Pastry, Partners & Potlucks

It's amazing what a difference a day makes, or in this case, a few days. Verging on exhaustion, I spent the entire day Thursday shuttered safely in our apartment, AC set at Hi Cool, snuggling under the quilt my mom made for our new little home. After several hours of garbage TV and leftover tarts from Wednesday's class, I was ready to face the world again. Then I went outside and started sweating profusely and changed my mind. Ugh. I am in no way saying that I look forward to winter, but fall doesn't sound so bad right about now. I don't know what people did before the advent of air conditioning. I cannot imagine living in this city a hundred years ago, wearing an uncomfortably heavy dress and having no reprieve from the heat. Hats off to you, old timers, you deserve a medal for your trials. It's bad enough to arrive at school sopping wet and then head into a 90 degree kitchen, where perspiration runs in streams off your face if it is not mopped continuously with the arm of your increasingly stained jacket. Chef Nic has been regularly sweating through his white coat prompting murmured wet tee shirt contest jokes among students.

This heat wave, as luck would have it, is perfectly synchronized with our pastry lessons, which, if you've ever made tart dough, you know can have a disastrous effect on the resulting crust. All of your wet ingredients (eggs, butter, water) have to be cold when you are making dough because any additional moisture (like melted butter) causes more gluten to form and makes the resulting crust tough and hard when cooked. I know this because it was on our test Friday and Chef Nic has been harping on the dangerous effects of too much gluten, or GHLOO-ten (strong emphasis on the glue sound)as he calls it. Even with the heat, my partner and I managed to crank out some pretty amazing tarts, both savory and sweet. If I haven't mentioned it before, we work at a station with an assigned partner situated directly across from us, with another team of partners on the opposite end of our work station. There are 24 students in the class so all 6 islands of work stations are full. We rotate partners every 2 weeks, I guess to force us to learn how to work and communicate with all different types. I haven't mentioned much about mine so far in order to protect the innocent, but it is such a HUGE part of the experience that I can't not talk about it. My first partner was Go Go Boy, named for his night job dancing in the gay club scene, a very sweet kid. My second, I will call Korean Jeff Spiccoli, because he sounds like a laid back surfer, but in reality is anything but. He is now the measuring stick for my partners because we worked really well together and that was sort of the turning point for when we started to relax and truly enjoy class. My third cohort is a classically trained musician from Canada, meticulous in everything she does and a pleasure to work with. My last partner I call Michael Phelps because she is the fastest person in the kitchen. The first lesson that we worked together I almost couldn't keep up because she works at a blistering pace, but I adjusted and together we may have set some records for speed. The cool thing about working with such different people is that you not only learn to communicate effectively in many distinct styles, but everyone teaches you something new.

In Friday's class, we had a partner lottery drawing for the first time because Chef thought it would be fun to make it random. There was really only one person that I did not want to be partnered with and I have no problem blogging about this because he is well aware of my feelings. He's a loud mouthed Israeli who is "always right" and believes women are better suited to baking. Apparently, I have won him over with my open contempt of his behavior. I frequently tell him to get lost, call him a jackass or tell him to leave me alone, which in turn has earned his respect. The lewd comments are tapering off and I think if he weren't in the class, I would secretly be sad to not have him there to mouth off to. With that said, the result of the lottery was that I was to be partnered with one of two classmates who were uncharacteristically late for Friday's lesson. The only other person without a partner that night was, of course, the aforementioned master of male chauvinist machismo. While Chef spared me the burden of two weeks of his antics (I will be partnered with a guy who Korean Spiccoli calls the "quarterback" of the class because of his much discussed good looks in the ladies locker room), I did spend Friday night as his partner due to the two no-shows. It was actually a really fun class filled with sponge cake, buttercream and insult slinging - a great day in general.

Last night, about two-thirds of our class convened at my girl Jersey's apartment for a potluck get together, which was a riot. I am completely impressed by the skills of my classmates and friends - we had an impressive spread that I think would've made Chef Nic proud. The buffet included peanut glazed duck breast with lychee, moussaka, chicken with couscous, eggplant and tomatoes, spanakopitas, watermelon salad, spicy pulled beef tacos with sweet potato and tomatillo salsa, thai beef salad, a beautiful cheese and charcuterie spread, pesto pasta salad with arugula, a provencal tart, cheesecake and fresh berries, peach and strawberry mojitos and a St. Germain cocktail. I made an heirloom tomato salad with a tomato granita shaved on top, chunks of which I ate curbside while Mike and I waited for our bus back to the city.



It was quite an evening and so much fun to trade the intensity of the classroom for the relaxed feel of a home kitchen. It's interesting to spend so much time with a group of people sharing the same experience simultaneously. It's also exciting and inspiring being around talented individuals who appreciate the pleasure of good food. I have a feeling that this crew might be in my life for a long time and that is pretty cool. Speaking of cool, I think it's time I polished off the last of the tomato granita before we head out into the swamp for a BBQ and blues festival on the Hudson. Ahhhh....Sunday.