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.

Pastry Shifts

So far I have been able to do two shifts over in the pastry station. I love working over there.
I got to caramelize the sugar on the creme brulé, portion out cookie dough, so a plate up of the desserts, and help out in general ways.

I even got to decorate cupcakes, old habits die hard! I still can pipe a perfect swirl.

I am hoping to be able to do this on a much more frequent basis. As when I spoke to the head of pastry, she said that any time I am done early, and am still interested in putting in a full day, she will be more than happy to give me a few hours.

Fridge Down

One of our walk-in fridges is down, and has been for 3 days now, this puts extra product in the other fridges, and a tight squeeze and some shuffling around to get to all of the produce.

Fewer bodies, More work.

I was absent from work for one week, due to a family member passing away. Chef was very understanding, as I found out during my lunch break, and when I came back into the kitchen with tears in my eyes, he came up to me, said to leave immediately and I had 7 days off. So I quickly tidied up my station, picked up my knife kit and left. Only after I was back in my apartment did I realize I forgot to punch out, but I figured it would be okay, seeing as all the cooks and Chef was aware that I was leaving.
I hopped a bus that day, and returned to Moncton, NB to be with my family for a week.

When I came back, I found that I had a bit of a curve getting back into things. My body was tired again, just as it was the first week of my internship, and I was forgetting minor details in the kitchen. I quickly was able to jump back into things.

The next day, my trainer, Jen, was due to go on her vacation. So I prepared myself to have a busy week. So far it has not been a disappointment, but also not too over whelming. Jr Sous Chef Dorothy has been helping me out the past two days, and our BEO's tend to run 2 pages long. Together we work away at in, and usually can get a fair bit started on the next day as well.

I am very grateful for my day off though, as I had a lot of sleep that I needed to catch up on.