Day 1 of Week 4! Time is flying by at record speeds! Today we prepared a vegetable stock using mirepoix, a vegetable mix generally including onions, celery and carrots. Our team did a pretty good job I feel. The stock was très doux, very sweet. I definitely feel that I would enjoy chicken stock a lot more, but I still appreciate the flavor and effort put into making a vegetable stock.
The most interesting and educational segment of the class was, as always, Chef Mark’s demonstration on how to efficiently cut mirepoix in a uniform manner. I never knew how to cut carrots before now. Now I do. Here’s “How to Dice Carrots for Dummies”:
- Block the carrot. Do this by cutting four sides of the carrot, making it rectangular.
- Plank the block. Cut thinner slices off of the block.
- Turn those planks into sticks. Slice the planks into long, thin strips.
- Dice the sticks.
My group mates and I met up and practiced making our assigned soup, Cream of Broccoli, and we had yet to see this demonstration. We didn’t peel the carrots, we didn’t have any onions and we cut the carrots and celery all wrong. I am so grateful for this cooking class and for Chef. I am learning new things every class that I feel are applicable to my daily life.
Day 2 of Week 4 was fantastic. Jasmine, Steve and I were responsible for making a hollandaise sauce to go with poached eggs and Chef’s mac ‘n cheese. After following Chef’s instructions to a “T”, we asked Chef to come over and test our sauce. He picked up a soup spoon, came over and said, “If the sauce is made correctly, when I blow on the sauce on the back of this spoon it will create rose petal ripples”. Sure enough, there were rose petals. Then he actually tasted it. “I don’t remember ever having to never tell anyone something to fix on this before” said Chef, seemingly surprised that we got it on the first try. I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of myself in a class. Ever.
AHA Moment
My AHA moment came with the hollandaise sauce that our team successfully made. There is one thing in particular that I gleaned from this experience: Listen to instructions and follow them. You can learn a lot from people if you are actually wanting to hear what they have to say. It’s crazy the things that people are willing to tell you if you demonstrate that you are listening and putting in the effort to understand them. Chef’s passion is clearly cooking, but teaching is also high on his list. I come to class two days a week for two hours a day and see a bunch of people who don’t want to be there, but feel that they have to be. That just isn’t true. If you don’t want to be there, then just leave. Either that, or decide to have a mentality that allows you to listen to what Chef has to say because he appears to be a well of information as far as I can tell.
Maison de Gastronomie 