An update and a Rant

April 12- 23, 2010
Okay so I haven’t updated in such a long while (almost 2 weeks) but let’s just say that it’s been really busy past two weeks. I’ve been volunteering almost every Saturday for the past 3 weeks already. Let’s see there was crabfest that I reported on last week, the Wellspring Church Fundraiser Event (which was a success), and this upcoming week is the Hawaii Kai Chilie Cook-off, which will be hosting a lot of different restaurants. So I’m going to be on my best behavior (which I am…mostly). Another thing that has happened in the past week was that registration for the Fall semester at KCC has opened up. So I signed up for CULN 207: Principles of Culinary Competition I (which I’m excited and so nervous for) and CULN 240 Garde Manger (which I’m stoked about because it’s going to be a lot of knife skills and food carving….can you say awesome?).
Competition or competing in culinary competitions in general, has become a goal of mine ever since the KCC competition team won the National Title and I read the book The Knives at Dawn (which was an interesting and worth-while read). It made me want to compete in smaller or closer to home competitions (like the Annual Roy’s Competition or the annual Pamela Young Competition). The only thing that is holding me back, other than my lack of discipline in my skills, is that I’m not too confident in myself. I mean I have the drive and when I get addicted to something I’m almost dedicated to it….but I don’t know. This is when the doubts start to set in. This is when those pesky “what-if” scenarios pop in my head. Taking this class, making the team or not, will benefit me huge. I mean the things that I’ll take from this will be way more. I think I just need to concentrate and focus all my energy in bettering my skills and attitude towards my craft.
Okay so on Saturday April 17, 2010 a handful use from the 818 brigade (a name that my classmate Mark likes to call our class section of Fundamentals of Cookery) volunteered to cater Mark and Gina’s church’s fundraiser. The menu was created by Mark and planned on feeding about 300 people. There were 5 different dishes:

Picture are taken by Jordan Chang, Mark Enomoto, and Your's truly
The Menu
Iceberg Wedge with a chunky Blue Cheese Dressing and Parmesan Crisp
Chilled Spring Pea Veloute Soup with a mint whip and carrots Vichy
Ratatouille served on Fried Creamy Polenta
Classic Boeuf Bourguignon with Homemade Mash Potatoes
And
Vanilla Almond Strawberry-Shortcake with Grand Manier Drunken Strawberries garnished with a lemon crumble and piped whipped cream
We started out day out at Radford High School’s kitchen at 7:00AM and just immediately got to work. There was the sounds of vegetables being cut, beef being broken down (150lbs….that’s like almost an entire cow…..can you say Holy “Cow”?...hehe), vegetables being seared, sauces sizzling, blenders blending, a radio loud enough to be heard in the background, and finally the calls of “hot pan” or “Yes chef”. Finally at around 4:30 we were ready to pack it all up and rush on over to the church location to start platting food. Unfortunately for me I took a wrong turn and ended up going all the way up the H3 from Aiea to Kaneohe (for those who don’t live on the island is a hell of a drive….Literally over the mountain and back down) and had to follow it up till I could turn around. Then I’d race it down (almost going 70mph in a 50mph zone… I know but we were so late already).
By the time we got there Mark (who went ahead) was set up and was about to start serving. Once the opening ceremony was done like a cattle call, a hoard of people came up to our elegant station and started scooping up plates of food left and right. But fortunately for us we had helpers to help plate and assist in the flow of food. (YAY!!!) Each of us was stationed at a specific area. Me I was stationed at the end and was in charge of plating the dessert. By the end of the event we ended with a hefty amount of leftovers that the brigade and most of the volunteers could take home. Me I took home some of everything. Overall it was an interesting and exciting experience. I think making massive amounts of food in CULN 130 for the cafeteria paid off. It was interesting because each of us were in part in charge of our own dishes and there wasn’t really a chef de cuisine. In a way we were all in charge. Totally different than what I did for KCC’s Hookipa Event (a fundraiser event for KCC held annually at the Royal Hawaiian where each culinary class makes something different…where we had to make 500 portions of about 5 different petite fours). For the hookipa event we were all under the tutelage and supervision of our chef instructor. Which was why is was a little different. But overall everything went well we all had fun.

As for class nothing has been any different. This week we were on entrée and the week prior we were on salads. While we were on salad station I found that I’m pretty good at making vinaigrettes. I actually enjoyed making salads more than any of the other stations. Let’s see I made a peanut butter sweet chili tofu salad and a hoisin vinaigrette tofu salad, I created my own BSP (bacon, spinach and tomato) salad with a tomato caper vinaigrette, and created both a lime and a lemon citrus vinaigrette. (can you tell that I really liked making vinaigrettes?) For entrée station we were responsible for making the various entrees served in the cafeteria. It’s always a meat, fish, and a vegetarian dish. For my vegetarian dish I made butternut squash gnocchi. It turned out pretty well the only thing I would’ve changed would be to roast the butternut squash whole rasher than cut up so that way it would roast evener. Then Casey did egg plant parmesan for his vegetarian dish. Boy was there a lot of eggplant. Almost 5 full sheet tray. But the week progressed and we had to start finishing up our practical exam items, which was a soup, salad, entrée, and vegetable cuts. I finished my salad and vegetable cuts getting good scores on them granted I thought I could do better. Now I only have my entrée and soup to tackle. Since today was Friday we have a lot of free time and decided to run a sort of iron chef competition among our class. So the rules are simple. We’d get a mystery ingredient and we’d have to make something out of it. Today I participated and our secret ingredient was parsnips. The dreaded vegetable that’s almost like a potato and a carrot, but it’s not, and that has a sweet taste. Gahhh….as I started my plan was to make a puree and lay some asparagus and some kind of protein on top. I succeeded in doing that but it just didn’t come together all too well. I think I assed too much liquid to my boiled parsnips that turned it to an almost applesauce like consistency. One big mistake I made was using beef base rather than beef stock as my liquid to thin out my puree. (HUGE MISTAKE…..IT TURNED IT A DARK SHADE!!!!!) Seeing as I didn’t have time to correct it I went with it and continued on with my initial platting plan. Eventually everything went well and the puree held up until the end where it just collapsed and turned into a kind of puddle. I was so heartbroken and discouraged I was ready to give up already. Knowing I couldn’t do anything to fix it in the time remaining I went with it. After chef judged out dishes I placed 3rd out or 4 (which was better than I anticipated). I totally overcooked the protein, but in my defense I really hate cooking chicken because for me it’s hard to tell when it’s done so I just guessed and went by touch. In the end it was something new and it was exciting. Basically this was a crash course into using a new ingredient, which was interesting because I’ve never done anything like this before. I just wish that KCC had courses like this where you’re given a certain ingredient each day and you had to make a dish out of it. I think that would be an interesting class that everyone wouldn’t mind taking.