another magical day in the kitchen

A friend of mine from high school asked me what my favorite thing was about cooking. I couldn't answer him at the time but after some thought I realized there was one thing I really loved: the transformation. The way onions go from snow white, firm, and bitter to golden brown, limp, and sweet never ceases to impress me. I love transformations.

Tonight was one of those nights where the transformations were just beautiful to behold. We made Espagnole sauce and Jus de Veau Lie. Espagnole sauce started by heating clarified butter and then browning carrots, onions, and celery. Once the mirepoix was browned, tomato paste was added and cooked so that it would turn from bright red to brick red. Then brown veal stock was added and the mixture was thickened with a brown roux. Now let me tell you something about this brown roux, it was just a combination of flour (60%) and clarified butter (40%) that had been cooked until it turned dark, dark brown and smelled like toffee. It smelled sooooooooooo good. It was just like my mom's toffee. I had another one of those crazy smiles on my face as I scooped out globs of this thick brown paste into a cup because it smelled like our annual Cousins' Christmas Cookie Baking Day when we get so lost in conversation that we forget about the cookies and let one tray go too long in the oven. Flour and butter make lovely smells together! So then the Espagnole sauce is simmered to let the roux come to its full potential. At the same time I was also making a Jus de Veau Lie which started with hot clarified butter and chunks of veal meat. The meat was browned in the pan and then removed. Carrots, onions, and celery were added to the pan and browned and then tomato paste was added just like with the Espagnole sauce. But then the pan was heated up really hot and red wine was poured in to deglaze the pan and get all the little pieces of meat/veg/tomato paste that were sticking to the bottom and sides off and into the liquid. Not only did the wine smell amazing-- like fresh picked berries-- but the messy brown pieces of food that were stuck all over the pan were now sliding effortlessly into a beautiful rich purple red sauce. Brown veal stock was then added and the sauce was simmered until the meat was tender (and delicious!) and then a slurry of cold water, arrowroot, and potato starch was added to thicken the sauce. Finally, the sauces were strained to remove the vegetables and meat.

baking brownies in chinese take out containers

So tonight when I got home I asked my room mate if I could have one of the brownies that had been sitting in a plastic container in the dark corner of her desk for the past week. When I pulled the container into the light I was surprised to find that she had actually baked the brownies IN the plastic container. I hadn't realized you could BAKE in plastic Chinese take-out containers! I remember eating Moo Shu Pork out this thing, and now it had been used to bake brownies. These little containers are AMAZING!

Another amazing thing happened today... I made mayonnaise! Now most things I prefer home made, except mayonnaise I like to leave up to Hellman's. But today, my mayonnaise was pretty good, I wanted to spread it right onto a toast sandwich. We also made hollandaise sauce (which might be my favorite sauce) and poured it over beautifully cooked broccoli. Both sauces start with egg yolk, water, and acid that is whipped like crazy with a whisk. Fat is slowly poured in while you continue to whip like its your job. Oil is added to the yolk mixture for mayonnaise and clarified butter for hollandaise. Its honestly pretty easy, just whip, whip, whip, whip! And FAST.

cauliflower, tomato, mushroom, and spinach

My two vegetarian sisters would have been pleased with today's class because it was the first day we did not use meat or any form of it (i.e. bones for stock). We made Bechamel sauce, Mornay sauce, creamed spinach, cauliflower gratin, and stuffed tomatoes. It was a bit of challenge after having days where we only made one dish, but it was fun as always.

The bechamel sauce is one of the Grand Sauces-- Espagnole, Veloute, Hollandaise, and Bechamel. We made veloute yesterday which is just white stock thickend with a pale roux. Bechamel sauce is milk thickened with a white roux. The creamed spinach was fresh baby spinach that was cooked in boiling, VERY salty water (imagine the ocean) and then tossed in a pan with butter and shallots, and then finished with heavy cream and bechamel sauce. The cauliflower gratin which means "brown on top" was cooked cauliflower (in salty acidic water...lemon juice was added to retain the whiteness of the cauliflower), Mornay Sauce (bechamel+Gruyere and Parmesan cheese), and grated Gruyere and Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top and then browned in the oven, or salamander. The stuffed tomatoes were filled with Duxelle which is the name for really any variation of chopped mushrooms filling. We sauteed shallots in butter, added the mushrooms and white wine, and cooked it until all the liquid had evaporated and we were left with a dry Duxelle. We took halved, peeled and seeded tomatoes, stuffed them with Duxelle and topped them with Persillade. Persillade is fresh bread crumbs (white bread pulsed in the food processor), minced garlic, chopped parsley, and clarified butter. Everything was very delicious.

In total I ate: 1 tomato, 1 pint of spinach, and 8 mushrooms. I would have eaten a 1/4 head of cauliflower but I ran out of time because it was so darn hot I decided burning my tongue once was enough.

I just love it here

Here at the CIA, they teach you the methods. We are not learning how to make Lentil Soup or Cream of Broccoli soup so that we can make Lentil Soup and Cream of Broccoli soup for the rest of our lives, but so that we can make puree soup and cream soups the emphasis is on learning the technique. I love that. I like being given the tools and then letting me decide how I want to use them. Constantly, we are being told the sky is limit and you can do anything you want in the Food Industry because there are so many opportunities. Teach, farm, cook, write, photograph, travel, sell, etc. You can do anything you want, I like that attitude.

a good day for a bad day

I have never wished I was having a bad day but today when I was whacking fish skeletons into manageable pieces for fish stock, I knew this would be a great way to relieve the tension of a stressful/bad day. We received a big black bag full of fish skeletons with lots of smelly fish juice dripping off the sides from the Fish Room (where I was in class two weeks ago) that we turned into a wonderfully flavored liquid called fumet. The difference between fumet and fish stock is that you sweat the bones and mirepoix first in hot butter and then you add the water, whereas with fish stock you just add bones and mirepoix straight to cold water.

bacon and onion, mmmmmm.....

I knew the lentil soup was going to be good the instant the bacon hit the pan. Not even a second later, sweet smokiness filled my nose and I fell in love with bacon all over again. It happens to me every single time I fry bacon, without fail. Then I added the onions and let those release their incredible fragrance. I took a deep breath as I leaned over the pan, "mmmmmmmm," I sighed. I thought of my room mate tonight because one day she told me that she was "firmly convinced that the presence of God smells like that of fresh cut cilantro". However, I am firmly convinced that the presence of God smells like bacon and onions sizzling gently in a pan.

About a year ago I read an article by my favorite chef, Grant Achatz. He talked about how people taste food differently and the difficulty that poses to us as cooks. I thought it was a fascinating piece and one that I thought about for days after reading it, and still think about a year later. This particular article also made me really insecure because how was I ever supposed to be able to season food properly if everyone tasted it differently? So last week we did an exercise that has dispelled my fear of seasoning and made me a more confident cook. Chef took equal amounts of chicken stock, and lined them up with ascending amounts of salt (none, 1/4 tsp, 1/2 tsp, 1 tsp, etc.) and we tasted them all and told him what we thought was perfect. On the chart of saltiness I fell into the lower half (meaning I like less salt) but very close to the middle. However, Chef was above me on the salty scale. I now know that when I am seasoning my food in class, which he tastes and grades me on, I need to salt it to where I think is appropriate and then salt a little more in order to get to his preference. Tonight, I thought my lentil soup was perfectly seasoned and like clockwork, Chef thought it needed salt. I got so excited because it tasted wonderful to me that I forgot I should add that extra little pinch.

daddy's girl

My dad and I share several common loves: driving around on back country roads, my mom, sleeping, and potatoes. Fried, mashed, baked, or in chip form, my dad loves potatoes. So I was thinking about him today while I was cooking Potato and Leek soup and making mashed potatoes. We were also visiting my dad's family in California when I first had Potato and Leek soup and we made mashed potatoes the same way his mom did by using a food mill or ricer.

The Potato and Leek soup was simple and absolutely delicious. First, the onions and leeks were sweated (the moisture drawn out over a med/low heat) in clarified butter. Then diced potatoes, chicken stock, and a sachet d'epice ( "bag of spices":a little pocket of cloth with thyme, parsley stems, crushed black pepper, bay leaf, and a clove of garlic... all for flavor) were added to the pot and cooked until the potatoes were tender. I forgot to add my sachet d'epice when I added my stock and I didn't realize it until I was ready to puree my soup and remembered it was important to remove my sachet from the soup---when oops! I couldn't find it because I had never put it in. Luckily, I had 50 more minutes until my soup had to be ready, so I added the sachet and turned the heat way down to low and let the flavors infuse. After pureeing the soup in a blender, I added hot cream and chopped chives. It was smooth, full flavored, and so, so easy. The next time you are looking to make something wonderful, look no further than this soup. Here is the recipe:

1 oz clarified butter
6 oz leeks
1.5 oz onion
10 oz chef's potato
1 qt chicken stock
1 sachet d'epice (1 bay leaf, 5-6 crushed black peppercorns, 1 clove garlic, 2-3 parsley stems, and 1 good sprig of thyme)
6 oz cream (hot)
few chives chopped
salt and white pepper to taste

Heat the butter, then add the onions and leeks. Let the onions and leeks sweat for a few minutes, being careful not brown them, and keeping the heat about med/low. Add the potatoes, stock, and sachet. Simmer gently until the potatoes are tender. Blend in a blender or food processor until smooth. Transfer blended soup back to cooking pot, and add hot cream. Season. Stir in chives immediately before serving.

It is important that the cream is hot because when the hot starchy potato molecules are exposed to cold, they'll seize up and get very gluey. It is part of a process called gelation.

Also, when making mashed potatoes, we dried out the potatoes after cooking them to remove excess moisture. We did this by draining the potatoes from their cooking water and returning the potatoes back to their pot and then letting them sit a hot oven (400°F) until they get little white spots all over them and are very dry. Chef said this makes them fluffier.

p.s. Day 6 is a good day for food-- Banh Mi sandwich for lunch and fried pork cutlet with spaetzle for dinner.

things aren't always what they seem

I love surprises. And I love the unexpected. I love when you think something is going to be horrible and then its wonderful. I love when you meet someone who think you're not going to like and then you end up being their best friend. I love when soup looks like the equivalent of a big, thick, gloopy, eggy, raw ground chicken, floating vegetable mess, and then it turns out to be the clearest soup you've ever seen. Hello, consomme.

It might be one of the coolest things I've ever done in a kitchen and I can't even take all the credit for it because its just too cool, too beyond me. Consomme is an extremely clear soup that has a really rich flavor. Chefs say you should be able to read the date on a dime that is sitting on the bottom of a pot of consomme. We're not talking clear here, we're talking exquisitely clear. Like nothing you've ever seen before. It's similar to the first time you see a diamond, but you can eat this and it tastes awesome. So basically what you do is mix egg whites, raw ground meat (corresponding to whatever kind of stock you are going to use), tomato (acid), mirepoix (finely chopped mixture 50% onion, 25% carrot, 25% celery), salt, and stock together. You gently heat everything up and the egg/meat/vegetable mixture cooks and slowly forms a raft, which is just a mass of the above mixture and any impurities in the liquid, and then you are left with a brilliantly clear liquid that is so full of flavor you wouldn't believe it. It also happens to be beautiful.

French Onion Soup Day

I love slicing onions, I love the transformations that occur in cooking, I love getting things done on time, I love butter, I love cheese, and I love French Onion Soup.

In addition to all of the above happening, it was also a Friday. Last week was kind of a rough week and its easier to talk about now that things are getting better, but class last week was difficult. I have had both the blessing and the curse of being pretty successful in the kitchens I've worked and learned in. My kitchen at home is well worn with both sweet success and bitter failure, but as far as other kitchens go, they've known mostly success. So last week when I wasn't properly completing my knife trays (a plastic tray that has different requirements each day, for ex: 1 small diced potato 1/4x 1/4 x 1/4 in, 2 minced garlic, 2 minced shallot, 2 tbsp parsley chiffonade, etc.), or even completing them at all within the time limit given, I was not only under the stress of doing poorly but I was also under the stress of not knowing how to deal with doing poorly. You see, making mistakes is a very funny thing because when you make them you wish you hadn't, and when you don't you wish you had because then you would know how to deal with them. I was envious of the people I have witnessed make mistakes because they learned how to deal with them, now I'm learning too.

Different soups in New Jersey and Washington State

Tonight we talked about seasoning because we made our first dish, Beef Vegetable Soup. In lecture, chef was talking about different populations liking different seasonings. For instance, in New Jersey canned soup is much saltier than soup in Washington state. People in different places have different seasoning preferences and companies will cater the same product to these individual preferences. I thought that was fascinating.

Today something crazy happened that I'm so glad I slowed down for. I have found my schedule very rushed lately. I rush to go running in the morning, I rush up the hill to get to dinner, I rush to get to class on time, I rush to finish my knife cuts, I'm just always rushing. Well today, I was rushing to get to class and someone I know stopped me and wanted me to go into a kitchen with them, I tried to brush them off and said I was late. They responded that I would probably never get to taste this again, so I reluctantly followed. I tasted tuna and home made wasabi that Masaharu Morimoto made. The wasabi sells for $180/lb. Only at the Culinary Institute of America would something like that happen, only at CIA. What an opportunity! I still can't believe I go here.

Oatmeal: the perfect dorm food

This morning I ate a gigantic bowl of oatmeal for breakfast and was so greatful that I had made such a good decision to put it on my pre-college grocery shopping list because its AWESOME! I LOVE oatmeal! And I love everything about it, its healthy (whole grain), easy, cheap, versatile, convenient, has a good shelf life, and it takes up a small amount of room. It is perfect dorm food. I put dried apricots, sliced 1/2 an apple, a big bunch of oatmeal, and water in bowl and then cooked it in my microwave until it was thick. Added some sugar and cinnamon, and it was delicious. I love awesome breakfasts.

Today we learned the slicing, small dicing, and chiffonading techniques. I tend to have a huge streak of attention to detail that some people might call crazy. Well, let me tell you when my chef gave me exact measurements today for these knife cuts (1/4x 1/4 x 1/4 for small dice) my "attention to detail" got very comfortable. I could feel the knots forming in my shoulders as I crouched over my cutting board. My feet were twisting all around, doing anything but standing flat on the ground, and I was measuring like a maniac. Some people would hate something like that. If I were measuring bricks or threads for a carpet, or anything else, I would hate it. But I didn't, I loved it. I want to go back tomorrow and cut more. In fact, I have potatoes in my room and I'm practicing in the morning before I go back to class. I loved obsessing over these tiny details and trying and trying again to get something right. I like to see my progress and I like to see my results. I was proud to look at the mound of onions on my tray and say, "Now that's a slice!" Precision is perfection.

Skills I Day 1

Attitude and Preparation are crucial to success here.

As for attitude, be open, work hard, and be humble:

• I want to know all there is to know about food.
  
• My work habits in the classroom will shape my work habits in the work place.
  
• And I am not too good for anything.
  

These three ideas have served me well since I've been here.

As for preparation:
Do your homework. I know this from both sides of the fence... after doing it and being glad I did because I was tested on it and not doing it then feeling like a fool in class because I didn't know the answers. Preparation is your best defense in a constantly competitive and ever changing industry. Be prepared.

Day 6 & 7

It's funny how at other colleges the classes are measured in semesters and broken down further into weeks. Here, classes are broken down into days. Meat was 7 Days, Fish was 7 days. So its appropriate when the lectures online are labeled Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc. because that is the best way to keep track of the class. But I am still struck by how odd it is that I know what day of the class it is. Like I could just say, "Oh! Today is Day 5!" Never before in my life have I ever kept track of what "Day" class I'm in. It's always been measured by quarters (9 weeks) or semesters (1/2 a year), so its funny to me that when I'm trying to think back to last Thursday and Friday the first thing that comes to mind is that it was Day 6 & 7.

Thursday (Day 6) was Crustacean Day. Crustaceans are animals with exoskeletons and jointed legs. There are four major families: Shrimp, crabs, lobsters, and crayfish. They are also the tastiest of seafood families in my opinion. We prepared soft shell crabs, peeled and deviened shrimp, and filleted haddock (which didn't fit in out crustacean themed day, it just provided extra cutting practice). The process for preparing soft shell crabs is as follows:

1. Cut off the Face, a little graphic but just make a cut right behind the eyes and cut straight down. You can then gently squeeze out the inner parts of the crab which includes the "mustard". The mustard actually works to filter the impurities out of the crab, very similar to a liver. People advise not to eat it because it has a higher level of contaminants than is generally advisable to consume. However, my chef brought up a good point. We eat foie gras which is liver, it filters contaminants and nobody complains about that, we drink alcohol which in excess can pickle your liver, we smoke cigarettes which contaminate our lungs. He loves the mustard and thinks its the most flavorful part of the crab. His advice: "Pick your poison."
   
2. Remove the apron, located on the underside of the crab, it is joined at the rear of the crab and extends toward the front, and is either long and slender shaped indicating a male or rounded indicating a female... the two respective shapes are often compared to the male's apron looking like the Washington Monument and the female's apron looking like the dome on the Capitol Building. It just peels right off.
3. Remove the gills, pick up the edges of the crabs shell on the sides and pull off the little ruffled gills.

We also peeled and deveined shrimp. He told us to cut along the back of the raw shrimp up to the tail and then pinch the opposite side (where the spiny little legs are located) and pull the skin off. It worked so well! I was very excited because I love new tricks.

At the end of class we did a tasting of different shrimps and we tasted two white shrimp. One was peeled and the other was not. The white shrimp with its peel on was sweeter and cleaner tasting, it was awesome. It tasted like a totally different shrimp and all because it was cooked with the shell on. Try it sometime if you have shrimp with the peels on, peel one and cook it, then leave the peel on another one and cook it. Taste the two side by side and see if you can tell the difference. We also tasted pan fried soft shell crabs, and they were so delicious. The little claws filled up with the butter they were fried in and just burst warm, salty butter in your mouth when you chewed them. They were seasoned with Old Bay which to me is one of the most perfect blends of spices and we always have Old Bay in our spice cabinet at home so whenever I eat it I think of home.

Friday (Day 7) was our final exam day which included an Identification portion (looking at fish and telling what they are) and then a written exam. We also shucked 30 oysters a piece. And we had a caviar tasting.

I actually like shucking oysters because you can so obviously see your progress when you reveal that tender, little oyster inside its dark, gnarly shell. One of the things I love about cooking is that it's very easy to see results, good or bad. I like the honesty of that. There is also a wonderful sense of pride in your work and the ability of your hands when you're shucking oysters.

I am so glad I don't like caviar because gosh darnit that would be one expensive habit. Bleh. I honestly didn't like a single one I tried. They all had very different flavors and interesting textures, if I had liked them I would have a lot of fun trying to find applications for them because they are all so unique. The picture at the top is of our caviar tasting plate, clockwise from the top we tasted Tobiko (3 kinds: orange which was flavored with soy sauce, red flavored with fish sauce, and green flavored with wasabi) ($1.10/oz), Trout ($4.98/oz), Salmon ($2.50/oz), Whitefish ($5.50/oz), Pike ($14.40/oz), California Ossetra($43.48/oz), Iranian Ossetra($89.50/oz), Israeli Ossetra($62.97/oz), Russian Sevruga($99.71/oz), and Paddlefish($14.36/oz). In order for caviar to be labeled just caviar it must be from the sturgeon fish, if not it must labeled with what kind of fish the eggs came from. If I were to eat any of them again I would eat either the orange or green Tobiko because they were really crunchy which made for a cool texture, and they had pretty good flavor. They tasted like salty soy sauce and bitey wasabi. We also tasted a cucumber lime grav lax (11:00 on the plate) that one of the T.A.'s made and it was deliciously fresh and cucumber scented, chef remarked that you can make fish taste like anything and I agree. We also tasted uni (right center, orange blob) which is the reproductive organs of sea urchins and I did not like that either, it was sweet but weird. There's a flavor in uni that tastes like it shouldn't be there but I think that is its characteristic flavor, it was not a nice taste. I did seriously love the smoked shrimp (left center) we tasted though. It was brined (in salt, sugar, and water) for 5 minutes and then pan smoked, which is when a pan is heated really hot with wood or burning flavorings, closed, and the food inside is smoked quickly on the stove top. That was one good little shrimp.

the beauty of fall

Its days like this that make fall my favorite season. It is so darn gorgeous here, even right now at 9:22 p.m. the beauty of the day is still hanging around coming through my open window and making me really happy.

The Hudson Valley is just a beautiful place, way to go CIA for picking such a great place to have a school. Kudos :)

Today we ate oysters for breakfast. I was really excited when my chef looked at me and said "These are from your neck of the woods," as he pointed to the Virginia oysters. The last time I ate them was Christmas with my mom and my uncle standing around the counter in my kitchen. We ate them in a similar fashion today, everyone lining the counter in the fish room, shucking and then slurping back raw oysters. It made me inexplicably happy and I had a goofy grin on my face that confused several people because we were eating raw shellfish and it wasn't even 7 a.m. I whispered to my friend that they tasted like Christmas. I love food.

We also ate Bay Scallops and Sea Scallops. I was excited for the Bay Scallop but anxious about the Sea Scallop because Sea Scallops have been consistently bad in my life, I've never had a good one. Bay Scallops on the other hand are sweet and tender, and so wonderfully delicious to me. Today's case was exactly the opposite. The Bay Scallops tasted soapy and dirty (which is from Sodium tri-polyphosphate, a common chemical used to bleach, preserve, and add water weight to scallops) while the Sea Scallops were sweet, tender, and amazingly meaty. Always give food a second (third, fourth, fifteenth...) chance because it deserves it.

I hope the weather is just as beautiful where you are as it is here.

butterflied fish, home, and top soil

So last Friday was an awesome day and the fact that I didn't post anything about it (yet) is no indicator of its awesomeness. So my day started out as my days do since I've started fish class, my alarm goes off at 4 a.m. and I get out of bed (which I am still proud of every day because I never would have guessed I would long for my 6:45 a.m. high school alarm, that's almost 3 MORE hours of sleep than I'm getting now!), make the quiet and beautiful walk up the hill to Roth Hall and into the basement where I start fish class. However, today was different because I was going home after class. I surprised my family Friday night and spent the weekend in the irreplaceable comfort of my own home. When I woke up on Saturday morning I laid in bed and went over how to do a straight cut on a fish (making a cut behind the gill plate, and cutting straight down along the spine of the fish over the ribs) in my head. We had cut salmon on Friday and I found a strange pleasure in pulling out the pin bones. I say its strange because I know some/most people hate that tedious task, but I love it.

On Friday we also butterflied fish. "Why did you cut the head and tail off?" my chef asked over my shoulder. "I thought you asked me to, Chef" I replied. He walked away. Nope. In order to properly butterfly a fish, one removes the dorsal (back) and adipose (lower back) fins and the spine, leaving the head and tail intact and ending with a fish that is opened flat. Lesson learned, I will never make that mistake again.

Today we tasted Wild Striped Bass, Black Sea Bass, Hybrid Stripe Bass, Acadian Red Perch, Lane Snapper, Tile Fish, Swordfish, and Tuna. The tuna honestly reminded me of pork. It was juicy, meaty, and mildly delicious. Chef got the most beautiful golden color on it and seasoned it with the perfect amount of salt and pepper. Then the Hybrid Stripe Bass tasted like something I'd eaten before and I chewed and chewed it, rifling through my memory bank of flavors trying to match it to something I knew, when I finally said out loud to my class "it tastes like something I've had before that's not good...," I trailed off. "Top Soil," Chef replied. Bleh, he was right. After he said it, I could spit it out because I knew what it tasted like, dirt.

the smell of the ocean and the taste of crab

Today when I leaned down to smell my chef whites in class, I closed my eyes and actually smelled the ocean. To the untrained nose I smelled like stinky fish, but to me it was July, the windows were down and I was driving towards that salty, briny, fresh smell that unmistakably indicates the ocean.

We did our first cutting of fish today. We each got three fish and two were cut into 1/4 fillets and the third was cut into whole fillets. Fish are so much easier to understand than meat because there's flesh and there's bone. There are a couple different methods for cutting fish, but they all have basically the same simple, beautiful anatomy.

We also had our first fish tasting where we tasted 5 different kinds of fish: Flounder, Dover Sole, Turbot, Halibut, and Skate. They were all lovely fish but each had distinct differences. The texture of the Halibut was chewy like Salmon, which can be attributed to the fact that it has the highest oil content of the low activity fish that we were tasting today. The activity level of a fish directly correlates with the oil content of a fish, high activity=high oil. Salmon are highly active and therefore oily, which give them that characteristic chewy, rich, mouth feel that the Halibut was reminiscent of today.The flounder was classic fishy flavored (in a very nice way). The Skate tasted like corn on the cob, and had a really cool texture with ridges in it. The one that stuck out to me most was the Dover Sole. If I had been blind tasting, I would have thought it was crab meat. I was shocked at how sweet it tasted and how silky the texture was. It was an awesome little piece of fish.

Food for thought: Yesterday my chef said that a vegetarian cook is better than any other cook because animal fat instinctively tastes good to us, but making a vegetable taste good takes so much more skill.

flex, flat, out

That was our mantra today for cutting fish. Besides coming back to my dorm and immediately starting the process of defunking my clothes, hair, and skin, fish today was awesome. There's just something so exciting about food that despite being 5 a.m. when I walked into the Fish Room (and it smelled just like you would imagine a fish room to smell) this morning, I still got that giddy feeling in my stomach. Its similar to the feeling I get when I see a boy I like, or when I know I have really good plans for the weekend. Or the feeling I woke up with on prom morning, or my birthday. It's just a downright good, exciting feeling. That's how I know I'm in the right place.

My chef is also a very interesting man, he loves fish, has strong opinions, and knows a lot of information. Another reassuring sign of a good school is good instructors. He shared some interesting facts with us that I'm eager to pass along:

• American consumption of fish has declined from 16.6 lbs/person annually in 2004, to 14.8 lbs/person in 2006, today in 2010 the consumption hovers somewhere around 14 lbs/person
  
• The number one reason that 67% of seafood is eaten in restaurants is that people don't like the smell of seafood in their house
• This could be the last year we are able to catch Bluefin Tuna because they are being caught at an outrageously alarming rate, and they are disappearing fast (check out this link to learn more about Bluefin Tuna: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/11/60minutes/main3700644.shtml)