kraut, mustard, onions, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Out running around doing things, spontaneously stopped by a Gray's Papaya. The lip-n-butthole flavor is everything I remember it to be. According to my textbook, a sausage like a hotdog is a "forcemeat", hmmm....

PM SNACK: 5pm, falafel on whole wheat, bottle water, hunger 4.5/5
After yoga, still had to get around, had to stop by a Maoz Vegetarian, a chain of falafel places. Not as good as the indie place I've been hitting up since high school on St Marks & 1st.

DINNER: 7:30pm, curry rice vermicelli, lotus-leaf rice wraps, spinach dumpling, quart of water, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Ordered in from Tien Garden, a buddhist vegan joint in the hood.

EVENING SNACK: 10:30pm, gnocci in tomato sauce, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
B's leftovers from a restaurant meal.