End of the Beginning

The last two days at the Culinary were interesting to say the least. Wednesday in Product Knowledge we did Mushrooms and Stalk (things like celery, fennel and rhubarb). Turns out I need to know roughly 20 mushrooms and 10 stalks on top of the 15 types of lettuce and 15 types of cabbage which is a lot of produce to say the least. Since banquet was closed for the last 2 days (because its 3 weeks later from when I started so a class is graduating) they had what is called "Grand Buffet." This is basically a showing from the graduating students who prepare dishes of their choice and everyone gets to eat including the staff and President. We decided to give it a whirl and the food was all so extravagant. More terrines (a terrine is a loaf of force meat) and foie gras (duck or goose liver) and truffles (a very expensive item, white and black truffles) then you have ever seen. Anyway, most of this stuff is out of our culinary and palate bounds but we tried everything we could. I tried a seafood terrine and a truffle and foie gras terrine. I couldn't tell if I liked them but since I'd never had foie gras, or truffle, or terrine it was certainly a new and interesting experience. Later that day we had math... which is terribly easy and boring and then bolted for dinner which turned out to be just McDonalds since most of the food kitchens were closed. Wednesday night we just hung out and waited for our last day of class.

Thursday started off the morning with a nice end of the week quiz in Gastronomy (don't worry, I killed it) and a few presentations. In that class we were assigned to groups and we each have a person that influenced Cuisine in some way to research and present. Yesterday Careme and Escoffier were presented. Lunch again was tough to find because banquet wasn't open so there was an 80-person line for K-16 (no joke) and this then forced a few of us to drive down to Planet Wings (a good wing place) for lunch. I spent most of the afternoon packing and then made my way to Food Safety for one last quiz before my group of friends went out for one last dinner together before we parted ways. I stayed the night last night to drop someone at the train station at 6am (I know, I'm a great friend) and then made my way home today. I plan on going to the Farmer's Market roughly everyday to explore and I'll be sure to update the findings. For now, time to relax and enjoy 3 weeks off.

Chef Werblin

ps. look up Chayote (mexican squash) because I have to research it. It's pretty cool and tastes like a Cucumber and Zucchini had too many drinks, did naughty things and 9 months later this happened.