Goodbye Level 4

All in all, I must say, the 8 of us in level 4 have pulled off something that, as Chef Rob explained it, could only have been done by dedicated students. And I think we are just that. The 8 of us there have one agenda when we’re in class, and that is to produce a quality product. Chef Rob has explained to our next chef that we are a great class of 8 that works like a class of 16. Chef Janet said many times how sad she was to see us go, and we have to visit frequently. Chef Janet was definitely awesome. She showed us some amazing things that we never imagined doing (making our own bacon and pastrami and ham!!!) Chef Rob also showed us some incredible things and opened our eyes to new techniques and possibilities.

By the way, I believe I mentioned the slow cooked wrapped chicken that Chef Dave Arnold showed us. Well I took some home and fried it up for some friends who were in the house, and they were amazed. I explained I didn’t make it, but it was still fantastic. I didn’t deep fry it, but I did sauté it. And I made a rookie mistake. I got the oil nice and hot, but I failed to dry the skin properly before putting it in. It made for a little more of a mess (splattering), but it also allowed the skin to stick a little to the pan. It wasn’t a terrible thing, the food still came out great, but I should have known better. I realized it as soon as I put it in the pan. I must say, it’s been a while since I did some real cooking, so I need to really think a bit more before I jump right into it. So as a reminder, when deep frying or sautéing, the purpose of the oil is for flavor, color and to prevent sticking. If you do not remove the excess moisture, then you counteract this initiative and there will be more splattering and sticking to the pan.

Anyhow, to be perfectly honest, after we finished buffet, it felt like level 4 was over. And unfortunately that was after the first two weeks of level 4. Family meal was… just rushing to make some food and then not really giving a shit about the rest of class. Most of the time we busted our asses for no reason because people either didn’t need food, or we had our buffets and no one ate the family meal. And then when we got to production, we were never really rushing (except for getting the fish and chicken to the restaurant), but we were doing fun projects like curing meats and the like. Chef Janet was great because she let us focus on the aspects that were important, like the filleting of the fish and the butchering of the chicken, while she maintained the stocks and worked on other projects. And then when we were ready, she let us run the show.

So on our last day of level 4, the buffet guys did an entirely dessert themed buffet. They must have made about 10 or 12 different desserts, ranging from individual cheesecakes, to crème brule, chocolate tarts, bread pudding, ice cream sandwiches, and the list goes on. It was pretty amazing. That meant they weren’t making real food, so the family meal and production group had to step in. We put out our deli meats, a smoked sturgeon and a cheese fondue station for the pastrami. The family meal guys put together a “breakfast for dinner” station. They used some of our molasses bacon that we made. We didn’t let them touch the maple brown sugar bacon. I must say, the molasses bacon was absolutely delicious. I will try the maple bacon this weekend, but I am trying to eat a little better so maybe just a touch.

By the way, the pastrami was phenomenal! The ham and turkey breast were also amazing! Its indescribable, to be honest. Have you been to Katz's delicatessen? Well our meats could have been showcased there. It was quite an accomplishment. I went to party later that evening with the deli meats, and between about 5 people, we finished over 2.5 lbs of pastrami and turkey breast. They were impressed and I was pleased that we were able to make such an impressive product.

But the family meal team was making bacon egg and cheeses on bagels, they prepared lox and set out cream cheese for bagels, they were making omelettes, eggs benedict with a fresh hollandaise, etc. etc. It was pretty great. Oh they also put together a delicious corned beef hash and some tasty home fries. They did a fantastic job.

Oh, how can I forget? One of our classmates, Grace, is a great cellist. Her roommate is a musician as well. So Grace asked her to come in and play violin, and she did just that. It was AMAZING. It was such a classy affair, though we were in a kitchen and many of us were wearing our kitchen whites. Chef Rob was so proud of this class. We consistently raised the bar and produced some quality work. Chef Rob made a reputation for himself as a kick ass level 4 instructor, but he would never fail to mention that it couldn’t have been done with the 8 of us.

On to the kitchen of l'ecole.

Asian buffet pics

We Souffléed it!!

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Well the literal translation of Soufflé is to blow up. Therefore, we blew it up! It was a great success, which was enjoyed by all. The flavor of everything was great, but even more so, the appearance was grand. I brought my camera in and shot a few photos. I will get those on here hopefully soon, and you’ll be able to see not only me, but the buffet as well.

I think to sum it up, when all was said and done, Chef Rob took us into the buffet prep room, closed the door and said, I need to be honest with you guys. The FCI hasn’t seen a buffet like this since probably as long as I’ve been here. He went on to thank us for not only the hard work and dedication that made it a success, but for making him look good in front of his peers. Other chefs were complimenting us, telling us that we did a fantastic job.

With that said, I must say, we did rock it like a Vegas whore. Nice analogy, huh? What was amazing was how cool, calm and reserved we all were. We prepped so well, and we were so thorough and organized that we were sitting back polishing off the details, not scrambling before the buffet. At 7:00, an hour and a half before showtime, Chef Rob was talking to another chef saying, "look at this, its 7:00 and I'm chilling back sipping a cup of coffee." We really did hit the high notes. From little things like doming off the top of the fried rice (What you know about dome?), and finishing with scallion blossoms, to laying down a bed of shredded coconut surrounded by orange slices and strawberry halves for our fried dumpling platter.

Let me give you a verbal visualization of some of our platters. I’ll start with more details on the dumpling platter.

I sliced a bunch of oranges. We overlapped slices around the oblong platter, with a few strawberry halves on top and covered the middle with a bed of coconut shreds, and then sprinkled on a small handfull of red peppercorns! Just picture that! It’s such a beautiful and simple presentation. We piled the dumplings in the middle.

For the spring rolls, we sliced cucumbers on the bias, and placed those along the perimeter, sprinkled with black pepper and made a pyramid of spring rolls in the middle. We had a spare refill platter with pea shoots (looked a little like spinach) piled on both ends, with 3 strawberry halves pointing out on top of each pile.

For the Spicy Thai chicken wings, I laid out some greens around a small mound of fried julienned wonton skins and topped that with a crowned orange half.

The raw tuna with taboulleh salsa was laid out diagonally along a mirror platter, simple with no other garnish, and it looked gorgeous. The beef platter (seared, yet raw in the middle with julienned cucumbers inside, and topped with black and white sesame seeds and a rolled blossom of pickled ginger) had an oval pile of the fried shredded wonton skins, and we placed the beef in concentric ovals around it.

The kimchi was served in a round dish, and we alternated overlapping pineapple wedges and orange slices around the perimiter of the bowl.

Oh the pineapples! I took a couple of pineapples and carved spirals going down and around the sides. Along the line of these carvings, we stuck our chicken and beef skewers into the pinapples. People simply had to pull them out, but you had to see how awesome it was. A spiral of skewered meats beautiful riding down the sides of the pineapple. I think it might have been my favorite presentation, though everything was gorgeous.

The duck carving station was magnificent also. Besides the fact that we were butchering the ducks in front of people with a cleaver, we laid out our sliced duck sous vide breast along the 3 sides away from the person butchering, in which he gave a few slices to each person along with the duck. There were also two long skinny platters (about 1.5 inches wide and 1.5 feet long) which we filled with nicely sliced and blossomed scallions for people to take with their duck.

For the duck confit buns, Chef Rob showed me this cool presentation trick with handkerchiefs (cloth napkins?) and aluminum foil. You take a square of aluminum and place it on top of the napkin so that the top side of the aluminum is lined up with the top side of the cloth. Then fold in the top two corner like your folding an airplane. Then fold them in again, and again until you have a thin pointy top, flaring out to thicker bottom. Then start at the tip you just made and start rolling it up. Slightly unroll it and you have a horn looking napkin. Make two of these, put them in opposite corners so the rolled in ends point to eachother and stack the buns up in between. It looked great.

The production group made the whole pig that they were trying to do, and it came out great, and it looked AMAZING! The glaze on the skin was beautiful, and the interior came out great. Their plan to layer different colors of pork was as successful as it could have been despite the problems they had with cutting the fatback. Wait til you see pictures. We also had the ducks hanging from above, and we put some Chinese lanterns and 4 flags up (Vietnam, China, Korea and Japan).

Oh, and last but not least we had 2 fozen ice bowls, one which we served iced tea out of, and another which we rested a bowl of coconut, mango and passion fruit sorbets on. When we froze the ice bowls we placed orange slices, strawberries, rosemary sprigs, lemon slices and other garnish inside, so when we took it out of the bowl it had an array of colors and fruits. It was really phenomenal.

My descriptions barely scratch the surface of the show we put on. As Carlos was carving the duck, Steve was continuously frying up more spring rolls and I was serving the tuna and beef as well as refilling platters, making sure we were stocked. We didn't run out of anything but everyone ate well! I wish I were a journalist or an author, so I can convey these ideas and visualizations a lot clearer and with more passion, but just wait til I get the pictures up!

We now have to get over the hype that we just worked up, and make our way down from the high of such a successful Asian buffet, and bring it back to a classic, beautiful French buffet. Very detail and flavor oriented. I don’t think we can put as much effort as we just put into the last one. Did I mention that I spent about 4-5 hours on Friday night preparing our duck confit buns? Well I did, and they were spectacular.