We just finished Week 9. NINE. I have been here for more than two months. I come home in less than a month - three weeks from yesterday, in fact. There are a whole lot of feels swirling around this but it’s been a busy week so let’s crack on with that, shall we?
Back in Kitchen 2 this week, which is my favorite - high ceilings, bright natural light, and windows that open so there is actual air circulating which is very important when everyone is charring the life out of some poor eggplants over their gas burners. My partner is my housemate Chris who is from West Yorkshire and has a quiet but devilish sense of humor and some super fancy knives. He is also a therapist which makes one generally feel quite comforted somehow. And I’m across from Miguel, whom I like quite a bit and my main teacher is Florrie, whom you may recall I adore as with her you leearrrrn, and even when you totally screw something up she helps you get out of the situation without making you feel stupid for having done it in the first place.
I kind of feel like I’ve hit it this week. My cooks are good, I know they are. I don’t get many 1s because I just really stink at presentation and sometimes I rush but I’m trying really hard to leearrrrrn to be patient. And I find myself starting to think, I can’t wait to get home and cook without having to wear a hat and be under no time pressure and oh wait - the kitchen reno isn’t STARTING until July 9? What the absolute hell people?! I will return home bursting with ideas and things to do and I will have no kitchen for two months. Oh the irony.
Anyway, here’s what I did in the kitchen this week:
cleaned a sinkful of carrots on stock duty (that absolutely counts as cooking).
picked a crab clean which is a whole lot of work for very little reward with the big bad boys they have here.1
roasted a duck and enjoyed the heck out of it at lunch.
made amazingly delicious caramelized apple tarts with that ol’ puff pastry.
made pasta and then made an amazingly delicious zucchini basil lasagna with it.
made the easiest fruit salad ever.
made a loaf of sourdough that had green olives and Toonsbridge Dairy buffalo cheddar in it and absolutely slayed and also a plain sourdough loaf that impressed non-cooker guests.
made an eggplant purée that was like baba ganoush without the tahini, and it was fine if you like that sort of thing, but I was more than pleased with the pita breads I made to go with it. They actually poofed!
made Eton Mess, an all-time fave dessert.
made apple-sweet geranium jelly, not entirely sure why but we did and it seems lovely.
made a spiced lamb pie with hot-water crust pastry that I decorated with a B and some ☘️ to celebrate the Celtics’ championship but everybody assumed was just Ballymaloe and Ireland so I had to put a label on it.
had to make something called Ulster Champ which was lovely mashed potatoes that were absolutely ruined by the addition of peas. Also had to moulis the potatoes and it was four pounds and took about 20 very sweaty minutes racing the clock to be ready by the end of cooking. Fucking peas.
made more white yeast bread to practice and now I’ve leeeearrrrrned to let it rise longer on the second one.
Chris and I did NOT draw the rabbit that was on Friday’s menu. Probably good because Miguel used to have pet rabbits and proceeded to talk a lot about them, their names, etc. while Emma from Cumbria was preparing one. Rabbits are unnervingly small, and look like, well, bunnies, when you are preparing them which was maybe a little unnerving for all of us. I’m not making this easier for you, am I, noted Miguel.
There was a whole demo on pasta that involved a number of our favorite Marcella recipes - the lasagna verde, the chicken liver sauce, and so on. It all felt very familiar and just a touch misty and I briefly contemplated doing pasta for my final exam but then I thought what if it doesn’t go well then I failed even something I supposedly know how to do and what if it goes great well that is meaningless because I already know how to do that. So that decision has been made.2
We also learned about meringue and edible seaweeds and blue cheeses and how to make sushi and and bees and skate and olive oil and an absolutely extraordinary vin santo from the same orchard/vineyard, and more wine of course.
Wine class was particularly hard this week, this was the view from my seat:
I bear this burden so you don’t have to.
In other news, Rory returned this week from parts unknown (Spain? Madeira? The rumor mill never stops, but hopefully a well-deserved vacation.) We love Rory. He is sophisticated and charming, but also approachable and Irish, and has a great way of teaching us both cooking and what will work well in a restaurant or other good food service operation3 since that is both his background and where many students will end up. He is constantly showing how you can take a simple dish and make it elegant enough to “drive your Michelin inspector into a frenzy” or charge 10 euro for something or how to draw a customer in. Rory is a great promoter of ingredient-first cooking, which is what I’m here for, and somehow everything he does is sophisticated and completely accessible at the same time. And it is delicious because “that’s the remit, isn’t it?” Deliciousness, it is what we strive for.
Rory is also a great one for a bon mot - that’s the Irish part - and my notebook is filled with quotes and quips on a variety of topics:
on chickens, “Gizzards are the business” meaning they get a lot done in terms of flavor.
on salad, much of it tastes “green or a shade thereof” but if you are adding flowers etc. “don’t make it too Mardi Gras” which means don’t get carried away with your garnish.
on plating dessert, but perhaps also on life generally, “doilies are mandatory.”4
on restaurant/cafe planning, when considering tea service in your cafe or restaurant, you will be approached by vendors offering “Himalayan goings-on and all sorts of exoticisms” that are unnecessary so this is another way of stating the KISS principle except that Rory would never call anyone stupid.5
on cheese plates, Rory will FIND YOU if you put generic green grapes on your cheese plates where they don’t belong. A cheese plate should only have what is seasonal and appropriate and while he wouldn’t “bolt out of the restaurant in disgust” if you put an apple on a plate with some cheese, it had better make sense with the cheese and the place and the season and not just be some godawful Red Delicious or somesuch.
on chocolate mousse, “a little bit of hooch” will add some “spine-straightening deliciousness” but be sure it is the right kind of hooch because he will FIND YOU if you use crème de menthe.
on being stranded on a desert island, be sure to have: marjoram and Capezzana olive oil.6 I mean, who has a desert island herb? Rory does, so maybe we all should? Life on the desert island doesn’t need to be that bad, does it?
on lining your baking pans for your traybakes with parchment, you do it “tobesure tobesure” that they will release. To be sure must be said twice, very fast, but if you really want to be sure, say it four times tobesure tobesure tobesure tobesure.
on facing a breaking or lumpy sauce or anything that needs some elbow grease, “WHISK FOR IRELAND” for godssake.
on toast, “it is a crime against toast not to be buttered to the edges.” And don’t get him started on “crimes against eggs.” Or orange juice, or tiramusu, or 90% of the panettone in the world, and so on. Foodstuffs are being victimized all over the place, in Rory’s opinion, and it is our job to police this criminal behavior.
on sugar biscuits, if you think that is too much sugar in a cookie then try another recipe.
on career aspirations, “if you want to be a cook, my job is the one you should aspire to,” said with a sly smile as he hands off something that needs a vast amount work to his assistant.
on hangovers, Rory noted archly one morning that in 25 years of professional cheffing he only missed one day of work, even if he’d been out all the night before and was dragging in with his head under his arm and the image of that charming white haired bespectacled head under his arm, perhaps with a scarf tossed just so, was something to behold.
on life generally, as you have already learned, “Don’t get bamboozled.”
on seemingly simple recipes, “Bottom line, it’s delicious, and that’s the brief isn’t it?”
ARE WE HAPPY WITH THAT?
So much from this weekend to report - but you’re going to have to wait because jesusmaryandjoseph I need a nap.
Miguel calls them the pigs of the sea because they are pretty dirty and eat trash. I thought that was some Belgian or Spanish witticism but it turns out that he just made it up.
Menus for the practical exam are due next Thursday, so lots more to come on THAT.
Life a cafe or small shop or something - not like a prison cafeteria or hospital canteen.
Not just to be twee but if you are serving something in a glass or cup on a plate, because they keep it from sliding around on the plate!
You all know this, right? KISS Keep It Simple Stupid.
Which retails for a cool $45 at Formaggio Kitchen! Indeed, that is special occasion olive oil. But we got to meet the woman whose family owns Capezzana orchards and vineyards and of course now we are all devotees.
I concur with Rory it is in fact a crime against humanity not to butter the toast the edges. But I’m of the belief that bread was invented because butter!
I forgot to mention... you say you don't do presentation well, and then show that spectacular apple tart. Bitch, please.