First Day on the Job

My first day as a culinary intern is behind me and it could not have gone better!

I think the main reason why I enjoyed it so much is because I had the right mindset and was fully aware of the "bottom of the totem pole" tasks I was going to be given. When I met with my career counselor last month she asked me what my expectations were as to what an intern gets to do. I said prep work. I was fully prepared to be asked to peel pounds of carrots, wash lettuce, whatever. I was fully aware that I would not be in the service kitchen whipping up dishes and sending them out to the public. Unfortunately, there are many many students out there that just refuse to accept this. I, on the other hand appreciate this. These mundane tasks are what will help me work faster, cleaner and more organized. They are the things you need to build a proper foundation. So, although she told me that 99.9% of interns HATE the first few day and weeks of their internship, I loved mine!

The morning started out a little slow. The chef had asked me to come in at 11 since he was not going to be in before that and it was my first day. I showed up, but he was running 30 minutes late. So I hung out at the bar (no, I was not drinking!) and chatted a little with the waitstaff. It also gave me a chance to look at the lunch menu and see what kind of dishes they were serving. When the Chef finally arrived, he asked me to change into my uniform and meet him in the upstairs kitchen. The kitchen upstairs is the service kitchen. This is the one where all the meals are made and sent out to the diners for service. The one downstairs, is the small prep kitchen where all of us interns "slave" away cutting, chopping, peeling, washing, etc. I head upstairs and the first order of business was my schedule. I was only planning on 2 days a week (this is the schools suggestion too because once you commit to a certain amount of days you can never scale it back. It also helps prevent their students from being "abused" by the free labor they give). Although he was totally fine with it when I met him a few weeks back, yesterday he was not. I got some "I only take on Interns that will commit at least 3 days a week" speech, and as I saw this partnership getting off on the wrong foot, I sucked it up and agreed 3 days would be fine.

Hoping I had not lost too many points on that discussion we quickly moved on to a corn pudding he was making. He was explaining the ingredients that went into it, when I said, "oh, this is the corn pudding that is served with the salmon dish". Chef smiled and replied "I see someone has done their homework. Thanks, I appreciate that. Good job". Woo hoo! Looks like any points lost with the schedule thing were gained back with knowing the dishes. I have to admit though, that was pure luck. If I had not been left to wait for 30 min and looked at the menu, I NEVER would have known that. Ha, ha. After he let me taste that and an heirloom tomato salad (also served with the salmon), it was down into the basement kitchen for me. I was paired up with another intern and was off to help prep. First order of business was peeling asparagus in a very specific way. Only removing the very, very top layer of skin while preserving the bright green color. This had to be done slowly to not mess up. Then it was onto picking off leaves from pea shoots for garnish (zzzzzzz) and peeling 10 pounds of shallots.

At 4pm we are served family meal, which is cooked by the sous chef. Yesterday it was roasted chicken, a house salad and a baked potato. The chicken was really good, as was the jus served on the side. At this point it was getting close to 5pm and I assumed I would get to go home soon. However, since it was my first day, I was not entirely sure. I decided it only made sense to ask the Chef how long he needed me for the day, and hoped it did not reflect badly and make me seem like I wanted to go home. He told me that since it was my first day, he would like me to stay for part of dinner service so I could see what it was like in the service kitchen upstairs. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity, I said that would be great and asked if there was anything else I could do to help prep. He told me to go downstairs to the prep kitchen and peel 40 large idaho potatoes and come back up when I was done. I headed down, set up my station and noticed I was the only one down there. This is where I became suspicious.

Chef had mentioned to me at one point that he did not expect me to be lightning fast at first with any task given to me, but that he just expects that day after day, as I am given the same thing to do again, that I do it faster than the time before. As I looked at the 40 potatoes in front of me in a solitary kitchen, I immediately heard the clock ticking away. I peeled like I had never peeled before, ha, ha! I don't know for sure if he was timing me, but I'm pretty sure this was just a "test" of my skills. I don't know how long it took me, but when I went back upstairs when I was done I was just hoping it was fast enough.

At this point, the night got awesome.

The service kitchen is small. Only 4 Chefs and 1 intern (other than me). But it is immaculate, and the way these guys and gals work is so organized and well planned. Dinner service was just starting to get underway, but their busy time is not until 7 or so. I was allowed to shadow the sous chef for the night and he is great! Not only fun to watch in the kitchen, but a really nice person who was more than happy to have me there. When he saw I was a student at FCI, he told me that his first time in the kitchen was working under the FCI's Nils Noren at Acquavit. He had also spent time on the line at Jean George, before being promoted to sous here. Pretty cool.

As I watched him work, I had so many questions. I wanted to know all the ingredients in everything and and how things were prepped. Not only was he more than happy to explain, he made me side dishes of almost everything that went out the door so I could try. Yum!

Watching the kitchen during service was one of the coolest things ever. Day 2 of my internship will be this Sunday during the day. While I will not normally be working on Sunday, the sous there said that he liked my professionalism and maturity, and that on Sunday I can work in the service kitchen with him!!!! I will most likely be assigned to work with the chef in garde manger (generally this station does all cold apps, salads, etc, but in this kitchen they are responsible for desserts too). The intern that helped with this last night got to plate a lot of the dishes that went out to the diners which is pretty cool. But who knows?!?!?! They are generally very busy on a Sunday for brunch, so should be fun!

Stay tuned!!!

Fire Drill

This is what the streets of SOHO look like when the fire alarm goes off at the French Culinary Institute at 8:30 pm. I wonder what they told the diners why there was a 15-20 lapse in service? Um, yeah, really sorry, but if you look outside you will notice that all the cooks are standing on the street and can't go back in until cleared by the FDNY...please be patient. Hopefully they got a free drink or something ;-)

And Away We Go

Today starts the second half of my culinary education, and perhaps the best of what the education has to offer.

In level 4, we learn to cook for the masses. We will rotate through three stations - buffet, family meal and production. We will also learn the wonderful world of charcuterie (sausages, prosciutto, etc)! Yeah! My first rotation is buffet. In addition to family meal, which is when we cook dinner for the entire school and deliver it to the various classrooms, there is also a buffet every night in one of the kitchens by the restaurant. This is also available to the school, and an alternative for those who may not like the family meal delivered. Today, we are all to bring in 10 recipes, and with our Chef we will try to plan out our buffet stations for the next 2 weeks. Finally, the production rotation is responsible for helping with the butchering for the restaurant, as well as making all the mass quantities of different stocks used as the base for almost anything served with a sauce.

When this level is done, I will officially be off to cook in L'Ecole!!!! I had originally thought it was just in level 6 I got to be in the restaurant, but it is actually levels 5 and 6! So, I will get a full 12 weeks in the restaurant! Can't wait!

Oh, I forgot to tell you all - last Friday, while I was taking my midterm, the level 6 students were hard at work at their final. One of the celebrity judges was Hung - Top Chef season 3 winner! The girls in the locker room before the exam were really nervous because he is known to be VERY critical in his feedback. If I see any of them today after their graduation, I will be sure to find out how it went!

Half Way Home

Wow, what an experience the midterm was! I am happy to report that I have successfully passed and will be moving on to level 4 on Monday!

We each drew randomly from a hat which dishes we would cook. Half the class, including myself, drew the Consomme and the Chicken "Grand-Mere". The other half of the class had to make the Skate Grenobloise and the Apple Tart. I did a silent dance when I looked at my draw and saw it was not the apple tart! Have I mentioned a million times how much I HATE that dish?

We were each given an ID number. There are 18 of us so, there was A1-A6, B1-B6 and C1-C6. In the next room, there was a panel of 9 judges, broken up into groups of 3, and each group was assigned to judge all the A's, all the B's and all the C's. Our head chef was left to taste all of our plates. So, there was no room for error. We had to produce 4 plates of each dish and each one would be eaten.

I successfully got both my dishes out on time! It's a great feeling when you hear the chef yell "It's 8:59! Consomme group 3 let's go!" And you look down on your tray and see 4 perfectly plated dishes ready to go and pick up your tray and head to the next room for service. Remember, I have been late almost every night on my dishes leading up to tonight, so when I hit the time for dish one, I finally realized I had the ability to do this.

Both dishes were a challenge. You think you have so much time in the beginning, given that we started at 6pm and my first dish did not have to go out until 8:59 and the second at 9:41. But there is so much you have to juggle. All the perfect .5cm cubed vegetables that go in the soup. The football shaped potatoes, 3 per plate, for the chicken. Not to mention all the other garnishes like bacon, mushrooms and caramelized pearl onions (which are a "bleep" to peel)! It was not until about 7:30 that I realized I may be in trouble. I had not even prepped or trussed my chicken. Prepping consists of removing the wings at the second joint, removing the wishbone and then having to "machonner" the wing tips and drumstick ends. This just means removing the skin and cartilage at the end and scraping it back so that the bone is exposed at the tips. Once that is done you can truss and season your bird. I have never done this as fast as I had last night. Primarily because there was one angry Chef yelling, "Chicken people who do not have your chicken in YOU BETTER PUSH, NOW! COME ON!!!! YOU ARE IN THE WEEDS!!!" There was actually a lot of yelling going on last night. The Chefs were constantly trying to get us to work faster, cleaner, and did I mention faster??? It was intense. So much, in fact, that one guy in my class had a panic attack and left the exam before he even presented his first dish. Guess we are a party of 17 now?

I love this stuff.

As for the judges feedback, they were really happy with my vegetables in the soup and said I did a perfect job of cutting them into the little cubes and cooking them to the right consistency. They also thought I hit the mark on the seasoning on it as well. Their only criticism was that there seemed to be a slight "roasted" flavor to the soup. I knew this right away, because after I strained out the consomme from the clarifiation mixture, I noticed that some of the ground beef that should have floated to the top, had fell to the bottom and burned a bit. As for my chicken, it was just a bit dry (after it came out of the oven and I quartered it, I noticed that all the pieces except the breasts were still raw - I put them back in the oven to finish cooking, however, perhaps a couple minutes too long). Despite that, they were really happy with my jus that was served with it and again thought I had hit the perfect seasoning and consistency.

With this behind me, I have a totally new level of confidence of what I can do. I was really worried going in that I would not be able to hustle enough and stay focused. I definitely need to work on being more organized and keeping my station cleaner, which is where I lost most of my points during the night. That's ok. I'm a newbie. And that is exactly the area I hope my internship will help me in. So, only good things to come!

Make It or Break It

Time flies when you are......running around a kitchen like a chicken with your head cut off and constantly "branding" yourself on the oven, flat top or stove.

Believe it or not, but my midterm for FCI is here, and I will take it on Friday. This is the level that basically determines your future in the school. You can be a straight A student up until now, but if you do not pass this practical, you must be held back from your class and repeat the level. Oh, and did I mention that you have to pay for that too?!?!?

I am ridiculously nervous for this final. I have been having trouble meeting the time limits lately (although my team is down one person so we have been having to double up), and on Monday night I made the sauce for my fish with veal stock instead of lobster stock. That would have been a definite failure for sure. I mean, it was an honest mistake. They don't look or smell anything alike so anyone could have made that error....NOT! I don't know, I just was in such a rush to get things done, I just grabbed the wrong one.

So, here's hoping that Friday is not a complete and utter disaster!