The Cat, the laddle, and oddly enough there was a silver spoon

So this week I promised you soup advice...After class this morning I really wish that I could give you something profound and life altering but alas. I fall flat. I find it interesting that no matter what you do in life you will encounter 3 different types of people: The "I am the only star in the heavens" kind, the "I won't take any kind of responsibility" kind, and the "Heck yes! BRING IT!!!" kind. I find myself in the latter category among with 90% of my cooking classmates who are on the most part a blast to be around for 3 1/2 hours. The other 2 types are the ones that don't show up for class because they either are or aren't the team captains for the day. This basically was my morning. Each team had at most 3 people out of the 4 except one group who I think acted my like the dynamic duo of soup. We were all kinda left in a lurch with a hurdle of making 3 soups and presenting them in a tasteful manner to Chef. Luckily because we were all the BRING IT kind we all pulled off our soups in a masterful stroke that made us all feel like super-mega foodnetwork stars that actually have mad skills to rival Emeril, Bobby, and all the others. BTW did you know that soups actually started out as sauces with just vegetables and maybe some leftover meat thrown in and then eaten? When I read this I thought "Mayonnaise soup?" GROSS!!! Also, when making that pesky white sauce (the kind without sour cream or other short cut ingredients) and you notice that your sauce looks grey please take note in what kitchen tool you are using...the wire whip is not the unitasker it is billed as. This is what is discoloring your sauce. Next time use a heat-resistant rubber spatula and there will be no amazing technicolor sauce.

Back to class, we have all been giving each other nicknames, this isn't planned but most of the class is made up of guys and it appears that men must give names for everything. They have titled me "Martha Slayer" because of my skills and the fact that I am serious competition. A common surprise for everyone in my class is that I am not in the apprenticeship program here at school. I still want to do the baking/pastry certificate here but the more I cook in class the more I feel myself being drawn to the chef's apprenticeship program and enlisting myself to 3 more years of school. Wow upon reading this I make myself look really lame. I am the first kind of person that I listed above, I just think its amazing that when you follow your passions and desires that you find yourself having way too much fun. This makes me wonder why people don't do this more often...why are we on a whole so content for mediocrity when we could have fabulousness all the ding dong day long! Come on people step out on faith here!

Today I got to be picked on by Chef Todd, it appears that my salt palette is way delicate and that I didn't season my soup enough with salt. He looked at me and said, "Your Mormon aren't you? I never see you with coffee, you don't smoke either, you have to be a mormon." Yes, yes I am a mormon...so what? "That explains it, next time add lemon juice and the acidity will do the same thing for your soup." So, to all my mormon friends, to your soup if it is already salty to you but not to everyone else, add some freshly squeezed lemon juice. "Why?" Here is the long answer to a short question. Smoking doesn't just kill you by filling your lungs with tar and other stuff. Nicotine kills your tastebuds. So, over time as a smoker you add more and more salt to food because you can't taste it! AMAZING what the word of wisdom does for us. This is the miracle that I found today in my life, love it! Have a great week and until next time when I will address my kryptonite...eggs

Life as far as I know it...

So, in deciding to do this I have had to wrestle with the idea that there is a possibility that nobody will read this. After this struggle of olympian size I have decided that I don't care if nobody does read this. But if you are reading this I am resolved to the fact that you are somebody and that you are AWESOME! I have been thinking lately how odd life is. If you would have asked me after graduating from high school where I would be at this point in time I would have told you not in Kansas!

This really blog is really to chronical my experiences in Culinary School and to let everyone out there know that what you see on TV is so not how being a chef is like.

So far in school we have covered lots of tool terms. (The thing you call a whisk is actually a WHIP...start calling it by the right name!) We started cooking two weeks ago and we have covered the building blocks of cuisine. What does that consist of? Here is a list...

White Stock
Brown Stock
and the five master sauces

The important thing to remember with stock is to use the good stuff. With brown stock if you use beef or lamb bones you can use tomato paste, you don't have to use wine...the flavor is different using tomato paste it actually gives a more earthy flavor.

When we did the five master sauces for some odd reason I thought they would be all tasty, this was so not the case! Only the master sauce of Tomato tasted like something I would want to eat...this is why these five master sauces have variations that the french like to call small sauces. And these are what we actually use to serve you, the dining public.

I think this is all for now until next time! We will be covering soups and food-born illnesses...so exciting!