Ten Weeks A Slave

     I am feeling like Cinderella these days.  Toiling away in the back of the house, neither to be seen nor heard.  Forget lunch or breaks, you're lucky to use the toilet.  One day I came home so defeated with undiscovered body aches, I collapsed on the coach.  All I could do was shift to a less painful position and moan.  Luckily, my body recovered the next day after a good night's rest.  How does one endure this kind of work for more than a few years?
     I am the lone female warrior amongst a team of men.  The chef and sous chef as well as two line cooks are under 30 years old.  But there are a couple non-English speaking amigos who are probably my age.  One has a visible limp.  He has been working in the industry for 20 years.  No one complains.  No one takes breaks, except chef periodically to smoke.  I can understand the wide spread epidemic of alcoholism and drug addiction in this industry.  I, who believe my body is my temple, am now looking forward to my shift beer at closing.  
     The sous chef is rather a slave driver.  I much prefer to work with the chef.  They alternate days off, and thus who's in charge.  With the chef, I have some down time, such as when he demonstrates how to butcher meat and fish.  We banter as culinarians.  The sous chef just piles one to do item after another and gives me the evil eye when I'm taking too long.  I have a feeling I am doing a lot of his duties.  Although I am glad they treat me as an equal, I miss my classmate who never wanted me to lift a finger.  
     One positive from this experience is that I can pretty much eat whatever I want after a shift.  Even two meals, which is what it takes sometimes.  It's impossible to gain weight with all that I do in a day.  The work is never ending.  It's really difficult for someone who likes things with a tidy beginning and end.

     Here are some of my shift meals:

Crab Ravioli with Kale and Radish Salad

Kale and zucchini with grilled polenta 

Duck with Cherry Reduction

Restaurant Review: Blackbelly Market, Boulder

   

    Hosea Rosenberg, winner of Top Chefs Season 5, recently opened his restaurant, Blackbelly Market in east Boulder.  The place was packed on the Tuesday night after opening week.  We did not have reservations but were seated immediately for drinks.  We promptly ordered the Original Old Fashioned from the hospitable but swamped host while we perused the space and the menu.  Another server brought warm, crusty, and flavorful bread (from Grateful bread) and butter.  Decorated in neutrals, white, black, and grey, the industrial space was open and inviting.  I learned from my chef instructors that only the best restaurants have an open kitchen.  You can observe Blackbelly's lean but efficient staff on the line.
     The restaurant is based on the trendy farm to table theme with much sourcing from their Blackbelly farm.  We had just polished off a tub of popcorn at the movies, so the charcuterie board and small plates menu were appealing.  We settled on a 5 selection charcuterie board with 3 meats and 2 cheeses.  I made pork rillettes in culinary school, so I decided to forgo the house made duck rillette, much to my chagrin, as it was the only house made charcuterie item at the time.  However, the speck, bresaola, and coppa that we chose were moist and flavorful.  The two cheeses, one a goat from Holland was creamy but not as soft as chèvre, and the blue cheese from Vermont was surprisingly pleasant and unstinky.  All arrived on a chilled granite slab.
     My friend and classmate from culinary school who is externing here recommended the beet salad.  Don and I both love beets, so we wanted to sample Blackbelly's version.  It did not disappoint.  Well cooked cubes of chioggia, red, and golden beets sat atop a bed of farro verde.  It was dressed with a citrusy vinaigrette and garnished with crunchy pistachios.  Encouraged by the enthusiastic host, we ordered the Colorado wagyu beef tartare.  Since it's rare, only the best quality beef should be used, and that was our experience here.  The beautifully presented tartare topped with a tiny raw quail egg was fresh, bright red, and melted in your mouth.  The toasted bread with lovely grill marks provided the contrasting crunch. 
     Although we were satisfactorily satiated at this point, we succumbed to the tempting dessert selection.  Again, we went with Jesse's recommendation as he has been spot on thus far.  Our only complaint with the chocolate pudding with salted caramel and creme fraiche was that it was too small!  Creamy, smooth, and not too sweet, it left us wanting more.  We will definitely make a reservation and try the large plates.  
     In conclusion,  I predict this neophyte restaurant will soon be a Boulder destination.  One area of improvement I'd recommend is to train all the staff regarding the menu items.  The server who brought our charcuterie board, however adorable, could not enlighten us on which was the speck and which was the coppa.  Once they smooth out the kinks, the service should be on par with the food.

Original Old Fashioned

Open Kitchen and Chef's Table

Charcuterie/Butcher Shop

Charcuterie and Cheese 

Roasted Local Beet Salad

Colorado Wagyu Beef Tartare

     
       

My First Culinary Gig

     I am a believer in "things happen for a reason".  Just when I was dreading my externship, one of my optometry colleagues from Kaiser emailed me about doing a knife demo at her house.  It sounded fun but how qualified am I?  I made sure she advertised it as a class with a culinary student.  Even though the class was a nominal $10 a person, I don't want to mislead.
     Soft snowflakes had begun to fall again that morning. Denver was experiencing record low temperatures.  I was doubtful if many people would show up.  I, for one, would rather be under the covers.  To my surprise, ten people showed up.  Luckily we were able to accommodate everyone in the kitchen.  I made cutting board stabilizers for everyone which they thought was awesome.  Since this was my first class, I didn't know anyone's level of experience.  There were a couple of students who were comfortable with knife work; the rest had no idea even what knife to use.  
     We started with the basics: going over the anatomy of a knife, how to hold it, how to sharpen it, how to hone it.
Then we started dicing onions.  I went around and gave tips and corrected holding patterns.  There were lots of questions.  Some took notes.  There were tears of joy.
     We then moved on to carrots.  I showed them julienne, brunoise, and oblique cuts.  There was a request for how to cut a tomato and a sweet pepper.  
     I was so proud of their progress at the end of two hours.  Everyone was so responsive and inquisitive.  It was fun to share my newfound knowledge with other people.  And I made $90 bucks!  We are already discussing another class in the future.  

Reality Bites

     It's worse than I expected.  Culinary school did not prepare me for real life kitchen work.  No wonder some of my classmates referred to school as "Cooking for Dummies".  I long for the days when two people work on making a lentil side dish and breaks every hour.
     I reported to work at Zucca promptly before 10:00am and did not sit down until I was driving home in my car at 6:15pm.  I cooked more in one day than in the last 6 week block at school.  First, I was assigned three sauces, Alfredo, Bolognese, and Marinara.  I'm used to two people making one sauce!  This took over 4 hours just to get all the mise en place.  Instead of two onions to dice, we're talking 10 lbs.  The hardest was getting 3 gallons of cream from a plastic bag with a hole in the middle of it, not even in the corner of the bag.  I am proud to say I only lost about 3 ounces.  Of course, I had to familiarize myself to where everything is kept in this very small kitchen with little space for prep work.
     After the sauces, I made another giant batch of meat balls.  At this point, I realized I'm making food for paying customers.  What if I missed a spice, and it tastes horrible? The sous chef fried up a test piece of meat ball just in case.  And it was delicious!  The meatballs were portioned out to 3 ounce balls and baked off.
     No time to relax and enjoy the snow flakes falling outside.  There was pasta to make!  I was given the recipe for 11 lbs of pasta dough which required 44 eggs! I got good at cracking, nary a shell in the eggs.  With an electric pasta machine, I made pasta sheets and then cut them out to make tortellini.  The goal was 90 tortellini; I made 142 before my shift.  I was definitely in the groove.
     I still don't know why any one would choose to work in a kitchen if they can do anything else.  It is such hard work that never ends.  I didn't use the restroom until 4 hours in.  I didn't eat anything all day except for a bite of meatball.  And no one else did either.  I'm not afraid of hard work, but I was beat.  Luckily I have the next day off.  

Peanut Gallery

     Our formal classroom training is officially over.  We start our externship today.  Other than a couple kids who are going to upstate New York and Morimoto's in Napa, most of us are staying around Denver/Boulder. I am starting at Zucca in Lafayette.  The first day is somewhat intimidating because I don't know what to expect.  I wonder how my classmates will fare on their own. 

     It was at times comedic and at times dramatic cooking with my classmates these past seven months.  We definitely resemble the cast of characters from the Peanuts cartoon.  There were lots of Pig Pens.  One caused Chef to proclaim, "that is the dirtiest apron I have ever seen!"  Thankfully, the most olfactorily offensive ones dropped out early.  There was Linus, a moody, brooding, sensitive genius.  There was Lucy, a snarky, boorish, know it all/one upper.  Some resemble Sally who targeted a beau and stuck to them like glue; however, the target would change from day to day.  There was a hippy chick not far removed from Peppermint Patty.  And lets not forget self loathing and feckless Charlie Brown.  
     You might be wondering which of these characters I most parallel.  That would be Snoopy, of course!  I may not talk much, but I see everything!

     

Farm Living

       We have visited and worked various farms this block to better appreciate the relationship between farmers and culinarians.  Some farms were eye opening and educational while others provided a good excuse to be away from the kitchen.
     Our first farm was Waste Farmers of Arvada.  We were introduced to permaculture and Community Supported Agriculture or CSA's.  I think CSA's are an excellent program for the community to source their produce.  For a set fee per farm, you can get seasonal, local and sustainable produce as long as the farm is productive.  This could be most of the year!
     Another farm that stood out to me was Carrie's Clucks in Windsor, CO.  All of the chickens and turkeys are Heritage birds meaning they are not bred for certain characteristics such as large or "L.A." breasts and they can breed on their own.  Every bird is named.  There is a set of turkeys named Jake and Joey who reminded me of a couple of brothers that I ski with each year.  We tasted the most flavorful and cohesive eggs from that farm.  Did you know if you are allergic to chicken eggs, you can eat duck eggs?  
     I was anxious to visit Black Cat Farm since I am a big fan of the Black Cat Restaurant which gets almost all of their produce from this farm.  This is a four season farm, so we assisted in prepping for the winter by draining irrigation and placing double row cover over the winter crops.  As a reward, we harvested gargantuan chioggia and golden beets which we used for our culmination dinner and cardoon (Jerusalem artichoke) which resemble celery.
    On our last farm day, we visited a goat farm, also in Boulder county.  Morning Flower Dairy is actually off of the main thoroughfare of Broadway, next to a recreation center.  I would never have guessed that such a haven existed in the middle of such hustle and bustle.  I got to walk/trot a pair of Cashmere twins who were super cute and cuddly.  There were floppy eared Nubians and high milk producing La Machas as well as a couple of Llamas.  Half of us helped move a stack of hay and the lucky rest of us got to shovel goat poop.  
     I definitely have a deeper appreciation for farmers, the land, our food, and the animals after having visited all of these farms.  A city slicker, I never would have found these farms on my own initiative.  There is a certain peace and tranquility in doing honest, hard, manual labor surrounded by nature.

     
     

Culmination Dinner

     After seven months of learning everything in the culinary world, our last test is a Culmination Dinner for our family.  We come up with a menu, develop recipes, procure the necessary ingredients under a budget of $247.50, preferably from a local farm, train our class mates to serve as front of house staff, and hope everything runs without a hitch.
     Luckily, the members of my team get along relatively well and are strong cooks.  With the exception of one person not showing up on the second prep day, there was little drama.  Our dinner theme was French technique inspired by seasonal and local produce.  We also cured various parts of the pig from week 2 for a charcuterie platter.
     There were six courses on the menu with a bonus Amuse Bouche, which is a gift from the chef.  The Amuse is meant to stimulate the appetite and provide a glimpse of the meal to come.  Even though it is a one bite tasting, it is the first impression.  Following the Amuse was a charcuterie appetizer with house cured pepper fennel salumi garnished with Burgundy mustard, candied guanciale with picked fennel, and pork rillette garnished with apple plum chutney.  All were served on toasted crostini.  The next course was a pumpkin soup garnished with apple chèvre cream and balsamic reduction.  The colors of the soup reflected the colors of fall beautifully.  
     In classical French cuisine, the fish course is served next.  We poached trout in court bouillon and served it with pureed red beets with a caper buerre blanc sauce.  Wouldn't you know that Chef would get the piece that was raw in the center!  Fortunately, the other guests all had edible fish and no pin bones.
     The entree was a seared pork belly that was first braised for 3 hours.  It was served with French lentils and a Kohlrabi slaw.  Much to our chagrin, the beautifully diced carrots were left out of the lentils which would have provided some vibrant color.
     Salad is served at this point as a palate cleanser.  In sync with the seasonal and local theme, we served a tri color beet salad with local chèvre garnished with parsley salad and oil.  Many of the pastry students ooh'ed and ahh'ed upon seeing this dish.
     The dessert was a sponge cake with Sabayon and compressed apples and served with a hot apple cider.
Chef says our dinner ranked in the top 3 of his classes.
Sounds like a success to me!

Amuse Bouche

Pumpkin Soup

Charcuterie Appetizer

Poached Fish

Tricolor Beet Salad

Dessert