Kitchen Garden

I'm scheduled to work in the kitchen garden on the Biltmore estate today. The garden supplies fresh vegetables to the 4 kitchens on the estate. Of course, there is heavy rain, thunder and lightning this morning. Perfect. At least I won't get sun burned! ;-) I didn't bring boots, so will sacrifice an old pair of tennis shoes to the mud.

Garlic Mayo

I was reading from my copy of Culinaria Spain and learned that the invention of alioli (you've no doubt seen the French word aioli on menus) is credited to the Roman emperor Nero. The original creation was a combination of garlic and olive oil. The addition of egg used to be frowned upon, but now is widely used. I'd like to continue the frown! ;-)

Here's the original version:
3 large cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped
1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 - 1 cup olive oil
Lemon juice to taste

Pound the garlic and salt to an even consistency, using a mortar and pestle. Then add the olive oil drop by drop at first, increasing to a thin stream and stirring constantly until a thick paste is formed. Add lemon juice to taste.

I'm sure this could all be done in a food processor, but since mine is in storage I will be attempting this the old fashioned way the next time I get a day off. News to follow.

Line Cook

I was able to fill all of the orders that came in during lunch without having to get the sous chef to help me. :-) He told me that they've been taking a lot of heat for not getting orders out in a timely manner. The goal is to fill an order in 13 minutes or less. I filled all of my orders in under 11 minutes. It was fairly slow, so that helped!

Now that I passed that test, I'm moving on to another station, working the employee cafeteria. I'll get to spend more time with my knives getting more efficient at slicing, dicing, etc. :-)