The Garde Manger Brigade

Garde Manger is nearly half over, and I now feel like I can refer to my classmates collectively as a brigade rather than individually as classmates.  My chef works us, and he works us hard.  He's not afraid to yell at us which is a change from previous classes.  Production is I-N-T-E-N-S-E.  I fall asleep at night with, "Come on people!  Let's move!" ringing in my ears.  We work furiously for 7 hours (that's 6:10 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.) to put together pates, terrines, smoked meats, canapes, salads, sauces, and aspic-covered trays.  And my group (if you can even call it that) consists of me and one other person.  That's right.  2 people. Most groups have 3 so we have been at a disadvantage since the first day of production.  My class is encouraged to work collectively as a unit rather than as individuals which is unique.  We are constantly asking others for a an extra hand or for instruction on how to do something.

Our assignments for the class are focused on clusters or recipes rather than individual recipe assignments that we've received in previous classes.  For 2 days, each group works on one platter.  Day one: cook the proteins.  Day two: sauce, salad, garnish and platter decoration.  My group's first assignment was the turkey platter: smoked breast of turkey, stuffed breast of turkey, sun-dried tomato, turkey pate, strawberry waldorf salad, stuffed cherry tomatoes, and a pear and cranberry chutney.  Keep in mind that all of this is served cold, even the smoked turkey and stuffed turkey.  Oh, and they're brushed with aspic, the savory jelly that I mentioned in a previous post.  If I were to eat from a buffet, the aspic-covered items still would not be my first choice, but I have developed more of an appreciation for them through this class.  I won't lie though.  Even while eating from my class' buffet today I still scraped the aspic off of the slices of pate before I tasted them.

Culinary Escapades on the Cape

If you had asked me a year ago what I thought my first year of culinary school would be like, I never would have said, "It'll be full of opportunities to meet and work with celebrity chefs."  Let's recap the last 5 months: prep work with Chef Marcus Samuelsson, assisting Chef Ben Ford at Mohegan Sun Winefest, meeting Robert Irvine, seeing Bobby Flay, and the newest: Top Chef winner Michael Voltaggio.  Yes, thanks to Johnson & Wales, I was able to volunteer at the Annual Great Chefs of America Dinner at the Chatham Bars Inn.  The event benefited the March of Dimes and featured a 6 course meal put on by distinguished chefs from varying ends of the country.  Oh yeah, and the resort sat on one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen. 

Most JWU students (including myself) worked the front of the house which I actually enjoyed.  Whereas most of my service experience has been in the classroom, it was nice to practice my wine pours, marking with silverware, napkin folds, etc. without being graded and penalized for every wrong move.  Most people don't realize the time that goes into just the basic dining room set up for an event like this.  We began work around 1:30 and worked until 6:15 setting up a mere 184 place settings.  And that was with a team of around 20 people.  We polished well over 1000 pieces of flatware, around 1200 wine glasses, and 200 water glasses.  We folded and refolded napkins, placed silverware, carefully measuring place settings, arranged wine glasses, and tweaked flower arrangements.  The result?  For a bunch of culmsy, inexperienced students, I was quite impressed with what the staff of the resort was able to get out of us.

Once the event began, I had my first real experience working front of the house for a major event.  We were exposed to the chaos of running in and out of the kitchen, the friendly requests of the amicable guests and the demands of those who were not-so-polite.  Each JWU student was paired with one staff member to take care of 20 guests (2 tables of 10) each of whom had 6 wine glasses, 1 water glass, and multiple sets of silverware which had to be cleared and reset.  And did I mention the 6 courses?  Granted it was a set menu, but that was still a lot of running back and forth to the kitchen since the entire menu was hand-served (as opposed to trays.)  And seeing as we had access to the kitchen, we also had access to the leftovers.  For pictures, check out my newest photo album, "Adventures on the Cape".  All of the food is there as well as additional photos.  Skate wing, nettles, truffles, cheddar grit cakes, squab lollipops, and pineapple carpaccio.  Yes, yes yes!  Now that's a way to spend a weekend.

Oh and I mentioned Michael Voltaggio.  Sadly, he had a bit of an ego but was gracious enough to take pictures with almost all of us, so I'm not complaining. 

I scream! You scream! We all scream for...aspic??

After 9 days of pastry bliss, I completed my Advanced Patisserie and Plated Desserts Class. Yesterday was the day of my final written exam and my practical. Though most of our classwork had been done in groups, our practical grades were based on individual organization, sanitation and our final plated product. My group was assigned chocolate mousse as our practical dish, and we were able to make the mousse as a group. Any additional garnishes, cookies, sugar work or chocolate piping had to be done individually. And the plating was entirely individual. Each of us had to assemble 3 plates of our plating design.

I put a fair amount of thought into my plate over the weekend, and although it didn't turn out the way I had pictured it, given the time we had to put it together I was happy with it. I wish I had more pictures to show my work along the way, but it was practical day so my priority wasn't exactly photography. What you see in the picture below, is a chocolate bowl with a white chocolate drizzle, a twisted tuile cookie (I made that name up) and an almond lace cone with whipped cream. The design on the plate is piped in chocolate and filled with a strawberry coulis.

There are more pictures of some of my classmates' desserts in my "Moving on Up: Sophomore Labs" album which I have linked in the right margin.

As I mentioned above, today I began Garde Manger, a course which focuses on salads, cold appetizers, pate, and any other cold buffet or cold food products. Most of these food items must be covered with aspic before plating. If you're not familiar with aspic, it's a "savory jelly used for garde-manger applications and is produced primarily from meat, fish, or vegetables." Sound a little unappetizing? It does to me too. Garde-Manger used to be for preserving food, and now it is the art of presenting food. However, it's going to take a lot of very artful presentation to make savory jelly covered pate sound, look or taste appetizing to me. I really am trying to be excited but it's hard to look forward to pate when I've been snacking on fruit tarts and chocolate covered tuille cookies for the last 2 weeks. Hopefully my mind will be changed during the next couple of days when we start production.