Asheville, NC

I began my drive down here mid-day Monday and arrived Tuesday evening. I had originally set out with the idea that I would stop off near DC and visit the Smithsonian for a few days. As I started my journey, I thought it wiser to get to Asheville and find a place to live. I did find a place and I will be moving in later today. Yay!

It is so beautiful here! The color has not returned yet from winter, but I look forward to watching it return. There are already blossoms on trees and daffodils blooming. I have not been to Biltmore Estate yet, but I'm sure the 50k tulips they have planted there have broken through the ground and will be ready for their debut next month during the festival of flowers.

Outta Here

Today is my last day of table service and the last day of my first 6 month residency at NECI. After class today, I will be taking the contents of my dorm room (except what I need for tonight) to storage so that I can leave here early tomorrow morning...I'm taking a dorm mate to the airport in Burlington (about 45 miles from here) way early.

Internship

I have an internship now. I'll be going to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. I'm so looking forward to being back amongst the working class again...school is a lot of work! I start March 20th and will be there through August 23rd, providing I don't mess up and get fired. ;-)

Table service is still dragging along. We only had 50 covers today. It was our first day in the restaurant without paid staff to help us. I had only 2 tables assigned to me and never had two full at the same time. Time drags by...3 days down, 12 to go...but, who's counting.

Table Service

I made it through my first day of table service without spilling anything on anyone! :-D

It's pretty boring. We are shadowing paid staff for the first two days of class. There are 14 of us and 4 of them, so we don't get to go to the tables much. Plus we only had 79 covers (that's the number of people who ate at the restaurant) during lunch, so it wasn't very busy anyway. I think more people go out for dinner on V-day, so there's that. It will probably be slower today. Ugh!

We did a wine tasting after service. We tasted some of the white wines that we offer by the glass.

Packing

While I had initially intended to only bring with me things that would fit into the trunk of my car, I ended up with quite a lot more than that. Given that I only have a few weeks left of school and then will have to move out of the dorm, one of my dorm mates and I rented storage space in town and started packing our belongings. We made good progress, and hopefully neither of us will end up pulling an all-night packing party on the last day of residence here. Ugh!

Last day in AM Grill

Well, today is my last day in AM Grill class. It's been a fun time working on a line cooking a la carte. Yesterday was our big day to present a special menu to the customers, we drew Northeastern US regional cuisine out of a hat and all came up with a special that represented the foods of the region that were appropriate for the station that we were on. I was on sandwich station, so I came up with an open-faced ham, apple butter and cheddar sandwich. It was toasted ciabatta bread with apple butter, Dijon mustard, black forest ham (actually something similar that NECI meat fab came up with), and a 4 year old Vermont cheddar cheese (YUM!). The sandwich was placed in the salamander (broiler) just long enough to get the cheese melted and bubbly. The sandwich was served with a side salad of arugula, fennel, red onion, and apples dressed in a lemon vinaigrette. My class mate took a picture of all of the dishes, so I should have a copy soon to post here on this blog. All in all, our menu was very impressive and was well received by the patrons of the Main Street Grill.

On Saturdays, we serve brunch. Along with our regular lunch menu, we have breakfast items available to our customers. Next we go on to table service, which is also at the Main Street Grill. YIKES! I have to get some white shirts and black slacks this weekend....I didn't want to rush into anything. ;-) Along with table service, we have a wine class and a CPR class.

Just 3 more weeks of class time left in my first year of culinary school. I'm anxious to go on internship...I'll let you know more about that when I have a site finalized.

Pasta Special

Pasta Special
Originally uploaded by mzones.

I'm in the AM Grill class now. In this class, we prepare the family meal (that's the meal for restaurant staff, students, and office personnel) breakfast, and we prepare all of the lunch items for the customers of the Main Street Grill in Montpelier.

I started out on the saute station. One of the dishes I make on this station is the pasta special. Each day, we receive pasta that is made by the prep kitchen and I have to come up with the sauce and the presentation. Today, I received a potato stuffed ravioli with thyme pasta dough. I prepared a meat ragout which I served 5 of the ravioli with. It was a very popular item! :-)

Go Seahawks! :-)

I've been a Seahawks (or Seachickens, as I affectionately call them) fan since I lived in the Seattle area many years ago...back when Steve Largent was playing. Finally, they are going to the Super Bowl and you can bet I'll be watching and cheering them on. :-)

Of course, their web site is throwing errors from all of the traffic it's getting. What can you expect, its built on .NET. Paul Allen, what were you thinking?!?!

Meat Trivia

• Did you know that Prime Rib is just a name for a cut of beef and the "Prime" in the name has nothing to do with the grade of the beef? That's right folks, it's not prime grade beef rib unless it is also stamped with the prime grade.
• Grass fed beef has a more beefy flavor than corn fed beef. Grazing on grass is a cow's natural diet, so it stands to reason that the meat produced by cows fed in this manner would receive the highest grading. But no. We in the US prize marbling, which requires fattening the cows by feeding them corn, which we grow way too much of. If you can find grass fed beef in your local megamart, give it a try.

Meat Fabrication

Ah, it's almost over. Time flies! Tomorrow is my last day in the meat fabrication kitchen at NECI. I've learned a lot, and have forgotten a lot that I was supposed to have learned during lecture. My brain doesn't absorb information like it used to. (insert old age jokes here)

When I have a few minutes this weekend, I'll write down some useful tidbits of information to share with you on this blog. Something less obvious than, "you need a sharp knife." :-)

Certified

Yep. You all knew I was certifiable, but now it's official. ;-) I took a ServSafe exam on November 29th. It's a national certification for food handlers to show that you know proper sanitation practices, safe food handling, etc. I passed! Yay!

'Tis The Season

Wishing you and yours a very merry Christmas!

A little break

I had a 3 day break as a new class is coming in and I'll be starting my second quarter here today, Wednesday. Yesterday, I had to attend a training session for residential advisors (RA). I'm going to be the RA here at my dorm. That mostly means I unlock doors when someone locks themselves, but I also represent NECI and make sure that their rules are enforced and that the apartment remains a safe and quiet place for students to live and study.

Today I'm starting Meat Fabrication class. YES!

PM Cafeteria

This was probably my favorite class. We returned to the cafeteria at Vermont College to prepare dinner. There is a new Chef instructor there who is fantastic. Each night, she told us what the protein was and either the theme or the main dish that would be made from it, then asked us what we wanted to do for the rest of the meal (starch, veg, vegetarian option, bread, special salad, special desert, etc.) Having the opportunity to participate in the menu was so inspiring to all of us. The last night of class, it was up to us to decide the entire menu. :-)

Inventory Management

I spent two weeks at NECI's Central Purchasing location to learn about ordering, receiving, and inventory management. This is an important part of running a food business because you don't want to order so much that you have stuff sitting on shelves...it costs money to store things.

We also learned about sustainable agriculture and did a report on a local producer. I visited Doe's Leap, a local farm that makes yummy organic goat milk cheeses. They also raise organic pork, chicken, and cows. It is a small company now with about 25 goats run by a very nice young couple. They were kind enough to take time out of their Saturday afternoon to show me around the farm and take me through their cheese house. I purchased some of their cheeses at the local coop and had a tasting along with my presentation.

AM Cafeteria

The last two weeks I've been getting up at 2 AM and in class by 3:30 AM. This class was held at the Vermont College cafeteria where we prepared breakfast and lunch for college students, NECI students and faculty, and guests. This has been the highest volume production class that I've had so far. After 4 weeks in baking classes, it was good to get out the knives again. :-)

I learned how to make decent food in high volumes with very little waste. We even had a partial power outage after a snow on our second day in class. I say partial outage, meaning a brown out. The kitchen was for the most part out of power, the dining room and service had partial power, the small bake shop was lit. We weren't sent home for the day as would have been the most likely response in any other culinary school. Instead, our chef instructor taught us how to prepare meals, practicing safety and cleanliness, with limited resources. Today we all received recognition from NECI's board of directors for our response to this event. We each received a nice plaque and a NECI hoodie.

Fall Leaves

Fall Leaves
Originally uploaded by mzones.

The fall leaf season has not been as spectacular this year as it usually is. The weather just hasn't cooperated in the production. I capture this image of the leaves in a neighbor's yard on my walk to class one morning. Enjoy!

First Snow 2005

First Snow 2005
Originally uploaded by mzones.

It snowed early this morning! I snapped this picture of my car with a very light blanket of snow on it. There is still a little snow on the ground, but none on the roads.

Baking 1b

I've spent the past two weeks in the bakery at the National Life office building in Montpelier. In this class we prepared breakfast pastries and muffins in the morning and lunch items such as breads (rolls, French bread, ciabatta, etc.) , and cookies for the cafeteria. We also filled orders for in-house catering (i.e. cookies for a meeting) and NECI catering for external events. We were able to reinforce what we learned in Baking 1a as well as add to that knowledge.

A fun time was had by all.

Baking 1a

I've completed the first of two baking classes that I am required to take while here at NECI. It was all about producing mass quantities of baked goods (cookies, scones, quiche, dinner rolls, sandwich rolls, foccacia, etc.) in a bakery. It was a fun class and I really learned a lot!

I am trying to think of some good tips to pass along to you and think that I will share what I learned about cookie spread. If you've spent much time making cookies, you've probably had a batch that spread more than it should have. I learned 7 causes of cookie spread, here are some of them:

1. When creaming the fats and sugars, don't over cream. The idea here is just to incorporate these ingredients, not to incorporate air. Over-mixing will incorporate air, which is the leading cause for cookie spread.
2. Too much leavening. If you add too much baking soda and/or baking powder to your cookies, they will generate too much air and cause cookie spread. (Also, there will be a chemical taste to the cookies.)
3. Greasing (or over greasing) the baking sheet. The slick surface provides no resistance to spreading of the dough as it heats.
4. Low oven temperature. Fats melt before starches and proteins set...you get the picture.