August 13

From my brain

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1 2009
- 1.1 Me 01:03, 13 August 2009 (EDT)
2 2007
- 2.1 Me 08:22, 13 August 2007 (EDT)

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2009

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Me 01:03, 13 August 2009 (EDT)

"Now, I bet you're asking, now why don't he write?"

If it's not Facebook's enabling me to post like ADHD 3rd grader, then or school sucking me away, then I'm just trying to rest and recoup the lack of sleep from school. It's still the best experience of my life...but damn it's exhausting! In fact, last week Saturday I got into something that's crazy-cool...even though I beat myself up about it all weekend long following.

So, they have this thing called "Competition Club". The way it was sold to us was that it was like Iron Chef, but in reality it was more just like having a really well stocked kitchen and being told "OK...COOK!"

When I got to the room, it was about 3-4 food carts from the store room...covered in white sheets so we couldn't see underneath. We set up our stations, and surmised what may lay underneath. The next thing we see is not one, two or three of the chefs coming (as we had expected)...but damn near the whole staff! All but three of the chef-instructors that I knew were present. That was only slightly intimidating as the morning went on (oh yeah, and this started at 9:00am).

So, the rules were thus:

Create four courses
Make two plates of each course
Use three "classical cooking methods" (stewing, sauteing, grilling, etc.)
Use three "classical knife cuts" (julienne, small dice, batonette, etc.)
Create menu in one half hour (and stick to it)
Present in two hours exactly

And with that, they unveiled the ingredients...and we had at it. My partner (a guy who I knew from the ServSafe class) and I came up with the following:

Vegetable Frittata
Steak and Mushrooms
Salad (alla Nana)
Marscapone Fritters

I'm really tired right now, so here's the summary:

The frittata got burned, but we presented it anyway
The steaks were undercooked (I could tell that as soon as he brought them to the table)
The salad I put too much oregano in it
The fritters (which I didn't even get to plate) weren't fully done...but did happen to be damn tasty

Our two lessons were:

NEVER walk away from the salamander (broiler) when you have food under it.
Time management is a bitch. If you think you're 30 mins early...just start plating your stuff.

All in all though, it was SO much fun, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It's the second and fourth Saturdays in the month, with the competition on the first one, and then, two weeks later, the review and judges results. Watching them through the window as they tasted it all and commented to themselves was bad enough, but seeing pictures of it on a powerpoint presentation? UGH! Still, at the end, the Executive Chef of the school said that we all did fairly well, especially considering that nearly all of us were first-term students.

The other portion of my life began anew on Monday: POPCORN SEASON COMETH!!!! I went to the very first meeting that was available, got my stuff and will be crunching numbers Thursday evening for the Pack Leadership meeting on Friday. I need to get all my ducks in a row for this so I can properly juggle it around school.

The prizes this year (again) got bumped up, and I think the boys will really enjoy them. Likewise, they've consolidated their product line and there won't nearly be as many things to sell...and store! That's gonna be great. :)

Additionally, yesterday I (hopefully) made some headway into my future career as a baker. I talked to the Placement Director for the school, and she had advised me that someone from the New Albany Country Club was coming on Thursday this week. She said that there was a possibility of a couple externships opening up there, and that bringing in some of meh tasty bread goodness would be very beneficial. Apparently the head chef of the club was to be coming. He was the guy to impress.

Well, when I went in on Tuesday, she informed me that it had been bumped up...to Wednesday. Eek! I racked my brain, and decided to keep it simple: basic white and the olive oil bread. No bells and whistles, no fireworks. Simple bread, simply made.

I also decided to make a stab at the panetopia project: the sandwich bread for home. Free the family from the yoke of store-bought bread and come up with a good, soft bread that could work just fine even for PB&J.

The breads came out beautifully, and I managed to get to school early enough this morning to slice it up for the visitors and even lay it out on a nice try. As it turned out, they were using our kitchen for the tasting for an event the school is catering. The Placement Director had me bring the bread over, and when there was a break in the tasting, then called me over and introduced me to the Chef. She specifically introduced me as having a specialty in artisan breads. I'm really hoping this will be a prosperous venture.

The last bit of news at least rectified itself (hopefully) today. After being up as late as I was last night, I couldn't fall asleep because I panicked over the fact that unemployment had denied my claim for last week. That should not have happened. It should have been the first week I would have been golden. I want my money!

I called them today and it turns out the reason I've been consistently denied for the last few weeks was that my medical exception has been still in place. No work-release from my doctor, no money. All I have to do is have the doc (my chiro in this case) fax in a work release, and I'm golden. They'll even back-pay me for any valid weeks as long as his release is prior to the start of when they'd have kicked in the money.

And after all of this...there is still the whole "place we're gonna live" stuff. That, I'll save for another day. I'm beat. Five hours (or less) sleep last night and I'm whipped!

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