Wine A Little Bit More!

Who would have ever thought so much could be done with eggs?! I was sick of them by the end of the week. Hard boiled, soft boiled, sunny side up, over-easy, over-medium, over-hard, poached, an omelet, oh my! When I order eggs in a restaurant I always order them scrambled so it was a challenge to cook eggs in so many different ways. I learned very quickly that eggs are very delicate. One second they are cooked perfectly, the next they are overdone. The scotch eggs was my favorite recipe to make during the egg week. I changed the recipe just on instinct. Dr. B. and I had previously talked about the deep fryer and how flavor disappears when you deep fry food so I looked at the seasoning in the recipe. I used the same quantities, just changed it to dried spice. It worked perfectly! Chef Jack, Chef Andy, Mr. Grippe and Dr. B. all tried my scotch eggs. I was so proud! The egg soufflé was an interesting experience. Nick originally took this recipe on. I wasn’t paying attention...

Lobster!!! Best day in my culinary career to date! The girlie girl has left the building! If I could have done a cartwheel in the kitchen that day, I would have. I wanted to kill everyone’s lobster, which sounds really morbid but I don’t mean it that way. One of the things that made this week so much fun is that I got to teach Nick something. He missed the demo for prepping the lobster for the grill and to be boiled so I got to walk him through that. My level of confidence has risen which was cool to see. We also seared a scallop this week. I asked numerous times, “What am I looking for in regards to the perfect seared scallop?” Everyone kept saying “medium rare.” What in the hell does that mean???! Scallops are white. Medium rare is red. I was silently very frustrated. So I seared my scallop. I lifted it out of the pan and showed it to Chef Jack. He said it was perfect. Then I had an AH HA moment. I saw the two lines that signify medium rare. I finally got it! Victory! ...

Grossest week EVER!!! But I learned a lot. I was sick to my stomach that entire week but it was not because of the fish. I think it was just nerves. But I sucked it up because I’ve learned in the kitchen, you show up for your group! Prior to this week, the closest I’ve gotten to fish was eating a fish fry or catching a blue gill in Pewaukee Lake. After this week, I have gained a level of confidence with fileting fish. Do I want to go at a $100 salmon when real revenue is on the line? Probably not! But I will get there. Although I would probably be careful enough to do it. This week was pivotal for my group. The three of us are relatively low drama. I don’t know how Chef Jack picks the groups but we are the only group who has remained untouched with people dropping the class and reorganization. I am so grateful that we have stayed intact. All three of us are very different but we have hit our stride and we get shit done! This week we hit a boiling point! I was incredibly ang...

Spring break! WOO HOO!!! Cancun, here I … Oh wait! I’m not 22 anymore! Instead I stayed home and did some cooking. I’ve never been a fan of breaks so I thought this week was worthy of a journal entry. My favorite holiday is St. Patrick’s Day. My mom’s maiden name is McGinnis so I am an Irish girl. … And I am damn proud of it. It’s where I get a lot of my stubbornness. I am normally not a beer drinker but I make one exception each year for St. Patrick’s Day and enjoy a Guinness. This year I had some fun in the kitchen. Last semester, in Chef Andy’s Menu Planning class, I wrote an Irish menu and just had to try some of the courses. I’m thinking I could be on to something for International Cuisine too. The menu for St. Patrick’s Day consisted of: Whiskey-glazed corned beef, roasted root vegetable soup, reuben rolls, black-n-tan mac & cheese & Irish car bomb cake. The whiskey-glazed corned beef intrigued me. I don’t love corned beef in general but I figured I would gi...

This was a great week! I love pork! It can go with white or red wine and the flavor is usually outstanding! I took on the stuffed pork loin. I decided to change the stuffing to a cranberry-orange stuffing. I thought it had real possibilities. In the end, I wasn’t happy with the flavor of the pork. I cut myself while trimming the fat off the pork loin and forgot to salt it before it was seared. The flavor could have been so much better if I had remembered to salt it. The cranberry-orange stuffing turned out pretty good. Christina actually stopped by my stove and gave me some advice to change the alcohol in the cranberries to brandy. I wish I hadn’t listened to her. While I understand why she gave me the advice, I was looking for the orange to come through more and by using an orange liqueur, I think it would have. That is definitely a recipe I will try again because I think I can do much better. I have some family recipes involving pork that are amazing! Bar-B-Que ribs and stu...

Lions and tigers and bears, Oh my! In reality, it was more like rabbit, veal, frog legs, lamb and alligator, OH MY!!! This week was quite a challenge. Most of the proteins I had never cooked with or tried before. I learned quite a bit this week. I really like veal and despite the controversy, I see the purpose to having it on a restaurant’s menu. Rabbit tastes like chicken, literally. Frog legs were surprisingly good. I hated alligator, with a passion! At least I legitimately tried it, twice. It tastes too fishy for me. Apparently Wednesday and Thursday weren’t enough with the alligator though. I came in to help Chef Jack make chicken alligator sausages for BIT Club. He hears me tell someone that math is not my forte so the first thing he has me do was convert the recipe to a smaller yield. Luckily Mr. Grippe gave me enough understanding so far that I was able to convert all the measurements successfully. Overall, I felt that this was an off week for me. Chef Jack gave me ...

This was probably the most important week we’ve had so far. A big part of the practical exam is fabricating a whole chicken. The week started with Chef Jack demoing the breakdown. We each got 4 whole chickens to break down. After the first one, it was pretty easy. Chef Jack gave us a reminder to not forget to separate the leg from the thigh. For the practical exam we are required to breakdown the chicken into the eight pieces: Two breasts, two wings, two thighs and two legs. My first thought was if you do not separate the leg from the thigh you do not have an eight count but I guess students in the past needed that reminder. Another part of the practical exam will be marinating one chicken breast and then grilling it and breading the other chicken breast and pan-frying it. I have been picking up tips throughout the semester. Someone told me to refrigerate the breaded chicken or the breading will not stick to the breast as well. Grilling the marinated chicken breast is one of...

This was a really fun week. All the recipes were fantastic. I got my first experience on the grill with grilling beef tenderloin. Chef Jack taught us how to get the perfect diamond grill markets. Rotate the meat from the 11 to the 1 o’clock position. With my first beef tenderloin I was going for medium rare but it came off the grill closer to medium. Went back the next day and tried it again. This time I watched the clock closer and obtained the perfect medium rare steak. Did I mention how fun this week was?!?! Our beef stroganoff turned out fantastic. The beef wellington, not so much. We pulled out of the oven too early. The puff pastry had not puffed and the beef was rare to almost raw. This was a big lesson for my group members that we need to keep in contact with each other. I am still working on my knife cuts in Chef Jack’s kitchen every Tuesday and Friday and it is paying off. Slow and steady I am seeing improvements. The majority of my practicing has been in the kitc...

This week almost did me in. We had nine soups to prepare in our group. I struggled a lot this week. I started to question more heavily whether or not I can make it as a chef. This was the first week that we got slammed and I completely understand why Chef Jack did it. He needs to give us a taste of a busy day in the kitchen as much as a smooth day. I am sure the busier days are far more important lessons to learn than the easy days. Probably the highlight of the week for me was my group’s cream of mushroom soup. Dr. B. came by and said he loves that soup when it is finished with a splash of dry sherry. That’s exactly what we did. Dr. B tasted it and loved it. After class I dropped a container with LuAnn to give to Dr. B. We lost five people this week which was very hard for me to watch. Eventually every person with my level of restaurant experience has dropped the class. I feel very much alone. At the end of Thursday, I was dead tired. I am sure that my frustrations with m...

Five mother sauces: BETHV – Béchamel, Espagnole, Tomato, Hollandaise & Veloute. I am paying special attention every week to the items we will be tested on in the practical. For this week, we have béchamel, veloute and hollandaise sauces. Let’s just release this into the universe so I can move beyond it: I have burned my fair share of roux in my cooking life. The béchamel sauce is probably the one I am the most comfortable with. I have made similar sauces for a macaroni and cheese for my nephew many times over. The veloute sauce reminds me of gravy. It’s probably my least favorite sauce in regards to taste. Both are pretty easy to prepare. Hollandaise is the one that makes me nervous. Before class everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, said it breaks every time they make a hollandaise. Well, I made my hollandaise in class and it did not break. I can’t help but think this was a little surreal, a fluke. Something I will have to try again. Or maybe I shouldn’t look a gift horse i...

This week we were put into groups of three. I am the only girl, which could be a good thing. I don’t enjoy when girls bicker. So there is me, Nick and Andrew. I think I have a good feeling about the three of us. We are all very different. Andrew has been through the class before so he is a wealth of knowledge on how to navigate this class. Nick, on the other hand, is a 20- something who cannot wait to get into the kitchen. I have a feeling we will have to reel Nick in a few hundred times. And of course, there’s me. The first thing I said to these guys is that despite my lack of restaurant experience, I am here to learn and pull my own weight. This week we made stocks: veal and chicken. This was the class’s first chance to work as a whole group. We were divided in half. Half made chicken stock and half made veal stock. The next day we switched. I thought for the first go around, we functioned pretty well. We divided up the tasks and got to work. Nick, Andrew and I made the sa...

One word … Terrified! My stomach is in terrible knots. Nerves are really getting the better of me on the first day. I have no idea what to expect. The one thing I do know is “My culinary begins now!” On day one we toured the kitchens, storage spaces and the coolers downstairs. I was on overload that entire day. I barely remember where the carrots are stored. We all went around the room and said why we decided to enroll I said, “I have catered a few friend’s wine parties and everyone seems to love my food. One by one a few people started telling me I should go to culinary school.” This suggestion was first met with laughter. There’s no way … But after a few more people made the suggestion, I started to think … Maybe? Could I do it? Can I stand through a dinner service? Can I stand through a class in the kitchen? Only one way to find out! After we all got done saying what brought us here Chef Jack says that home cooking has NOTHING to do with cooking professionally. Man! That ...