Long time no see

So the school is going through a lot right now. Apparently the San Francisco campus is going to get shut down, but that might just be rumors. There’s a lawsuit you might already know about in which the school is getting sued for telling students they will become chefs after they graduate when a lot of them are not. No school provides job security so I don’t get it. You’ve got to work for it and I’m trying my best. I’ve recently started talking to my chef about stuff outside of the classroom, not too far off topic, mostly stuff about what happens next. I want information from him and to me he seems honest. He’s given me much more confidence in going out into the world. I usually ask my career services advisor these types of questions but even though she’s done the same job for 10 years and probably has plenty of experience I still feel more comfortable with taking advice from my chef. I also am hoping that by the end of the class I might be able to get a letter of recommendation from him. This weekend I checked out some bakeries so that maybe I might find one I’m interested in. I found one that I am extremely interested in. I also asked my chef for recommendations and he told me about another. I’m going to print out some resumes and try and call to see when I might be able to come in and talk to a chef. Hopefully I could donate a bit of my time and they will let me stage around the kitchen for a day. Here’s a Wikipedia page for what staging is because I never knew until recently (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_(cooking)). I’m a little upset my school hasn’t provided that many extracurricular events but that should hopefully make up for it. Hopefully these kitchens will take me in for a day or two and in the best case scenario I get to extern there. 

"Practice doesnt make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect."

            I’m starting to find what I was looking for in culinary school. This school is all about “technique.” They even have a student run restaurant called Technique. Anyways, I’m starting to figure out why at home my baking never came out perfect. No matter the recipe, or how closely I followed it, I never got what I expected from it. I did always have high expectations though.

            So I’ve had extreme baking fails and I’ve also felt decently proud about some of the stuff I’ve done. When I did happen to fail at baking something, I usually tried to Google it and find a solution, I never could. I also had no clue where to start or what to be looking for. I didn’t know if it were the recipe I used or if I wasn’t measuring right, maybe I missed an ingredient, who knows? So what I wanted to do was bake more, and experiment with different ingredients and take mental note of what I did and what I maybe could have done better the next time which is easier said than done. It’s hard to bake a lot at home, especially sweet stuff, I never want to eat it all so I love giving it away, but that gets expensive. So whenever I would bake there would be a big gap in between then and the last time I baked, months even. Because of how little I was able to bake I usually just ended up repeating the same mistakes. That will get you nowhere. Something my College English Professor used to always say, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.”

             Now that I am going along in my courses I’ve started to realize the problems I’ve had were based on my mixing methods. I had no idea that when you bake a cookie, the end result of that cookie depends mostly on the way you mixed it. If you mix it too much, you’re going to get a flat cookie. You get a flat cookie by not letting the dough trap air in it. How do you trap air in your dough, you ask? Well let me tell you! Butter needs to be room temperature, mixing speed needs to be slow/medium, you need to mix eggs in slowly and one at a time, you should sift your flour and Do Not over mix. Also, only mix in your chips for a little bit, and at slow speed. Your chips can get beat up in the mixing bowl and turn your cookies a darker color than expected. So when you mix in your chips do it on slow speed just to add to the dough. After that you should use a spatula to fold the dough and distribute the chips more evenly throughout.

            So my cookies I made the other day turned out decent but they could be a little better, nothing is perfect and I am never extremely happy with whatever I bake. I always find something I don’t like. Anyways, those cookies I baked were good, they tasted great and compared to the rest of my class they looked decent, not the best but good. Today we did a practical chocolate chip cookie test. With no help by our neighbors we had to make cookies entirely by ourselves. They have to be perfect cookies. I don’t want to jinx it but my dough seemed perfect this time, way better than last. We have to wait until Tuesday to bake them though so I have to keep my hopes up for a few days. :/ I’ll tell you how they came out once I get the chance.

            I don’t have much to say today. Sorry I haven’t blogged in a bit. At first there was nothing to blog about and then finals week happened and I got too busy with studying. I’ve also been trying to keep a good sleep schedule going. So let me catch you up. This past week was the last week of two of my classes and I’m now onto the next one. Finals week started with a Safety and Sanitation final which was pretty easy, that was the only final for that class and I passed it. Culinary Foundations 1 had three finals. First was a kitchen product ID test in which Chef set out a bunch of different items on the tables and asked us to label them properly. I passed this test but I got a few wrong because I wasn’t specific enough when labeling them. We had a knife cut test. He asked us to cut red and green peppers into Julienne sticks, a cucumber had to be cut into Julienne and Batonnet sticks, an onion was to be cut into Macedone cubes and 3 tomatoes were cut into Brunoise cubes. At the end of this final our whole class combined all of our cuts and made some Gazpacho, a cold vegetarian soup. It tastes good with tortilla chips, mostly because it tastes like salsa. All you do is get together a bunch of fresh vegetables, a bit of tomato paste, some cayenne pepper a little bit of bread with red wine vinegar and then some cayenne pepper and salt, then you puree to finish. Put it in a nice bowl, throw a garnish on top, and drip some olive oil around to make it look nice. We also had to make mayonnaise without using a recipe for our final. There are two things I feel you need to remember when making mayonnaise, pour small amounts of oil (or fat) and mix FAST when doing so, and never forget the water. This final was kind of intimidating at first, mostly for me because I never got to see the demo in class; I was sent to go cut potatoes for our dish we were making that day. I got it though, and it turned out to be easier than I thought, your arm just gets tired. This test had two girls in my class crying (that I knew of). We also had a really big, stressful test to do this week. It was part of my Safety and Sanitation class, but it had nothing to do with my grade for the class. This test was to get our ServSafe Foodhandlers card. There are two versions of this test, one is just the basic foodhandler version and the other is for restaurant managers. We took the manager version. Chef has told us about students in the past that have failed this test. He said that he would have classes of about 30 students in which only maybe 7 passed. Since we were one of the last of his classes to take this test he also told us about all the other students failing it earlier in the week. To retake the basic version of this test is over $30, to retake the version we took, the manager version, is over $110. So we all sat in the LRC at the computers and took our test for what I think was 2 hours. I took my time, went through all the questions and went over them again. While doing this I was noticing all the people in my class around me getting up and walking out, I got to overhear each one of them telling the Chef they failed and need to schedule to retake it. So the more this happened the more I lost confidence. Then the Chef walked up and told me 20 minutes left, this is when I realized it was a timed test. So I quickly went over all my answers again and re-read all the confusing ones and hit the submit button. As soon as you hit that button it tells you whether or not you passed and I passed! Another thing that happened this week was that I finally got a pin for my lanyard. It’s from the Red Cross Blood Drive for helping out so much. So this week was a good one. Next blog is going to be about my new class, Introduction to Patisserie and Baking Techniques.

Realizing I could have great future opportunities

So since my last post I have volunteered for two different causes. The first was a breakfast for the homeless at Union Station in Pasadena. I had a good time with this, met a few people and got to help out some hungry families. I helped out two days in a row, the first night was prep and the next morning was the actual breakfast. We fed maybe 80 people scrambled eggs with ham, cinnamon rolls and a fruit bowl. We then fed them seconds of whatever we had left. Everyone was extremely grateful and a lot of them came up to talk to us all. I didn’t really learn that much, I just got a few hours towards my iron toque pin and some experience. That was last week, but today I helped out at the Trump National Golf Course, Beer and Wine Festival, in which some of the proceeds went towards benefiting the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy and Peninsula Committee Children’s Hospital. It was such a good time. I met new friends, new friends with common interests. I really love the people involved with the culinary profession. You see Gordon Ramsey’s show and expect it to be extremely uptight and stressful in the kitchen. I mean eventually it will, but from what I’ve seen so far it’s just a good time with people hanging out doing what they love. Today the kitchen was packed. I met a girl who was doing her externship at this kitchen. That says to me that this is a great opportunity for me to be there. Out of all the places she could have picked to do her externship, a chance to go out and experience the real world of culinary arts and where I’ve heard you will learn more than you will ever learn during your classes, she chose this kitchen. It wasn’t some soup kitchen in which they let anyone volunteer. I had this opportunity because I am a student of Le Cordon Bleu, College of Culinary Arts. Some of the students got offered externships here while they were working but I didn’t expect that considering how new I am. Speaking of new, I got a new nickname today “fresh-meat.” I got this nickname because apparently I am pretty tough for showing up to volunteer at these things so early. Most people wait until their second term to start getting involved, this way that have at least a little experience, I waited until my second week and so far it hasn’t been a problem. It is scary to sign up for all these things when I don’t know if I’ll get sent home or not for not being able to be a help to them. Usually they find something for me to do though. Today was my first day in a real kitchen and it was so great, I never expected to love a kitchen like this but it was such a great environment to be in. The chefs were singing, everyone was involved and helping each other out. I absolutely loved it. Afterwards we got to walk around and check out what was going on at the festival. Apparently Donald Trump was there, but who really cares about that?

First REAL day

I was going to do a post yesterday about our first REAL day in class but I ended up having too much homework to do it. I would have probably been up until two in the morning had I finished this blog. It wouldn’t have made any sense from my tired brain anyways, and considering this blog isn’t top priority (sorry), I had to let it wait until today. Anyways by “first REAL day” I mean “first real day in the kitchen.” We learned how to hold a knife, which is shown in the picture (notice where my index finger is, and sorry about the serial killer picture lol).

 We learned how to cut, which is with our arm bent 90 degrees at our side and to move our arm back and forth like we were cutting with a saw, and we also learned different cuts. There are a bunch of different names for different cuts and apparently it gets pretty confusing. Chef didn’t put that much priority into teaching us the names of the cuts but I know it will come up a lot in the future. For now we just need to focus on making those cuts. First thing I learned from the day was how to properly or more easily peel a potato/carrot/etc. He taught us that using our peelers up and down instead of just in one direction is easier and less time consuming. We also learned how to mince garlic by either chopping or smashing the clove with the flat side of our knife. Chopping a garlic clove gives you the option to having either chunky garlic or having smaller bits. Smashing will create more mushy garlic and it doesn’t look as nice. I think the main thing we learned this day was that the shape and size of cuts are extremely important when it comes to making a beautiful dish. If you type “Julienne cuts” into Google you’ll see what I mean. After we learned to cut a bit the Chef helped us to better understand our taste palates by making us taste sweet water (boiled and cooled sugar water), salty water (boiled and cooled salt water), umami (boiled and cooled mushroom water), sour (a lemon), and some bitter flavoring that tasted like Dayquil that I wasn’t able to get the name of. We tasted each of these to figure out where our tongue tasted the different flavors.

Orientation

So this blog was my dad’s idea, and this is me testing it out. Gotta be open to new ideas and this really can’t be anything but good for me anyways. Yeah, I have to spend time from my crazy life in my lonely little studio apartment to do this but it will help me keep my writing, typing, and communication with family up, it will also help me to remember what I’ve learned in class that day. There are so many different modes of learning and I feel like this could be a great one. By doing this blog I am basically going to re-teach myself what I learned and at the same time, if anyone wants to read this as well, I’ll be teaching them. I’ve always been told that teaching is the best way to learn. I was trying to find a quote online for this but the closest I could find was “teaching is learning twice.” Though I don’t plan to nor did I ever plan to teach, this is probably what this blog is going to end up doing. Though that wasn’t the point of this blog, I do plan on helping anyone out who needs it back in my hometown, or here in school. So I’ve laid out my whole reasoning for this blog, now it’s time to introduce myself. My name is Shannon. I am from a small town that I always tell people, is near Death Valley. It’s hot and uncomfortable, your clothes will stick to you in the summer and the winter, and fall has ridiculous wind. I recently moved out to Alhambra so I could go to school in Pasadena. I am enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts pursuing a dream in patisserie and baking. I’m not an amazing chef, I’m not even sure if I am supposed to be called a chef or just a baker. At the time being though, that does not matter because I am neither. I bake at home on occasion because it’s a hobby. It’s just an expensive and high calorie hobby. I love to bake though, it is a release from the world, a stress reliever, and it cures any bad emotions I have, and either lets me think or just forget about everything. Baking puts me in a good mood, but at the same time I can stress out and blow-up on anyone who gets in my way. Either way it’s worth it. Getting feedback from anyone who tries your desserts is always nice. Constructive criticism can be hard to come across though. That’s where Le Cordon Bleu is going to make me a great chef. We had orientation today; I received my jacket, pants, cravat, ID, and hat. We learned some rules, some guidelines and we got our schedules and met some chefs. Some of the chefs are Le Cordon Bleu Alumni which is pretty neat. They told us some of their experiences and what they wish someone had told them when they were in school. One of the things the chefs put emphasis on in our experience at Le Cordon Bleu is that we really do need to take in all that the school has to offer. We got told over and over that extracurricular events and activities are something we really should take advantage of. I’m not sure how many people in the room were actually paying that much attention. I personally plan on getting as much done with them as possible. There was a student who told us a bit about the school today as well. He was a really nice, social guy who seemed to know what he was talking about. He was almost done with his schooling and after today he is supposed to move on to his externship. He is doing the associates program though, which is longer. I noticed on his lanyard that he had it loaded up with different pins. He explained the pins and they were all different extracurricular activities in which he was recognized for. Spending specific amounts of hours on community service involving what he’s learned in school, and joining clubs. I want my lanyard to be like his. I already planned on it for experience, but to have those experiences and everything you’ve done for the school wrapped around your neck like a trophy makes me that much more inclined to do it. They told us that future employers come to the school to interview students all the time, and a filled up lanyard is something they love to see. Last thing I’d like to include about today was how important they made networking out to be. I’ve been told this already by friends and people wanting me to succeed, it really does make a lot of sense to meet people and set good impressions. They like a smiling, excited face and that’s all I had on the entire day. It was a fun time and meeting new people with common interests is great. Good thing I have my networking account set up already.