Day 4: CIA Boot Camp
9/27/2007
I’m in the CIA library with only one more day of “cooking college” to go! Tomorrow is graduation day for the current senior class, and proud parents and grandparents are swarming the campus, taking tours, and creating long lines for espresso at the Apple Pie Bakery. After another big lunch, I still got suckered into a most excellent banana tart to go with my double espresso, and it was gooood!
Cooking projects kept us at full throttle all morning as we poached, simmered and braised various incarnations of fish, chicken, veal and beef. Our team’s menu consisted of three courses: poached chicken breasts with tarragon veloute´ sauce, a creamy potato and parsnip puree, and spicy vegetables stir-fried. The theme today was learning to cook tender meats, like chicken and fish, in liquid at very low heat in order to build a delicate dish, and conversely, cooking tougher cuts of meat like veal and beef in liquid at higher temperatures in order to make them tender. The result was some wonderful dishes in addition to our chicken, such as Ossobuco on risotto with morel mushrooms, veal blanquette over fresh-made pasta, and roast beef over polenta.
The most often heard words in the kitchen today was Chef von Bargen hollering “What are you doing!?” usually just before an irrecoverable action occurred, but sadly for me, sometimes too late. One of my responsibilities was to build the spicy vegetable stir-fry, which I’ve made literally dozens of time. I’m making fast and proud progress cutting & chopping squash, zucchini, celery, carrots, daikon, and cabbage when I hear the dreaded words over my shoulder, “What are you doing!?” Chef informs me that my “shapes” are uninteresting, tosses my bowls of veggies in the garbage and proceeds to show me on each vegetable how someone who isn’t an idiot would do it. Turns out his approach gave a darn fine looking veggie stir-fry, and I got to practice my knife skills for another hour!
More wine tasting, this time with food (!), pretty much took care of the afternoon and made me wish again, for the thousandth time, that I could retrieve trivia from my memory. The interesting facts I learned during wine tasting today would be so nice to have at my fingertips … my brain doesn’t work that way so I won’t be able to amaze my friends with clever nuances, but I will remember that Chardonnay most certainly does NOT go with tart or sour fruits and that Riesling is one of the most unrecognized, food friendly wines available.
My afternoon routine involves changing from chef uniforms to street clothes, getting an espresso, and then hanging out at the library until dinner. Over the course of the week I’ve explored all three floors of the library, and I’m amazed at the amount of research and technical journals that exist in support of the restaurant industry. There are journals and magazines catering to all parts of the industry: hotels, restaurants, food and equipment suppliers, etc. There are even journals full of equations and experimental results, just like the stuff that exists in engineering. Amazing. Wouldn’t have guessed it.
Tonight, we eat at American Bounty, the highest rated of the school’s restaurants. Our experience last night at Escoffier was quite good (although it did consume a fashionable 3 ½ hours of the evening) so my expectations for tonight are pretty high. Escoffier and American Bounty restaurants are both staffed by students in their last three months of school before graduation. There are no quivering hands – I’m not kidding, most of the student waiters in the other restaurants are visibly nervous – and they are on top of the details and know the menu. Chef was telling us that it’s a struggle to keep the graduating students motivated since they are looking forward to starting their careers, nailing down jobs, etc. It certainly didn’t show.
STOP! I wrote most of this blog BEFORE dinner tonight at American Bounty and simply have to give an update. Dinner started off fine and, with the exception of a few mostly raw scallops in one of the orders, was well executed. Then, a brew-ha-ha erupted over “accidental” service of alcohol to minors at another table, apparently with mom and dad involved in the “mis-representation”. Our waitress lost all track of our table and dessert/coffee/wine orders while she conferred with other staff (remember, they’re all students) to decide whether they should create a scene, call 911, or just let it go. Fully an hour later when things got back on track, our dessert order arrived. However, one of our party ordered chocolate ice cream, which came as a small blob of ice in a pool of chocolate milk, with the explanation that “we couldn’t keep the plate cold!” What!? The premier restaurant at the premier culinary school in America can’t keep a plate cold, and actually served melted ice cream?! Now that cracked me up! Definitely makes my permanent list of “Listen to this one!” stories about boot camp. There is no doubt that graduation is less than 12 hours away for the staff at American Bounty.
The pork loin is brining and tomorrow is the big day to prove we can execute our own menus … fingers crossed and hoping not to hear “What are you doing!?”
More tomorrow …
– Chris
I know this is the standard excuse, but it really did look better “in real life”!
Dinner at American Bounty, waiting for the ice cream plate to get cold in the kitchen:
