Nice, Shmice

Esquire magazine has recently published their list of people who aren't as nice as you'd think they'd be.

Harumph!

Nurses, clowns and flight attendants...okay, I get it. They deal with the general public when the general public are not at their best. They deserve to be not-so-nice. Alex Trebek, I've never met so I can't comment on his nice-ness factor. I don't know what a belletrist is (but doesn't it sound naughty?!) My personal favourite in the list is "fathers of female tennis pros," because they certainly seem to get into a whole heap of trouble, don't they?

..but... PASTRY CHEFS? Says WHO (other than Esquire) that we're not nice?

I am *so* nice. Especially when I'm not being a bitch.

The Swedish Chef

yah! ....e'vytink is okie dokie!....
(and I don't know what's funnier, the Chef himself, or the joke made at the end about the bride!)

One Man's Inedible, Part II

Several months ago I posted about how I got credit for someone else's work. Last week, the same thing happened - but this time it was me doing the cooking. We had an entire lesson on lamb - different cuts of lamb cooked via various methods. Cheffie and I, as usual, were working at adjoining work stations. Each of us made a red wine sauce to go with a herb-crusted lamb roast. His sauce failed miserably and mine came out quite well. Rather than re-make the sauce, he just "borrowed" what was left of mine. When it came time to evaluation - my sauce was deemed "very nice, complex flavour" while my sauce served on Cheffie's plate was deemed "tastes like wet Vegemite." We're talking about the exact same sauce. Cheffie, needless to say, was able to laugh it off. Later in the class, he burned one of his topside steaks, and again had to "borrow" one of mine (as we needed to present 2 of them.) My steak when presented was "nicely cooked and seasoned." My steak on Cheffie's plate was deemed "over seasoned."

He's beginning to think the teacher has it in for him. I just maintain that I'm cuter, therefore my food is better.

You have to be in it to win it

...and I was (in it, that is.) Yes, you're looking at the Bronze Medal I won! Now imagine how I would have done were I not under the influence of several over-the-counter medications, 2 kilometers of tape stuck to my back and butt, and a whole lot of emotional madness! I'm feeling very proud today!

For what it's worth, I went with taste over degree of difficulty and here's what I cooked:

• Fragrant braised apricot chicken
• Moroccan Couscous: an orange infused mix of almonds, sultanas and cinnamon
• Green beans dressed with lemon zest, Persian feta and fresh mint
• Carrot ribbons cooked with fresh ginger and cardamom

I even had some of the judges approach me afterwards and say how great my dish tasted. For the record, I was one point away from a silver medal. At the end of the day, I don't really care about the medal that much - I care that I came, I cooked, I stayed upright.

That's me in the spotlight, losing my religion

Next week - Tuesday at 1pm, on the first day of Passover to be precise - I am taking part in my first ever culinary competition. I originally entered the competition because I thought it would be fun. Hell, I even thought I might win, having seen the way some of my fellow students cook. The competition is a fairly serious one - it's the "Regional Final" for the Victorian Tafe "Chef of the Year" award. If you win or come in second place, you get to do it all over again in the State finals, held in September. Mind you, I don't think there are semi-finals or anything, so who knows why they call it a final in the first place. Any-hoo - I'm in.

I'm terrified.

Seriously.

Originally I just thought it would be fun, but now I know that my scary overachiever girl self will beat herself up for a loooonnnnngggg time if I don't at least place. So it's not really fun per se, now it's just sheer terror and torture and god knows what. I find myself doubting my abilities, doubting my sanity (what posessed me to enter this?!) and doubting, well, just everything. My ego is so bound up in this...on some level it's like if I don't do well in this, I somehow SUCK as a chef. Stupid, illogical, pointless, self-depracating ... yes, all of those plus more big vocabulary words. The thing is, the actual requirements are pretty easy.

Two servings of:
- chicken, with a sauce or jus
- a green vegetable
- a second, non-green vegetable
- a farinaceous (starch based) dish
...and you have to portion a whole raw chicken, cost out the menu to below a specified dollar value, and a bunch of other small things, plus all of this is timed. You get marked on four main areas:

25% methods, technique, level of dificulty
25% workflow, workplace organisation, finishing time
25% working in a clean, safe manner, personal hygiene (what a crock this is)
25% clean, contemporary presentation and taste

Originally I thought I'd cook what I know - namely Eastern European/Meditteranean influenced food. You know, the stuff I would have grown up with if my Mom bothered to cook traditional Israeli/Polish foods. So I had a bit of a menu planned - I was riding high on the wave of culinary clever-ness. Until - I discovered that there are at LEAST two Israeli students participating in the event, and they are planning on cooking classic Mediterranean.

Fuck.

Then I spoke to one of the coordinators, who said that level of difficulty and cutting techniques are going to be the main factors for that first 25%.

Double fuck.

So my really yummy and fab-o menu - which would be fairly simple to execute but divine to eat - has now gotten the ki-bosh on several levels. I am left feeling like I need to make a multi-coloured, multi-layered stuffed chicken breast, home-make some pasta on the day from some hay and a quail egg, and twirl around 17 times in a clockwise direction while serving it all 6.2 inches from the epicenter of the plate. With a swirl of foam, of course.

Triple fuck.

Dh says I should go for a triumph of taste rather than worry about being overly fussy. I say if I'm not at least somewhat fussy, I'll lose, primarily for lack of difficulty and skill. Ideally I need something in the middle, right? Easy enough for me to prepare in the time, difficult enough to have a bit of WOW factor, and it has to taste like the sun shines out of my chicken's ass. Plus it can't cost too much.

Between now and next Tuesday afternoon, I am working 3 shifts, having 25+ people over for Passover seder (and somehow DH and I just keep inviting people), go to the dentist, take my son out for a "DS and Mummy" Day, write the actual menu and workplan, test out all the recipes, decorate a massive Thomas the Tank Engine cake, get my son to a speech therapy appointment, drop off a cheque for the kids holiday camp....

I. Am. Totally. Fucked.

Help?! Ideas for sexy chicken dishes welcome. Hell, ANY ideas welcome at this point. COME ON, people. If you've NEVER commented on this blog before, NOW would be a REALLY, really, REALLY good time. I need you! (And if you can't cook for shit, at least leave a "go emzee go" post. Seriously, I'm feeling really stressed out about this stupid-slash-important comp.)

One wonders WHY I get myself into these fine messes.

The Straw

A few weeks ago I blogged about a depressing situation at my culinary school. As it happens I not only wrote about it here, but I posted it on another forum I frequent, and spoke about it to several people in real life. Without fail, everyone who I spoke to or who commented said the same thing - that I had no hope of changing school policy, but that I should say something to the teacher about the thefts I witnessed.

I didn't take that advice. Not because I didn't want to - in fact I agreed with everyone who said I should report the thefts. In fact I actually felt (and do still feel) a moral obligation to say something, to be the whistle-blower, to stand up for what I believe is not acceptable. However I didn't feel as though I could say anything after the fact. I should have said something that very evening(s) - when I saw the event occur. Saying something a few days or a week later, while still valid and important, would somehow seem a bit...diluted. I kept my mouth shut (difficult for me) - even though it still bothered me.

Tonight we had a function on, so we were cooking in a different kitchen. A few minutes before we were due to go home, one of the students (a local student, for what it's worth), bragged to me that she and another (international) student had each stolen an entire bottle of rum. You can imagine the look on my face, can't you? When I asked the international student what the @#%^ she was thinking, she replied that she hadn't stolen anything, that she was merely asked if she would carry it out of the kitchen, and she had agreed. I have no idea if she was lying or not.

Needless to say, I encouraged the international girl to return the bottle she had, and tried to nicely tell her she had no need to be dragged into anyone else's mud. I then approached the teacher (privately, with nobody else there) and told him what I had heard and seen - mentioning the other things I had seen but also explaining why I had not said anything until now. You can imagine the look on HIS face. Not happy.

There is, for me, a certain HONOUR in being a chef. I chose this profession, and in so choosing have dedicated myself to it. People don't become chefs for the money, let me tell you. There are only a select few (the Jamies, Gordons, and Julias of the world) who make a stack of cash. The rest of us, we do it for the love. Truly. It sickens me to think that this girl - whatever her motivations - somehow thinks it's okay to drag the rest of us down with her. Last week she was thrown out of class for, among other things, saying she didn't give a shit what the food tasted like since she didn't have to eat it. Week after week I spend my time cooking alongside people who just don't want to be there - and act like it. This week, enough was enough. If my biggest crime thus far is actually giving a shit about my career and my reputation, so be it. I'm willing to pay the price of being branded a 'bitch' and a 'dobber' and whatever else that girl (and others) are likely to throw at me. At the end of the day I know that I did the right thing, and I am upholding the honour of my profession.

I'll keep you posted.

A Damn Shame

Last night I went to dinner with a bunch of people and this topic came up. It irritates me so much that I've decided to blog about it.

First, the background info. In Australia, local students pay for university/training college via a scheme called HECS. Basically, it's a cheap(ish) to get tertiary education. International students pay full-fees, or in other words, a hell of a lot of money to attend the very same school/classes that the local students do. It should also be noted that getting Permanent Residency in Australia is a) highly desirable and b) highly difficult to obtain. Ergo, there are loads of international students who come to Australia to complete higher education, in the (often valid, sometimes vain) hope that this new qualification will increase their chances of achieving PR. It should also be noted that there are several professions for which Australia has a skills shortage (cookery being one of them). Therefore if you complete a course in one of these 'in demand' areas, your chances of getting your PR are increased. The other thing to note is that international students are far more desirable, because they pay an enormous amount of money for the same product. So potentially, they are providing already underfunded institutions with a much needed cash injection.

And that's where it all becomes a mess. The end result is that you often end up with a huge demand for places in the 'hot' courses. The places in those courses get taken up with full-fee paying students - who are doing it for the PR, not for the love of the subjects - and at the end of the day they don't stay in the profession for which they are trained. The people who would truly undertake the training for career purposes have a difficult time getting into the courses. The increased demand on the teaching staff and resources means an increase in cost to run the actual course, which in turn means a need to recruit more full-fee paying students. It's a vicious, hideous cycle - and one of the unfortunate side effects of this is that the in-demand careers do not get filled by the people trained to fill them, and the attitude of the people doing these courses is often pretty terrible.

Let me give you an example. In my current culinary group (note, at my level there is something like 15 groups, in which there are 15 people, in which the ratio is a maximum of 3 locals to 12 internationals) there are only 2 international students who have any intention of working as chefs. The remaining 11 are doing it for the PR. Seriously. It's not something they hide - it's openly talked about. This sucks for a number of reasons. Firstly, several of them would really make good chefs...but that's not going to happen. Secondly, the skills shortage in Australia will just stay as it is. Thirdly, as these students (all nice people) are not really there for the training, they are just going through the motions and it SHOWS in the way they behave. Care factor, shall we say, is not really there. Last week I saw several of them filling water bottles from the white wine cask in the kitchen. As in, the COOKING wine. When I expressed some shock, I was laughed at and told it was going on for weeks and that several people were "in on it." Then one of them asked me if I knew where the school laundry was - so that he could steal some chef coats. Then someone else told me that in the clean-up area there were a bunch of tools (wooden spoons, whisks, etc) that were "for the taking."

This makes me sick. Is it the attitude of everyone? Of course not. Is it just an international student issue? Of course not - where you come from has nothing to do with whether you steal or not. At the end of the day, though, we are filling the halls of Australia's higher education institutions with a bunch of people who don't want to be there. This is coming at a huge cost - to the quality of the education, the reputation of the school and the resources available to the people who DO want to be there. As someone who CHOSE this profession - at great personal and financial risk and sacrifice - I find myself mouth agape at some of the above actions, and frankly also somewhat offended that they are ruining the "honour" (as trite as that sounds) of the profession.

So if you were me - what would you do? Simply ignore their behaviour and concentrate on my own goals? Report them to the instructors? I must admit that I am at a loss. I have no long term solution for the situation of the college in general, and no short term solution for the continued thieving and inappropriate behaviour I witness nearly every time I go to school. Both situations anger me and sadden me in equal measures.

A Foodie Book Review

The above book: "Cooking for Kings: The life of Antonin Careme, the first celebrity chef" was a birthday gift from Louisa-Lou. It should be noted that last year Louisa Lou got me a book entitled "Still Bitter, More Baggage" so it's nice to know I am moving up in her world, in a literary sense anyway.

On first glance this book looked interesting, even though it's not really the sort of thing I would pick up for myself. However with chapter headings such as "Pastry Boy" and 'The Cook, his Book, His Wife and His Lover' - how bad could it be? And so I spent part of my summer delving into the amazing world of Marie Antoine (Antonin) Careme - whose birth in 1783 would go on to influence chefs for thousands of years hence. The book is written in a fairly simplistic style - basic explanations and descriptions rather than drawing grandiose mental pictures for the reader. It makes for a quick read - and while I could argue that it's not exactly "gripping," it was fascinating to read of banquets served 'a la Francaise' which consisted of literally hundreds of dishes, many of which would never be eaten. They were often served at the wrong temperature, out of the reach of the guests, and out of refrigeration or cooking for several hours before serving. A prolific cookbook writer (he had about 12 tomes to his name), pastry artist and talented chef, it isn't really Careme's personality which shines here. This biography is basically a glorified resume - but the food he prepares, and the influence he had are what lift this to a very entertaining and often inspiring read. Of equal interest are the politics and changing times of his career - Careme cooked for Napoleon as well as the Rothschild Family .

The book contains a number of his original recipes and menus, and I defy anyone to read these and not be at least tempted to try executing one or another of them. Sadly, his books are not widely read today - and his name perhaps a bit forgotten by modern chefs - but we are talking about a chef whose influence cannot be denied. Among his legacies - cookbooks (Careme was one of the first to write everything down), the chef's toque, the piped meringue, the 'service a la russe' method of serving (in courses rather than as buffet), the vol-au-vent, the bouquet garni, his development of the 5 stages of sugar - the list goes on and on. Ultimately it would be his passion which would be his downfall, as Careme died a common death of the day - too much time spent in underground, poorly ventilated coal-driven kitchens.

In short, this one is a must-read for any chef or foodie, if for nothing else than to preserve Careme's greatest gift to all chefs: the importance of the sharing and passing down of knowledge.