Week 2: Potatoes, carrots, kiwifruit and oranges

Oh, and onions and tomatoes. Such is my life this week, and by the end of it I am SO TIRED. Our first week in the kitchen sees us learning vegetable and fruit cuts. I didn’t expect standing over a bench concentrating on miniscule and precise vegetable cuts for four hours a day to be so tiring, but take my word for it, it is. My sympathy now lies with hairdressers, shop workers, supermarket checkout operators and anyone else who stands in one place for most of their working day. Good shoes are important!

The pattern for this, and most future weeks, is one hour theory and four hours in the kitchen each day. Monday to Wednesday is learn and practise; Thursday is assessment of skills. Our tutor judges us competent or not yet competent: the latter means a re-sit (and a $50 fee) the following Friday. If we are competent, then we achieve a pass, merit or distinction.

This week most of us achieve merit – I suspect that is partly because we lack the skill for distinction, but also because they don’t want to discourage anyone at this early stage and assume everyone will improve with practice – God I hope I do. Everyone gets much the same feedback – inconsistency of size or shape, and we are talking mm here.

In fact I feel pretty good, as getting 30grams of five different cuts of equal size is rather demanding! If you don’t believe me, get out your carrots, peeler, knives and rulers and have a go....

julienne 4cm x 2mm x 2mm

brunoise 2mm x 2mm x 2mm

macedoine 10mm x 10mm x 10mm

jardinière 2.5cm x 5mm x 5mm

paysanne - shapes 1cm in diameter x 2 mm; rounds triangles, squares, diamond.

Then we turn potatoes, or to use the French term, tourné. If you fine dine you may well be served  turned potatoes, and it is unlikely you will appreciate the torture the prep chef went through in learning to prepare these for you!! Take one spud and transform it into a 6cm long, perfectly formed oval with 8 sides (or 7 or some other number depending on the chef). Go to You Tube and watch a couple of the videos if you are interested in the technique, but bear in mind they make it look easy.

Tomato concassé sounds more impressive than it is - skinned, cored and seeded tomato (no seeds! Chef says “if I can see them you should be able to see them and the customer will definitely see them”) cut into fine dice, a bit bigger than brunoise and smaller than macedoine. Next time you see Seafood timbale with a crayfish cloud, croutons, tomato concassé, micro herb and citrus salad on your menu, you’ll be able to impress all your friends by describing the tomato cut. Remember, you learned it here first – or not.  

Onions we slice and brunoise. If you have watched any of the early episodes of Masterchef, slicing and dicing onions is one of the tests they have used to make people cry – mostly by dropping them out early.

Fruit is relatively easy in comparison to vegetable cuts, but the standards are as exacting. Segmented orange (no pith or segment fiber, equally sized segments) and shingled (yes, just like roof tiles) kiwifruit. equal slices 2-3mm, evenly shaped no skin.

On assessment day we all finish within two to two and a half hours, but if feels like days.

My mind turns to a Sunday lunch when I was about ten and refusing to finish what was on my plate. My mother told me I was lucky to have food and the “starving children in Biafra” would be pleased to have it.  I suggested she package it up and send it to them and I do believe I suffered punishment for my cheek, but I have blocked out what it was! However, I am constantly in mind of those starving children, though these days substitute Somalia.

I know a skilled chef can get four or eight turned potatoes out of one large potato – yes, just watch you tube!  We get one – and a poorly turned one at that! So some of us angst about the kilos of carrots, potatoes that aren’t destined for a plate. The tutors emphasise nothing is wasted in a commercial kitchen and Executive Chefs will pounce on any chefs who cost them money through wastage. In the Weltec kitchen a lot of the vegetable cuts are used in stocks, soups and/or are vac-packed and go to the City mission or wherever. So if you book dinner at Bistro 107, the Weltec restaurant and there’s carrot soup on the menu you know what has been happening in class! http://www.weltec.ac.nz/SUBJECTAREAS/Hospitality/Bistro107/tabid/558/Default.aspx  

It’s been a good week getting to know the other students and chefs a little better. Things are panning out in terms of numbers and it’s the last week for withdrawals without penalty. I am still not sure exactly how many are in our class as a couple of people are off sick or have other issues. One of the other issues may show just how prescient I am! Remember in the first blog I said there were a couple who looked like they should be in jail? One of them hasn’t turned up all week and was seen outside the courthouse, so who knows. I’ll let you know if he arrives on Monday.

Our group, Novotel, is a really good cross section of society. One man has a student support person with him all the time so has some kind of learning difficulty – haven’t worked with him yet so I’m not sure what it is. I have noticed he seems to have a good sense of humour. I’m not the oldest in the class! Pony Tail guy is 58 and having a career change from props work in film and TV. He is keen to work up in Rarotonga in one of the resorts or hotels. Hat guy works as a grill chef at a pub in town, fitting work in around course hours. In the past he has worked for two years in the kitchen at Logan Brown. We have one international student, from Kenya. Jiggly guy is getting his life together. He tells me he is 37 and has wasted a substantial inheritance, mostly on drugs of various kinds, but is five years clean now. He “went cold turkey last time I was inside”. He has 4 kids and misses a day this week at Family Court and another few hours at CYFS trying to keep his younger kids safe from the mother’s partner. I like sharing a bench with him: he’s so focused on doing well, works hard, cleans as he goes, and isn’t afraid of sucking it up and getting on. He was absolutely thrilled to get a merit this week in assessment and tells us it is the first thing he’s passed in about 25 years.

Most of the young women are young, starting from about 16 – Tongue Stud girl left halfway through year 12 “cos I couldn’t stand Maths and English and that stuff” but loves food and cooking and has been cooking at home for years. She is terrified they’ll make her take out her tongue stud, but it seems safe so far. Another did a year of Health Science at Otago but when she realized she wouldn’t get into Med School, changed tack and enrolled in our course – she wants to work as a chef on cruise ships.

The general consensus in the girls’ changing room is that we have a good group. We are so pleased we haven’t got a couple of know-it-alls as Ibis group has. We share theory sessions with Ibis. However these guys may well pull their heads as Jiggly Guy tells me a couple of his mates in Ibis have told I’ve-been-in-the-business-all-my-life-guy to shut up - they are there to listen to the tutor, not to him!

So, week three looms with promises of Eggs Benedict – yes we are on to stocks and sauces.

Week 1: Armed and dangerous

Woo hoo! This week veered from tedium to excitement and anticipation - much like life in general I suspect.

As you can see from the photo, we were issued with our knives - yes, a very good set of knives. And they come in a pretty smart knife roll.

From the left we have  a filleting knife - flexible blade; boning knife; chef's knife; vegetable knife; turning knife - you'll hear more about these next week as we learn how to use our knives SAFELY and PROPERLY .

But wait! there's more!!!!

Far from a set of steak knives we receive all manner of kitchen equipment - kitchen scales; steel; gas lighter (huh?); meat probe; tasting spoons (yum); wooden spoon; spatula; piping nozzles (x6); palette knife; zester; peeler, pastry scraper; pastry brush; whisk; scissors;  cuddly toy....

Why so much other equipment? don't they have all that in the training kitchens? It seems that if they do, it grows legs. Consequently we get our own and are expected to hang on to it. The tutors recommend we engrave our knives and label everything. They advise us not to leave our knife rolls in our (padlocked) lockers overnight. It seems the place is rife with larceny. On my return to town I go to the little man on the ground floor of the Grand Arcade and have my knives elegantly engraved with  Bev (but in a more elegant and flowing font).

That was possibly the second most exciting part of the week - getting the knives  I mean, not getting them engraved. The day before that we get our uniforms - excitement plus! Group by group we traipse downstairs to the corridors outside the Training Kitchens where Mary from Arrow Uniforms is struggling to maintain order and her composure.

The chef tutors (Toby and Trevor), sticklers for correct uniforms and presentation, explain the reason for each piece attire.

Hat - white, more accurately a skullcap - covering your hair. If you have long hair, it must also be in a hairnet or tied up in a bun. If you have a beard, wear a beard net. Yes, I know! but then think about it - how many chefs do you know with long hair and beards - Marco Pierre White aside? Purpose is clear - no-one wants hair in their food.

Neckerchief - white, must be properly folded and sits outside the collar of the jacket. Properly folded means just like a regular tie, but tuck the trailing edges back up into the knot. Clever really. Perhaps doctors could think about doing the same thing so their tie ends don't trail across patients promoting cross infection....Purpose - apparently neckerchiefs used to be worn under the collar to soak up the sweat, but now have become part of the uniform because....well, because they look cool!

Jacket - white, loose fitting, double breasted, long sleeves, white buttons. Loose-ish to keep a bit of airflow; double breasted to give you two layers of protection from splashes and scalds; long sleeves to help protect you from splashes and burns; white buttons because - I don't know why -  they come with black and we replace them. The buttons pop out easily for jacket laundering but also so you can rip the thing off if you somewhat carelessly catch yourself on fire.

Apron - white - are you detecting a theme? tied at the front and then folded over the tie. Purpose -gives a layer of protection in addition to your pants, and by folding over the tie you remove the chance of catching the bow on a saucepan handle or ladle.

Pants - black and white check, cotton, drawstring waist. Purpose - light cotton for coolness in the heat of the kitchen and well, imagine a kitchen full of cooks without pants.

Shoes - black, leather, solid upper, rubber soled for non slip. Purpose - protect your feet from hot spills, dropped knives, pots, pans.

Aside from what you must wear, it is also about what you must NOT wear. No jewellery,  no visible piercings, short nails and no nail polish. Jewellery heats up in the kitchen and can burn, harbours bacteria and can slip off into food. Similarly, nail polish can flake off. I must admit I do cringe when I see Peta Mathias plunging her beringed hands into food.

So as you can tell, it is all very fashionable and glamorous! At this point they remind us there are reasons for each piece of attire and aside from professional presentation it is about safety and hygiene: this is not a fashion parade - as if! You won't be seeing a photo of me in my kit any time soon.

The mundane part of the week is a seemingly interminable journey through the Handbook material that we could all read for ourselves - although clearly many can't, don't or won't, so we are talked through it. Our group of about 17 now - you'll recall I'm in exotic Novotel - joins with Ibis - also 17 or 18 - for theory sessions. The two chef tutors tag team the teaching. Inevitably, someone asks a question the answer to which we have already been told two or three times in two or three different ways.

We also get our textbooks  - The New Zealand Chef - which is our Bible for the year. The tutors set a short familiarisation test in which we must use the index, find various references and recipes, and change quantities by quadrupling and halving recipes. Toby tells us  that one day in the Training Kitchen he instructed students to use half a recipe to make a dish. As he was walking around checking progress he saw one student's product was looking most strange. Had he halved the recipe? Yes Chef. He used the first half of the listed ingredients.