Hot Side

July 23

I had my first shift over on Hot Side. It was a 10am - 1pm and somehow felt about 3 hours long. i was the only one in until 1pm except for Jr. Sous chef Dorothy. She was filling in for Dalpat, who had fallen off a ladder and was out of work for at least 3 weeks. I had a function for 20 people that went out at noon, though everything for it was already prepped and I just had to cook it all off. 12 minutes for the rice and 12 minutes for the chicken Souvlaki. I got that all done - and dropped half a hotel pan of rice - and went over to 44 North to see if they needed any help. I noticed Mark was swamped and I helped him with his prep work, which consisted of 2 buckets of chopped Romaine and Artisan Lettuce.

Reduced Hours

July 23

Last Shift I worked, I was notified that the busy part of the summer was just about over, and it won't be pick up again until late august or September. Possibly even until October. This news is slightly stressing me out, as I want to catch all of my hours before the beginning of September if at all possible. As my Sublet in my apartment is over at the end of August. the past two weeks worked out to 22 hours each. This will be a bit more of a problem if it doesn't pick up, seeing as at this rate I will need 7 more weeks to get all of my internship hours. I will see how this week works out and will do my best to not get sent home early at all. Otherwise I will have to have another sit down with Chef.

Donald's lessons of "S#!& you don't learn in school" Part 2

I had the chance to have a slow day, and be able to work directly under our first cook, Donald.
I finished up all my work in the Garde Manger section, and went over to ask Donald if he needed any help. He gave me some veg to chop up as we were going to make a mire poix.

I learned how to keep a demi-glace from tasting burnt and bitter. Donald showed me how to cut the right corners, and which corners are there for a reason, and should not be changed.

Extravagant VIP

I left my camera with one of the banquet servers, so you can finally see the end product!
This was a rather intense display, with King Crab legs, smoked scallops, steamed shrimp, oysters, sausages, deli meats, smoked meats, olives, house made cranberry crisps, crustini, rolls, roasted garlic spread, whipped butter, cloudfruit compot.

There were 22 people and we made 3 of these displays.

Can anyone properly guess how much this cost?

44 North

I finally had my first 44 North shift. And I must say I absolutely love it!
It's the pace that I have been craving for, having orders coming in, and needing to fill them out as quick as possible. Even though it was just a Pantry shift, it was still wonderful.

Ronnia would be taking me under her wing today.

When I first arrived, I was to make up a few Parfaits for Starbucks, which is located in our lobby. This was easy enough, and once I was done I moved onto preparing mixed berry cups. These are used for room service and dining room. In the morning we do up an insert worth of them, and this way they are always ready to go.

After that was done, I did some sheets of bacon, that would be used the next day for breakfast, sandwiches and salads.

Prep work was done when the morning was slow, but once we hit a rush, everything was dropped to get food out as quickly as possible.

My work area was small, but I welcome the tight spaces, everything was organized and within reach, and even the rush flowed smoothly. Everything had a backup waiting for it, so there were no last minute panicking. If we only had a side salad on our order, we would then place the plate over to the other side of the kitchen, where the plate was completed.

I was shown how to make up a fruit plate, the fruit was already sliced and ready, all that was needed was some arranging and adding some berries to spruce it up.

This is our club sandwich on rye, it was usually done on toasted whole wheat bread though, unless a customer requested otherwise.

Ronnia used inserts Then I learned how they make their Caesar Salad,

and it all came together on a plate.

Then I learned how to make their Smoked Chicken Salad, Lobster Rolls, Lobster Cobb Salad.

It was a super fun time, I loved every minute of it, time flew by. It was just an all around good time.

Safe Grads aka Today has been brought to you by the word "Copious"

I do not have as many photos as I would like of this, but Safe Grad took place in the Marriott for a few schools, and we made copious amounts of food. I also worked my first 5:00am shift, which was interesting. That was for a plate up, or breakfast, to feed these kids and send them home. According to our security guard, he was very happy to see them leave, and if we could just slip something into their food, that would be nice.

The pictures that you see here are the desserts they had, Pastry was making copious amounts of treats! (Meaning we got scraps of brownies all day.)

Open Faced Sandwiches

When you usually think of open faced sandwiches, you think of hot sandwiches, turkey and gravy is what came to my mind.

The open faced sandwiches that we did, were just more beautiful versions of our usually sandwiches. Personally I think they would be a pain to try and eat as break food/finger food.

We had (in order of photos):
Smoked salmon deep fried capers and sour cream
Roast Beef with horseradish mayo
Tomato and boccaccini with balsamic vinegar reduction (and a few without boccaccini for the vegans)

Open Faced sandwiches are more of a northern European thing, where they serve them on a plate, and as a meal, or late snack. Usually consisting of healthy meats and spreads. In fact, in most Nordic countries, and open faced sandwich is the "normal" sandwich to them.
North Americans have taken this custom, turned it into turkey and added a layer of gravy.