first day

Stayed up late last night waiting for everybody to arrive. Apparently a volcano near Puebla, Mexico, erupted, so flights were delayed an hour (and no wonder Mexico City looked so smoggy in our plane transfer). After everybody checked in, some of the guys were hungry so we ventured out... to a sandwich stand in front of a hospital. It was the only food around, it being midnight and everything. This lady assembled sandwiches in the dark. (No, none of us got sick.)



The morning started early at the Instituto Cultural Oaxaca (ICO), where we had a surprise awaiting us in the kitchen - breakfast! We assembled eagerly around this long wooden bench.



Señora Soledad, a cook since the age of 9, taught us how to make hot chocolate the Oaxacan way. You start with hot water and bars of chocolate. Once all the chocolate is dissolved you pour the mixture into a jarro (jar) and roll the molinillo (wooden implement) between your hands until the chocolate foams up.



And then you pour it into a cup and enjoy it with some bread (or pastry of choice).



Then we had an introduction to all the traditional kitchen implements we'll be using, such as the mortar and pestle (el molcajete y el tejolote), the tortilla roller/spice grinder (el metate, which Soledad demonstrated on her hands and knees as it is traditionally used on the ground), and all the different clay jars that impart earthly flavors upon the dishes.



After that we had a short orientation to Oaxaca, and then onto Spanish class. We were separated into different levels depending on our level of fluency, with me and two others in the intermediate/advanced class. We talked all about food, which was brutal considering it was the afternoon and we hadn't even had lunch break yet. Also some mosquitos bit me through my leggings, which was vicious and scary since I didn't think it would ever happen here.



After class Chef took us to La Hormiga, the best torta stand around. The lunch crowd was huge.



I ordered a torta tinga (spicy chicken). We ate it in the square where all the couples make out because they can't do it at home (socially conservative Catholic country and all).



For dessert, Cris and I got churros at this small place that pretty much only sold churros. And all the churros were piped by this cool machine.



After lunch we went on a walking tour of Oaxaca city center, where many many churches abounded. We stopped at the beautiful cathedral I mentioned in the last post. Apparently the inside is even more beautiful (all gold, and everywhere).



The tour ended at El Origen, a famous restaurant here in Oaxaca. The chef, Rodolfo Castellanos, is currently competing for the title of Best Chef in Mexico. And later he'll be teaching us a workshop!

Dinner was exquisite, featuring such delicacies as soft-boiled egg, octopus, and this sous vide chicken.



By the end of the day we were very full (in all senses of the word). Can't wait to actually get our hands on and start cooking tomorrow!

landed!

Spent the last week in Guadalajara (with side trips to Puerto Vallarta and the town of Tequila). Today Cris and I flew from Guadalajara to Oaxaca, where we will be starting a three week culinary program led by our beloved pastry chef instructor Mark Hodgson.



Since we arrived earlier than the rest of our CCSF cohorts, we had some time to explore Oaxaca. Our transfer to the hotel was facilitated by a super enthusiastic foodie of a taxi driver (and thank goodness too, because as it turns out there are two Instituto Culturals in Oaxaca, so we had to do some asking around). Even though I knew that our small villa of a hotel was equipped with a pool, I still found it to be nicer than expected.



The first thing we did after dropping off our stuff was to find sustanance. At a small cart around the corner was a lady selling these gorditas - corn tortillas filled with shredded chicken and some finger-lickin' good yellow mole sauce.



We ate and walked to a restaurant we had passed earlier in the taxi, called El Rojo Gato. They had a menu del dia (fixed daily special) of spaghetti, beef milanese, ice cream and hibiscus tea. We ate and then went across the street to Carmelita Bakery for a lime meringue tart.



The afternoon was spent settling in. Each of our rooms is equipped with a kitchenette so we can do some light cooking.



This is the bedroom I'll be sharing with Sydney!



For dinner we walked around town until we found a tucked-away spot with colorful tablecloths and traditional Oaxacan cuisine. We ordered the platter that had a little bit of everything: tamale, plantains, emapanadas, pico de gallo, tortilla chips, all sorts of meat.



Then of course we had to walk all of that off, and discovered that Oaxaca is quiet yet still active at night.



And now we wait for the rest of the group to arrive!!!

last day

I thought my 3rd semester would end with the mini reuben sandwiches in Garde Manger. Or, at least, I thought the blogging part would end there because the last couple of days would be cleaning and quizzes, nothing exciting. I was wrong.

Although the cafeteria was shut down for the last two days of class, Mr. Stellman decided to sell flat-rate combo meals as a fundraiser for the Five Star Club. The first day went smoothly and we raised something like $1500.

The second day... well. I just remember it being 11am, a bunch of us staring at sheet trays full of raw chicken, and it dawning on us that we were scheduled to open at 11:15am. Mr. Stellman thought it might not even be worth it to still do the fundraiser. My thought was: "Well what are we going to do with this chicken?!" So then came the flurry of torn plastic wrap, hands moving and pieces of raw chicken flying onto parchment papered sheet trays into the oven, packets of sausage and veggie burgers slit open and arranged onto more trays... and of course this was the one day of school I decided not to wear my chef coat and work boots. Instead I was wearing a sweaterdress and leggings, handling all the raw chicken while running around like a chicken with its little head cut off.

Mr. Stellman pushed back opening time to noon, and I'm proud to say that we had trays of food in the warmer before them, replete with barbecue sauce straight out of the container. I'm sure the prospective student tour groups being led through the kitchen were like WTF, but I didn't care, that disaster junkie part of me is still alive and well and it was on fire that day.



Three of us (Jordan, Cris and I) put out a good 100+ chicken legs, 50+ sausage links and 20+ veggie burgers in under an hour. I was proud and ate my last cafeteria meal very satisfied.



It was a good end to the past three semesters.

mini reuben appetizers

For our last class in Garde Manger we got together to make appetizers.

Because of the impending ban on foie gras, Chef decided to sear some off as a last hurrah.

Since foie is basically fat, it smokes when it sears. And you shouldn't even try to flip it in the pan while the pan is over the fire because the oily smoke (and the pan) can catch on fire.



Here's the seared foie. I tasted a piece but I didn't like it very much. I don't tend to like rich-tasting things. I actually rather eat butter (yes, just plain butter) over foie.



Also, this being our last class, Chrissy engraved a banana squash tribute to Chef Oakley. Kudos to her artistic ability - she's always sketching or doodling amazing things. (Chef looks like Toy Story's Woody!)



So for appetizers, Isabel and I got together to make mini-reubens. Chef had house-made pastrami for us to slice up, but the rest of the ingredients we had to forage, especially since the cafeteria had already shut down and all the walk-in refrigerators were being cleaned out. Before we found sauerkraut we found pickled jalapenos slivers, and before we found mustard (whole grain and honey) we found thousand island. Then we also found queso fresco (which I thought would go with the jalapenos) and arugula. We conducted several taste tests using the edges of toast I had buttered and pan-fried. We decided to use everything.



First the bread was cut into small triangles and the pastrami to match. Then we mixed the whole grain mustard with honey mustard and thousand island dressing for the spread.



Isabel put on the jalapenos while I crumbled on queso fresco and laid on arugula leaves. We started at different ends of the tray so it almost looks like we're advancing chess pieces or having some sandwich ingredient battle.



The sandwiches were assembled with toothpicks, dramatic because they were the long kind for regular-sized sandwiches.



And there you have it, mini-reuben sandwiches.



To see what my classmates' made for appetizers, scroll left after clicking here!

wedding cake

For our final project in Advanced Baking, we had to come up with a wedding cake - either a real one or a styrofoam model. Most of us chose styrofoam - less to worry about, but also it can be kept forever. At first I was going to make both, but then I quickly realized that it would be nearly impossible so I settled on a styrofoam one.

I started brainstorming early, because I knew the end-of-semester crunch would inevitably come along (as Chef Mark described it, an avalanche that would snowball and gain speed, taking down everything in its path including us).

For the theme I started thinking about marriage and what I feel married to. It didn't take me long to think "my bed!" and start basing my cake entirely off my bed. I took some photos of what's on/around my bed to try to incorporate it into the whole design.



Here's the duvet, faded lavender with a fern/lavender-like design.



Here are my pillow cases, white with a swirling flower design.



Here's the tissue box, light purple with flower designs, sitting atop lavender sheets.



So from those three elements I thought I would make a three-tiered round cake - faded lavender on bottom, white in the middle, and lavender on top.

I included the lei around my lamp because the flowers were purple and white.



The mattress, although blue, has a silvery-pink rose pattern on it. I thought I could find a ribbon like that to decorate the top and/or sides of the cake.



So the first step of constructing the cake model was fondant (kind of like edible playdough) and styrofoam rounds. To get the colors I wanted, I could have used food coloring with white fondant but I chose to use up colors left behind by previous classes. I mixed a rose-hued one, an indigo one and an off-white one to create the lavender I wanted.



Once I kneaded the colors enough till they all blended, I rolled out the fondant to a big flat round and then draped it over the styrofoam round. Because the fondant I used was leftover, it was drier than fresh fondant and parts of the drape cracked. I had to rework it with some shortening so it wouldn't crack as much.



Once the three tiers of rounds were done, I set to decorating the bottom layer. Unfortunately Chef Mark didn't have a fern pattern cutter, but he did have dozens of other leaves so I picked two that I liked - one lotus-y and the other tulip-y. The cutters saved me from having to cut out leaves by hand, which would have been exhausting. The stems I was able to form using the wavy side of a bigger cutter shape. Although the design didn't come out looking exactly like my duvet cover I still liked how it looked.



Chef Ng caught a picture of me in action, pasting the fondant shapes I cut onto the fondant "cake" with the help of some water.



For the top layer I used the ribbons I purchased at Michaels. Couldn't find any silvery-patterned ones like I had imagined, so I settled for two different kinds of purple. Cut sections of ribbon and pasted it into a loop with the help of some royal icing (mostly egg whites and powdered sugar, but kind of like glue). I also used the same ribbon to surround the base of each cake layer.



Once the ribbon loops were arranged they made a flower pattern.



On top of the loop I inserted a fake white rose (also from Michaels). I would have made one out of molding chocolate like this one Chef showed us, but then it would've been off-white (because of the white chocolate) and not the bright white to match the middle layer of cake.



The last thing I did was pipe royal icing designs onto the middle layer. Royal icing itself is harder to pipe because it doesn't flow like whipped cream or buttercream. But not only that, I had to pipe sideways, which meant that I was working against and not with gravity. It was harder than I expected, so the designs I'd previously practiced on paper had to be vastly simplified.



Overall the cake was very enjoyable to make because of the whole design process - idea/theme, gathering of materials, working with material constraints, etc. There were things that I could have made better if I was willing to redo them - the cracks in the fondant, the blemishes in the piping work, etc. But I'm happy with how my first wedding cake turned out. The colors and the flowery details still remind me of my bed.



To see my classmates' final projects, click here and scroll left through the pictures!