Week 2, day 1

Happy monday everyone! I wish it was a happy monday, but all mondays are terrible. I got a ride to the school this morning from Scott, which was very nice, so we were there pretty early to hand in our SPEC assignments finally. Practical cookery was pretty good as we made some pretty awesome food, poached some eggs, made hollandaise sauce, (which is fantastic) and learned quite a bit. I'm feeling a lot more confident in the kitchen as the days go on, however I did not eat enough breakfast and nearly passed out in the beginning of class. Lesson learned, eat breakfast! Anyhow, after that, a friend and I went to the amazing burger place down the street where I had the bison burger, the special of the day. It was pretty amazing. Caramelized onions and the house mayo over the bison burger, pretty awesome. Food costing class came next, and I finally understand a bit of math. For once, I was the second one done the practical questions out of the whole class! by a long shot too! Anyhow, we then used the math and put it into an even more practical application, as we made cookies and hot chocolate..  in math class.
When we got home, Lydia and I cooked a cornish hen, and after trick or treaters showed up, we ran around trying to find candy... forgetting the oil on the stove was heating still... found candy canes,... gave them to a couple very disappointed looking kids, (I felt pretty bad, but there was no other candy) Got back to the kitchen to realize the oil was smoking, turned it off right away only to have the alarm start going off. The industrial fire alarm. Scott wasn't here, so we had no idea how to turn it off. After about 5 minutes or so, a very long 5 minutes, we found the codes, punched them in and things slowly went back to normal.  Re-started the oil, cooked the cornish hens, and they turned out unbelievably amazing. Perfectly moist, with a perfect sauce to go with them, all made from leftovers in the kitchen. Conveniently the recipe called for pretty much everything we had leftovers of. New stove came in, so we helped move it in, and the old one out, and then studied all the french terms. Well, not all of them yet, but it's a work in progress. Just finished studying the recipes for tomorrow evening. Pastry tomorrow morning, and a long day ahead of me. It's sleep time now, I'll post again tomorrow about the day, hopefully it will be a good day. It's going to be long, but I'll learn a lot.

Week 1, day 5

Hello everyone, and happy Friday! Just before I begin talking about my day, an issue has come up with comments. Unless you have a google account, you can't post comments on here, so in order to save you some trouble with this issue, I will be checking facebook every day for comments. As you may have noticed, I have been posting my blog on facebook each day after I finishing writing it. If you don't have facebook, or this doesn't work and you have questions or comments, feel free as well to message me at paul.r.arsenault@pcmessenger.ca  . However, please don't give this e-mail to a bunch of people that will send me spam, as this would be very inconvenient to myself as this is my school e-mail as well. Thank you again for the support, and for those that are reading, it really means a lot. And now on to today, the last day of boiling.

Today there was no practical cookery class, as I had the pastry class and a practical cookery class on Tuesday. I got to sleep in a little bit, which was nice for once, but then a long walk to Body Moves. It's about a thirty minute walk, and we left twenty eight minutes before class, thinking it was a bit shorter. Needless to say, we were quite tired after speed walking a good kilometre or two to get there just in time. Body moves is an interesting class, that you either hate, or you love. Basically, we began by doing drills in order to form correct posture in order to look very presentable while serving dishes. It was very similar to standing at attention, so this was no struggle for me, but then we got trays, and plates and such, and set up tables around the room. There was a lesson in there on how to walk correctly, and efficiently, and then walking with plates. how to hold multiple plates at once without dirtying the edges, how to remove plates from the table, how to place them on the table, how to set a table, and how to serve a guest and remove again and again until we could do it perfectly. It was a very interesting class, and I have learned a lot already after just the first day. We, as level 1 students, will be running tables in the near future, so this knowledge is very helpful. After this class, I was on dish duty for the level 2 students at Rundles Restaurant through the lunch service. Again, this could be a very unwanted position, however, I took what I could from it, as I watched the level 2 students perform one of their first lunch services. Lots of scallops, garnishes, salads, and some amazing looking pork that was cooked over the grill. It was interesting to see what I'll be learning next year, providing I make it through this year. Lots of motivation is arising in order that I will hopefully be the one next year that a new level 1 student is looking up to. After dishes were caught up and lunch was over, we still had 45 minutes until our next class. This allowed myself and the other dishwasher, a lady from Holland, to eat the leftover lunch. No scallops were left, however the salad on the plate was pretty tasty, I actually ate most of the green weeds. Amazingly fresh, and the dressing was subtle, and had a small amount of heat, much like a mild sauce. No idea what it actually was, and I didn't think to ask so I guess I'll have to wait and see if I get the opportunity to make it one of these days. Also for lunch, were dutch croquettes, which were FANTASTIC. I really enjoy dutch food, and for the lady from holland to have food from where she lives, for the first time in months made her very happy. A puff pastry with thyme ice cream was for desert, and it was pretty amazing as well. Last class of the day after lunch was Culinary Management. We learned all about the french hierarchy of cooking a full course dinner. From the soup, to the Remove, to Entree, Roast, First and second entremets, and finally the desert. We learned about the way it must be thought out from a menu standpoint, to what meats and fishes go together in what order, and the whole theory behind a french menu. We were then given an opportunity to see what we had retained about these ingredients, and where they fit on the menu. Match ABC... etc (the commodities, or meals, eg. Caviar frais, or Becassines Chasser Salade) with 123.. etc which are the courses of the meal. Only problem, as you may have noticed by the description above, is that the meal names are all, of course, in French. Anyone that knows me will be laughing histerically by now, especially Tricia I'm sure, as my basis of knowledge in the language of the french language is very mediocre, at an extreme best. I did however get 8 out of 14 correct, (this was just a quick quiz that is not marked, so I'm not failing yet!) however, there are now 175 french terms I must be studying in the next few weeks. 70 for next Wednesday.
After class, my housemates and I went to the grocery store and picked up a couple live lobsters for dinner. They turned out pretty well, so we may do them again in the future, but most excitingly, we will be making lobster stock relatively soon with the help of Jeff who has done it many times before. What we will use it for, I have no idea, but I'm sure it will be fantastic.
This has been my Friday. The weekend will be a homework filled one, so school isn't over for the weekend, it is just beginning! but I'm looking forward to finishing up my SPEC this evening, and then reading about the french menu, about food costing, and about bread. The information available is amazing, and I'm taking in everything I can as I won't have the opportunity again after school, well, the motivation won't be there at least. I may or may not post tomorrow, so if I don't, then you'll be able to read again on Monday for certain, and probably Sunday evening. Thank you again for those that are following and supporting me.

Nearly Forgot, JELLY FISH SANDWICH!!!!

Week 1, day 4

Great day today :) especially for a Thursday. It is getting quite chilly up here in the northern southwestern ontario.  Ok, maybe not that north, but it feels like it! it was only about 2 or 3 degrees this morning. I COULD SEE MY BREATH!! So anyhow, our practical cookery class this morning was interesting. We created various salads, using the boiling method we have been learning all week. For those that don't know me, I do not eat salad, so for me to cook one, (which I didn't know was possible) and have to season accordingly through the process of creating it, and then to have to taste them all at the end, just seemed to me like a bad experience waiting to happen. After the introduction to the days lesson, recipes were given out to our small groups of 2. Being a brave individual, if I say so myself, (or stupid, however you look at it) I chose the "Leeks vinaigrette with Anchovies and eggs". I hate anchovies, but I'm trying my hardest to be an awesome chef someday, to be entirely honest with you. So, the worst sounding dish, and you might ask now, how would you boil a salad? Well, the method doesn't involve boiling an entire dish, but just including boiling in the process. In order to create this dish, the leeks must be boiled until the are soft, and then they are placed in the vinaigrette that was also prepared by us. They then soak in the vinaigrette until they are ready to be served. Something else that was very new today, was one of my very favourite aspects of food. I am an artistic person in nature, through visual arts, and music, and through my thought process, so when I was told that we were allowed to present the dish and make it "look beautifully artistic, and sexy" it made my morning so much better. So I certainly did that, and got a few compliments after the class by fellow classmates, and even had a few of them take pictures of it in particular on their cell phones. Most of the dishes looked very good, and I give credit to everyone, it was just a very exciting opportunity that I look forward to doing in the near future, and improving on. The tasting wasn't as bad as I expected, however I have not turned into an herbivore, and I am still much more content eating a rare piece of AAA grade new york striploin, over a few vegetables with oil and stuff on them. ( I know it's an understatement of a salad and I'm willing to listen to you argue to me about  it, however I will not reply to such comments) I just don't prefer salad, as stated a minute ago.
Wine class followed practical cookery, and it seems to be a very interesting course. I am looking forward to it every week, as we will be tasting new wines. I will hopefully be able to appreciate wine a lot more in the weeks to follow, as opposed to drinking it as if it were an "overpriced grape juice beverage". Commodities class followed, which is a very interesting class as well. Commodities being the foods we are using in the kitchens every day, starting this week with pastas. The origins will be discussed, as well as history, uses, methods of cooking, and many other facts that can't be found without a motivation to research them. Tons of homework, and the passing grade allowing me to proceed to level two shall be the fuel for my motivation, as well as the interesting aspect that comes with wanting to learn about the craft, or art of cooking. To now step a few hours back, the fish that we filleted yesterday tasted like a cheap, semi-tasteless whitefish as I expected, however for only 3 dollars, what else could I expect. Pictures of the 'Jelly Fish Sandwich' (be aware that it's not a jellyfish sandwich, but a jelly.. fish  sandwich) subtle difference, but it 'just might save your life' haha,... ok, maybe you didn't find the video funny, but I certainly did. If you haven't watched it, THEN WATCH IT because these past few sentences won't make any sense if you don't.

... ok, I just screwed up a sentence, it's late, and I"m tired, however, back to the sentence I didn't complete.  Pictures of the jelly fish sandwich are included, just for humour, it was not a meal that was consumed by anything more than a garbage pail. The spec assignment, to get back to school, is nearly completed. Just 1 more hour of work should do it, and I will be well on my way to worrying about how my mark will be on it. I will then be able to begin next week's spec assignment on poaching. Body moves class is tomorrow, and it is a full day, so I will describe it after it happens on tomorrow's blog post. Sorry about the poor typing, poor sentences, and random placement and time frame in todays blog, I am very tired and have quite a bit on my mind at the moment regarding school, work, assignments, etc. so I apologize, however I hope you enjoy reading about my quite awesome day. Thank you

week 1, day 3

Hey, sorry it's going to be a short post today, as I have been doing homework since I've gotten done school, and then I showed my housemates how to fillet fish efficiently. Our practical was the best so far this week, I made a white fish soup,.. I'll write the real name of it later or if someone asks as it is very,  well, french in nature. I'm no good in french, in the pronunciation or the spelling by memory. Anyhow, a couple other theory classes followed, and then off to the house to practice the mushroom risotto dish that our spec is on. Forgot a couple ingredients from the grocery store, so it turned out ok, but not excellent. We did however learn a lot. At the grocery store, we also got a few small fish, and I showed my housemates how to fillet them. It seems they will be lunch tomorrow, providing we have enough time to fry them up quickly. It is now 11:15 however, and I need to be up at 6:45 again, so.. with a little mental math, that equals not enough time to sleep tonight. So off to bed I must go, after one quick story about this evening. We cut up our fish and began to fillet them when the house owner showed up. He hates fish, so to see them, not only being chopped up fillets, but with the head, and teeth, and even a little tongue in the mouth, but missing all their meat, turned him to the basement pretty quickly. If anyone has seen the video "jellyfish" on youtube by the people that made "hot kool aid" then you will understand this next part. A bit of background, my housemates and I watch these videos constantly, and joke about them every single day, so anyhow, in the process of cleaning the fish guts, we joked about the 'jelly fish sandwich' which is a sandwich where you 'take some jelly, take some fish, put them together...' and anyhow... we did just that. We brought it down to the house owner, and well...  I'll just say it is the highlight of the week here. Thought I'd share that with you, it was quite hilarious, and relieved a lot of stress that has been slowly building as the week has been progressing. Thank you for reading, hopefully I'll have more time to write on here tomorrow.

p.s. if you haven't looked up that video on youtube and seen it,..  do it, as the little story will make a lot more sense, and watch 'hot kool aid' as well, as it is histerical.
:)

week 1, Day 2

Baking started off the day well this morning, as we took our first pastry class. There is a lot of science, and a lot more behind a loaf of bread than you could probably imagine unless you have looked into it.  However, it seems like this will be a fun class to look forward to every week, not to mention I'll never have to buy a loaf of bread while I'm here in Stratford, as between my two housemates and I, we brought home 7 loaves of bread in the past two days. This class then lead to our lunch, where I got to try one of the amazing sandwiches at the york street kitchen, a catfish, tartar sandwich. It was absolutely amazing, and definitely the best sandwich I have ever eaten, which is saying a lot because I do not like tartar at all normally. Gastronomy class followed lunch, which is basically the way that food has developed in history, not the recipes, but how people eat, how cultures and food are combined, and how food is associated with these cultures. It looks to be an interesting class, but a fairly high workload seems to be included with it. Already a group assignment, but the group I'm in isn't presenting for a few weeks.  After gastronomy class, we had communication class, which will basically be a series of public speaking lessons. The workload is very tiny relative to the other classes, so that will be a nice break in between these other classes that have been just hammering on work for the past couple days. After communication, our practical cookery class ended the day, where I learned to make a mushroom risotto. Conveniently, this recipe is also the recipe on our SPEC assignment, so I have learned a lot from it, and hopefully this knowledge will give me somewhat of an advantage to writing the dreaded spec. Now, I'm here writing, quite exhausted as I have been up since 6:45 this morning, classes didn't finish until 8:00 which was actually a half hour early than scheduled, and I have been studying with my housemates over our practical cookery recipes for tomorrow morning, in hopes that we will be able to understand them well enough not to have to ask the chef too many 'stupid' questions. The internet has been an excellent source of knowledge however, especially videos on how to perform certain chopping techniques, so I am feeling at least a little more confident each day. I now need to get some clean towels packed for tomorrow, and pack my uniform, and switch all the binders in my backpack for tomorrow's lessons, so I'll have to leave it at that for today. Tomorrow looks pretty good as I only have 3 classes; Practical cookery, followed by nutrition, and then culinary management.

Week 1, Day 1

After countless awakenings last night, from being to warm, to the thunderstorm that no one else heard, I finally got up to go to our first practical cookery class. I learned that I don't know how to dice vegetables properly, but on a more positive note I am fairly good at forming fresh pasta into farfalle noodles. I need to brush up on my knife skills, however it was an exciting morning, followed by tastings of some amazing dishes. Two times the work tomorrow in this class, as we will be creating a risotto , and vegetable soup, as well as learning paysanne knife drills.  After our practical class, I had a class on food costing, which turned out to be more of an introduction, and simple homework on reading a few pages before next week's lesson. The most eye opening class however, was my final class of this evening which began focusing on the writing methods that we will use within this course. Although simple it may sound, this was followed by our lesson on the infamous spec, or recipe specification assignment. In order to not give away all the details of this,... (or really because I'm freaking out about it at this current moment, and have no time to describe in detail what it entails,) it is simply an ABSOLUTE %$&!TON OF WORK! and this statement pretty much sums it up. So, these will be due every monday morning on the week's lesson, this week being boiling. 1 minute late, and it is a zero, and as you can all imagine it is worth a large amount of our final grade. I should begin working on this now, as I can't afford to procrastinate, and so my blogs may become shorter and shorter as the weeks progress towards monday mornings. Anyhow, good start to the week, please wish me luck, and hope to hear some comments, and to see what anyone thinks of my posts. Thank you.

Terroir Luncheon

Another early morning, and then lots of sitting at Rundles restaurant waiting to leave for the farm. The day started off slow, and the group I'm in, (b group) is given the task of unloading all of the picnic tables up the muddy hill into the barn. The hill wasn't too high so it wasn't too bad, and A  group assisted us with the tables.  After all the table settings were perfect, and the decorations placed, we waited, freezing, in the barn just outside of Stratford.  A local beer brewery brought in 2 kegs of beer, and so we began drinking a bit, ok, maybe more than a bit for some of us, but enjoying it as we met our class mates for the first time really. we had sausages and this amazing bread, along with many local organic vegetables that were picked that day by A group. An amazing puff pastry dessert followed, and then we headed back home. Only half of one keg had been drunk by then, so the school gave the rest of it, including the 2nd keg to one of the second years. Needless to say, we all went to his house and enjoyed it for the evening as we talked and met with our classmates. After a long walk back to the Allen Abbey house, (where I'm staying) my housemates and I talked about what we thought of everyone, and how we foresee getting along with everyone. We went through our manual and schedule, and went through the exam processes that we will be going through in 4 weeks, and tried our best to determine what to expect. Now I'm sitting here, typing this up, nervous about tomorrow as our first practical cookery class begins at 8:15 tomorrow morning. A minute late, and the doors will be locked, or so we are all told. I am not going to test this theory, as I would be very frustrated, and it just might ruin the rest of my day if this were to happen. I will post tomorrow evening how everything goes, as long as I have the time, providing I don't have 5 hours of homework after classes are over.

Orientation

After a very early morning relative to the past few days, my housemates and I joined the rest of the students for the Stratford Chefs School. We met at Rundles Restaurant and sat, nervous, with our new name tags just beginning to meet each other for the first time. Kimberly Paine, the schools executive director met with us, and introduced us with a few certificates for money off at the local markets and restaurants. We began the day with a video conference call with a blogger, and food writer in Paris over the internet. She is going to be teaching us and giving us advice in a few weeks on our food writing project, so hopefully I can learn a lot, as we have to get at least a 70% average in order to move on to level 2 at the end of the year. The more help, and suggestions we can take, the better we'll learn.  I signed up for a wine tour that will be occurring in November. We that signed up will be touring two wineries in the Niagara region, and then eating at the wineries restaurant. A lot to take in for the day, as we got our schedules for classes, dinner services for which we will be assisting the level 2 students with, wine tour options, and OSAP and EI signups, so now it's time to relax as I unpack the massive amount of manuals I got, as well as my 6 complimentary wine tasting glasses for which I will have to keep polished for our wine tasting course. A lot is still in store for us, so one day at a time for now I will do my best to keep up. Tomorrow is the terroir luncheon at a farm. I must get to my unpacking now or this place will become an unorganized dump in the next day or two, and then I'll have to worry about losing things and keeping my room organized on top of everything.

day 4

Never made it to the pork butcher yesterday, but it was still a good day. stayed up way too late again, so I'll need to get some sleep tonight so I can be at Rundles restaurant tomorrow for 8:15. Orientation,... hopefully it will go by relatively fast, at least the OSAP and EI portion of the day. Nothing exciting from today,  woke up really late this morning... afternoon... not going to say anymore about that. but it's been a relaxing day so far. not too many of these days left I imagine. Insanity begins in 16 hours, exciting insanity but still craziness that will last these next 4 months.

Day 3 in Stratford

Things are settling down now, I'm finally unpacked, and just getting settled in here at the Allen Abbey house in Stratford. My room here is pretty amazing and the people I'm staying with are awesome too. Scott, the house  owner is amazing, always there to help out, and my 2 house mates so far are awesome. Stayed up until four in the morning talking with them last night, enjoying our last few days of settling in before school starts on Monday. During our tour of Stratford yesterday, I found a scottish traditional cookbook, which is pretty amazing, I'm very excited to try some of the recipes in it. We also ate at Pazzo's restaurant downtown. The pizzas there are unbelievably good, surprisingly my favourite being the one covered in greenery, and goat cheese. Today, we're off to the pork butcher downtown to check it out. Should be a good day. One day left until orientation, so not much else to write here, but I'll post about the butcher tomorrow, and about whatever comes of the rest of the day.

Off to school

after a few months of laziness, and a lack of blogging, I'm finally off to school. I'll be posting daily now, as everything is new, and there will actually be something to blog about every day in between the hours upon hours of homework and studying that I am beginning to expect. Knives are sharpened, and my bags are packed...  somewhat...  leaving in an hour and a half. I guess we'll see what Stratford has in store for me my first week. I have orientation at the end of the week, and then my first day of classes will begin next Monday. Until then, I'll be moving in and running around trying to get unemployment and OSAP as organized as I can before meeting with the representatives at orientation to finalize everything. Oh, and eating excellent food of course! with our terroir luncheon on the 22nd,.. (I can't pronounce that... comes out more like..  terr... or... ir.. urr.  lunch,  that's it) I see now that I'll be learning a lot in the next few months lol.  Off to finish packing now, and I'll post again tomorrow once I've moved in to my awesome place across the bridge in Stratford.