hey man, look at me rockin' out

Well, I don't have to work for the next three days, but Sunday I've got the Nemacolin volunteer event to go to, which is an eight-hour shift. It shouldn't be too bad--I kind of like to cook, actually.

Speaking of which, I did some fun things at work today.We've got a grilled salmon dish that's served aside a raspberry balsamic sauce, so I get to swirl little drops of vinegar around in this sort deep burgundy syrup and form patterns and stuff whenever we get an order for it. I also made creme brulee with a blowtorch. While this is a relatively basic procedure (melting sugar on top of probably the simplest dessert a culinarian can whip up), the pleasure one experiences upon using an acetylene torch on anything is enough to make me happy enough to clock out at 11:55.

So yeah. At work, I grilled some scallops, some filet mignon, salmon, swordfish, and plenty of other things. Made a lot of salads, a lot of calamari, washed a lot of dishes. Made a ditzy move by making a turkey club sandwich instead of a chicken club, but it's hardly an error (as well as fairly common in our kitchen) when compared to other disastrous applications of heat that occur at Ollie's. Do you have a Vulcan overhead salamander at home? You should see a quesadilla after it's been left in one for thirty seconds too long. Oh, and if you fuck up by making the wrong dish, you just eat it. I ate an order of Mark's today when he forgot to put the black bean spread on the side. Always look at the ticket. I also consumed a fair amount of chicken marsala, since Josh had to test out the recipe he came up with for the special today. side note: marsala wine = very flammable

In kitchens we've been making sauces, soups, pastas, etc. Unlike the first class, we're more specifically assigned what to do for the day, but as far as production goes, there's still room for creativity. Yesterday I made lemon dill rice pilaf to accompany the sole vin blanc we had. Today we were told to do whatever we wanted with a bunch of zucchini, and being in the mood for Italian, I breaded and fried batonnet of the vegetable with paprika, cayenne, and a little s&p. It was pretty damn nice, especially paired with the vegetable marinara cooked up by a kitchen buddy and myself, which contained tomato paste, celery, carrots, onions, red peppers, thyme, oregano, basil, and chicken stock. Norm made minestrone soup and with this collection of entrees, we were deemed totally badass by Chef. School is great. I feel like I've come a long way in Soups just this week--a long way away from nearly discovering cold fusion with a pint of chablis and an aluminum saute pan hot enough to blacken a cat (don't worry, the sauteed chicken breast I was working on wasn't ruined, I just nearly burnt my eyebrows off).