"You have to know the rules before you can break them" : Chef Tom Wong

Well folks they have switched us back to an am schedule, which means i have to get my butt out of bed and be at school by 645 am! gross. But, as soon as you step foot in that kitchen you get a jolt and rush of energy - if only i got that when my alarm goes off...
We are still in skills 2 but with a new professor - Chef Toni Sakaguchi, who is an AMAZING professor! She really takes interest in helping us master concepts, and when she tastes our food, instead of just saying "it needs more salt" or "overcooked" and pushing it aside, she walks us through every single concept of the dish presented from plating and aroma to texture and flavor and all that jazz. This class is about mastering basic concepts of protein cookery - yesterday, I got the highest scores I have ever received here and it was on FISH! Needless to say I was overjoyed. We presented a shallow poached grouper finished with a vin blanc sauce served on sauteed watercress with a basmati rice pilaf and glazed carrots. The only single negative thing she had to say about all those dishes was that my carrots were slightly overcooked (which I disagreed with, but hey thats part of the gig, gotta respect her opinion). Today we are mastering roast chicken, and tomorrow glazed beef short ribs...oh man i love this place.
In other news, have yall been watching top chef? last weeks part one finale was filmed right here in good ol napa! The wine train where they did the quick fire challenge runs right through saint helena, and Brix restaurant where they held the elimination challenge (during a Crush event) is just right down the road! Not to mention I helped cater during the first few days of filming :) Wednesday night, part two of the finale, filmed here again! Its pretty fun to watch them film here and talk about all the wonders of the napa valley in ways hard for me to describe here on this blog.
Before I leave, the picture seen above I saw last night for the first time when I did a google search on Chef Paco Roncero, the chef with whom i worked the conference and who I will be doing my externship with. This picture popped up under the search, and it just so happens to be ME! I might be a dork, but i was excited nonetheless.
Eat well yall! <3

Welcome to the Church of the Holy Cabbage. Lettuce pray.

I know I know, it has been an insane amount of time since my last post. I get so caught up in things here its hard to keep up! Since my last post, we had the Worlds of Flavor conference. It was INSANE! I worked 60 hours mon - fri, and those are on your feet running around like a madman in a hot hot full and busy kitchen. It definitely took its toll, but was ENTIRELY worth it! I got to meet some great chefs, including the great Rick Bayless, Cat Cora, Masaharu Morimoto, Michael Chiarello, Seamus Mullen (Next Iron Chef finalist), etc. Not only did i meet them, but i cooked for them, and i ate their food! I was assigned team Spain, and had the greatest pleasure of working with Chef Paco Roncero from Madrid - one of the leading molecular gastronomists. Which means I learned so much and got to use so many cool techniques, techniques that most chefs today dont use - so when I was prepping something, amazing chefs would walk by and ask me to explain to them what I was doing! cant quite wrap my head around that. The actual conference was 3 days long, and during those 3 days we would hold demos and such, and every day there was a marketplace where every chef (about a hundred from around the world) put out tapas size portions for everyone to walk around and try - believe me, i was like a kid in candy land! My pictures from the week can be seen here.
After Worlds of Flavor, we had one week of Skills 1 left including our knife skills practical! The tray i mentioned in the last post? Well, we had 40 minutes to complete it - 2 onions small dice, 2 onions emanceed, 3 garlic cloves minced, 1/4 bunch of parsley finely chopped, 3 shallots brunoise, 2 potatoes medium dice, and 1 potato julienne. Can you believe I actually finished with time to spare, and got a high score?!
Now that we are back from thanksgiving break, we are in Skills 2. Can you say INTENSE?! The first day was a train wreck - just off vacation I guess most of us didnt have our game faces on, and we werent used to having to turn so much out. We did braised red cabbage, chateau potatoes, duchesse potatoes, glazed beets, and our knife trays. After day 1 we came up with an organized game plan so day 2 was much smoother. We made a parmesan risotto that we finished with olive oil and lemon zest - it was DELISH - i completely recommend using olive oil as a seasoning yall. Anyway, we still have knife trays, but these include some more complicated cuts, such as tournee potatoes and fluted mushrooms. I had to stay after class last night for some extra help on the fluting because that is hard. One should look like this:NOT easy! But you have to admit its sexy...
Today in class we are learning how to make homemade pasta, and im really excited!
I promise ill post again soon, but until then...
eat well! <3>