The Final and the Finality

That gorgeous hat would not be possible without this man

As evidenced by me rocking the toque above, I passed my final. That, of course, does not tell the whole story. The night before, I went to bed early, ready to rest up and be refreshed for the final push (and the subsequent festivities) thinking that I was calm, confident, and prepared. I could not sleep to save my life. It's what happens when I am pretending to not have anxiety about something. My mind won't turn off and I lay there thinking about things like what outfits to pack for my trip and if I have time to get my brows done. Then when I finally acknowledge that I might be stressed about the thing that I am avoiding thinking about and deal with it, I fall asleep. So I woke up feeling like I got hit by a truck and proceeded to drink way too much coffee while reviewing my recipes over and over. There were only 3 dishes I did not want to draw for my final: the dreaded duck, the cod dish (which I had only done once in class), and the stupid lemon tart. I got the cod and lemon tart combo obviously. I was half expecting them to throw in the duck as an added torture.

My attitude quickly passed and I reminded myself that I knew exactly what to do and just had to stay organized and on time. For the first few hours I was clickin' along, I got my tart dough done right off the bat so it had time to rest. I made my lemon curd and got it chilled down. I made my potatoes, kale and chorizo for the cod dish. I cleaned and cooked my clams. I rolled out my tarts and baked them. I got my station set up with a hot water bath, clam broth, and clarified butter to cook the cod. I put all my garnishes on ice on my station and I started to sear and baste my cod. I felt great. Then before I knew it I had like 5 minutes to plate and get out the door. Chef Jason was shouting at us to push and plate and GO! GO! GO! It was totally unnerving and I started to panic. I knew I was going to be late because there were so many damn components on the plate. And I was late and the plates were a little sloppy, not too bad, but a little. And my cod was a little dark. I ran the four plates on a giant tray down to the judges room and then ran back to finish those stupid tarts.

My station was a disaster and I still had to candy the pineapple, which still had to be cut into rings, make gingered whip cream, and fill the tarts with the lemon curd, which still needed sour cream added to it. And then I had to plate it all. I only had 35 minutes and I was a wreck. I spent about 10 minutes working like a complete disaster in panic mode before I got a grip, cleaned up my station and calmed down. I plated my tarts on time and despite several attempts at ruining them, they actually looked pretty darn good.

I was so relieved when it was over but I was also somewhat disappointed in myself. I just didn't expect to be in panic mode. I hadn't worked that way before and I was sort of dumbfounded that I briefly fell apart when it mattered most. That feeling mostly washed away as we walked into the judges room and were handed a glass of champers. Something about tiny bubbles calms me down.

I got nice feedback from my judges, two of which were Andre Soltner (look him up) and Andrea Beeman from Top Chef Season 1. The only complaints were that my fish was too dark, which I knew. My tart was perfection, which I almost wanted to tell the esteemed French master Chef Soltner, was a total accident, but instead took a giant gulp of bubbly. Once we walked out of judges room, it was pure pandemonium. We changed and practically ran to our local watering hole O'Neail's (which is coincidentally Steve's bar on Sex in the City for all the ladies out there), where our favorite bartenders where waiting with congratulations and shots of Jameson. The rest of the night is a blur of squealing, jumping up and down, drinks, more drinks, cab rides, karaoke (which was more of a scream-a-long complete with light up tambourines), and an early morning trip to McDonald's in which we bought everything they had left to sell. This included 6 chicken sandwiches of various shapes and sizes. We complained about the lack of fries and were told that we could kindly wait a half hour until 5:30 when breakfast service began. One of my favorite classmates, Sheries Jubilee (as she is sometimes called) pointed out to the cashier (in Westchestah accent) that they didn't serve fries with breakfast so we would be passing on that offer. I don't think those were her exact words.



Sheries Jubilee and Me

After a snooze til noon, I managed to get up, shower and get a mani/pedi for only the third time in a year! We can't wear nail polish in the kitchen and my nails have looked raggedy since I've been in school. The good thing it that when you decorate your hands with cuts, burns, blisters and black fingernails it distracts from the lack of polish and shaping.

Graduation was a big, smiley, lovefest between classmates and chefs, with several jokes about our all nighter thrown in. Afterwards, we celebrated with our good friends, Susan & Tommy, and her hilarious parents, who we like to call the Senator (because he looks like one) and the Commissioner (for her inquisitive detective skills). We went to Peter Luger for some insanely good steak in a sort of Old New York mafia atmosphere. It was delish and I was ready for bed by 9pm.

Now that the dust has settled, the finality of it all has really settled in. I can't believe my school days are over and that I won't be roaming the kitchens of FCI any longer. I already miss my chefs and classmates, even my favorite dishwasher, whose name I don't know because we always called him Amigo. I miss butter sandwiches (stolen baguettes smeared with butter and sprinkled with sea salt). I don't miss those dumpy pants, boxy jackets and ill fitting hats. I do miss coming home with duck and short ribs and tart dough and vanilla beans. I miss Wednesday night at O'Neail's. And sometimes Monday. And Friday. I miss the camaraderie. But life goes on and now it's time for the next chapter. And that next chapter happens to be a vacation.



A La Grecque, Chef Jason & Me

It All Comes Down To This

Chef Jason drops some knowledge on Michelle and Vera


Why must all good things come to an end? It's a stupid, stupid expression that I wish weren't true. I suppose if good things never ended you wouldn't be able to appreciate them and they wouldn't be worth nearly as much. I cooked last night at L'Ecole for the last time as a student and it was bittersweet. I'm ready for the next chapter, but I can't believe my days of sweating, minor cuts and burns,and causing mischief are over. Not to mention the fact that I may actually have to start paying for vanilla beans instead of swiping them from pastry. And parchment paper. And peppercorns. Although I'm pretty sure A La Grecque has stockpiled enough FCI loot through her knife kit smuggling system that I could call on her if I need a pastry bag.




Jamie (Farmer Chef), Susan, and Apphia (far right) pay attention while Linda (A La Grecque) is in typical form

Tomorrow is our final exam, which we've been anticipating for nine months, and the reality and finality of this whole experience is starting to sink in. I remember back in July when I was just finishing up Level 1, I volunteered along with a few classmates to help Chef Nic set up for his Level 6 class final. The final works like this: Each student draws a number (literally from a bowl). The number corresponds to a pairing of dishes, either a garde manger and saucier dish (appetizer and meat) or a poissonier and patissiere dish (fish and pastry). Each number also has two corresponding times, when you will present your first and second dishes to the judges. You're graded on how you work in the kitchen while preparing your food: Is your station set up correctly? Do you work neatly and efficiently? Are you demonstrating proper technique? Are you wearing gloves when plating your food? Is your food being held at the proper temperature? Did you walk out the kitchen door with your plates for the judges at the appointed time exactly? When it arrives at the judges table: Is your food the proper temperature? If it's hot food, are your plates hot? Is your presentation neat and clean? And then of course, is it cooked and seasoned properly and does it taste how it's supposed to taste? These are all things that have been drilled into our heads since Level 1 in preparation for this day. When I helped Chef Nic set up the final last summer, I remember assembling a tray for each student containing the ingredients they would need to prepare their dishes. I could not comprehend being able to make a pan roasted halibut and baked alaska all under the pressure of a time clock and the prospect of failure and not graduating. As we watched the Level 6 students file past the classroom windows on their way to draw numbers, they waved at Chef Nic with big smiles on their faces. They looked excited. I remember Jersey and I looking at each other like "How are they smiling?! I would be freaking out!".

And now here I am. Tomorrow, it will be me and my class, who I have grown to know and love, well, in some cases it's more like tolerate, but mostly love. But tomorrow will be our one day that this last year has been leading up to. A few hours to show what we've learned and make all the chefs who've taught us what we know proud. I'm excited, I'm sure I'll be nervous, but I'm ready to kick ass. Send me some of those vibes tomorrow night around 9pm Eastern time, so when my hands are shaking as I put the garnish on my plates (with gloves, of course) I know that there are lots of people rooting for me.


Me & Jen Brown (the only student who EVERYONE calls by her full name, or JB for short, I've also referred to her as Michael Phelps in previous posts)

Is That a Smile or Just a Crack in Your Scowl?

15 more classes stand between me and my chef's toque. Yikes. I just completed my pastry rotation for Level 6 and it turns out the grumpy chef wasn't as grumpy as I expected. Either that or my expectations were so low considering Vegas set the over-under on total number of smiles cracked by Chef at .25, which I imagine is like one smile for a normal person since I've only seen one small corner of her mouth turn up in what I presume is her happy face. Or maybe she just had powdered sugar in her eye, there is no way of knowing because I am too afraid to ask. I may be exaggerating a tad (am I?) because she did seem to warm up to me and some (not all) of my teammates. Consider that a segueway into my Level 6 team introduction. For the 4th level in a row Evil Cheese is on my team. Thankfully he is super considerate and has not seemed to tire of me yet. Also making a repeat appearance from Level 5 is Farmer Chef. In pastry we had a tendency to follow each other around verifying if we were doing things right while Chef Frosty had her back turned to us. She's a great ally. It may have been mainly me following her around now that I think about it. Another repeat appearance is...drumroll...Korean Spiccoli! So happy to have him back on my team although last night I thought he was going to start throwing tart shells at one of the Level 5 students we are sharing the kitchen with who apparently dribbles a trail of uncooked custard around the room in case she gets lost. Or she is messy. I can't tell yet. Finally, I have the honor of working with the loud-mouthed Israeli who I referenced in this post from August. He is pretty amusing in an evil cartoon character sort of way. Pop Quiz: When I said that chef has warmed up to some of my teammates, guess who is not included in the word "some"? (Hint: the usage of the word "some" in this situation should be taken to mean most or nearly all.) Post your best guess in the comments section.

Our pastry dishes this time around are a pumpkin sponge cake layered with chocolate mousse served surrounded by a spiced apple reduction with tiny diced apple bits floating in the reduction, the cake itself is topped with a perfect quenelle (more on this in a moment) of cream cheese frosting and a perfectly thin crisp apple chip. It's delicious! The other dish is an individual tart filled with lemon curd, topped with a candied pineapple ring and a quenelle (there's that word again) of gingered whipped cream and a shard of macadamia nut brittle, accompanied by a blueberry compote dusted with brittle crumble. Next stop: Yummytown. (Yeah, I know that was terrible, but I have been eating a lot of sugar lately). So a quenelle is a shaped dollop of cream or ice cream or really any condiment that can hold a shape. We were taught in earlier levels to make a quenelle using two spoons, but Chef Quarter Smile does it with just one. To get a better idea of what the hell I am talking about, you can watch this 30 second clip on you tube. Don't be fooled by the fluid motion with which that berry sorbet becomes a perfectly smooth oval. It's not that easy and I think we frustrated chef to no end with our, at first, sloppy quenelles that she told us looked "as if someone already ate it". The key to a perfect quenelle is steaming hot water. Or two spoons...but using two felt like failure under chef's watchful eye, so I'm happy to say that with some determination and an ever boiling pot of water, my quenelles were pretty darn good.

Pastry is still not my favorite thing to do in the kitchen, but I've warmed up to it. I even took some of the leftover pumpkin sponge home and proceeded to make a layered dessert with carmelized bananas, whipped cream, and a rich caramel sauce. It turned out great except for the part when I brushed my hand over the spatula I had just used to stir the boiling hot sugar syrup and it glommed onto my palm like a flaming hot leech. I enjoyed the sweet treat with one hand in an ice bath and now have a blister on my palm the size of a horse tranquilizer. Mike named it Doug. Chef looked horrified when she saw it and I thought she was going to offer me some sympathy, but I should have known better. What I got instead was "That is disgusting! Cover that thing up I cannot work and look at that thing. Wear a glove! What if it explodes in the food! Oh that is so disgusting!". (Me: Slinks away toward box of gloves).

And with that my first rotation of Level 6 is over. It's on to canape where we will prepare a one bite amuse bouche to serve each restaurant patron upon being seated. We will get slammed with orders early in service and then stand around for a few hours watching everyone else work. At least we get to be creative and come up with ideas for the food. Our first canape will be a tuna carpaccio: very thinly sliced raw tuna with arugula, parmesan, lemon, capers, olive oil, salt and pepper all rolled up into a neat, little bite of flavor designed to wake up your mouth and ready it for the procession of courses to come. I could make a weak analogy about school being the amuse bouche for the procession of greatness that is to come but Doug keeps getting in the way and hitting extra keys so I will leave you with the image of my blistered, cut, and scarred hands and forearms so you will think I am hardcore.

Level 5 Menu Project

In Level 5, a big part of our grade comes from a menu project in which we have to plan a 4 course menu for 8, choose a theme, write up the recipes, photograph the finished dishes, pair at least one course with wine, and write a brief essay on one main ingredient. I chose to do a seasonal menu because that is how I cook at home, but I added honey to each dish in honor of my late grandfather, who was a beekeeper. My uncle carries on the tradition of beekeeping today and I used his honey in each recipe. I'm really happy with each of the dishes, although I think the panna cotta is my favorite and it got rave reviews from the test kitchen team (which included Mike, and some random friends who stopped by).



Arugula Salad with Roasted Beets, Purple Haze Chevre, & Blood Orange Vinaigrette
Serves 8

5 oz. arugula
4 medium beets (about 1 pound)
1 4 oz. disc of Cypress Grove Purple Haze Chevre
2 blood oranges
1 small shallot, ciseler
1 tablespoon honey
4 tablespoon olive oil, plus more for roasting beets
1 tablespoon champagne vinegar
Salt & pepper


1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash beets well. Wrap individually in foil and place on a sheet pan. Cook for 45 minutes to an hour until a thin-bladed knife pierces each with little resistance. Remove from oven and cool. When cool, peel and cut into quarters, set aside.
2. Peler a vif & supreme 1 blood orange, reserving any extra juice. Zest and juice the other orange. Combine the reserved juice, zest, honey, shallot, and vinegar. Slowly add the olive oil, whisking until emulsified. Adjust the seasoning and add salt and pepper.
3. Divide the chevre into 8 pieces, forming a quenelle of each. Set aside.
4. Wash arugula and toss with the dressing, just to coat. Place a small pile of arugula in the center of each plate. Place on one side two beet sections, a quenelle, and 2 blood orange segments. Serve immediately.



Seared Sea Scallops with Honey Mustard Glaze, Brussels Sprouts, and Pancetta
Serves 8


2 pounds dry sea scallops (about 3 per person), tendons removed
Salt and pepper
¼ cup of honey
¼ cup of Dijon mustard
Butter for the pan
1 ½ pounds Brussels sprouts, trimmed
8 oz. thick cut pancetta, cut into one inch jardinière


1. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil for the Brussels sprouts. Add sprouts and cook on medium-high heat for about 10 minutes, just until tender. Drain and refresh in cold water. Cut in halves or quarters depending on size. Set aside.
2. Heat a sauté pan over medium heat. Add a teaspoon of butter and continue to heat until melted. Add pancetta and cook until fat has rendered and pancetta is just crispy. Turn off heat and leave pan on range.
3. Season the scallops with salt and pepper. Combine the honey and mustard in a small bowl. Brush the scallops lightly with the mixture. Heat a large sauté pan over medium-high heat until hot. Add a tablespoon of butter to the hot pan. When the foaming subsides, as half the scallops to the pan, being careful not to crowd them. Cook until well browned, about 3 minutes. Turn scallops over and cook just until the all but the middle of the scallop is opaque. Transfer to a warm plate and cover. Repeat the process with the remaining scallops.
4. Heat pan with pancetta over medium heat. To the empty scallop pan, add the remaining honey & mustard mixture and cook over low heat for about a minute until heated through. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Add Brussels sprouts to pan with pancetta and cook over medium heat just until hot, about 3 minutes.
6. To serve, place 3 scallops on each plate. Divide the Brussels sprout mixture evenly among the plates, scattering around the scallops. Drizzle with pan juices. Serve immediately.


Honey Balsamic Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Parsnip Puree and Watercress
Serves 8

3 pounds pork tenderloin
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
Salt and pepper
1 ½ pounds parsnips, peeled and cut into chunks
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons cream
White pepper
5 oz. watercress, cleaned and divided in half
Olive oil
Aged balsamic vinegar for drizzling


1. Adjust oven rack close to heat source. Preheat broiler. Season the pork with salt and pepper. Combine the honey and balsamic and coat the pork evenly with the mixture.
2. Bring a small pot of water to a boil and blanch half of the watercress. Refresh in cold water and drain. Blend the watercress and about 3 tablespoons of olive oil together in a blender. Season with salt. Place oil in a squeeze bottle and set aside.
3. Place pork on a sheet pan and broil for about 15 minutes, turning to brown all sides, until the internal temperature is no higher than 145 degrees. Brush the meat with any additional glaze, once or twice while cooking.
4. Meanwhile, place a steamer basket over a pot filled with about 2 inches of salted water. Place the parsnips in the basket, cover and cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes or until they can easily be pierced with a thin-bladed knife. Drain.
5. Toss the remaining watercress with olive oil and salt.
6. Remove the meat from the oven and let rest for about 10 minutes. Puree the parsnips in a food processor along with the cream and butter. Season to taste with salt and white pepper. Slice the pork in ½ inch thick slices on the bias.
7. To serve, divide the parsnip puree evenly and place a small amount in the center of the plate. Place 3 or 4 slices of the pork (depending on size) in a fan on top of the puree. Top with watercress and dot the plate with watercress oil and drizzle with aged balsamic vinegar. Serve immediately.




Orange Blossom Scented Panna Cotta with Honey & Tangerine
Serves 8


1 cup whole milk
2 ¾ teaspoons unflavored gelatin
3 cups heavy cream
1 piece vanilla bean, 2 inches long, cut in half lengthwise, seeds scraped
6 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon orange blossom water
Honey for drizzling, about 8 tablespoons
2 tangerines, peler a vif and cut in supremes

1. Pour the milk into a medium saucepan; sprinkle the surface evenly with the gelatin and let stand 10 minutes to hydrate the gelatin. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with ice and water. Add the vanilla seeds and pod, along with the orange blossom water into the cream, set aside. Set eight 4 ounce ramekins on a sheet pan.
2. Heat the milk and gelatin mixture over high heat, stirring constantly, until the gelatin is dissolved and the mixture registers 135 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, about 90 seconds. Off the heat, add the sugar and salt, stir until dissolved, about 1 minute.
3. Stirring constantly, slowly pour the cream with the vanilla into the saucepan of milk, then transfer the mixture to a medium bowl and set the bowl over the ice-water bath. Stir frequently until the mixture thickens to the consistency of eggnog and registers 50 degrees on an instant-read thermometer, about 10 minutes. Strain the mixture into a large measuring cup or pitcher, then divide it evenly among the ramekins. Cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap, making sure that the plastic does not mar the surface of the cream; refrigerate until just set (the mixture should wobble when shaken gently), about 4 hours.
4. To serve, pour 1 cup boiling water into a small, wide-mouthed bowl, dip a ramekin filled with panna cotta into the water, count to three, and lift the ramekin out of the water. With a moistened finger, lightly press the periphery of the panna cotta to loosen the edges. Dip the ramekin back into the hot water for another three count. Invert the ramekin over your palm and loosen the panna cotta by cupping your fingers between the panna cotta and the edge of the ramekin. Gently lower the panna cotta onto a serving plate. Drizzle with honey and top with two tangerine supremes. Serve immediately.

Getting the Crazy Out & Other Appetizers

Garde Manger (sounds like guard mon-jay), which is the appetizer station, is where I have spent the last 4 class sessions, which have been scattered over a few weeks thanks to the abundance of holiday weekends recently. Before I get into the nitty-gritty of what Garde Manger entails, I have to confess something. I have been avoiding posting anything on here lately because I have been overcome with football related depression and I spent the last week feeling like I got dumped. I moped, I didn't get out of bed for a full day. I ate junk food. It wasn't pretty. And to top it off, I've gotten flack for writing about football from some of my friends, so I didn't even feel like this was a safe place to come and cry about it. (Side note: when one day I have a blog devoted entirely to one topic, for example: food, which I will, and I stray from food to football, then feel free to chastise me. Until then, you're stuck with the unfocused thoughts that run through my head.) I finally shook it off and realized two things: 1. It's just football and 2. It really wasn't about football at all.

For the past few months, I've been in a cycle of panic and then determination, anxiety then focus, self doubt then fear, then a search for temporary distraction. Yes, I know, it's the life everyone dreams of. A lot of times the distraction I found that calmed the anxiousness was football. Something to focus on that wasn't my impending graduation and career doing...doing WHAT?! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO NEXT?! You see, having moved 3,000 miles away, dumped a truckload of money into school, and uprooted my husband from the life he was quite fond of, has created this intense personal pressure to make something HUGE of what we are doing. And as I continue to learn, to work (for free) and to meet people and make connections, I still don't have a dream job waiting for me. I don't think even I expected me to have the perfect job lined up with 3 months to go before graduation, but for some reason that has not quieted my internal panic alarm. It all came to a head this weekend in a really unbecoming blubbery moment the likes of which never seem to scare Mike away. He listened to me wail about my fears and inadequacies and then said "I wish you believed in yourself as much as I do". Which then caused the "poor me" tears to turn into "I'm so lucky to have him" tears. After career services talked me off the ledge yesterday and assured me that I am doing everything I need to be doing and moving in the right direction, I think I can safely write about it without alarming anyone about my mental state. Or maybe that ship has sailed.

Regardless of popular opinion on my emotional stability, it was what I needed to regroup and refocus on what's ahead. Mike's second gem of wisdom was "You should be excited about having all of this possibility in front of you...you can do ANYTHING you want!". Seriously? What is wrong with me? I came storming in here ready to conquer the city and 9 months later I am sniffling in the kitchen over some made up obstacle? Probably a good idea to never follow me into battle if the situation somehow calls for it. Although I'm sure once I have the troops totally distracted with karaoke and fantasy football and pretending like the war around us isn't actually happening, Mike will step in quietly, pull me together and let me lead everyone to victory as he steps back into the shadows. So, that weird analogy is actually a foreshadowing of when I am wildly successful, you must know Mike is always behind me helping me get there. (Cue Bette Midler: You were the wind beneath my wiiiiiings).

Well that confession took up most of the allotted blog time I've scheduled between working on my menu project for school, doing taxes, and updating the resume. So I'll give you a quick synopsis of my time on the Garde Manger station. 1. Chef Karen was super snippy with me and I did not like it one bit. ONE BIT. 2. There are 3 too many people in our group of 5 to ever feel particularly busy. We only serve 3 things in Garde Manger: a sweet potato gnocchi with rabbit ragu, a warm potato and goat cheese salad, and a digestive salad served between the savory and sweet portions of the meal to cleanse the palate. This could be handled by 2 or 3 people and would make me infinitely more confident in my abilities to hack it in an actual restaurant kitchen. 3. Between the waiting around for orders to come in and doing something irritating to Chef Karen like hold a pan incorrectly, it hasn't been my favorite station thus far. It also could have been my attitude lately. We'll see if regrouped Emily has a better time in pastry. Menu project recipes and photos to come shortly...

Just Drizzle It With Balsamic

Real people are eating my food. It may seem like an odd statement to make so I guess I should clarify, but people are actually paying MONEY to eat food that I cooked. Now granted, they have no idea that I cooked it and they are really paying to eat food that they assume will be delicious based on the reputation of the French Culinary Institute, but these are small details! A real person with a credit card is savoring food that I (along with a swarm of other students) am preparing. It's kind of a fun milestone even if it's essentially the equivalent of training wheels or a booster seat when it comes to working in a restaurant.

I spent my first week at L'Ecole, the school's restaurant kitchen, cooking on the Entremetier station, which covers the daily special (one for each day of the week chosen by a lead chef-instructor) and the vegetarian plate, which is one of few opportunities we have to be creative. I am kicking myself for not photographing our dishes because they came out better than I could have imagined thanks to my stellar team and our very capable instructor, Chef Jason. My team is comprised of A La Greque & Evil Cheese, who you may remember from this post, Michael Phelps, who was a partner I mentioned in this post, but we now just call her JB, and then another pal, who I will call Farmer Chef for her tendency toward all things local, seasonal, and organic.

We make a great team. We've turned out some pretty great veg plates: a roasted root vegetable baklava, a brilliantly colored vegetable pave, which is sort of a veg lasagna but imagine thinly sliced potato in place of the pasta, and a parmesan flan with braised leeks and roasted mushrooms. One thing I've learned from Chef Jason: when in doubt, drizzle the plate with aged balsamic and garnish with baby arugula. It's like an instant upgrade of flavor, color, and finesse. We move on to Garde Manger tomorrow, which literally translated means keeper of the food, but in the practical sense means the cooks who prep the apps and salads. I'm looking forward to each of the stations and am excited to be catching the two busiest (poissonier and saucier) at the tail end of this level.

Aside from real deal cooking, we also have a big menu project due this level. We have to create a minimum of 4 courses for a minimum of 8 people, with at least one wine pairing, some sort of theme, an essay on one key ingredient, recipes included along with costing, and photographs of each plate. I'm about 35% done with the project. I've made and photographed most of the dishes, but I have all the writing, math, and making it look like a pretty package ahead of me. My theme/ingredient is honey. My late grandfather was a beekeeper and my uncle has since taken over the family trade. They make some delicious artisanal honey and A La Grecque pointed out how meaningful it would be to write about something with a family connection, genius that she is. So I'll be posting the finished product once it is...well...finished.

Aside from school, there's not a whole lot going on here. It warmed up to the 30's today and I was thrilled to be able to walk the city without tucking my chin to my chest. It was a sunny day, blue sky and not so cold that it hurt. HOW IS THIS MAKING ME HAPPY? It's almost bittersweet. It's like getting used to the brutal cold means I am getting comfortable here and it makes California feel even further away. And ya know what? I miss it. I really do. I miss my friends. I miss 75 degree winter days. I miss good tacos. I miss the beach. I miss the mild air and the gentle breezes. I miss the cost of living. (I know, who knew?) But in an ironic twist, if I were sitting at this very table on the opposite side of the country, my list would be just as long. I would be missing my daily walks through this city that inspire me in a way that sitting in traffic just can't, I would miss my friends here, I would miss our explorations of new corners, blocks and neighborhoods. I'd miss Washington Square people watching, Murray's cheese, the Union Square greenmarket, the Empire State Building greeting me each morning, the freaks, weirdos, and crazies that make every day interesting...okay, so there's a really solid list. A list that can overcome frigid temperatures and obscene rent. For how long? Well...isn't that the question...for now I'll make the most of my days and dream of being bi-coastal at night. That should be enough to get me through the winter. That and some baguettes and good butter I stole from school. I just need to throw some aged balsamic and arugula on it and I could call it an appetizer and charge $12 for it. I might make it here after all...

Big Grateful Bellyache

I have spent the last 4 days in a perpetual state of gluttony. I vacillate between a kind of euphoria that comes from savoring the bounty of rich foods spread out before me and a state of discomfort and shame for not putting my fork down sooner. Mike and I set out on a walk today motivated by the prospect of getting some air in our lungs and our blood pumping, as well as taking in some of the quintessential New York holiday sights. Before I continue, let me explain how we arrived at the moment when we knew it was time to close the fridge and put on our walking shoes (or knee high suede flat boots, in my case).

I'm now in the throes of Level 4 at FCI, which means we spend two week rotations in Buffet, Family Meal, and Production. Family Meal involves preparing the nightly dinner for the entire school based on a loosely followed, oft interpreted menu, while Production, as the name implies, produces food product (stocks, carefully butchered meats, etc.) to be used in the adjacent restaurant kitchen. Buffet is the most creative, offering students a chance to plan a themed buffet menu to be served to the school's chefs and lucky students on the final night of the two week rotation. My groups theme was a fall harvest menu and the final night landed on Thanksgiving Eve. There were two camps in class in terms of this twist of calendar fate: one that bemoaned the bounty of food on the eve of one of the biggest eating days of the year and the other, glass half full types, that celebrated the opportunity to do a little training (and stomach stretching) for the main event. I fell in between the two camps due to my natural tendency to both complain and look on the bright side depending on who I am talking to.

Our buffet was a success featuring nearly 30 items that ranged from housemade sausage and pates to an array of roasted and braised meats (the favorite being the braised pork cheeks), and also included a variety of autumnal side dishes and desserts (roasted brussel sprouts with bacon and pumpkin chocolate bread pudding, anyone?). Below is a photo of my buffet group and Chef Tim, a favorite chef-instructor known for his hilarious stories about private cheffing for some of Manhattan & Hollywood's elite.



The buffet produced a lot of satisfied customers and an unexpected quantity of leftovers. Being that I cannot stand to see good food go to waste (and that FCI is forbidden by law from donating food to homeless shelters because they are a teaching institution), I singlehandedly tried to rescue much of the food that was destined for the compost bin. I packed container after container of potato and cauliflower puree, corn pudding, turkey roulade, poached pears in red wine, country pate...the list goes on and on. When I volunteered to take home the cornucopia of gourds, pinecones and leaves, my classmates took their usual teasing of my food hoarding ways to new levels.

"SERIOUSLY?! It's a leaf! You can find them on the ground!"

"Can someone get her a box? There is no way she can carry all that home."

"I hope you have a big fridge..."

The last comment actually made me take pause and realize that my fridge was currently filled with the makings of a Thanksgiving feast for 12 even though we were only having 2 others over. What can I say? I have a thing for abundant turkey leftovers. In addition to the remnants I had pilfered from the buffet, the Family Meal group had offered me a pork roast and pork loin that I could not refuse. Oh...and some squab pastrami, the novelty of which I would not pass up. I managed to cart everything home in an oversize cardboard box, armed with a plan to Tetris my fridge into a state of maximum food capacity.

I made it work with some repackaging and tossing of rarely used condiments. By 1am I was tucked in bed with visions of my holiday table dancing in my head. Most people think that given my obsession with food and my enrollment in a prestigious culinary institute that I would put out a spread ready to be photographed by Gourmet (RIP). That assumption could not be further from the truth. While I experiment with exotic flavor combinations at home and I am being trained to plate classically fussy food at school, the sanctity of Thanksgiving tradition is something I don't mess with. My parents are fantastic cooks and there is a rich history of savoring long meals with an over abundance of food in my family. I cannot turn my back on the flavors that make Thanksgiving feel like Thanksgiving to me. I may occasionally be tempted by a chestnut puree or an Indian spiced turkey, but I would so miss the sausage stuffing and simple pan gravy that transport me back to Thanksgivings past.

So while I try to spend the next week walking off the creamy mashed potatoes and kick off the season of giving, I will leave you with a post Thanksgiving list of what I am most thankful for. For Mike for being so wonderfully supportive, hilarious, loving and fun and for being the one I get to come home to every day. For my family for instilling in me the value of the shared meal. For my friends for sharing meals and laughter with me. And for TUMS for mildly masking the pain and discomfort I am currently experiencing. Happy Holidays!

Halfway to My Tall Paper Hat

Today I'm standing at the halfway mark of my culinary education and by standing I mean propped up in bed watching Glee, drinking diet Sunkist and eating chocolate chips out of the bag because I'm classy like that. Last night was our much anticipated, somewhat feared midterm which accounts for 50% of our Level 3 grade. The curriculum for this level focuses on discipline, timing, and refining your skills. We rotated our way through 16 recipes organized like the stations of a restaurant kitchen: Garde Manger (Apps, Salads, Soups), Poissonier (Seafood, its sauces and garnishes), Saucier (Meat, Poultry, its sauces and garnishes), and Patissiere (Pastry). There were 4 recipes for each station and we had an opportunity to cook each of them at least once and some of them over and over and over again. There was the much maligned Oeufs Poche dish, which is a poached egg with hollandaise sauce served over a bed of perfectly petite cubes of vegetables with so much potential for disaster: broken sauce, overcooked or broken yolks, undercooked whites, ugly knife skills...the list go on. There was the familiar old friend: Poulet Roti Grandmere, literally translated to roast chicken with grandmother garnish, which consists of potatoes turned into cocottes and cooked 3 different ways until they are a crispy, golden brown, meaty chunks of browned bacon, mushrooms sauteed in bacon fat, and pearl onions glazed and caramelized to perfection. We made this dish every class for weeks and every class we would all say "I don't know if I can eat anymore Grandmere!" while gnawing on a drumstick. There were the dishes that had so many components that getting your four required plates to the chefs hot and on time seemed like a cruel joke. I'm talking to you Barramundi with Lobster Sauce, Steamed Mussels, Poached Shrimp, Fennel Compote, Potato Cocottes, and finely chopped Parsley, Chervil and Tarragon. COME ON!

For the midterm we would be drawing a station number which corresponded to the two dishes we would be required to execute for a panel of judges. We're evaluated in the kitchen by a chef-proctor on cleanliness, technique and timing and then we are to walk our plates down an endless hallway to a room housing the judges where we present our food to be evaluated on presentation, flavor, seasoning, etc. We've been told repeatedly by our chefs and Level 4, 5, & 6 students that the midterm is more difficult than the final, that we will screw up, that we should be scared but we shouldn't freak out, that our dishes won't be perfect so we must not make stupid mistakes, that our stations better be clean, and on and on and on. So there were definitely nerves at work as we sat around waiting for the clock to display the time when we could enter our classroom and try to piece together what we might be cooking.

"Surely he wouldn't give us the egg, right? They say the chefs only pick the egg if they want their students to fail!"

"If I get beef bourgignon I am just going to turn around and walk out and plan to do Level 3 over again."

"If I get skate and lemon tart, I am golden!"

Well, I got skate and lemon tart and I was golden. I also lucked out and drew one of the later presentation times which gave me a full extra hour to prep before my skate was due. There were a few minor hiccups with my dishes: my skate needed a little more color and seasoning, my stupid potato vapeur (a larger version of a cocotte) didn't have clean enough edges, and my tart dough was a little uneven on the bottom due to a mishap during blind baking. I had no major missteps and turned out some food I am proud of.

The evening didn't end at the judges table though. It ended at some pizza joint in the East Village around 3:30 after a few solid hours of karaoke with my school pals. Who knew a classically trained musician's go to song would be Bust a Move? As I climbed the stairs to my apartment, I had that glowy feeling of contentment that comes from having good people in your life and from doing things that you are happy to put your name on. I'm not talking to you bacon pizza at 3am, but I'm pretty sure we will meet again.

From Duck Farm To Table

Food. It's such a simple word but it can evoke such a variety of emotions, thoughts and even physical reactions, depending on your mood. By definition food is nourishment consumed to sustain life, provide energy and promote growth, but we all know that it's much bigger than that. Everyone has food memories from childhood. Everyone has favorite foods and foods that comfort them. Everyone has foods they don't like, won't eat or will never ever try. And everyone has issues with food. I literally cannot think of a single person I know who hasn't at some point thought critically about their diet, changed their eating habits to lose weight, or castigated themselves for overeating. Food is a complicated aspect of being human. It can bring so much pleasure and so much pain. My struggles with food have evolved over the years from subsisting on junk food to yo-yo dieting to where I'm at now, which is more of a moral quandary. I've read too many books like Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma to be blissfully ignorant about what I am putting in my body and the repercussions of my choices. And I am not just talking about my health, but about what kind of practices in the food industry I am supporting. I WANT to eat all organic, grass fed, cage free, free range, cruelty-free, hormone-free animals that lived happy lives with farmers that loved them before slitting their throats and draining their bodies of blood. In an ideal world, this is what I would do. Do I always do this? No. Do I sometimes eat at McDonald's because I have an unnatural craving for whatever kind of crack they put in their Chicken McNuggets? Yes. Do I do this even knowing the conditions that the chickens were subjected to are practically torturous and that McDonald's has singlehandedly altered farming in our country while simultaneously making us one of the fattest, diabetic, heart disease riddled nations in the world? Yes, I do. (hanging head in shame). Why do I do it? Because I can tuck it away in the back of my head and pretend that what's going on behind the scenes isn't really going on since I don't have to see it on a daily basis.

Now that I am in culinary school, there are so many opportunities to go behind the scenes and see how things are done and where my food came from. An opportunity presented itself earlier this week in the form of a field trip to a farm in the Hudson Valley. My classmate, Jersey was on the hunt for foie gras and ended up organizing a tour for a few of us of one of the best foie gras purveyors in the country: Hudson Valley Foie Gras. If you've never had foie gras, but maybe have heard of it, you already know it's controversial. The ducks (or geese) are force fed to enlarge their livers and make them extra fatty and delicious. And it is truly delicious. It's rich, buttery, flavorful, melt in your mouth fatty goodness. But as you can imagine as the term force feeding implies, not everyone thinks it's humane.

We (me, Jersey, A La Greque, and hmm...nickname...it could be "I never leave the East Village", but I think I will just go with Cheese-ophile for managing to surpass my own obsession with the good stuff, actually let's just contract the two and call him Evil Cheese. It works beautifully on so many levels). Anyway, the four of us set off last Tuesday morning for the duck farm, which was about 2 hours north of the city. It was a picture perfect autumn day. The air was crisp and as we wound away from the city through tree lined highways, the leaves changed from green to golden to fiery orange. When we finally arrived at the duck farm and stepped out into the country air, we realized two things: 1. it had turned from crisp to bone chilling and 2. a duck farm smells like bad breath and duck poop. We located the office and met up with our tour guide, Marcus, who is the Operations Manager of the farm. He was soft spoken, lanky, and bearded, basically exactly how I picture a farmer.



He spent some time explaining to us what we would be seeing over the next few hours and then laid out the defense of their farming practices, which he has clearly spent a significant portion of his job doing. He led us through different parts of the farm where we met ducks grouped and housed by their ages. As we toured, he regularly thanked us for giving him the opportunity to show us firsthand their standard of farming, which he was personally very proud of. He also remarked several times that he knew that not everyone would make the decision to consume foie gras (or serve it in their restaurants) after seeing the farm, but he was happy that we had chosen to educate ourselves before making a decision.



We were able to watch the force feeding which occurs three times each day and lasts about 5 seconds per duck. It involved inserting a rod into the ducks mouth and pouring food through a funnel. The ducks don't like being handled, but it didn't seem to hurt them either. Marcus explained the ducks anatomy in great detail and how the force feeding would feel to the duck (which is to say, not painful, just momentarily uncomfortable), but since I am not a duck and have no clue if that is true, I made my judgments based on the ducks behavior.



The process did not horrify me at all, as I thought it might. I actually came away from the visit thinking that the farming of ducks for foie gras is probably 100 times more humane than the farming of commercial chickens. These ducks roamed around uncaged (except during the feeding stage) in a safe habitat that was kept far cleaner than a factory farm. Most chickens are kept in cages where they can't stand up or ever support their own body weight and are covered in their own filth. So until I decide to give up eating animals altogether (which is not likely to ever happen), I have no reason to give up eating duck or foie gras from a producer that treats their animals more humanely than the billions of chickens produced by companies like Tyson and Foster Farms every year. If anything, it compels me to learn more about the sources of all my food and choose producers that spend a lot of time and money ensuring that they are applying the highest standards to their farming and production practices.

After we left the farm, we went straight to Wendy's, because there wasn't much but fast food around and chowed down on burgers and chicken sandwiches from animals who living conditions probably made the duck farm look like the Four Seasons. This moment of hypocrisy made me realize that I have to vote with my dollars in hopes that someday high quality, humanely treated food will be as widely available as McDonald's. We spent the remainder of the afternoon picking apples at a farm in New Paltz and planning menus based on the bounty of duck and apples we were carting home.



A La Greque Garden of Eden Style

I ended up searing the foie gras and serving it with sauteed apples and apple juice reduction. The duck breast I picked up was spiced with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove and star anise and seared, sliced and accompanied by a spinach salad dressed with an apple vinaigrette. (It seriously tasted like filet mignon with crispy skin - the best duck I've ever had). And for dessert, baked apples with fresh cheese. It was lovely to enjoy a meal of which I knew the source of its components and it's something I hope to do more and more of going forward. Jersey's next idea? A visit to a slaughterhouse. Stay tuned.



Jersey, Evil Cheese & Me at the Apple Farm

Best. Weekend. Ever.

I had the type of weekend that caused me to spend the last 45 minutes trying to think of when I've had a better one, which had me silently smiling at the wall as I recalled vacations, our wedding, and good times spent with friends. But putting aside the big life events and trips when you really plan to live it up, I can't remember the last time I had a weekend where I unexpectedly had the best time ever. Unlike my dear husband who told me on a trip to Toronto several years ago that taking a picture with the Stanley Cup at the Hockey Hall of Fame was "the best day of my life", I put those special days in a separate and more cherished category. Apparently, our wedding was a close second to putting his arm around Lord Stanley's Mug like it was his junior prom date. Whatever.

The point is that I had a fantastic weekend and it started with my Level 2 final and the end of the Chef Nic era. We took our exam, watched a ridiculously old video that was entirely in French and consisted of several frenchmen yelling in a kitchen during lunch service (shrugging), and then completed our practical final, which involved making creme anglaise (a stirred custard) and demonstrating knife skills on unsuspecting potatoes and oranges. It went very well and I almost teared up when we said our goodbyes to Chef Nic. It's time to move on and graduate to Level 3, where time management, organization and cleanliness are key. Or so Chef Phil, our new chef-instructor for Levels 3 & 4 has told us. I don't know much about him other than that he looks like a really friendly bear and by his own admission, doesn't hand out many A's. We'll see about that.

After class, several of us went out for beers to celebrate and after a few hours, the group had whittled down to four of us, who I managed to convince to come with me to a karaoke bar so I could meet up with my good friend, Chris and his lovely girlfriend Sam, who were in town from San Diego (although they are originally from Boston and are about as obnoxious as you would expect people from Boston to be). Now, I love karaoke. I can barely carry a tune, but it doesn't stop me. There is something about belting out songs with a bunch of friends that makes me want to keep going all night...which is pretty much what we did. The best part was that my classmate, who I call a la Grecque (because she is Greek and in French cuisine there is a method of preparing vegetables in the Greek style or a la Grecque), claimed that she did not do karaoke, but interestingly enough once we got our own private karaoke suite, we couldn't keep her off the mike. And she was good. Back to the karaoke suite. Whoever came up with this concept should get one of those Real Men of Genius Budweiser commercials. A dedicated room where you can go with your friends (and a strange group of Europeans that nobody was sure who invited but turned out to be harmless and kind of fun) and sing your heart out and hog the mike. I am turning my living room into a karaoke suite. And I think I just heard Mike groan. It was a fantastic night.

Saturday was no less perfect. I spent the morning with Mike before jumping on the D train to Yankee Stadium to meet up with my Boston friends for a Red Sox - Yankees matchup. My ticket was an extra courtesy of the Silver Fox, which is what a la Grecque and I nicknamed Sam's dad who is silver haired and well, a fox, much to Sam's dismay. So it was the four of us, 3 raging Red Sox lunatics and me, a hater of both the Sox and the Yanks, sitting 10 rows back from the Red Sox dugout, in seats that were more comfortable than my own sofa. I didn't know how much I would enjoy the game given my contempt of both teams, but I certainly wasn't going to pass up a luxury seat at new Yankee Stadium watching the greatest rivalry in baseball. It turned out to be one of my personal favorite sports moments. Even though the game didn't mean much and nothing was on the line for me personally, I loved every minute of it. I felt for a minute what it must be like to be a fan of these two storied teams. I am an Oakland A's fan and while we have had our shining moments, we've never had the legions of fans or the money that these two teams do. And let's be honest, Boston and New York sports coverage is overinflated and often obnoxiously so, much like the ego's of the teams respective fans. So as an A's fan, whose team gets little coverage and respect, it's a thorn in my side. But I tried to put that aside for the night and just root for good baseball. And there was some good baseball. I found myself shouting "YOOOOOOOOUUUUUK! YOOOOOOOUUUUK!" when Youklis was up in the 9th in a do or die situation. I found myself cheering when Johnny Damon singled and gave the Yanks a 3 run lead. I loved the playful smack talking between my Beantown friends and the New Yorkers in front of us. I loved the stadium, I loved that Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor threw out the first pitch, I loved the chanting, booing and cheering and I got it. I get that it's such a fun thing to be a part of: the marquis players, the history, the rivalry, the swagger of a winning team. And it was fun to be a part of it for a day. But now I will go back to last place in the AL West and wonder if next year is the year we regain our late 80's glory. Sigh. At least I have FOOTBALL!



See how close we were?!

Which brings me to Sunday. We were so happy that the Chargers game was being aired in New York, which meant we got to watch from the comfort of our living room (soon to be karaoke suite). We made french toast for breakfast (using the creme anglaise I made for my final), we snacked on football food, and most importantly, the Bolts won! I love Sundays with Mike and this one was extra good because we haven't had a lot of time together lately between visitors and school. It was so nice to just hang out at home in our full Charger gear, yelling at the TV and constantly checking fantasy scores. I haven't asked him, but it may have even topped the 2 minutes he spent with the Stanley Cup.

On a final note, I will leave you with this. When I arrived at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, I texted my sister in Washington state to tell her where I was sitting because I figured she would be watching the game, which she was. Given the location of our seats, there was a chance she might catch me on TV. When she told my 5 year old niece that Aunt Emily was at the game they were watching on TV, Brynn's response was "WHAT?! Aunt Emily is THERE?! Is this a movie of our world?".



Mike, Me, Chris, the Silver Fox, & Chris's Mom

What I've Been Up To...And Then Things That Actually Matter

Oh where to start? We've had three really great classes in the past week, plus I spent the weekend living it up with an old friend from Buffalo, and then there was the disappointing conclusion to much anticipated Football Sunday...sigh. But I am not going to dwell on the Chargers loss because in the grand scheme of things, what does it really matter? Besides, Mike and I had a GREAT time at our new Charger game watching spot, MJ Armstrong's. Bolts banners everywhere, the San Diego Super Chargers song playing with every score, and literally hundreds of fans chanting, clapping, stomping and shouting, making the bar feel like it might explode. AWESOME.

I left off last week with a mention of our having free reign over a whole flounder, our first opportunity to be creative. It definitely rattled my nerves and I know I was not alone in feeling a tad anxious and unsure of the dish I was trying to turn out. Luckily, I was assigned an old familiar face as my current partner (Korean Spiccoli) and that helped me relax a little bit. The night ended up being a ton of fun once we got into the groove of cooking. My class produced the most beautiful plates that were equally delicious, it was both impressive and a source of pride that we all kicked ass. For my dish, I poached the flounder fillets in fish fumet (fish stock), white wine and some fennel and orange zest. I served it on a bed of sauteed spinach, surrounded it with an orange beurre blanc sauce and orange supremes (sections in which the peel and pith have been removed), topped it with some thinly sliced fennel sauteed in butter, blanched orange zest (to remove the bitterness)and garnished it with some chopped fennel fronds. It turned out quite well and gave me a little confidence boost that the dish I envisioned actually worked out. It was also very cool to see what everyone else had come up with and draw inspiration from their plates, garnishes and techniques. I know we made Chef Nic proud.

We also had a class dedicated solely to cheese on Friday. Do I need to say more? We watched a video on cheese (way better than the culinary math video that may have made me dumber for watching it), we tasted a variety of cow, sheep and goat's milk cheeses (plus their respective milks and yogurts to get an idea of the underlying flavors and progression with aging), and then we made our own ricotta and mozzarella. I could not have been happier until a classmate who works nearby kept passing me her aged goat cheese samples because she didn't like the flavor. Then I was even happier! Tonight, we had a lesson on pasta, risotto and gnocchi. Yes, this is my life.

I will spare you the details of my weekend eating, drinking and shopping with Trisha. We managed to cover a lot of ground, leaving a path of destruction in our wake, mostly to our bank accounts. It was a great weekend and one that should only be repeated sparingly, but I am far better outfitted for winter than I was a week ago. Not that I want to entice bad weather just so I can wear my new rain boots, belted trench and what Trisha and I call the sexy sweater. But when it does come, I will look good.

Putting all the fluff and day to day stuff aside, I do have something heavier weighing on my mind, something that puts things like football games in perspective. One of my dearest friends, my college roommate, the woman who introduced me to Mike, was Maid of Honor in my wedding and I in hers, and whom I consider to be a sister, is hurting and that means I am hurting. Although I can't begin to imagine how she feels and how she is coping, I know that she is drawing on the huge well of strength that she has within. She and her wonderful husband, Kris are recent parents to beautiful twin daughters, Kali & Maya. As if life with twins weren't eventful enough, Kali Jade was just diagnosed with neuroblastoma and began chemo this weekend. It's totally unimaginable that a tiny perfect little baby who hasn't even been on this earth for 6 months would have to battle something as daunting as the word that I just don't want to say. The prognosis is good and her mom and dad are thinking positively, but how can this not take it's toll? So, if you can do me a huge favor and send some loving, healing thoughts to sweet little Kali and her family, I would be grateful. Below is a picture of Kali (left) & Maya (right).

"Culinary Math Teachers" or Made Up Stuff That Makes Me Rant

Last night's class was brutal. Not because the kitchen was a furnace (which it sometimes is) or because we had to prepare 10 different recipes (which we sometimes do), but because it was the Chargers season opener and I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Class begins at 5:45pm (although Chef increasingly calls us up to the front around 5:40) and if you want to have any chance of being on schedule, you really need to arrive in the classroom around 5:15...unless you have a partner that commutes from Jersey and has no choice but to arrive on a train that gets him to class well before anyone, lest he take the later train which will make him late...which I do.

I figured out quickly that getting to class early is the single biggest favor you can do yourself. When you get there early, you get your station set up, you get your pick of bowls of all sizes, square boys (metal containers that are, no surprise, square), measuring cups, and the, for some reason, ever elusive, spoons. Just a regular spoon, but we never have enough, probably because we all store them in our sleeve pockets, so half of the school's supply ends up in apartments around the Tri-State area. Anyway, if you get to class early, you can get to work on your mise en place, which is basically the prep of all the components of your recipes. Although it has more than one meaning, the best of which translates essentially to your state of preparedness. So, like I said, if you want to have any chance of staying on schedule in class, you better be there early and you better have all of your ingredients portioned, your veggies washed, peeled and cut and whatever else you can get your hands on cooked in advance. It's a huge advantage. And I don't mean that in the competitive sense, but in the you vs. the clock way and the stress that comes with being in the weeds. Basically, from 5:45 until 10:45, but more often 11 and almost never early, we alternate between watching Chef demo our recipes, cooking frantically, and trying to smuggle in side conversations and jokes outside of Chef's watchful eye.

Monday's class was particularly brutal because we broke from the usual format, the one that keeps you too preoccupied to care what time it is until suddenly class is almost over. We were to prepare a roast chicken dish and an apple tart all before we had our stations cleaned by 9:00 and then lugged in stools for a lecture on food costs. The first 3 hours were terrific in that we were cooking, busy cooking and enjoying what we were making, although I do have to say Chef was sort of on a tear and raised his voice on several occasions. This is not something we are accustomed to and this is not to say that he is a softie by any stretch of the imagination. He runs a tight ship, gives praise with an undercut of criticism, but clearly wants us to do well and feels our success is a measure of his teachings. Each time he shouted at us for either poor time management, cooking during demos, or making too much mirepoix, it was always accompanied by some variation of the phrase "When you are in Level 3, you have to know these things! Chef won't be doing demo every time guys. It's okay to make mistakes, but guys, you have to be aware of the time!"

It was actually very sweet, because in just a week and a half, we complete Level 2 and will be parting ways with Chef Nic for the duration of our academic tenure. It's one of those situations some would call bittersweet, but I would just say is bitter. I am going to miss Chef Nic, his accent, his ability to crack himself up, and his flat out excellent skills in the kitchen. I am scared shitless to move on and be a big girl in the kitchen. I want Chef Nic to hold my hand a little longer, even if he does it by wrenching my boning knife away from me and showing me how to quarter a chicken the right way, one more time.

I digress, however. After we completed our two recipes, we were scheduled to listen to Chef lecture on food costing and watch a video on the same topic. Not so bad, right? Well, here's the way it went down. Mike is regularly texting me updates of the Bills-Pats game, which turned out to be an unexpected barn burner. My anticipation/excitement/anxiety was building as I hid my phone in my hat, checking Mike's texts as the final 2 minutes of that game ticked off and Chef has my classmates taking turns reading from our text. (What is this - 3rd grade? Reading aloud, are you kidding me? Can't we do this on our own time?)

As the Pats sealed the Buffalo choke, my irritation with being in class built as I knew the Chargers - Raiders game was kicking off. Luckily, Mike is a saint and was DVRing the game so we could watch it together when I got out of class. Of course this required me texting anyone I could think of that might possibly send me updates or taunts as the game progressed. To give you a timeline, the Chargers game started at 10 and I just had to get through 45 minutes, do a Superman change in the locker room and then throw myself into a cab for the 5 minute ride home. Around 10:20, Chef finally wrapped up the reading circle and started the video, which whoever produced should be ashamed of. It was a half hour of chefs and other professionals such as "Culinary Math Teachers" (oh yes, I will get to that later, but I will refer to her as "CMT", not to be confused with that hick music channel) explaining complex topics like multiplication, division and you guys probably won't even know this term because I think they only cover it once you are in MENSA, but percentages. (Yeah, never heard of it either). I kept looking around the room for someone in my class that might have special needs and be the reason for being subjected to the video, but everyone looked like they could tie their own shoes, so I dunno.

Here's where the "CMT" comes in. There's a sound bite of her talking about how so many chefs are intimidated by numbers because they are big and scary (accompanied by graphic of numbers with fangs swimming around on the screen) and how once she drops her "Culinary Math Teacher" skills, it's not so tough after all. I knew my missing-out-on-watching-football aggression was reaching its peak, because all I could think was if I ever, ever, ever see that Culinary Math Teacher (finger quotes and eye rolling), I will sit her down and explain to her that what she is teaching is just actual MATH and that it is not okay to make up job titles. Even regular math teachers use word problems that involve food...if johnny has 5 apples and he gives 1 to Susie...ring a bell "CMT"?

Anyway, when the video finally ended and Chef gave us our homework assignment (which involves a food costing sheet that according to "CMT" is going to cause an anxiety attack), I bolted out of there so fast and was home in no time to watch my beloved Chargers eek out a win against the loathed Raiders. I am sparing you the details of that part of my evening because it essentially involved Mike and I alternating between furious, elated, and sullen, all the while waving our Charger rally towels and playing the San Diego Super Chargers fight song which definitely woke up some of our neighbors.

Our next challenge in class is that we have free reign on a fish dish to show off the skills we have acquired. Basically, we have to fillet a whole flounder and then prepare and plate a composed dish using the techniques we have learned. This process in some ways terrifies me because there are so many things I can do, which causes me to change my mind on the techniques I will use, which causes anxiety and it's almost like the recipe is swimming in front of my eyes, with fangs no less. But then I replay that dumb video in my head and remember that I am not a moron and it will all be fine, with or without Chef Nic. It just won't ever be the same...

Sugar Related Mischief & Other Musings on Life

Our pastry section is coming to a close and quite frankly I am ready to go back to cooking. Baking is too precise, too much measuring and too much sugar. Not that I haven't enjoyed learning the techniques and adding some great desserts to my repertoire, but I think the whole class is tired of the sugar highs and subsequent crashes. Last nights class was a little wacky and I blame sugar. It was the first lesson we've had in a week or so where we actually had time to stop and eat dinner as opposed to shoveling it in our faces while watching Chef Nic demo pastry cream for the 10th time. We also had extra time after the break where Chef was nowhere to be found and it totally reminded me of elementary school when the teacher has to step out of the classroom for a second and all hell breaks loose. The volume increased by 300 and I thought a food fight might break out. The rum used to flavor one of our souffles may have made it into some coffee cups and this group of adults, some of whom are lawyers and bankers were acting like spastic little kids who have been pent up inside on a rainy day. Maybe there was a full moon, but I'm pretty sure it was the sugar and the strict rules of working with it. Whatever it was, it was a fun class and I'm happy to be stuck with this group.

Last night's instruction was on souffles and mousses and it was probably one of my favorites of the pastry section. We made a heavenly and intense chocolate mousse, a chocolate souffle, a souffle flavored with Grand Marnier, a cheese souffle and then I think the last one was a fruit souffle, but my poor partner did most of that one because I was too busy bopping around the room on a sugar pogo stick. The souffle lesson ended uncharacteristically early, which led to drinks after class (AGAIN) and I am realizing that I really have to learn to say no once in a while. I have appointed myself Activities Director of our class, so I do feel a certain responsibility in fulfilling the role, but this is ridiculous. Someone told me it would be exhausting living here and they were right, whoever that was.

We have a test Friday on our last 6 lessons and then we move on to a section on nutrition. In flipping through the text, it looks like we are going to be covering the composition of food, nutrients, vitamins and label reading. There are a few interesting things about these 3 lessons. The first being that there are only a handful of recipes and we are accustomed to preparing and plating anywhere from 4 - 10 dishes in each class, so I have no clue how we are going to spend 5 hours talking about macronutrients and making one dish of striped bass over lentils. There has to be a catch. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a stool to appear at my station. The second is that I find it ironic that in these 3 lessons we are only able to produce 6 recipes that are healthy. It's like you take away the butter, egg yolks and duck fat and the French are rendered useless. I think Friday will also bring the end of my partnership with the quarterback, who has been awesome by the way. Easy to work with, absorbs everything from the demo and is patient when I pepper him with questions. We'll see who my next kitchen companion will be, regardless, I'm sure it will be memorable.

Speaking of memories, we are headed to Buffalo for Labor Day, 8 years to the day we rolled into town with almost no cash and no clue what we were getting in to. It should be a fantastic weekend catching up with old friends and family, returning to our favorite spots, and of course, chowing on as many chicken wings as we can handle. It's hard not to relive my emotions of that first week in Buffalo, when reality set in and then I broke out in hives. It's also tough not to be satisfied with the path our life has taken since and to wonder what the next 8 years will bring. Whatever it is, I am enjoying this part right now. Happy Labor Day!

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.

Potatoes: Chunks are for Chumps

Beginner. Newbie. Neophyte. New kid on the block. These terms no longer apply to my culinary school status as I have officially completed Level 1 of the program and am one lesson in to Level 2. And although our first lesson was essentially an extension of our concluding session on braising in Level 1, everyone seemed to walk a little taller past our former kitchen into the "sophomore" kitchen next door. We smiled knowingly as we observed the new group nervously assessing each other and awkwardly adjusting their starched white coats. It's actually quite amusing given that was me just 6 weeks ago. I am, first, stunned at how quickly the time is passing and second, amazed at how much I have not only learned, but improved. The program is organized in a way that as you learn new techniques, you continue to practice and perfect old techniques, and practice really does make perfect with French cooking.

For example, we have learned the French technique of tournage (turning vegetables), which is essentially to take a chunk of vegetable and carve it into a faceted little oval barrel about 5 cm long (called a cocotte) with a paring knife. (Apparently, a diced potato or a chunk of potato is too pedestrian for French cuisine.) When we did this the first day, my hand cramped from the awkward motion and I produced what can best be described as potato turds that looked nothing like Chef Nic's perfectly straight spud gems. But we have done them so many times in class (and for homework) and prepared them in so many different ways that I actually got the ultimate compliment on my potato homework today.

Chef Nic: "Mmm...is good. Mmm...not bad. Not bad at all. The size is good. Sides could be a little straighter...but is good, no?"

Me: "No? I mean yes. Yes, Chef. Thank you, Chef."

As an aside, tournage creates a massive amount of potato trimmings that can be used for soups, mashed potatoes, gnocchi - if you use them relatively soon. You have to store them in water so they don't brown and if you wait too long, the water leeches the starch out and you get a weird texture. I have a hard time throwing away literally pounds of potatoes, so the soup stockpile continues in my freezer, although I did make four quiches last week with various vegetable trimmings and leftovers. Gnocchi is on the agenda tomorrow, but I think it will be a carrot-potato gnocchi since I have some carrot trimmings as well. I still don't see the value in having oval potatoes, but that doesn't mean I am not going to continue to crank out my best cocottes. If nothing else, I have become the queen of repurposing scraps.

So, here begins the next chapter in my culinary education and I have no doubt that it too will fly by with its conclusion bringing even more growth. To be honest, I want the whole process to slow down a bit. I am, for the first time in my life, enjoying school and all that accompanies it. I am forming friendships with classmates that I know will far outlast this 9 month program. (It's easy to bond over broken sauces, excessive sweating, and wearing rubber finger cots over cuts that look like miniature condoms and provide a whole host of opportunities for tasteless jokes that break the pressure and intensity of the kitchen.) I am enjoying the perks of being a student at FCI: the free demonstrations by world class chefs, the club events (I'm taking a tour of the Food Network later this month) and the library, which is stocked with every cookbook, magazine, and food related tome you can imagine. I don't want it to end! I know there's no reason that life after culinary school can't be just as sweet, but I am not ready for it just yet and plan to savor every moment.

Some of the moments I will be savoring this level are in fact not savory, but sweet. Our first four sessions wrap up our instruction on protein (including offal, or organ meats for the uninitiated, and eggs, which the cooking of is said to be the measuring stick of a good chef), before we spend the next 7 lessons learning pastry and sweet treats. After the last few weeks preparing hearty lamb, veal and chicken dishes with rich sauces in the heat of summer, I am ready to change things up and pastry could be the ticket. Level 2 also covers lessons on nutrition (which is hilarious after we've been taught to "add a little bit of butter" - picture a whole stick being added to a sauce pan), as well as food costing, menu planning and a whole lesson devoted to one of the other loves of my life - CHEESE! If you know me well, you know that cheese is my desert island food, the one I cannot live without. But I can wait on the cheese lesson, as it comes near the end of Level 2 and right now, I am in no rush, even if it means savoring kidney and tongue. The plus side is that it will probably be bathed in butter, the downside is that it will undoubtedly be accompanied by those damn potato cocottes.

Me + Food = Happy

After every successful dinner party, baby or bridal shower, and holiday soiree that I've thrown, I always got the inevitable "Why don't you do this for a living?" or "You really should think about being a party planner/chef/caterer/etc.". And of course, I privately basked in those kind of compliments, who doesn't like a good ego stroking? Ego aside though, the praise led me to question why I was putting so much time and effort into (supposedly) simple gatherings of friends. Why did I spend hours, sometimes days creating a perfect menu? Why did I blow two weeks worth of grocery money on flowers, new place settings and whatever other item I deemed vital to the self-inflicted theme of the affair? Was I doing it for the glory, the recognition by my friends and family that I was good at something? I didn't think so. I am not a hard worker by nature and mere flattery is just not enough of a motivator to push me to spend hours making sure every detail is perfect. The answer was quite simple, at least on the surface. I just really, really liked doing it. I already knew I liked cooking, but I discovered that I really enjoyed creating these fleeting moments in time where everything is perfect and you look around the room and see that everyone is connected with a singular emotion and a collective energy. The moment when each guest's plate is full and the only sounds are of utensils scraping. Or the peak of the party when the music is going, glasses are clinking and everyone is talking just a little too loudly, but the air itself seems to be smiling. Or when old friends are trading stories with someone who was a stranger just an hour earlier, but now feels like a familiar pal. I adore those moments. Thinking about them now is like flipping through the happiest photo album ever.

In retrospect, I see now that the way I always answered that question asked by my friends, my guests, my family, was a crock of shit, to be blunt. I used to tell people that I loved cooking so much, I didn't want to ruin it by doing it for a living. Or that I enjoyed my leisure time too much, I didn't want to work nights and weekends. And so after the high of a great party with great company, I would come back down to earth, and try to figure out how to find a job I actually enjoyed. I probably would have been better off just slamming my head in an oven door several hundred times. People were literally telling me on a weekly basis to pursue what I clearly had a knack and a passion for and I was dismissing it because it didn't really fit with my idea of what our life should be.

Fast forward to the present. I would like to thank every single person who told me I should pursue a career in food and cumulatively chipped away at the hard shell surrounding the area of my brain that houses common sense. I like to imagine that Mike actually drove in the spike that cracked it open when he asked me "If you could go back to school, what would you study?" and I answered (without pause) "Culinary school, but I don't want to work chefs hours". No sooner had the words left my mouth I realized I could no longer dismiss a (much desired) career because it didn't jive with my 5 year plan. Which, if I am being honest, pretty much consisted of us buying a house, maybe, and getting season tickets to the Chargers games, definitely. I know, rock solid, but that kind of change is a leap and maybe I needed the time and several more dinner parties to be ready to make it. I couldn't be happier that I did, with a heaping dose of help from Mike, of course and several nudges, pushes and reassuring talks from friends and family. The point is that I love food in the way that if given the choice between being locked in the same room for the rest of my life with an ever changing menu of well prepared meals or being able to wander the earth freely eating only rice, I would walk willingly into that room.

I love what can be created with food and what food can create between people. I have warm fuzzy childhood memories associated with my mom's oven fried chicken, my dad's Bolognese sauce and my Grandma J's icebox cookies. Food has been there at every turn in my life: weddings, funerals, family meals, ice cream socials, picnics, barbecues, and special dinners celebrated in fancy restaurants. But before I dig too deep into this food as life as emotion metaphor, I will cut to the chase. Being in culinary school and learning to cook really well has not "ruined it" for me. It has inspired and excited me and most importantly reminded me everyday of the things that I cherish most in life: my family, my friends and always having good food to share with them. So I am going to go help myself to another bowl of wild mushroom orrechiette that I made lovingly for myself, since Mike is out for the evening, and I will savor every bite.