Pies Pies Pies.
Monday is a slow day in the Careme Room Kitchens. With no service, students are prepping items for Tuesday, smoking, taking long breaks and generally being either disaffected or overly ambitious. There's very little middle crowd with these creative types. Chef John has put my team, the versatile team, versatile becuase we have to do whatever it may be that has to be done, on filigrees. Chocolate filigrees. For those not in the know, google chocolate filigrees. I have always had an artistic bend, though I left drawing for writing as a teenager. It occurs to me while I am making filigrees that look more like Ralph Steadman sketches - google that as well if need be - than delicate assymetrical shapes you'd find on a delightful dessert. Coagulated blood spatters at a week-old crime scene come to mind. An hour or so in to the project I am about ready to go tomato. Going tomato came about back in Wine I, when, frsutrated at not being able to detect the notes in a wine I said tomato, to which my instructor replied, tomato is not an aroma we get from any wines, Mr. Sorensen. At that I went into an ill advised tirade calling the entire class nodding sheep, agreeing with whatever everyone else said about a wine. White flowers? Fine. I smell tomatoes. I stare down at parchment after parchment of wasted chocolate, communication reduced to fuck, motherfucker, bullshit or christ in various combinations. I close down a half hour early and smoke my way to 11pm, then spend half of my remaining disposable income on well whiskey and $2 Bud bottles at Temple.
Tuesday, all bets are off. The Mid class was to make 240 pecan pies for service and did not, so the mission has fallen to the versatile and buffet teams. I arrived at class 45 minutes early, so Chef John put me in charge of organizing 20 gallons of custard, a mountain of pecans, and 240 tins lined with pate sucree. The hustle around the kitchen is astounding. It's a pie assembly line. A dozen people on dough, lining tins, another dozen filling the crusts with nuts and custard, and a small team making the custard. Everything is from scratch around here. We pump out 236 pies in 3 hours. Chef John is pleased. My jacket is a mess of brown custard smears, my left arm is a sleeve tattoo of times and numbers. Moreso than the iron chef and mystery basket competitions, filling this order on the fly is gratifying. More importantly, Chef John is going to give the versatile team a full credit pass on filigrees. At 11 I spend the rest of my remaining disposable income on well whiskey and $2 Bud bottles at Temple.
Wednesday is easy. The day before Thanksgiving the Careme Room buffet is slow, maybe 40 people. Chef John drops four hotel pans filled with rolled cookie dough of all kinds, has us cut them into cookies, lay them on sheet pans and bake them off. When they are done, he send us home with 4-6 dozen each. It turns out we were making cookies for ourselves. We spent the rest of the night emptying the refrigerators, profiting cheese and produce for many of us. I walked with a 5 pound log of goat cheese. I gave the cookies to a homeless guy camped at the bottom of the Van Ness Muni station stairs. Happy Thanksgiving, man. Having been paid that day unexpectedly, I picked up a burrito around the corner, watched Goodfellas and went to bed.
Monday is a slow day in the Careme Room Kitchens. With no service, students are prepping items for Tuesday, smoking, taking long breaks and generally being either disaffected or overly ambitious. There's very little middle crowd with these creative types. Chef John has put my team, the versatile team, versatile becuase we have to do whatever it may be that has to be done, on filigrees. Chocolate filigrees. For those not in the know, google chocolate filigrees. I have always had an artistic bend, though I left drawing for writing as a teenager. It occurs to me while I am making filigrees that look more like Ralph Steadman sketches - google that as well if need be - than delicate assymetrical shapes you'd find on a delightful dessert. Coagulated blood spatters at a week-old crime scene come to mind. An hour or so in to the project I am about ready to go tomato. Going tomato came about back in Wine I, when, frsutrated at not being able to detect the notes in a wine I said tomato, to which my instructor replied, tomato is not an aroma we get from any wines, Mr. Sorensen. At that I went into an ill advised tirade calling the entire class nodding sheep, agreeing with whatever everyone else said about a wine. White flowers? Fine. I smell tomatoes. I stare down at parchment after parchment of wasted chocolate, communication reduced to fuck, motherfucker, bullshit or christ in various combinations. I close down a half hour early and smoke my way to 11pm, then spend half of my remaining disposable income on well whiskey and $2 Bud bottles at Temple.
Tuesday, all bets are off. The Mid class was to make 240 pecan pies for service and did not, so the mission has fallen to the versatile and buffet teams. I arrived at class 45 minutes early, so Chef John put me in charge of organizing 20 gallons of custard, a mountain of pecans, and 240 tins lined with pate sucree. The hustle around the kitchen is astounding. It's a pie assembly line. A dozen people on dough, lining tins, another dozen filling the crusts with nuts and custard, and a small team making the custard. Everything is from scratch around here. We pump out 236 pies in 3 hours. Chef John is pleased. My jacket is a mess of brown custard smears, my left arm is a sleeve tattoo of times and numbers. Moreso than the iron chef and mystery basket competitions, filling this order on the fly is gratifying. More importantly, Chef John is going to give the versatile team a full credit pass on filigrees. At 11 I spend the rest of my remaining disposable income on well whiskey and $2 Bud bottles at Temple.
Wednesday is easy. The day before Thanksgiving the Careme Room buffet is slow, maybe 40 people. Chef John drops four hotel pans filled with rolled cookie dough of all kinds, has us cut them into cookies, lay them on sheet pans and bake them off. When they are done, he send us home with 4-6 dozen each. It turns out we were making cookies for ourselves. We spent the rest of the night emptying the refrigerators, profiting cheese and produce for many of us. I walked with a 5 pound log of goat cheese. I gave the cookies to a homeless guy camped at the bottom of the Van Ness Muni station stairs. Happy Thanksgiving, man. Having been paid that day unexpectedly, I picked up a burrito around the corner, watched Goodfellas and went to bed.
