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I haven't updated much, because well there's not much to update. Though I do have some pictures of recent events that I'll put up here soon - its just the matter of getting them of my camera and onto my computer. The kid and I are going to attempt Mt. Dew cupcakes later this afternoon.
Only three days left of vacation and then it's back to my alarm going off at 4:30 in the morning to make the pilgrimage to school, at least then I'll have more content for the blog. I'm itching to back to school, never in my 36 years would I have thought those words would come to my lips(I hated high school..).
I have finished off another book, "On the line" by Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin. What a cool book, I love the 'behind the scenes' aspect to it. Now I've started on "Alice Waters and Chez Panisse" by Thomas McNamee. I'm only a chapter or two in at this point,and really I should post reviews of all the books I've read just in the last month or so - which as been a few. I might have to put an inventory together of all the culinary related books I have at the present.
I've been out of school for a week now (Christmas break)and I'm really itching to get back to it. It may sound a tad crazy, but man do I ever want to get back to school and continue the learning process. Maybe I'm a tad weird that way, but hey one week is good enough for me - recharged the batteries, been spending time with my son. But there's a part of me that wants back into school.
I've spent a lot of time in the kitchen during this long break. I've made stock, and yesterday I worked on a recipe from Chef Michael Symon's "Lola". It's the BBQ sauce recipe you find in the back of Ruhlman's "The reach of a Chef". It turned out pretty darn good, though I didn't have veal stock or espresso beans. So I used some remouillage in place of veal. Not the same, I know but I used what I had on hand and I figured using the beef stock itself would lend to much of a "beefy" flavor to the sauce. I had regular coffee beans and that seemed to work well, though I will have to try and get some espresso beans. And at some point, I'll hunt down some Veal bones and do a proper veal stock.
Headed out to the mall today, need to stop by Kitchen Kaboodle (got a gift card for Christmas and I need some knife guards) and I'll make a swing by the book store, as I'm in need of more reading material. I've blown through all 3 Ruhlman books, I've been reading the section on sauces in McGee and even started "Letters To A Young Chef" by Daniel Bould. I'm sure I'll be posting again before the start of the New Year.
But man, can I just go back to school???
One of the things we're required to do at school is towards the end of our stay is a externship at a restaurant to get us in gear for the 'real' world of the kitchen. At first I hadn't put much thought into it because it seemed pretty far away, but I'm due to graduate in June - my externship will be leading up to graduation.
I'm slowly coming up with a list of places that I wouldn't mind externing at, though I'm still not sure what it is exactly I want to do when I graduate. Do I want to work the line? Do I want to go into catering? These are things I wrestle with pretty much on a daily basis. Why? Well the more thought I put into it, the better off I'll be when the time arrives.
Here's a short list of places I would like to extern at, including honestly some dream choices that I'm not sure I could get - most of these places are Portland based except for a few and if you know anything some of these are far from the friendly confines of the state of Oregon.
Yes there are some lofty restaurants on there and there are a few more in Portland that I wouldn't mind including Beast, and Higgins. But that's just a rough list at this point and time, I need to sit down with my Chef adviser and see what he thinks should be a good fit. I've really gotten interested in French haute cuisine at this point, though that might have to do with reading Ruhlman's "Chef" series and the fact for Christmas I got "The Art Of Modern Cookery" by Auguste Escoffier.
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