November 1, 2013 -
I have so much to talk about this week and Friday was the most exciting day of them all! Starting out on Monday, I was in a group of three; Dina, Josie and me. We all had a task and the task was to make cornbread following a recipe that was given to us. There were no steps, just ingredients. I used what I knew and remembered from the last time we made cornbread. My two teammates mainly relied on me and asked me what we should do first, so I told them to get all the ingredients out first and then I would tell them what to do. We put all the dry ingredients in a stainless steel bowl and left the liquid ingredients separate. From there, we mixed the shortening, butter and sugar. Next, the eggs went into the mix and last but not least, the dry ingredients and frozen corn. After making the cornbread mixture, we spread the batch evenly into all the pans and voila! We baked the cornbread and let it cool. I tasted the cornbread and it tasted really good! It's better to make homemade cornbread versus the cornbread from Safeway or any grocery store.
Later on that day, I was in another group and our task was to make risotto. I was the captain and everyone was asking me what to do. I was in a group of five and all of my teammates were from Tier 1. Everything went smoothly and the risotto was the right consistency.
On Tuesday, I helped Chef Luis make chocolate truffles. While making chocolate, one important tip is that you have to work fast and efficiently because if you're in a cold environment, the chocolate will harden. The room he uses is warmer than the kitchen itself and the machine he uses is made only for left-handed people. Chef Luis is left-handed, so he's the only one who knows the machine inside and out. After he creates the outer shell for the truffles, he places the trays upside down on a sheet of parchment (4 to a parchment) and waits 5 minutes. Once the chocolate hardens, he has to take off the excess chocolate and stack all of the trays on top of each other. Inside the truffles, he adds different fillings. The next day he made a raspberry filling, as well as a milk chocolate ganache. That was very exciting.
On Friday, I worked at the New Beginnings kitchen and instead of making salad for New Beginnings, I made salad for Voyage and Mill Street. I like being able to work there because I improve on my knife skills and I cut vegetables more efficiently. For the salad, I cut red onions, bell peppers, red peppers, cucumbers, celery, carrots and tomatoes. I helped make part of the dinner for New Beginnings and I cut potatoes into potato wedges and we sprinkled some type of seasoning on them. I believe it consisted of paprika, onion powder, flour, black pepper and salt. I got to taste some of the potato wedges and they were outstanding!
Later on Friday, I attended a catering event at the Maserati car dealership in Mill Valley. This event was really fun and exciting! It lasted from 4:00pm - 9:00pm. The menu was chicken salad crostini with roasted red pepper, melted leek crostini with goat cheese, chicken satay dipped in sweet chili sauce with peanut cilantro dressing, shrimp cakes with black bean aoili, and a dessert platter with strawberry tarts, oatmeal raisin cookies, gluten free coconut macaroons with dipped chocolate, espresso brownies and more. The majority of the time I was serving melted leek crostini with goat cheese and people loved it! I got a lot of nice compliments from many of the customers including the man who hosted the event. During the event, I was taking pictures of the Maserati cars and I was fascinated with the Maserati Gran Turismo sports car. It was a new car that just came out and it was light blue. As I was taking pictures of that car, one of the salesmen offered to take a picture of me inside the car and I was very happy to accept the offer! My dream was to take a picture in that car and my wish came true! When the event ended, I had a smile on my face and was glad to work that night. I can't wait until another event like this comes up.
No comments:
Post a Comment