Fact: Sausage is made of 70% meat and 30% fat = delicious

So today we made sausage because it's fun and easy. First, we used the trimmings of pork that we had leftover from day 4, mixed them with spices and salt, ground them twice in the meat grinder with ice (to keep everything very cold), hand mixed them to firm up the meat, fried a sample in lard, tasted the sample to check for proper seasoning, and stuffed the rest into casings. The stuffing was slightly complicated because air bubbles will often form in the cylinder that was extruding meat into the casing causing "farts" and air pockets in the sausage links. Depending on the severity of the sausage fart, the casing could either be pricked with the "pricker" or it would have to be cut off, the link would be twisted off, and then the whole process would start again. Once a long link of casing was filled with our fresh ground sausage meat, we would hand twist each 4 inch section into a breakfast sausage.

It definitely gives me a better appreciation for sausage and the work that goes into hand made sausage. It is also something that could definitely be done at home. I should also mention that this sausage was delicious. You tell me what's better than pork fat on pork fat?

poultry day

I have such an appreciation for people who have blogs with pictures because they are not easy to upload. I tend to think of myself as a pretty competent person and I just can't do it. I have loads of lovely pictures of my meat class that I want to share, but for the time being your imagination is going to have to do its thing because I just can't help you out.

Today was poultry day. I was excited for this day because I know a little something about poultry, and by a little I really mean little. I've broken down less than 50 chickens in my entire life. But nonetheless I was excited because when I started this class I had butchered a grand total of 0 beef shoulder clods, 0 pork loins, and 0 racks of lamb, so the feeling of familiarity was relative. It was a really interesting class though because my chef didn't do anything like I was taught. Today was just another reminder that there is more than one way to do the right thing.

how we do things here

I wondered what happened to all the vegetables that students chopped up when they were learning their knife cuts, or where the pig went that the meat class butchered, and I witnessed first hand today what happens to all that raw food. It gets sent to a production kitchen where other students cook it, and then it gets fed back to the students and staff. I now understand why I ate beef at the first 4 meals here, its the first meat we butcher in the Meat ID class. Tonight, I ate a breaded pork cutlet for dinner. Guess what we cut up yesterday... pork! It was cool to see food that I helped prepare be served to the public. It reminds me of the first batch of cookies I made at the bakery I used to work at. It is so cool to think that about how we're able to turn raw ingredients like flour, butter, and sugar into something that someone will actually pay money for. They want your handiwork, and I love that.

"you should write home about this..."

That's what I was told about my opportunity today in meat class. "Civilians don't get to do this," my instructor continued as I cracked apart the ribs of a pork loin. It was such a satisfying and swift maneuver, my heart could be nothing but proud.

Here's my challenge: get a big old honking piece of meat and learn how to break it down. It's worth it because you will now have such an appreciation for what you're eating, there are so many extra "underutilized" pieces of meat on these animals that we don't eat but are perfectly tasty (my new favorite cut of beef is sirloin flap...mmmmm, try finding that in your local grocery store, and if you do, let me know because I want some more), and best of all its fun. Making those cuts along the bones and creating perfectly useful pieces of meat out of a huge confusing hunk of flesh renders a type of unparalleled satisfaction.

Dawn+Cascade=white

I did my first soaking of my chef whites today and it was quite successful due to the aforementioned dynamic duo. They are like secret stain fighting ninjas. It was awesome how quickly and easily the beef blood just disappeared from my whites. To anyone who does laundry and is trying to get rid of food stains, use what we use to get food off other surfaces (like plates, cups, and silveware) to get food out of our clothes! It's an awesome and totally logical idea. And it works.

Speaking of beef blood-- I love beef shanks. Not eating them, but butchering them. It is quite comforting knowing that while it seems everything else in this world is in disarray, the tendons, veins, and muscles of cow's leg will be in exactly the same place every time. In addition, there are what my chef calls "natural seams" that are supposed to be like the dotted cut-here lines that I so miss from my arts and crafts kits. What I saw on the first day of class was a whole hunk of raw, confusing meat. In fact, the first two days of my meat class reminded me of a particularly frustrating afternoon in my high school culinary class where my chef tried to teach me how to break down a chicken. I don't ever remember feel quite as frustrated with a single piece of food before. I thought it was so confusing and I had no idea how he knew where to cut and when he talked about following the natural lines of the chicken, I was convinced he was making it up. However, as I watched my Meat ID and Fabrication Chef pry around, running his fingers along the bones pointing out important connective tissue, telling jokes about the cuts of meat, and make small careful cuts, it became apparent to me that he was right. There are natural seams in meat. I see them now and I think they're beautiful.

A word of advice

The key to classes here is the course guide. Pull it up the night before (if we're being realistic here) your class and read it through. There will be information about homework that a chef expects you to hand in the first day of class, no exceptions. No one told me that, but I luckily figured it out myself.

Second, choose a college where there are things you are interested in. Whether it be majors, philanthropy, classes, or clubs, if you go to the places that interest you, you will find interesting people there. Thing #432 that I love about culinary school. People here love food, and so do I.

i love the rain

... and my Meat Fabrication and Identification class. One of the cool things about the curriculum here is that is builds on itself and all the professors know about what the other ones are teaching/have taught you. When my meat teacher mentioned terroir (the taste of a place) today I got really excited because I know what that is and all the wonderful memories of my Gastronomy class came rushing back.

I started a series of e-mails with my mom about her $34,000 fact of the day (because that's how much its costing us to send me here) and I thought I would share the wealth of knowledge. So today's $34,000 fact of the day is:

The reason vacuum sealed meat often looks dark purple is because of a lack of oxygen. Once the meat is exposed to air again it will return to its characteristic bright red color. If the meat is exposed to oxygen for an extended period of time it will turn a dull gray/brown which can sometimes be an indicator of spoilage. This is all due to the protein myoglobin which stores oxygen. If you are cutting up a slab of raw meat, the inside is often dark purple but as it sits on your cutting board, it will turn red before your eyes, watch it happen, its wicked cool. I might have done that today during class.

you know you go to culinary school when...

1. There are eggplants growing in the flower pots
2. People talk at a party about the difference in taste between iodized and kosher salt
3. Your R.A. is doing his homework at the front desk which includes practicing his piping skills for cake decorating
   
4. There is a question on a Math test about how many liters of Margarita you can make if you have 2 liters of tequila
5. You have chocolate mousse in a molded chocolate shell with a caramelized hazelnut in your refrigerator
   
6. The streets on campus are all named after herbs and spices (ex: Chive Ct.)
   
7. You are flipping through 300+ flashcards of different kinds of produce to study for your test tomorrow
   
8. Your mascot is a Steel (the kitchen tool used to straighten and hone knives)
   
9. The pond on campus is nicknamed Lake Veloute (after one of Escoffier's 5 Mother Sauces that is a thickened chicken stock which looks green if you're thinking about it)
   
10. Your friend has to go to class at 1:30 a.m. to start making breakfast for the other students

Today was the final day of B-block which included: Food Safety, Math, Product Knowledge, and Gastronomy. I will start meat class on Monday morning and I am looking forward to cutting up large amounts of raw beef. Seriously.

Happy Friday!

Grand Buffet

Another beautiful day in the Hudson valley. Sometimes I just look around, point my face to the sun, and smile because why not? It's beautiful here. Today was one of those days though where it was particularly beautiful. Cool morning, kind sunlight, and sweet air at 6:30 a.m. as I walked to my Food Safety class. Then warmer sun and puffy clouds as I walked back to my room after lunch. It was the perfect day for running through the fountain on Anton Plaza which is exactly what one family did. I watched them and smiled because that's how family is supposed to be. Somehow it feels unfair to say that the weather today was one of my favorites, kinda like when teachers say they don't have a favorite student, but we all know they do. Out of all the other days, today was my one of my favorites.

Today was also my first college finals. Food Safety this morning and Gastronomy this afternoon. Both went well and I believe that is a testament to my professors who have put forth, in my opinion, a pleasantly unusual amount of effort to ensure that I was prepared for the tests. One piece of trite (but so, so true!) advice for college students: do the readings.

The class schedule here at the Culinary is a little weird... it has become normal to me, but I realize it's really not normal. Classes generally last for 3 weeks, 1 class at a time, sometimes 6 hours a day in the kitchen, for 3 weeks. What that also means is that students enter and graduate every 3 weeks. We have reached the end of a 3 week block so today was a graduation. As part of the commencement festivities, there is Grand Buffet which includes long tables of small portions of interesting foods, as well as a very impressive dessert spread in the dining hall. I was surprised tonight at dinner when my friend offered me foie gras on toast, and my stomach churned. I winced and politely refused. "It's soooo good," she urged. "It's so creamy, just try it!" No. Liver grossed me out and it wasn't until it was offered to me that I realized just how disgusted I was by it. Later, a man sitting at our table offered me chicken liver pâté. I was still grossed out by it, but figured I needed to try it. It's been a while since I've come across something I didn't want to try and I had forgotten just how uncomfortable it makes you feel. I went to the expansive bread selection, picked out a piece of my favorite crusty bread, and slathered the pâté and red wine braised onions on my perfect bread. I didn't really like it. But I ate it because I'm supposed to be training my palate (which includes eating new things, understanding proper use of salt, and appreciating the true flavor of food). I was challenged tonight in a way that hasn't happened in a while and it was a good experience. It also brought back memories of vocabulary from Gastronomy like commensality and aversion.

• Commensality is the magical bond that occurs when people share food. M.F.K. Fisher talks about it when she says, "Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly".
  
• Aversion refers to a settled dislike (Wasser)

I mention aversion for obvious reasons, I have an aversion to liver. I mention commensality because something really cool did unfold tonight at the dinner table. We got to talking about why I didn't like the liver, why my friend did, and the man who convinced me to eat it shared how and why he likes to eat it. We also talked about other things we didn't like eating and how things we originally hated, we now loved, like sushi and mushrooms. We came to the table strangers and left companions.

Thank you food for being magical, professors for being helpful, and Mother Nature for being beautiful. I love this place.

Bryan Voltaggio and hamburgers

One of the many awesome things that happens here on campus are the cool people who come to visit us. For instance, Bryan Voltaggio did a demonstration of his version of a Caprese salad and talked about what he believes food is. Ladies and Gentlemen, if you thought Chef Bryan Voltaggio was cool already let me assure, he's even better in person. His down to earth, passionate, relatable, and fascinating personality made him a joy to watch. Sometimes, people with incredible accomplishments (he opened his restaurant, Volt in Frederick, MD, 2 years ago and the next time a table for 8 is available is 2012) can make you feel really nervous and insecure, but Chef Voltaggio did no such thing. He told us how honored he was to be here and that we should strive for the same thing, to be able to one day return to this place and do our own demonstration. My favorite Chef Voltaggio moments of the night boil down to:

• it makes sense because it tastes good
• don't be in a rush, soak it all in
• Share.
  
• the kitchen is about team work
• Professionalism is important in the kitchen
• take everything you know and make it your own-- "I didn't invent the Caprese Salad, I changed it. This is Bryan Voltaggio (points to the plate)."
• eating his food

Another awesome thing that happens on campus is employment. I got an e-mail earlier this week asking for students to help set up for Thursday's and Friday's graduation. I just got back from setting up for tomorrow's graduation which is where the hamburger comes in. Besides making a little extra money, having a super convenient commute (a stroll across campus), and meeting new people, we also ate family meal together. Family Meal is one of the beautiful things that happens in a kitchen. The staff gathers around (sometimes around a table, other times just standing at their station, or on the go as they pass the food) and eats a meal. Today we ate hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, pickles, sauerkraut, salad, and fresh fruit. I had a hamburger, sauerkraut (with bacon lardons in it...mmmm!), salad, and wickedly sweet cantaloupe. The cantaloupe reminded me of what a wonderful time of year it is right now for fruits and vegetables... that kind of sweetness can't be replicated or recreated at any other time in our year. But that hamburger. It was the best of the summer.

egg white omelet with broccoli,feta, and chive

I was blessed to enjoy that for breakfast this morning. Besides being purely green and white (both brilliant shades of each respective color), it was delicious.

I thought back to my breakfast as I sat here reading an article by Roger Haden for my Gastronomy class. The article mentions that broccoli has lost 75% of its calcium content since 1940, according to British researcher David Thomas. Haden credits modern agribusiness, artificial fertilizers and hydroponics.