Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better at school it got even better today! All the work that we’ve done in the last couple of days just came together as we did our first meal service as a group. But again, not before our daily quiz! Today’s questions also pointed us back to lessons past. The questions dealt with the risotto making process, different kinds of vinaigrettes, and the ingredients in pesto sauce. Its really great that we’re tapping into the old information again; its certainly helping to get it all lodged into memory. After our quick quiz, we all went back to our stations and starting setting up the meal service. With about 2.5 hours to get ready, we each got into our stations and started up right away...
Brian and I were in charge of the dessert station. We were given complete freedom to design our cake and ice cream in whatever way we wanted. Brian had the great idea of creating some different designs from tempered chocolate to stick on top of the ice cream. So we piped the chocolate out into all sorts of shapes and forms. I ended up doing the “K.A” initials (for Kitchen Academy!), which turned out really nice. The dessert was a huge hit! And aside from flexing our creative muscle, this exercise helps get us acquainted with the inner workings of a live restaurant atmosphere…
The chefs got us accustomed to responding to orders as they came in. We would echo back commands as they happened. We could hear something like, “3 pork chops, order in!” and we would know to start prepping the dish. The call to “fire it up!” would have us going through the final cooking steps and finally serving it up. Since my partner and I were on dessert patrol, there wasn’t much to be cooked. The call to “fire it up” meant we would have to assemble the dish on the spot. Each plate ordered has to be exactly alike! Consistency in presentation is a very important trait. At about 8:30am, the first class came in to be fed…
By 10am the kitchen filed out and we got to have some leftovers ourselves. Then we finished cleaning. One of the great things about his kitchen is that there is an industrial size dishwasher. It is so nice to be able to quickly clean hundreds of plates in one shot. Tomorrow we start prepping for the Friday service. We’re making pork cheeks and apple tarts…
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