Knowing Your Knife and Minding Your Manicure

Hi again,

Last night completed my second week of culinary school. Chef began the lesson by making a crème anglaise- the base of ice creams, a vanilla sauce made with cream, sugar and eggs. This wasn't part of the lesson plan but Chef saw a vanilla pod lying around so he wanted to show us how to use one-splitting it in half length wise and scraping the beans out, using the emptied pod to make vanilla sugar. Obviously, Ina Garten and taught me this long ago, but I humored Chef.
We then finished up our fruit gels (the French term is Pate de Fruit- now you can Google image it!), cutting them into squares and coating them with even more sugar. As we were doing this, a couple came in nosing around the kitchen. Apparently they had come from an expensive dinner and wanted some dessert. This is a good tip for anyone looking for some dessert and are on a budget- stop in at a culinary school and mooch of the students (kind of like getting a haircut at a beauty school- cheap, but does the job). Anyway, the couple stopped at our station and had a piece of my partner and my Pate de Fruit and LOVED it. Weird, because my partner didn't-she said she would give them all away and make her husband eat some. Chef could barely contain himself as he went around sampling all of ours. He is a Pate de Fruit fanatic (I think it reminds him of his childhood. He said French mothers give it to their babies because they are so soft and gummy. I think I'll stick to Flinstone vitamins).
Then we did MORE piping. Are you all tired of hearing about the cornets and chocolate? I'm getting kind of tired of doing it...but definitely improving. Chef calls them Chocolate Drills, and there will be plenty more- I think that writing happy birthday and piping are the lowly jobs many of us will start off with in kitchens, so we need to be really good at it. Don't fret, I wont bore you with more cornet details (unless I have some hilarious anecdote pertaining to them, I wouldn't deny you that).
It should be noted that my uniform is sufficiently dirty and chocolate covered to warrant a washing. Our uniforms must be completely clean or we are scolded- or worse, docked points from our grade. Mine was dirty yesterday, but a creatively placed apron and strategically rolled sleeve covered up the problem areas are quite nicely.
After the chocolate drill we moved onto cutting fruit. First Chef taught us how to hold a knife. Predictably, I had been doing this incorrectly. I got the correct hand (thank goodness) but the placement of fingers were off. The back three fingers (pinkie to middle finger) should be on the handle, The thumb should be on the base of the steel, as should the pointer-albeit on opposite sides of the blade. Also, when slicing, fingers need to be tucked under, exposing the knuckle but not the nail. I know this to be true, but I still question the wisdom. If I were to cut any part of my finger, I would rather it be the nail, not the knuckle, but who am I to argue with Chef? Once these skills were "mastered" (more like mimicked for the moment and forgotten once we actually started chopping) Chef disassembled a pineapple, sliced an apple paper thin and supremed oranges. Supreming is when you remove the segments of the orange without any of the pith (white outer stuff). Its pure orange wedges. This is time consuming but worth it, believe me.
Then we each peeled, cut a sliced our own apple, pear, orange, kiwi and mango trying (and mainly failing) to keep our new knife techniques in mind. I cut myself within seconds of beginning- the first in today's class! and helped myself yet again to the band aids. I can't say this enough, new Wuhstoff knives are very sharp. This whole exercise was so exciting because I was able to eat the fruit along with my classmates. As we were cutting, Chef came around with other fruits for us to sample (much like the first tasting I described, with the butters and milks) and note. Blackberries, passion fruit, papaya, melons...He also came around with dried, candied and canned fruit. Now, I still don’t think Chef knows my name (I’m fairly certain of this, for when he does role call and calls my name, he still needs to rely on my hand shooting up and me saying "here") BUT he does know me as the kosher one, so when he came around with the candied/canned fruit, he asked if it was okay. Improvement!
I finally brought my book home and will attempt to begin some serious reading this weekend, index cards included.

-Sarah, your Cutco Representative