Hi Everyone!
Last night was night three (of a million) and the end of the week's culinary school adventures. It began as promised, with a visit from the internship director. Internships are VERY important, and one cannot get certified without working 210 hours, at a minimum of 12 hours a week and a maximum of 35. The actual process of securing an internship is daunting. We need to "stodge" (test out random restaurants for a day and see if we like it) and "trail" (trail). After a lengthy rant about internships, the director asked us each to introduce ourselves and give a quick one or two liner about ourselves. I only mention this because Chef never had us do this, and what we were really doing was introducing ourselves to one another (thankfully Chef was out of the room, so he still doesn't really know who we are). Names, current jobs, where we see ourselves in the industry, favorite dessert, that sort of thing. When it was my turn, I decided to drop the "K" bomb and let my classmates know that I kept Kosher, wasn't going to be able to eat most of what we produced, and basically handicapped myself. I was going for pity, and if the whole "you are going to miss your own wedding" thing didn't do it, surely this would. In my rather homogeneous class, I have business managers, psychologists, physical therapists, advertising people and failed fashion designers to name a few. The majority of us have full times jobs, so I will stop complaining about how hard it is to juggle (they didn't pity me for that, so why should you all?). Basically, we are all unfulfilled at our jobs and really really really love baking.
Once the hour and a half internship portion concluded something REALLY exciting happened- Chef came in and took out a pot. We were going to make caramel! Now, there are two types of caramel- one "wet" and one "dry". Wet caramel is usually thicker and used to make angel hair-those really thin strands if caramel you see on Croquembouche (Google image it) and thinner sauces. Dry caramel, which we all made once Chef concluded his demo, is thicker. Now, as Chef was doing his demo, I was supposed to be filling the large sinks so that we could wash dishes. Needless to say, I made a fool out of myself by not understanding how to close the valve to the drain (otherwise the sink couldn't fill).
Chef was busy doing the demo, and I was behind him at the sink, frantically trying to close the drain. Finally, after five minutes and a still empty sink, I cough and say "Chef? I can’t close the sink drain." No worries! Chef closed it in seconds (note to self, there is a lever-type-thing you need to flip to the right) and continues with the caramel. After this snafu, I know I need to redeem myself, which I did my being a know-it-all and explaining to the class and Chef why one needed a bowl of ice water at your side while making caramel- not in case of burns but in order to test the stages of the melted sugar- string, soft ball, hard ball, cracked. As Chef demonstrated, one dips his/her hand from the ice bath into the pot of boiling sugar, grabs a bit out of the pot and submerges it into the water bath, squeezing the sugar between the thumb and pointer finger and testing its consistency. The longer the caramel is on the stove, the harder the ball until one can’t make a ball anymore and the sugar simply cracks upon reaching the cold water.
We each made the caramel in teams. My teammate was one of the two ex-fashion designers. Then the really fun part began, and we were instructed to take a spoon, dip it into the hot caramel and make shapes and designs with the trailing threads of caramel. This is harder than it sounds, as the consistency of the caramel must be exact and you need to be very quick while working with it. Chef made fancy little delicate things, and I made clunky, rudimentary hearts and stars. I even did my name (though to be honest, the "h" was really more a blob than anything else). Fun though!
After clean up, Chef showed us how to make Cornets (imagine small piping bags made of parchment paper). It was origami for pastry chefs. They will be used (next week) to practice piping chocolate. Excited? Me too.
-Sarah, the Plumbing Queen
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