The boychick’s pizza making went well, though he acted more as executive chef than line cook. He read through the recipe and measured things while I grated cheese and all that good stuff. It turned into a lesson on dough making and why things work the way they do.
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In an effort to promote the boychick’s growth in the kitchen and, I am hopeful, to expand his palate beyond PB&J, i have agreed to his request that he be responsible for making dinner on Thursday nights.
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Keifel and I were discussing the feasibility of deep-fried marshmallows. I don’t think it’s possible as the marshmallows would expand making the coating crack and then all the marshmallow goo would leak out into the oil making a spectacular mess.
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Wow. It is still amazing to me that I get to do this thing that I have wanted for so long. I realize how very lucky I am that I have an amazing husband who is supportive and encouraging. He told me in the midst of my doubts last week about the financial wisdom of me being in school that I didn’t realize how much faith he has in me. I guess I didn’t. I want to succeed for both of us.
I am taking two classes, Safety and Sanitation (online) and Culinary I. The S&S class also serves as the certification class for the ServeSafe certificate (after I pass a final in December) which means that I will have a safety and sanitation certificate. It seems a small thing but a least one job that I have applied for has required such a thing.
Culinary I is the intro to cooking course. The Nashville State kitchen is very well appointed (not that I have another school kitchen to compare it with) and the chef instructor is someone I am really looking forward to working with and learning from. He’s a Civil War re-enactor with a period mustache that makes him somehow less intimidating than my mental image of the red-faced, screaming French chef throwing saucepans at apprentices’ heads.
The class starts with knife skills and works through stocks, soups, sauces, vegetables and starches. We finish up with egg cookery. There are written exams as well as production exams, the first mostly being knife skills.
Speaking of knives, I am ordering my knife kit on Friday along with my chef coat, checked pants and floppy hat. I am giddy of course. The knife kit has everything the program requires and a few extra goodies including a insta-read thermometer and measuring spoons and cups. The school has a special deal with a tool company that supplies the German-made (not either of the two big names) knives. Knives, which because of the very strict rules about carrying weapons on campus, we are not allowed to have at hand except in the kitchen and back and forth from our cars. No running off to an afternoon class with your kit in your hand or apparently you will have a nasty run in with security. I’m glad the chef mentioned it or I probably would have been the idiot getting wrestled to the floor, screaming, “You can have my knives when you peel them from my unconscious fingers.” Not an auspicious beginning to be sure.
This past week was, as you can tell, all about introductions. This week should be a little more exciting.
Bon appetit, Julia, where ever you are. And I hope all the meals are prepared with the finest French butters and served with wine fit for the gods and for you.
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I really hate to waste in the kitchen. It may come from growing up with two parents who lived through the depression; it may come from admonitions about people starving in Africa; it may be some innate frugalness in my DNA from various fonts of my heritage. For whatever reason, I tend to make do with leftovers, but I prefer them transformed if possible, made new and sometimes better.
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I have seen many different versions of this and made two, one from a kids’ cookbook that is a chocolate version that just isn’t chocolaty enough and the Nigella version. Here’s my conflagration of the two:
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We had friends over on Saturday for the previously mentioned black rice dish (which is actually from Forever Summer and not Nigella Bites). It was perfect, in taste, in texture, in presentation. I want to run right out and buy some more to see what else we can do with it.
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This weekend our experimenting turns to black rice. It isn’t dyed with squid ink or anything. It’s really that color.
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