Decisions

I've never been good at making decisions. I waffle A LOT. I've even been known to walk around a store for an hour holding an item I'm interesting in buying only to ditch it right before I reach the register. I can't commit if it doesn't feel right— not even to a garment.

So when posed with the question of whether to stay in New York City or move home, I'm pressed with a lot of emotional conflict. On one hand I feel as though this city has opened my mind to all that is possible, and on the other hand it has shown me that living here can feel pretty damn IMpossible. I've been making this life work and I'm having a great time, but I am homesick for my family and I can't imagine myself turning into a real New Yorker.

Every detail to this life has me losing sleep. Where will I live? Who will I live with? Where will I work? Will I make my ends meet? Will I ever get ahead? Will my degrees come in use? Will I ever be able to see my family? Can I really image another bitter-cold winter? Is my coat going to fall apart (because I'm pretty sure I can't afford another one right now...)? How long will I be sleeping on a futon? Should I sell my car back home? Will I ever have my own room with walls? Will my friends come visit me? Do my parents really support my starving artist dreams? ...Am I even good enough to be here?

Self doubt is my diagnosis. It sounds silly... I mean, heck, I've made it this far. What's there to really doubt, right? Doubt just consumes me lately. I have I've always considered myself to be pretty level-headed and practical, but I've also been known to act on impulse and live in the moment. I want to live on the edge and go with the current, but I can't stand not knowing what's ahead. I always have to have a plan, but I love the idea of not having a plan, and I trust in fate, but I also think it's complete bullshit.

So what should I do?

I'm reminded time and time again to simply listen. I know there's a voice within speaking to me, even if it's a murmur. Lately I feel as though the voice has urged me to stay and gain as much New York City experience as possible. My conscious tells me this is the right direction, but my heart is telling me I'll be happier when I'm closer to my family and my body is telling me to stop kicking it's ass in this tough environment. It wants a regular schedule, a normal diet, and an exercise routine. But then again, that's not exactly the kind of lifestyle I picked with this whole cooking gig. Maybe with the editorial direction, but certainly not with cooking, atleast while I'm working and in school.

But ya know, what do I have to lose? As long as I'm moving forward towards the goal of personal betterment, that should be good enough, right? As long as I'm pursuing my passion for food and my goal of eventually being able to entertain, nurture, and hopefully inspire others with my food in my own establishment one day, that's something.

Well, here's hoping it's something.

Level 4, Round 1: Buffet

After successfully passing my midterm evaluation, which was perhaps the most nerve-racking evening of class so far, I've transitioned into level 4 where my class has been divided into three groups. There are three stations (family meal, production, and buffet) within level 4 and each of them focuses on catering to the masses. 

In the family meal station we cook dinner for the entire building. It's not a meal crafted with scraps from the restaurant either. Most kitchens serve the staff a meal using the food that's nearing the end of its shelf life and with the ingredients that are cheap for the restaurant (pasta, rice, chicken, etc.). Family meals at FCI are like Thanksgiving meals, not prison grub. There's always a protein, and usually multiple choices— chicken, turkey, beef, pork, fish... everything. There's a variety of side dishes, a salad with an assortment of dressings and toppings, and usually dessert leftovers from the pastry department. 

In production (where I am right now) we prepare for the proteins for the L'Ecole (the restaurant) and make stocks for the entire building. We spend hours filleting fish (bass, tile, flounder, fluke), butchering and trimming lamb and pork chops, deboning poussins (spring chickens slaughtered at 28 days, fyi), breaking down ducks, rendering duck fat, and browning large pans of veal bones and vegetables. It's almost therapeutic doing the same thing for a couple hours. You enter a zone of concentration, attempting to dislodge each undesired chime bone, prick every translucent fish bone, and dislocate the delicate poussin joints. You want to do it right too because otherwise the chefs from the restaurant will hound you down to show you mistakes. You also want to work effeciently and with caution. I've already managed to slice my left index finger knuckle while I was filleting a tile fish. The cut bleed for nearly three days. Not fun.

In buffet, the pace is a little different. We spend two weeks planning, creating, and preparing a buffet for all the chef instructors and students in levels 4-6, which was my group's first task. You test recipes and concepts that sound intriguing and spend two weeks gradually preparing for buffet day. My group wanted to create an Asian-inspired buffet. We all submitted recipes we thought looked interesting and collaborated. We also studied charcuterie and executed curing brining techniques. We stuffed some sausages, made terrines, and whipped up some liver mousse.

A couple of us were interested in making head cheese, which involves brining the head of a pig and using the head tissues to make a terrine. I took some other pictures of this process, but I'll spare you the details. Culinary geeks think it's neat, but I know the majority of people don't really care to see the inside of a pig head. After brining the head, poaching it, and removing everything from the skull, we set the meat and fat in a consommé. We sliced and deep fried the terrine for service and served  it with a garlic chili sauce. Was it good? I mean, I wouldn't eat a lot of it, but it had some good flavor, and it's a practice that ensures the whole animal is in fact being used. 

In this photo John is blending chicken liver mousse. 

In this photo you can see the meat grinder in the background. David and James are preparing a meat mixture to stuff into sausages. We spent two weeks in this small kitchen.

Andrew is grinding meat to make into sausage.

My friend Maura took photos of our buffet on the big day. I was cooking and running food from the kitchen to the buffet tables. In this photo you can see a watermelon salad that we made some vacuum sealing watermelon. We also have some skewered octopus, and the chicken mousse.

Watermelon salad with pine nuts, basil, and oranges. In the very back you can see the terrines we made from duck and pork.

Mango and rice punch popsicles & macadamia cookies with coconut panna cotta

Chef Ryan putting the finishing touches on our black cod. 

Our buffet was a success. It was a stressful night, but it was definitely neat planning and executing all the dishes we made. I wish I had more photos, but there's not a lot of time to snap pictures when you're cooking. I sneak them when I can.

Bon Voyage Level 3!

After tonight I will have completed level 3, appropriately titled: "Discipline: Skills For Consistency And Refinement."

Though I haven't written much about this level, I will say that it has helped me produce more consistent and refined food. Whether my dishes are consistent and refined this evening during the midterm evaluation is another story, but I'm starting exam day with some confidence. I've written task lists for the possible recipes that I'll have to duplicate and I've practiced each of these dishes several times over the past two months.

Basically what will happen is this: My class will arrive to the kitchen this evening and we'll take a short written exam before we learn what two dishes we'll have to make for a panel of judges out of the 16 recipes we've been practicing. Lucky for us, our chef narrowed the selection to eight recipes. It may be rumor on the street, but most classes have to memorize all 16 recipes and be ready to prepare any of them. Needless to say, we're all pretty grateful.

The possible combinations I'll be making this evening:

Filet de Orata Américaine & Pots de Créme
orata filet in a white wine sauce with mussels and shrimp & vanilla custard with a cookie straw


Aile de raie á la Grenobloise & Tarte aux pommes
sautéed skate wing with brown butter, capers, lemon and croutons & apple tart


Ofeufs poché sur macédoine de légumes, Sauce Hollandaise & Poulet rôti, grand-mére
poached egg on a bed of diced vegetables with hollandaise sauce & roast chicken, grandmother-style


Consommé Prinatiere & Cotê de porc, sauce au poivre vert
beef consommé & sautéed center-cut pork chop with green peppercorn sauce


Our chef will pick two of these combinations and half the class with produce one set and the other half of the class will produce the second set. We'll make four plates of each dish so the judges can see just how consistent and refined we cook/plate. I'm comfortable with all of the recipes, but I'm hoping that we make the skate dish with the apple tart and the consommé with the pork chop.

Once we know what recipes we'll be making, we're given two and half hours to present the first dish and about 40 minutes to finish the second dish. This seems like a lot of time, but it's a chunk of time that really goes by quickly when you're busy at work. You can't simply focus on one recipe because the recipe that's due after the first one requires prep time, and in some cases it's a lot of prep time. There's butchering to be done, stocks to be reinforced, vegetables to be cut, and a lot of actual cooking time to factor into the equation.

We've been practicing for this test for awhile now. We've had mock midterms, producing two dishes each for chef's approval. This has usually gone well, but tonight will be the first time proctors will be in the kitchen observing how we cook. They'll examine everything from our uniforms to the edges of our knives. They'll watch to make sure we're working in a logical sequence, and if we're working cleanly. Each misstep is a point off, and each misstep could potentially harm the overall dish, which would mean an additional loss of points when the dish is being judged by a panel of alumni. The timing, the temperature of the serving vessel, the temperature of the food, the presentation of the dish, the consistency and flavor of the overall product — It will all be judged.

"Once you have mastered a technique you hardly need look at a recipe again, and can take off on your own." I hope you're right, Julia Child. I hope you're right.

I have a big project due in a couple of months and chefs have advised that students start early, so I've been thinking a lot about my project concept. The assignment is to plan and budget a four course meal for eight people. The menu needs to have a focus and it needs to reflect what we've learned about planning menus so far. I don't have to actually cook for eight people, but I will need to make each dish and take a picture. It's not a requirement to write my own recipes, but I'm interested in testing my recipe writing abilities.

The honey selection at Kalustyan's, 123 Lexington Avenue

Every since I visited the Union Square Greenmarket for the first time late in the summer I've been intrigued by the variety of honey available in the city. My intrigue grew when I visited Kalustyan's speciality fine foods market several weeks ago.  I've never seen so many brands and flavors of honey! They even had truffle honey! At $17 a pop, I didn't buy it, but I wanted to... that's for sure. An idea that I've kind of settled on for this project is using a different honey for each course, showcasing a different technique for each segment of the meal. To narrow my focus even more, I'd like to research and develop a Mediterranean menu with seasonal ingredients, which only seems appropriate since I work at a Mediterranean restaurant and I'm already exposed to some of the flavor profiles.

Fresh branzino

Tonight I borrowed an idea from the restaurant and purchased a whole branzino (a Mediterranean sea bass) and roasted it with lemon, thyme, and olive oil. I went to Whole Foods, picked out my fish, and cleaned it at home. I wanted to incorporate the raw clover honey I also bought, so I decided to serve a salad with honey-candied pine nuts, Kalamata olives, red onion, and feta cheese. I made a honey balsamic vinaigrette to dress the salad and roasted some potatoes with garlic, thyme, and olive oil for a side dish.

 

I'm going to continue to experiment with honey and write about my research. Hopefully my project will be pretty well documented by the time it's due. If anyone has suggestions or recipes they'd like me to try, please email me your ideas at laurenbhendrick@gmail.com.