Zombie

A zombie is contemplative as he thinks about his life and all the deeds that he has done on Halloween.

School midterm Part 1: Running around like a mouse

A tsunami of gray bubbles rose and fell in the pot, forming a raft of ground beef, egg whites and julienned vegetables in a beef stock. Impurities in the stock would naturally stick to the gray mass, leaving a clear soup called consommé.

Monday, I had to make consommé and pork chops with a green peppercorn sauce for my midterm. The midterm is a test French Culinary Institute students have to take to pass Level 3. We had to present two dishes at staggered times. If we were late, points would be taken off. If we failed the practical, we could be held back a level.

Level 3 was all about timing, turning in one dish in roughly three hours and then turning in a second dish 50 minutes later. Out of all the six levels, instructors and students said Level 3 was the hardest.

At home, I was used to taking my time, peeling and cutting an onion and then peeling and cutting another vegetable.

Being a professional cook means having a sense of urgency. We heard that phrase so much that I internalized it. I did my laundry as if I had an appointment later. I made chocolate chip cookies as if I were late for a party.

At school, I would turn in the first dish at the deadline. But for the second dish, I would smush all the steps together and the dish would be crappy. I was slow at cutting vegetables into perfect cubes. I was slow at plating. I would forget the pearl onions for the roast chicken, or I would forget the croutons for the fish.

The weekend before the midterm, I practiced my knife skills. I cut carrots and turnips into cubes. I julienned carrots, celery and leeks. I diced mushrooms and tomatoes. Chef V told us we could either get the consommé and the pork, or fish and the apple tart. I hoped for the consommé and pork.

When I practiced cutting carrots and turnips, I suddenly was fast. Why did it take me so long to cut them in class? What had I been doing?

I drew “A3” just before we began the midterm. I looked at the board. I had consommé and pork. I smiled. My deadlines were 8:59 p.m. and 9:48 p.m. I was in the last appetizer/meat group to present.

Chefs V and A told us we could only gather the equipment we needed. We couldn’t hoard bowls or pans. If we were done using a pot, we had to get rid of it, give it to the dishwasher and keep our station clean.

I felt like a mouse, scurrying around to get things I needed—a saute pan from that shelf, a bowl from the dishwashing station, a pot from the cabinet. Then I hurried to the dishwasher’s station to get rid of a dirty pot. I walked briskly to the compost bin to throw out onion peels.

“You were everywhere,” Christopher said. “I’d turn around and there you were.”

Stay tuned for Part 2...

Kimchi Oh Kimchi

I haven't eaten breakfast or lunch, and I'm munching on kimchi. I made it about a week and a half ago. It's still a little too crunchy, not as fermented as I'd like. But it smells like my childhood.

I opened a jar of kimchi and took a sniff. I stuck my nose even deeper in the jar and sucked in the air. Garlic, ginger and stinky salted shrimp went straight to my brain, reminding me of how my parents' refrigerator smelled when I grew up.

I tried to make paechu, or cabbage, kimchi like my mom. She lives in the Midwest, and I'm in New York. I added too much salted shrimp and the kimchi is really salty. But I have another Napa cabbage in the refrigerator, ready to be pickled.

Grub Street Food Festival

Chicken biscuit from Pies-N-Thighs

I'm still thinking about the chicken biscuit from Pies-N-Thighs that I ate at the Grub Street Food Festival last weekend. The chicken was crispy and had hot sauce all over it.


Grub Street collaborated with Hester Street Fair to bring more food vendors to Hester and Essex streets.


My husband Matt and I got the ginger honey lemonade, but we thought the drink had too much ginger in it.


Carson Yiu's bao bing, a Taiwanese shaved ice dessert, was really refreshing.

We met up with Jin Li and Brendan of the More Scrumptious Goodies (MSG) blog, who also wrote about the food festival. All of us kept eating away at the huge shaved ice dessert. I couldn't stop dipping my spoon into the green tea ice cream, strawberries, shaved ice, miniature mochi and the taro (far right).







I really wanted a lobster roll from Luke's. The lobster had a lot of flavor and it was on a toasted roll.


While waiting in line for the lobster roll, I bought a bag of churros for $1 from Cascabel Taqueria.




Instead of the lobster roll, Matt opted for a juicy pork taco with pickled onions from Cascabel.

Restaurant terms I didn't know

A chef instructor once asked me, "Could you get me a Lexan?"

I gave him a blank look.

"One of those," he said, pointing to a plastic tub in the walk-in refrigerator.

"Oh," I said. "Yeah."

I went down to the dishwashing station. I got a large container and wondered why he didn't just say, "Get me a large plastic tub."

***

At my internship, I noticed a cook was running low on supplies.

"Do you want me to get you some paper towels?" I asked.

"Oh. Could you get me some C-folds?" she said. "That's what we call them."

***

I've learned these restaurant terms since I started going to culinary school. I guess single-use paper towels are called "C-folds" because they have folds that form the letter. But they're the same paper towels found in any bathroom. Lexan is the registered trademark for the plastic material that is used to make storage containers.

I told my husband we used "fish containers" to hold vegetables and fruit; basically, to organize the walk-in refrigerator.

"So, they hold everything but fish?" he asked. "What do they put the fish in?"

I chose to ignore him.

Meeting Morimoto at the New York Culinary Experience

Morimoto's fingers quickly rotated the daikon radish, slicing it as thin as possible. He moved with precision—always neat, never wasting any motion.

Saturday, I volunteered for the New York Culinary Experience, a two-day fantasy camp for foodies where they got to take cooking classes with their favorite chefs at The French Culinary Institute. Several culinary students and I helped Morimoto and his staff prep for his demo.

Morimoto made a large sushi platter in front of us. It would take me years to have knife skills like he does.




Morimoto's second-in-command Jamison Blankenship (right) explained to us each step that Morimoto did.



Taka Ozawa, of Otafuku Foods, taught the class how to make okonomiyaki, a Japanese pancake filled with cabbage, pork belly, shrimp, egg, noodles, okonomi sauce and Kewpie mayonnaise.


Taka Ozawa, of Otafuku Foods, making octopus filled batter balls.


I loved the okonomiyaki, especially the condiments that are later squiggled on top.