This is tricky business, this dessert fare... really.
It didn't help that someone threw out my brandy custard sauce, though I made due with the remnants of a cherry jubilee. The sauce was to go on a bread pudding I'd made with amaretto and bourbon, and since my custard sauce was last seen in the dish pit, I stuffed some chocolate chips in it and drenched it in cherry jubilee. For as off-the-cuff as it had to be, it was really good.
Tonight was the culmination of the desserts portion of the class. We had to plate 4 dessert items comprised of one made-to-order (souffle or fruit flambe), one baked custard (I chose bread pudding, though most of the class did creme brulee, a few to hilarious result), one frozen (mocha vanilla bourbon ice cream, anyone?), and one cream or mousse (dark chocolate mousse with blackberries and chocolate shrapnel in the middle).
My only obstacle was the fucking goddamn son of a bitch christ bastard prick asshole souffle. I've been trying to nail down a fruit souffle since Tuesday, and each one has been a near if not complete disaster. I explain this to Chef Susan today, to which she replies "Well, fruit souffles are notoriously unstable." This means that exessive temperature change due to students ducking in and out of the oven to check their own whatevers could cause a problem with my souffle. Well, jesus, now you tell me. So, Chef Susan, the fair and talented woman she is, will allow me to come in early on Tuesday to do a roux based souffle, which tends to be much heartier. And, goddamn it if I'm not going to throw some fruit in it. I swear.
Something I neglected to report is the recent firing of all the associate chefs at CCA. Check it out here:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/18/BAGSLCQS0N1.DTL
Associate chefs, to me, were an intrinsic part of the staff. Often, the associates were fresh out of the field, compared to the chef instructors who had in many cases been out of the game for three, five, even ten years. Chef Dylan, for example, was a hot shot line cook and sous chef that had a trick for almost every procedure. Chef Helmar, the associate in garde manger, had been a line cook at French Laundry - one of the premier restaurants in the country -up until he came to CCA. If you were feeling like you were in the weeds, the associates typically knew as much as the chef instructors, and the advice they'd impart felt more like it was coming from a peer than a teacher. Their loss will hurt my education, and force every student to be that much more aggressive about getting the chef's attention. Thankfully, my class is only 24 deep...
But wait, there's more... CCA has also taken away the official family meal, which was a long hot food buffet line set out each night at 5pm. Now, the chef instructors and students do a covert family meal in one of the two skills kitchens each night at 8. Good thing, too. Can you imagine running around for 5 hours only tasting sugary desserts. The sugar crash would leave the room spinning in bottoming out blood sugar levels.
The corporatization of anything is a bad deal, period. The bigger the company gets, the more important the bottom line becomes, the more the workers, or in this case, students suffer. I realize that in the end, this is a business, but I do occasionally dream of businesses that are sensitive to the fact that they run on the blood, sweat and tears of people. My hope is that I can get out of CCA with an education and a diploma that has a positive reputation intact.
It didn't help that someone threw out my brandy custard sauce, though I made due with the remnants of a cherry jubilee. The sauce was to go on a bread pudding I'd made with amaretto and bourbon, and since my custard sauce was last seen in the dish pit, I stuffed some chocolate chips in it and drenched it in cherry jubilee. For as off-the-cuff as it had to be, it was really good.
Tonight was the culmination of the desserts portion of the class. We had to plate 4 dessert items comprised of one made-to-order (souffle or fruit flambe), one baked custard (I chose bread pudding, though most of the class did creme brulee, a few to hilarious result), one frozen (mocha vanilla bourbon ice cream, anyone?), and one cream or mousse (dark chocolate mousse with blackberries and chocolate shrapnel in the middle).
My only obstacle was the fucking goddamn son of a bitch christ bastard prick asshole souffle. I've been trying to nail down a fruit souffle since Tuesday, and each one has been a near if not complete disaster. I explain this to Chef Susan today, to which she replies "Well, fruit souffles are notoriously unstable." This means that exessive temperature change due to students ducking in and out of the oven to check their own whatevers could cause a problem with my souffle. Well, jesus, now you tell me. So, Chef Susan, the fair and talented woman she is, will allow me to come in early on Tuesday to do a roux based souffle, which tends to be much heartier. And, goddamn it if I'm not going to throw some fruit in it. I swear.
Something I neglected to report is the recent firing of all the associate chefs at CCA. Check it out here:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/18/BAGSLCQS0N1.DTL
Associate chefs, to me, were an intrinsic part of the staff. Often, the associates were fresh out of the field, compared to the chef instructors who had in many cases been out of the game for three, five, even ten years. Chef Dylan, for example, was a hot shot line cook and sous chef that had a trick for almost every procedure. Chef Helmar, the associate in garde manger, had been a line cook at French Laundry - one of the premier restaurants in the country -up until he came to CCA. If you were feeling like you were in the weeds, the associates typically knew as much as the chef instructors, and the advice they'd impart felt more like it was coming from a peer than a teacher. Their loss will hurt my education, and force every student to be that much more aggressive about getting the chef's attention. Thankfully, my class is only 24 deep...
But wait, there's more... CCA has also taken away the official family meal, which was a long hot food buffet line set out each night at 5pm. Now, the chef instructors and students do a covert family meal in one of the two skills kitchens each night at 8. Good thing, too. Can you imagine running around for 5 hours only tasting sugary desserts. The sugar crash would leave the room spinning in bottoming out blood sugar levels.
The corporatization of anything is a bad deal, period. The bigger the company gets, the more important the bottom line becomes, the more the workers, or in this case, students suffer. I realize that in the end, this is a business, but I do occasionally dream of businesses that are sensitive to the fact that they run on the blood, sweat and tears of people. My hope is that I can get out of CCA with an education and a diploma that has a positive reputation intact.
