Week One - Three

Week One

Where's the Salt?!? 

• The first week of class was a mental and physical test. Between standing for 2 hours and questioning the way you been boiling eggs your whole life, you get kinda of fuzzy. Plus - not to mention - you have to have the memory of a female elephant to remember what tool to use to flip salmon and what broom to use to scrub the floors. 

• Ahh! I remember it like it was yesterday...because it was. I was so excited to see all the goodies we could add to our food. But its hard to stay excited when you can't find what you want.

Scrub n' Giggles

• A key part in having a happy, functioning kitchen is keeping it clean and tidy. Now, cleaning and maintaining a college demo kitchen is not the same as cleanin' mama's house. You can't just do all that needs to be done when you hear mama chef comes around. There is a system. You're cleaning high and low

• But who says cleaning has to be boring

My OMG Moments of the Week:

1. I was really surprise of how strenuous the class was physically. I played sports - basketball and shot put - were my legs were key parts of being successful, so I didn't think much about just standing for two hours only. I will have to build strength to not be one of the legendary students who pass out. Leg Day here I come!
2. Being that this is what I want to aspire to do in the future, I knew coming into this class that cleaning and hygiene were gonna be big parts of the class. But brah......I didn't think it was this detailed. From the floors to the ceiling and everything in between has its own routine and protocol for making sure it was in tip top shape. But hey, it is nothing a little music can't fix. 

Week Two

"Always remember that a life was given for your meal today."  -Chef Mark

• From the pasture to our demo kitchen, today we learned what goes into preparing and eating beef. We learned the process in which calves and cows go through to be raised, butchered, and then grilled. 
  • Now I will spare you the gory and down right nausea details of how cattle is butchered, but just know that everyone from the cow to the butcher are doing there part in making sure you are eating a safe, clean meal. 
  

What a Hack!

• I have always been interested in how meat is chosen to be sliced. You can have rib-eye, chuck, ribs, and all sorts of different textures and toughness because of how you chop it up. And the best part is, you can eat everything! Everything... you cut off. Nothing is wasted.

Sssssssssss.....

• I volunteered this week and got to sauteed the beef loin. I was so excited I got to do it because I have been dying to cook again this class, but then the challenge began. I learned that not only does a grill have hot spot*, but a little plug in can too. I had to keep moving my product around to keep it from going up into a blacken inferno. But, your girl knows how to cook, and I made a mean loin!

*Hot Spot: A spot on your cooking surface that can burn your food in a hellish fire of death. Avoid at all cost. 

BONUS!!! I got to hear my favorite song of all time....

My OMG Moment of the Week:

1. I was shock to hear that you shouldn't season your meat before grilling or sauteing it, given that is how I have been doing it forever. Apparently, your seasoning aren't doing anything while your are cooking besides burning. I guess taste testing is going to be a bland experience for now on.
2. I was amazed to learn that you can use the muscles in your hand (the meaty part next to your thumb) to tell the rareness and wellness of your meat. 

 First Row: Left: Rare - Right: Medium Rare
 Second Row: Left: Medium - Middle: Medium Well - Right: Well

Week Three

R.I.P. Fernando the female Lobster

09/12/2016

You were delicious and loved

Smells of the Sea

• Today in class, we learned how to inspect and breakdown a fish, how to clean mussels, and humanely end a friend's life.
• For starts, that fishy smell you smell that be's smelly, is not a good sign. If a fish comes for a body of water, a fresh fish would and should smell like a body of water (or kiwi if you ask Chef). Plus, it should be fully intact. No missing fins or gills. If you want a healthy fishy to consume, make sure your fish looks like a fish.

And now it's time for a breakdown....

• Next, we had to clean are mussels. A couple students "volunteered" to trim our little clams of their soul patches - they are like little hairs attached to the outside of their shells. Cleaning these things takes awhile, but you'll be happy knowing that you won't be choking on some sea creature hair. 
  

• Lastly, we met a kind soul. A little deep red lobster I formerly named Fernando. She was full life, until her untimely end.
• But anyway, we learned that it is wrong to put live crustaceans into boiling pots of hot water. Apparently, they do not die instantly (as I thought). So, Chef  showed us how to quickly decapitate a lobster before cooking it.

*This is salmon. I will not be showing the last moments of Fernando on here.

If you would like to see it, I will have it in the Back of the House section of my blog.

Just Keep Swimming In Peace, Fernando.

Not everyone likes seafood

Here we have No Shellfish Shellby! She literally couldn't stand teh smell so much she quartined herself outside the room. Haha! This ain't a fish bowl cdemo kitchen for nothing.

Muslobmon Stew

• At the end of class, we put our our cleaned mussels and steamed lobster into a pot and infused it with beer, butter, orange zest + juice, and [insert correct herb here] tarragon. It was amazing to see how each part came together to make such a great meal. 

It sounds like popcorn (if you ask Chef)

What's This??

• Do you know all these fruits and vegetables? Me either. That was the lesson of our class today. We were to expand our pallet and knowledge of common fruits, vegetables, and herbs that could be used in any kitchen. (Rutabaga is the best word ever...........) But, not only did we visually try to figure out what foods were which, we got to taste some as well.

HA-243 Fear Factor : Tasting Edition
Sweet, Salty, Bitter, Sour & Umami

Can you guess which one they tasted?

*No one died in the making of this video

• The tongue is covered in millions of taste buds, buds that allow you to taste flavors that are sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami - which is a fancy way to yummae or delicious. 
• Sweet is a taste you can taste on the tip to the middle of your tongue, which is why we lick thing like ice cream and suckers
• Salty is detected around around the front tip of your tongue. It is why we also lick salty things like pretzels instead of sucking on it in the back of your mouth
• Bitter can be tasted in the back of the tongue. This is why you spit out poison or bad coffee, it is your last line of defense before you ingest something down right nasty
• Sour is tasted on the sides of your tongue, which is why you usually drool when you eat sour things. It's your body's way of fighting the sour
• Umami is covering your whole tongue, every section has an umami taste bud, which is understandable. If you didn't find it pleasant to eat, why would you eat it again. 

Wait....is that in season?

• Along with learning about different veggies, we also learned that most fruits and vegetables we consume year-a-round, aren't suppose to be here. But thanks to this lovely man manufactured gas, we can eat whatever fruits we want no matter what to season. 

My OMG Moment of the Week

1. I never knew how much inspection one had to do for fish. You checking gills, fins, tongues, guts, eyes, scales, it was thorough. Granted, I did know that if you want the freshest fish, it also had to be the healthiest one. In my opinion, I think seafood inspections are more complicated then cattle inspections.
2. I feel like I'm gonna be more hesitant about the foods I buy. I don't know much about "what seasons grow what food", but I will definitely start looking into that. I do know that it is almost fall and they are still selling cherries.....that's sketch.