Good Morning Everyone!
Last night kicked off with a video called "Sanitation...Not an Option." It was one of those awful, boring video cassettes made in the late 80s about the germs that spread in the kitchen because of bad personal hygiene, bad time and temperature practices with "danger" foods and infestations of vermin. Basically, it’s a miracle that any of us are alive. A very boring 45 minutes.
A woman from the offices came in and told us about a workshop coming us with one of the Ghirardelli founders! No joke, Ghirardelli chocolate! Something I KNOW is kosher! The class is Wednesday July 14th, from 1:30 to 3, smack in the middle of a work day. I will not be attending, though if there was ever a reason to play hooky, this would be it.
After the video and the workshop announcement, we moved straight into making fruit gels. There is a fancy French word for these, but it escapes me at the moment-it sounds a lot more appealing than fruit gels though. You know fruit gels- those gross things that are shaped like pieces of oranges served primarily on Pesach. Or upscale French restaurants. The theme of today's class was gelatin and pectin, hence the fruit gels. Luckily, my partner was back (she was sick yesterday) and so we began gellin. [My partner asked me about my "kosher only diet” and how annoying and sad it is. I told her she would have to sample our fruit gels and could have them all. She is ruing the fact that I am her partner for the fruit gels assignment, and not the chocolate bonbons.]
There isn’t so much to note about the process. You add loads (1000 grams) of sugar to fruit puree (we used apricot) and heat. Then add pectin, glucose (the STICKIEST thing in the world. picture melted lollipops) and citric acid. Boil. Pour into pans. I thought I would be a helpful partner and took my partner and my own tools to the sink and began washing. We had used my partner's candy thermometer. We can no longer use my partner’s candy thermometer as I submerged it in water for a number of minutes, breaking it. My own thermometer is now my partner's thermometer.
Moving on, the gels have to set up for HOURS, so we will be finishing them with sugar and cutting them tonight. You use pectin in these, not gelatin, to get a chewier, gummier product as opposed to a wigglier less dense product (Jello). There is also Xanthium (a gum) and agar agar (derived from seaweed I think) which are used for similar, though not identical purposes. Fun Fact: Chef said that basically all of the gelatins used in pastries are derived from fish, not beef bones.
We then had more piping with cornets practice. I discovered something about my cornets skills last night. I had been piping lefty. I don’t know why, and I don’t know why it took me two hours to figure it out, but I had been placing the cornet in my left hand and steadying it with my right. That isn’t even a rookie mistake, that's just weird and kind of dumb. But once I figured it out, Eureka! By simply switching hands, I improved tremendously. Thankfully, no one saw that I had been using my left hand (unless they did and had assumed that I was a lefty).
Another discovery of the night: I need to brush up on my study skills. Everyone on my class has been keeping up with reading our textbook. I only realized last night that we had reading assignments at all. I asked jovially in the locker room if anyone had actually began reading, and I got blank looks, lots of "of course" and people chiming "oh yes, I’ve been making index cards and have started memorizing them." Shoot. Where are all the slackers?
-Sarah, the not-so-ambidextrous Chef
No comments:
Post a Comment