Culinary School: Day 2

I waitressed all throughout high school and again in college and I loved it.  All of the smells of the day's menu wafting up once you punched through swinging doors to enter the kitchen.  The hustle and bustle of the cooks, waitresses and sometimes management flying around the kitchen, yelling, slamming down plates, pots and pans clanking, knives snapping up and down rhythmically, I loved the excitement of it all and I didn't realize how much I missed it until I went to culinary school.

Grilled Chicken with Kumquat Cranberry Chutney

Yesterday I had a 14 hour day in the kitchen.  I was up at 6 AM to get ready and to take the T out to the other side of the River and then didn't get home until well after 10.  It's my own fault really, I scheduled my class and weekly seminar back-to-back so that I could free up some time for the rest of my week to accommodate a part-time job of some sort.  Not to mention the thought of rushing out to Cambridge another day of the week just for a three hour seminar didn't really appeal to me.  However, as long as my day was, it certainly didn't feel that way.  The hours seemed to tick away and I was caught up in the buzz and excitement of the kitchen, not to mention a whole day of learning.  No bones about it, it was long, it was tiring and by the end of it I was so exhausted that I was just happy that I mustered enough energy to take a long hot shower, enjoy a quick glass of wine, and call it a night.

Rich with cinnamon, ground star anise, ginger and cloves

So what are some of the highlights of my day?  Yesterday's focus was on fruits and spices followed by a knife skills seminar.  Some of my ah-ha moments were realizing that green beans are a fruit (they have seeds, and I know the rule but really? Green beans? A fruit?), a quince tastes sort of like a really tough pear, a pomelo sort of like a grape fruit, I actually do like guacamole (after all these years!), cardamom is the third most expensive spice in the world (preceded by #2 vanilla bean and #1 Saffron) and for as long as I've been holding a knife I've been doing it all wrong.

Fruit Compote

In addition to all that I learned, I also got a lot of hands on kitchen experience and got to try a bunch of new things.  I made a personal deal with myself that when I started culinary school I would try everything that I possibly could and that I would challenge myself by volunteering to make things that I had never attempted before.  Yesterday I made a fruit compote (basic yes, but I had never made one before so I wanted to give it a whirl) and my shining star of the day, grilled chicken breast with a kumquat cranberry chutney.  This plated beautifully and tasted good, rich with spicy cinnamon, ground star anise and cloves.  I was really proud of this dish because with the exception of cranberries, salt, pepper and chicken, I really hadn't worked with most of the other ingredients and especially not in a commercial kitchen.

Sweet and spicy, thick with reduced dried and fresh fruits

Additionally, I realized yesterday that the other part of the whole kitchen experience that I missed was that sweet satisfying exhaustion that sweeps over me the instant I stop running around like a chicken with her head cut off.  There is such a beauty to it.  Face glistening with sweat, legs so sore I just hope they hold me up for a little while longer and feeling so out of it that I have to think hard to even remember my name.  There is such a sense of accomplishment and pride in all it.  That feeling was earned and in this particular case, was accompanied by mass amounts of new skills and knowledge that make all this worth every penny.