Welcome back to the Top Kitchen cooking diary! The work we have been doing in the kitchen is now becoming somewhat of a graceful routine. The dynamic of prepping for a day/serving for a day has been a relatively stable system. Different menus and different cooking processes are being explored within every new serving cycle. Although this week we had a slight alteration in the pattern, cooking and serving Spanish tapas all in the same day. Tapas can be found in trendy and traditional Spanish restaurants alike. They are usually presented as small portions on miniature plates and have a wide spectrum of flavor possibilities. We didn’t focus so much on the plating in our class, but created quite an assortment of little creations and ended up just eating the lot ourselves. This included empanadas, various shrimp dishes, and paella. I was put on gazpacho duty and had a successful run. I sort of gave it an Israeli twist, with ingredients like parsley and mint, flavors that don’t normally show up in gazpacho but add a surprisingly nice flavor to it…
Yesterday was game day. We cooked venison, pheasant, and ox tail. I was in charge of the vegetarian dish, another “mystery box” concoction. I created an Israeli salad with quinoa, served with a skewer of grilled vegetables marinated in pomegranate molasses sauce. Today was a complete lecture day, with no kitchen duties in the queue. We learned more about food costing; what budgets are like, how to price a dish, etc. This is something I’ve really been excited about diving into for quite some time. Tomorrow has us preparing for Monday’s service. It will be an Asian buffet. I’ve sort of been dreading this section of the course, as we’ll be roasting a whole pig! I’ve seen said lifeless animal perched up on the shelves as I’ve been walking into school. Now our moment has come! It really makes you wonder about the origins of food and how it applies to your daily life…
So we have only two more weeks left of school! And my six-week externship starts early next month. I ended up getting that part time job at Sur la Table cooking school. I’ll also be training with a company called CEO chefs. They setup cooking events for corporate team building. In addition to all this, I’ll be focusing developing a business and marketing plan to provide cooking classes for the rich and famous. This whole school experience has been nothing short of spectacular and I’m really sad that its ending. I’m really going to miss everyone!
Where I come from girls are considered to know nothing about IT, but my girls and I started a blog and promoted it to receive some visits. It’s a start but we will not back down from this challenge.
Posted by: Jeff Paul Scam | February 22, 2009 at 10:12 PM
Your article was a real pleasure to read! And all those delicious dishes... :) If I had them in my favorite cookery book ( http://file.sh/huge+collection+of+recipies+torrent.html ), I'd certainly make a gorgeous supper today!Perhaps, I can still find them somewhere in the internet, if it is not a secret, of course ;)
Posted by: rondy | April 28, 2009 at 12:53 AM