unorganized chaos

I started this blog not only to share my experiences of culinary school, but also as a journal for myself.  I want to be able to look back on these early days of culinary school and (hopefully) see how far I've come.  This week's class is one that I won't forget.  It felt like one of those C.R.A.Z.Y. reality shows on your favorite food channel....this wasn't a Central Market cooking class.

We started class with lecture reviewing and expanding on the cooking methods we learned last week.  We also talked about scaling recipes and plating.  I went into class not feeling my best - seasonal allergies in Texas have begun.  But by the time lecture was wrapping up, I had forgotten I wasn't feeling well and was ready to get into the kitchen.

We split the class into three groups.  There were three people in my group.  We were tasked with preparing, plating and presenting five dishes to chef: whole roasted chicken with wild rice, country braised chicken with white rice, seared pork chop with Brennan's red wine and mushroom sauce, pan-fried tilapia with lemon butter sauce, and teriyaki tuna with pineapple-papaya salsa.  We had just under two and a half hours to complete this task.  Now, this may sound like plenty of time.  But believe me, we needed every second we had.  We had to present hot, edible food...so timing every recipe was of utmost importance.  The protein items were the only items that had already been set out for us.  All other ingredients had to be gathered, measured, washed & chopped, or prepped in some manner before we even began cooking (remember, mise en place).  All tools had to be located and brought to our table.  We were sharing the stove and ovens with other teams.  The difficulty of this task was not lost on me.  I knew this wasn't going to be a nice, relaxing evening cooking with friends.

There were more caveats to this task.  We were told to read and follow the recipes, except that all of the recipes serve about a million people and we needed to scale it to one or two servings.  We had to keep our table clean.  Of course, we had to work as a team, but that also meant we couldn't just divide the recipes amongst ourselves and report back later.  We had to be actively engaged in what our teammates were working on.  We had to taste each other's food.  We had to consult with each other on doneness and quality.  We had to work together on plating.  We had to present each recipe to Chef as a team - everyone present; which means one person couldn't be back in the kitchen monitoring the food that was cooking - another timing consideration.  Chef also wanted leader-type people to lead less and follower-type people to follow less.  He didn't want one person to take charge of the group.  That didn't sound hard.  So, we were all set.

We were strongly encouraged to sit down with our group, read the recipes and come up with a plan.  This was harder than it sounds.  This is something I do very well on my own when I'm cooking for a large group.  But our group was made up of three people who plan and organize differently.  And remember, one person couldn't take charge...dang, I didn't think that was going to be difficult.  And I'm NOT saying I felt the need to take charge of the whole evening...no way!  I'm just particularly good at making lists and I find them highly valuable.  I could tell my teammates were ready to get into the kitchen.  We hadn't really gotten anywhere on our plan...gulp, time to walk into the kitchen without a plan (yes, I'm freaking out inside).

One person got started on one of the recipes with a longer cooking time (lucky for us, he had prepared this same recipe at home over the weekend).  My other teammate and I pulled ingredients.   I knew the roasted chicken would also take awhile, so I moved quickly to get that in the oven.  My other teammate got started on the red wine and mushroom sauce.  The feeling of unorganized chaos had begun and it did not end until we had presented our final product.

For the most part, the evening is a slight blur.  The three of us worked very nicely together, but we were all stressed and felt pretty haggard when it was all said and done.  We also ran into some stumbling blocks along the way: a difference of opinion between one my teammates and Chef about the cooking time of the braised chicken (long story), another team changing the oven temperature where my chicken was roasting because they put theirs in later and needed a higher temperature in order for their chicken to be done cooking in time, Chef not liking that I warmed the pineapple-papaya salsa even though the recipe said to (believe me, I thought it would be better chilled or at room temperature, but I specifically remember Chef saying to follow the recipes.  I'm very type-a in this way - if you tell me to do something, I will.  And if you change your mind about it, it makes my slightly crazy...just sayin').  Overall, I believe we did well on our product execution.  We had every item to Chef before the deadline (deadlines are a thing for me, so this made me happy).  Chef had some nice things to say about our work and we were aware of the things that didn't get executed as well as they should have.

We were moving so quickly and with such stress that by the end of the night I was questioning how much I actually learned.  We were slightly involved in our teammates recipes, but not to a point of learning much about them.  We listened intently to Chef's feedback, but timers would often go off indicating that one of our other products was done cooking and now my mind is worrying about that product over-cooking and less about what Chef is saying about the product in front of us.  I know the kitchen is a stressful, fast-paced place and I know I have to get used to that, but were we really ready for this?  This was only our fourth class.

But after some time to reflect, I did learn a lot.  Maybe I didn't get as much hands-on experience with all of the cooking methods as I would have liked, but I learned a lot about myself, about working with other people in stressful situations, about being flexible and not being so type-a"ish".  I have no doubt that my attention to detail and instructions will serve me well in the kitchen, but sometimes things are not going to go as planned and I need to just go with it.  (I'm working on it.)

I survived the night of unorganized chaos and I'm proud of what my team accomplished.  I plan to recreate the recipes we prepared in class this week at home so that I do have a good understanding of what my entire team worked on.  And this time I can prepare them in a nice, relaxing kitchen...with a glass of vino.