Week whatever: OMG! Where did the time go?

It is now two weeks since the final week of school and I haven't been good about writing up that last week.  Largely because there isn't much to say, though I am mindful I promised a gossip update.   The week consists solely of revision by way of practising tests, and going over topics that anyone wants to review. Of all people I am probably least in need, especially as I will not sit my final exam with the rest of my classmates in June.  As I will be in Europe then I will do my finals in November with the class that started after ours. 


I'm just back from an eating excursion to Melbourne.  Among others, I love Mo Vida, a tapas bar just over the road from Federation Square.  With a glass of fino sherry I enjoy Quail with blood sausage; Croquettas de choco en su tint - squid ink with cuttle fish ribbon; and Boqueros, the most divine white anchovies with caperberries and parsley. It sounds like a lot, but it is all bite size and just perfect.

Quail with blood sausage

squid ink croquette with cuttle fish ribbon

Boqueros

I meet  the banker niece for brunch - there are three banker nieces as it happens, but only one living in Melbourne. We meet down town in Hardware Lane at trendy The Hardware Sociéte.  Great menu beyond the usual brunch fare of Eggs Benedict blah blah blah.  I order poached eggs with duck confit and mushroom galette - magnificent!   And ridiculously cheap - can't remember exactly what it cost, but this labour intensive dish which tastes delicious is less than $20. 

An ex-colleague who also now lives in Melbourne, and I share another delicious tapas type meal  at Señoritas. Great food in small portions so you get to try a range of things. The cactus taco was tasty!  I  like the decor which is very  Day of the Dead. The tiles in the loos were unique, to say the least. The light shades are made to evoke the image of Mexican dresses.

So, eating aside,  what has everyone been up to?  Most people seem to have completed their work experience in low key kind of sad cafe joints, or in pubs where their talents for deep frying are fully developed and appreciated.  Only a few make the effort to find large hotel kitchen placements or good restaurants in which to develop their skills.  Chatty girl  worked in the pastry section of a hotel kitchen but says she spent all her time making muffins and biscuits.  No-one had dramatic or overly exciting experiences to recount, so no dramas.  

The only one close to drama involves one of the older guys from another group. Big Boy is a real kitchen know it all, as in "I've been working in restaurants all my life......" and on and on. He drives his cohort mad along with our group when we are together for theory classes.  No matter what the topic or the experience the tutor relates, Big Boy has to argue or "add" his knowledge or generally just annoy the rest of the class. As soon as he opens his mouth there is a collective sigh around the room.  So I am keen to hear how his work experience panned out.  Predictably, not well.  It is an indicator of his incredible lack of personal insight that he tells me that, after the first couple of days, the chef asked him if he had a learning difficulty or was just plain stupid!  Clearly the chef didn't appreciate Big Boy's superior skill and knowledge.


However the main drama occurs earlier in the year, when Jiggly guy, on one of his attempts to go straight and rejoin class, rips off one of the others. You may recall in a very early blog I mention we have a guy who appears mildly autistic.  In fact he should never have been admitted to the course as he has to have a learning support person with him all the time. The story runs that the two of them go out drinking on night.  Being highly open to suggestion, easily led and lacking any kind of understanding of nuance - or let's face it, any understanding of blatantly obvious social interaction - the poor guy takes Jiggly back to his flat.  Jiggly was fixing up (and I don't mean the decor) when our guy left the room.  When he returns Jiggly has disappeared - along with the guy's laptop and phone. 


Tongue stud girl is heartbroken as her most recent boyfriend (the love of her life you understand, as it can only be at 17) went to Australia on holiday, came back  with tell tale signs of another woman on his person, and is now moving across the ditch.  Cue tears and recriminations.  All in all, not much excitement really. Dumb matured a bit over the nine months but still has no plans beyond mountain biking.  Dumber hasn't been seen for several months, though rumour has it he was working in a pub for a while.  Our Kenyan lad has enrolled to continue and do the hospitality management degree which he will do well in.  Pony tail guy is enrolling in the follow on Patisserie course as are several others. 


So school ends not with a bang but a whimper.  Thanks to those of you who loyally read on, and especially for your comments and emails.  It is good to know someone is out there reading my musings. The hunter gatherer and I head off to Rome in a couple of weeks and I plan to food blog our trip so don't cancel your email feed just yet!

Weeks 33, 34, 35: Yes Chef!

And so we get to the sharp end of the course - three weeks of work experience which we must find and secure for ourselves.  I organise mine well in advance, last year in fact, and approach a chef whose food I really like.  Dave is the head chef at  Wither Hills Winery Restaurant just outside Blenheim.  The restaurant seats 60, plus another 40 outside on the terrace during lunch.  There are also several function rooms as well as an out-catering arm.  Working with Dave are two sous chefs,  two commis - no, that isn't a reflection of their political views, it simply means chef below the sous chef - and two kitchen hands making up a day and evening shift.  The restaurant is open every day for lunch and for dinner from Wednesday through Sunday.
Dave's food is modern European but classically based, featuring all those wonderful stocks, jus and sauces I talk about  in Week 3: Hot stock and several smokin’ sauces. It is worth repeating my opening paragraph from that blog to highlight the quality of the food.

Next time you dine in a good restaurant and order something delicious that comes with a really, really flavoursome sauce and you close your eyes and swoon at the heady aroma, savour the unctuous texture, and deliberate over the subtle but deeply delectable underlying seasoning, I want you to pause for a moment and remember this: 18 – 20 hours of labour went into preparing that sauce.

AND we serve Pomme Marquise (last seen in Week  31: The cruel hand of fate) with our Chicken Supreme!  
During my weeks of work experience I learn the true meaning of the words preparation and mise en place. You see, it turns out that working in a restaurant kitchen is, like many jobs, 90% routine (and potentially tedious): slicing, dicing, chopping, kneading, rolling, baking, searing, simmering, and 10% adrenaline infused action, also known as service.  The routine of preparation means that unless you are changing your menu every day (impractical) you are preparing and cooking and serving the same thing every day. The only variation is in the quantity. 

I am lucky in that three weeks of food preparation gives me lots of variety as I work some lunch shifts, some dinner shifts and an out-catering function for 130.  I get to prepare part or some of most things on the menus so it is interesting and enjoyable.  However it is also an enlightening experience as it confirms my thought that I am unlikely to work full time as a chef.  I had thought it was the hours and the tiring nature of it that I wouldn't want, but actually it is the repetitive nature of the work that would do me in. 
As is often the case in work places, someone asks if this is pay week. To shock and awe I state that in the past year I haven't earned a single dollar.  Niki, the commis says she  worked all though her training, doing her work experience when very pregnant.  She is a little mollified when I reply that I worked for the 38 years prior to starting the course.  When the entry level hourly rate for chefs is about $15 or $16  I feel it wise not to mention my charge out rate was about 20 times that -  I hasten to add that wasn't my wage. 


But this does set me thinking.  Cooking and serving good and delicious food makes people happy, both the cook and the consumer.  I don't think I can say that any other work I have done has made people happy in the same way.  Solved their problems, yes. Satisfied or pleased them, yes.  Met a need, yes.  But it is hard to believe anything I did actually made a someone happy in the genuine sense of the word.  Or is it not the purpose of business to make people happy.  Answers on a postcard, please, before I get too introspective.

Back at school in a couple of weeks' time, for the last week of theory/revision.  I will be able to bring you up to date on the antics of my classmates and their various experiences at work.  I hear there is an update on Jiggly whom I last mention about week 27, though he was still with us for another couple of weeks before the inevitable slide.


In the meantime it is(was) Easter and as we have the Designers to stay for the weekend, I make Hot Cross Buns - not the Kenyan kind, see Week 16: Sure to rise - and Easter Biscuits.