School’s over! A look back at how a glutenfreegal made it through culinary school.

School ended last Friday (the 16th). We finished with a lovely graduation ceremony, a cold buffet prepared by us and a grad party to send us all on our way with memories of the term. And among all of this, the one paralyzing question that we have all been asked: “so what’s your plan now?” School ended last Friday. And I was sick of this question by Friday evening.

Culinary school is different than going to university for a four year degree. When you go through that process you know what direction you’re going in. You know that you want to be a teacher, or a journalist or a doctor and so on. In culinary school we know that we want to work with food. But what a lot of us don’t know is how. There are so many different areas we can all go into, and this is what is slightly terrifying. What if we don’t choose the right area? What if we do get a job but don’t feel we are good enough for it? This is why I am sick of the question, “so what’s your plan now?” To be honest, I don’t have a plan. And while it is scary to not have a plan, at the same time, it’s nice to know that I have options and for now I can just take a break and breathe, as I haven’t really been able to do so for the past three and a half months!

So now, a look back. I had been talking about going to culinary school for about two years, but something always got in the way. Whether it be work, other school or personal stuff, something always made me push it back. So when I finally applied, was accepted, registered and attended my first day, I was psyched. So psyched in fact, that on my first day my stomach was in knots, my adrenaline was pumping and to top it all off, I had a cold and was doped up on cold medicine. My first day was a blur of protocol, toolboxes, new people and nerves. Sitting at our tables listening to our chefs, I almost felt as though I was having an anxiety attack. “I’m finally here, I’m actually here, I’m doing this, don’t screw it up!” These thoughts kept repeating themselves in my mind for the first two days.

After this I finally settled down and got into the swing of things. The days flew past, then the weeks and months. At the end of every week it was, “all right, two down, 13 to go, five down, ten to go and so on.” Before we knew it, it was “14 down, one to go.” People kept telling me that school would fly by, and I figured, yes it would go by fast, but I never imagined exactly how fast! Now that I’m done I almost can’t believe that it’s all over.

Culinary school was an amazing experience, and definitely one of the most exciting periods of my life. I am almost sad to be finished, because I did have so much fun, but at the same time, I am very happy to move on to the next step. And what is that next step?? Only time will tell.

Finals!

Just a quick post before I head off to day three, and the final day, of our finals. Yes, I said finals. Already. My culinary school semester is about to come to an end, but before it does, we perform a three day lunch and dinner service for our friends, family and industry chefs.
Our finals basically start with our black box. From there we are paired with another student and we have two days in class to try and perfect some of our dishes, and then put together a menu, pictures, critiques, recipes and a food costing sheet on our meals. I was paired with Parker, as I had trout and she had cornish game hen. We re-vamped my trout and turned it into an appetizer portion. We also had to come up with a dessert and some canape’s.
From here we are then teamed up with another group, and some groups are split to make groups of five. Now we put all of our dishes together, chose the best vegetarian appetizer, dessert and canape’s. These dishes will be our menus for the three days of service.
We were at school on Sunday (yes, Sunday) prepping for the week, and service started right at noon on Monday. Each day there are three of us at the stove, one person serving and one person banqueting (preparing staff meals and prepping for the next day).
Monday and Tuesday’s services went well for our group. A couple hiccups here and there, but generally well. We’ve found that the most stressful part is actually the prep and gearing up for the service. Both day’s we’ve been really worried before service, but have really pulled through.
Hopefully today goes as well as the last two days. I am serving tonight, so unfortunately I won’t be part of the action on the stove. I do wish I was cooking, because there really is a sense of accomplishment when you’ve finished a service and you know it’s gone generally well, but it will be nice to have a little break from the stress!

Gluten Free Vegetarian Cabbage Rolls

My appetizer for the black box turned out pretty well, so I thought I would post the recipe in case anyone is interested!

Ingredients:

Filling:

1/2 Cup grain (I used puy lentils), reserve cooking liquid
1/4 onion, chopped fine
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1/2 carrot, small-med dice
1/2 medium beet, small-med dice
1/4 Cup cabbage, julienned
1/4 Cup white wine, to deglaze
1/4 Cup tomato paste
Fresh herbs, oregano, thyme, rosemary
Salt and pepper
Canola oil

Savoy cabbage leaves, for wrapping

Sauce:

1/2 shallot, finely diced
1/4 Cup white wine
1/4 Cup tomato paste
Reserved grain liquid
Fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
Lemon juice (optional, to taste)

Cook lentils pasta style and reserve cooking liquid. Meanwhile, par-cook vegi’s and mix with cooked, strained lentils.
Saute onions in approx 1 Tbsp of canola oil. Add garlic and deglaze with white wine, then add tomato paste.
Add to lentils and stir to combine. Add chopped fresh herbs, and salt and pepper to taste.
Meanwhile, soften cabbage in simmering water for approx 2-3 minutes. Wrap filling in cabbage and place in oven. Cook until warmed through.
Prepare sauce while rolls are in the oven.
Make a gastride with shallots and white wine, salt and peppercorns, reduce by half and strain. Mix reduced gastride with tomato paste and approx 1/4 cup of cooking liquid (you may add more or less depending on the sauce consistency). Reduce until desired consistency. Add chopped thyme, salt and pepper and lemon juice (if desired).
Plate with sauce on plate, roll on top, and garnish with deep fried beet threads. (You can put sauce on top of the roll as well, if desired)

One of the chefs was taking photos of the dishes, so if I can track down a photo of my cabbage roll I will post it. There was no time to take photos of our own dishes on black box day!

UPDATE-

Thanks to the office manager at school I have a photo of my cabbage roll!

The plate is rimmed with sour cream and beet powder.

Black Box Terror

As we’ve known since the beginning of the course, part of our grade comes from a black box challenge. This challenge is where we are given one of four proteins (trout, salmon, cornish game hen or quail), one of four vegetables (squash, beets, chard or savoy cabbage) and one of four grains (puy lentils, chickpeas, quinoa or bulgar) and have two and a half hours to create two dishes from them; one vegetarian appetizer and one main dish. And keep in mind, they need to be fine dining dishes.
There are other requirements of course; knife cuts, garnishes, certain sauces, the main needed a starch other than rice and so on. We were given the requirements about two weeks before the challenge (it was this past Thursday), and with every requirement there were a ton of questions. Can we use our vegetable in both dishes, can we use wild rice, do we have to make a fish stock if we get trout, do we have to go through making an espagnole if we get a bird, and many more. For about the first week it seemed we all asked each other these questions, but no one actually asked the chefs. So on the Wednesday I guess they were starting to get a bunch of questions, so they sat us down and let us bombard them with our queries. We finally got it sorted out, so off I went, home to finalize my dishes.
We had to basically come up with an appetizer and four different mains that would work for any of the proteins, grains and vegetables. I had figured out my appetizer relatively easily; since one of the vegi’s was savoy cabbage I figured I would do a vegetarian cabbage roll. And I also figured that if I was given chard I could use that instead of cabbage but keep the rest of the dish the same.
I planned for a filling of whichever grain I got (although I was hoping I didn’t get chickpeas), with some diced beets, carrots, onion, garlic, julienned cabbage, tomato paste, white wine, and fresh oregano, rosemary and thyme, and of course, salt and pepper.
The morning of the assignment I hadn’t finished my game plans yet (lists of tasks and times to have everything done by to keep us guided throughout) and I knew that if I stayed at home I wasn’t going to focus enough to get them done. So even though I wasn’t scheduled to be at school until 1pm, I left home at 10am and figured I would set up shop at the Starbucks and get everything sorted.
I hung out there for awhile, figuring things out, and in the meantime, freaking myself out until one of my classmates, Ashley, wandered in and we succeeded in freaking each other out! We noticed Rene walking past (she had been in the first group at 8:30am), and Ashley quickly ran out to grab her so that we could pick her brain and find out how it all went. Rene had been worried that she would get the hen or quail for her dish, and since she can’t eat poultry, if she had to make a stock with the bones from either she wouldn’t be able to taste it. Luckily she got a trout. She told us it was stressful, but what made it worse was that one of the chefs was wandering around the whole time and inspecting her game plan.
This was not what Ashley and I wanted to hear. It’s so nerve racking when the chefs are peering onto your stove on a regular day, let alone the black box!
So we wandered over to school, ready to attack the challenge. I was really hoping I wouldn’t get bulgar because then I wouldn’t be able to taste my dish and check for seasoning. Turns out I was given puy lentils (perfect! Great for the cabbage roll!). squash (ok, I can work with that) and trout (ugh! I had trout for my midterm and I had figured I wouldn’t get it again, so my plan for the trout was not very good!).
Off we went! Things went well, I put my grains on to start, gathered my ingredients and went off on my knife cuts. I was using diced carrot for both of my dishes, so I cut up quite a bit with my other vegetables, par-cooked them, and then forgot I was planning on using some for my main, and included them all in my appetizer! My other problem during all of this was that I had put my squash in the oven to roast so that I could make a squash puree, and the squash just took forever! I have no idea what was going on, but the stupid thing just didn’t want to soften!
I got my appetizer out quicker then planned and moved onto the trout. My plan was relatively simple; a warm quinoa salad with shallots, garlic, carrot, lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper with a cripsy fish skin garnish, turned squash with dill, pan fried trout with salt, pepper and dill, with a beurre blanc sauce and resting on squash puree.
Well, after my squash didn’t want to soften, I barely had enough puree for one little quenelle under the trout, and once I plated everything I realized that my plate was pretty boring! There really wasn’t much colour, and as I brought it to the pass I actually thought to myself, “this looks like a diet plate!” White fish, white sauce, white and orange grain salad and orange vegi’s. It was all white and orange with tiny bits of dill. Boring!
But, what could I do? I was just thrilled that I had finished on time and that it was over!
The black box challenge is exhausting and terrifying! The assignment is actually only worth 5% of our grade, but I was more nervous about it than I was my midterm. I think it’s because a lot of it is unknown and for the midterm we knew that whichever protein we got, we were basically told exactly what to do with it. But with the black box, not only is it preparing and serving a dish, but everything on that plate is something you came up with. If your idea is awful, the plate is going to be awful, and it can really shatter your confidence. And it was exhausting! We are cooking for two and a half hours, and afterwards I felt as though I had run a marathon! I was just ready for bed.
I bailed on going for drinks, and headed home, where I had plans to go for Indian food with Joel, and my sister and her husband. But that’s another post, although, in case any of you are looking for fabulous gluten free Indian food in the lower mainland, head to Saffron Indian Cuisine on Kingsway in Burnaby. Amazing food!

UPDATE-

Again, thank you to the office manager at school who forwarded me a photo of my trout dish.

Rene’s Blog!

I’ve just discovered that my classmate, Rene, also blogs about school as well as other things. Rene is very well travelled, and a lot of the items we make in class she has actually had in the places these dishes originated. Her blog is great, and she posts almost daily, and with great pictures. Check her out at http://3-beekmanplace.blogspot.com/