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There is a graveyard shift for everything — even for volunteer opportunities!
My breakfast shift was 12-6am.
This weekend was the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) where cyclists rode across Massachusetts in varying distances of >150-miles to Provincetown over 2 days to raise money for cancer research at The Jimmy Fund (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute).
Richard (hubby) joined his firm’s team and totally rocked it!
Instead of being a groupie for his 163-mile ride, I opted to volunteer for breakfast service on Day 2 and showed my support first thing in the morning.
Putting together the most important meal of the day for 5,000 cyclists for charity was great fun. The last time I pulled an all-nighter was definitely not for fun nor did it, in anyway, contribute to mankind.
Here’s the nutritious spread of breakfast items available to riders:
Biker buns (egg&cheese; bacon, egg&cheese on English muffins), muffins (blueberry & bran), bagels (plain, onion, sesame seed, with cream cheese and/or peanut butter), fresh fruit (melons, oranges, plums, banana), cereal, granola, yogurt (strawberry-pomegranate, French vanilla, blueberry, cherry), yogurt smoothie (strawberry, wild berries), juices (OJ, cranberry, apple), milk (1%, chocolate), coffee, and water.
One very curious item: peeled hard-boiled eggs in brine (chef grade?), but not exactly like the pickled variety of the Midwest. I kept wondering how that egg would taste since I no longer had appetite for the pre-formed, hockey-puck’s cousin discs of eggs after putting those biker buns together. Too bad no one opened the brined eggs.
It’s a bigger question than I would’ve thought.
Can you really teach motor skills? Walking, biking riding, sneezing with your eyes open?
How do you define cooking abilities?
One of the goals of a formal cooking education is to provide enough techniques and principles such that one is able to do away with recipes. How awesome is that? Being able to whip something up without recipes? However, a lot of it puts the onus back on the student.
As much as passion is proclaimed, a lot of students just don’t seem to put in the effort.
How much can you teach someone who fails to even show up on a daily basis?
What about repeated failure in following directions? Very straightforward and clear directions?
What about the fact that students come from a huge array of backgrounds?
How do you balance your time and attention across the different levels of needs?
And demos are tricky to perform. All eyes on you to demonstrate every detail of the techniques while delivering a lot of information, only to be quickly (and often harshly) judged by the students’ in-training palete?
In all, you get a full plate, and it ain’t no cake on that plate.
All of my chef instructors (Chefs Lentini, D’Addario, Oremus, and Barrett) have done a great job by making it look so easy.
Thank you and please continue your hard work. It’s very much appreciated.
Disclaimer: Yes, my nose is brown. This is my blatant kiss-ass piece. The Head Executive Chef of the school, Chef Mushin came in to class one day and asked me about my blog. He wanted to know if I was Dr. Joy and if I was cracking an egg (impeccable timing as I was whipping some mayonnaise). He then proceeded to ask chef instructors to check this blog out. I was quite embarrassed. As a way to give nods to my new audience, this is me insuring for my grades. LOL
The 4 fillets of flounder from yesterday’s butchering were turned into two completely different dishes.
One dish shallow-poached — I think this dish is called a paupiette, will have to confirm with chefs tomorrow. The rolled up flounder fillets were stuffed with salmon mousseline and finished in a cream-based fish stock reduction sauce. This is so French, so labor-intensive, and so white table cloth. Sometimes, it’s the technique and labor involved in a dish that makes the dish. This fish was delicate in texture yet powerful in flavor. The reduction of fish fumet (which was also the poaching liquid) intensified all the good seafoodness reminiscent of crab mustard. Unfortunately Chef Oremus says a perfect mousseline can only be achieved with a robot coupe and not a home model food processor.I’ll have to be creative with the stuffing for this to go on a dinner party menu.
The other dish fried — flakey, moist center with a golden brown crispy panko breading. Add a few fries, freshly whipped tartar sauce, and a drop of sriracha (genius, Tameka!), and it was the best lunch at 10am.
There is a real sense of accomplishment in utilizing a fish in its entirety. From the breakdown into fillets, the turning of fillets into 2 distinct dishes, to the incredibly fragrant fish stock extracted from bones, all of it together honors the life of the fish.
I eat whole fishes. Breaking fish down to fillets is one of those things I never thought I would be doing.
But as with everything in school so far, I tried it and I liked it.
Flat fish breakdown was demonstrated with flounder and instead of waiting a day after the demo to get down and dirty, we got to play right away.
Down to the bone.
Did you know that one flat fish yields 4 fillets? (round fish yields 2)
There is definitely room for improvement on this one. Gotta make the bones and skin cleaner. In Foundations III we’ll each get to breakdown a whole salmon. That’s gonna be a riot.
The fish bones will go into a fumet (fish stock) tomorrow and half of the fillets will be breaded & fried. But maybe I’ll just accidentally flour this skeleton up and drop it in the fryer. One of the best crispy eating there is: fried-to-a-brittle-salty-crunch-thin-fish-bones. YUM YUM!
It’s about time!
Finally got some pork going. I ate a lot of pork growing up. Pork is the quadruped of choice in my family and we eat every part of it. But the funny thing is, the one part of pork we cooked today is the part that I’m least familiar with — loin. Lean and easily overcooked, loin hasn’t been terribly exciting in my food memory.
How about a nice grilled loin steak of medium doneness, with a little pink on the inside? That’s even more unfamiliar to my eating habits. Underdone pork comes as a little mental hurdle but hey, that texture was amazing. Moist and tender with a little chew, slabbed on a pad of compound butter, I couldn’t believe it was pork.
Might have to throw this on the grill at home next time. But just for more adventurous friends, my family’s not ready for this.
Chef Oremus cleaning the grill for us.
The all-important diamond-shaped grill marks.
Now another dish that is equally foreign to my pork consumption patterns but satisfyingly comforting: Pork Scallopine Marsala.
Pounding with a meat mallet is always a good way to start a day in the kitchen. Mushroomy, marsala wine sauce coating thin pieces of pounded pork that’s sauteed in butter. Ai-ya-ya. Delicious morning of non-stop tasty pork bites. After having to discard a pan of burnt bits and re-doing the sauce emulsion, the born-again dish came out just the way Jesus would’ve wanted it. Wait, did Jesus eat pork?
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