Second Weekly Reflection

Weekly Reflection (due each Friday)
Fundamentals of Cookery

Name: Mark Enomoto Date: January 21, 2010

Goals:
My goal for next week is obvious! I need to organize myself better so that I can get through this course efficiently, and ultimately so that I can, one day be the best chef I can be. It’s an essential quality I need if I’m going to be a leader of an organization, as well as a role model for those that I work with and for those that choose to work for me. But, to me, being organized is more than a chef quality. It’s a quality I simply need for life, and to be able to one day perpetuate my life, my skills, and one day be as good a husband and father as I am a chef.
My week three goal is to “set everything in it’s place” – a cook’s most basic organizational tool. I’ve got some chopping to do. I’ll break up my weekly writing assignments into more manageable pieces. I’ve got some portioning to do. I’ll give myself a certain portion of my day to do certain assignments - like 2 hours for my daily. Maybe I can create one “plat du jour”. This could be a workout or training session sometime during the week that I’ve been dying for. And maybe I should set up some “critical control points.” Maybe set up timers so that I know how long I’ve been sitting at the computer – the “danger zone.”

Expectations:
Expectations are high in Fundamentals to Cookery. I am completely appreciative of this – especially after all I’ve learned this past year. I currently work for Phuket Thai Restaurants. It’s a great family run restaurant, the owners are the nicest owners I’ve worked for, and their Thai food has won many awards. But, as much as I’ve enjoyed working there I feel that my expectations are higher. So, as I finish up this spring semester it will be time to move on. I need higher expectations required of me, more social responsibility, and higher quality. This is the only way I can become better.
One of the thing’s I’ve realized while working at Phuket Thai is that I expect more quality and service in a restaurant I’m apart of. One challenge is that because the cooks are native Thai’s and Lao’s, they don’t speak English very well, nor do they don’t understand the standards of this industry.
For, example, instead of drinking from plastic cups or covered drink containers on the line, they drink from beverage glasses that are meant for service. Of course these could get knocked over in the middle of the rush, break, and there would be shard’s of glass on the food line. So, in attempt to calm one of my worries at work, I’ve bought them plastic cups and have tried to explain, “Glass (point, point, point to a glass), not good. If breaks when working, not good.” They casually replied, “Ohh, you so nice,” as if I had bought them gifts. Oh the pain.
And as I’ve learned, then smallest standard should be expected of all employee’s. It’s also very necessary if you want to stay in business.

Reflection of Experiences:

This week has been educational – I’ve done many things I haven’t done before, or are learning the classic method of doing them. It’s great to see how basics skills are so foundational. Although, I really enjoyed attempting to make a chicken stock and veal stock, I wouldn’t have been able to do those unless I learned my knife cuts, how to de-construct a chicken, and how to make a sachet. It’s also interesting that if I make a mistake in any of those initial steps, I could alter my final product. Similarly, if I make my chicken stock or veal stock wrong, then my veloute and demi glace will be wrong as well.

Positive Experiences:

My positive experience for this week was experiencing waking up at 4:30am to get to school by 5:30am. It was good to wake up early, not have to deal with any traffic, and start moving around early. The energy of a kitchen is definetely a great alarm clock with the banging of stainless steel, knives chopping, sound of sizzling, and the smell of fresh coffee and baked goods. There’s no way anyone could sleep through that! Although all of those thing’s weren’t happening that morning in school, I did get my coffee and oatcake early, got bangin’ away on the stainless steel, got some early morning laughter with classmates, and got work done. It was a gratifying morning.
Humbling Moments:

A humbling moment for me this week was during Chef Leake’s demonstration on how to clean our floor sinks. I was humbled by watching OUR chef get down on his knees and scrub mold, goop, and funk off of a floor sink. I don’t think I’ll ever see a chef I work for doing that in the future. And, I wonder if the majority of my class realizes that they could possibly be doing that in a kitchen job they get hired at, or at least something comparably disgusting. If they didn’t get excited about doing that day, they’re definitely not going to be excited about getting paid a measly $8 and hour for it – especially since they have some culinary education. I’ve learned long time ago that if something needs to be cleaned, it doesn’t matter if you’ve made the mess or not, you rush to clean it! So, when Chef said to go clean the rest of the floor sinks, I turned to, I think, the worst one – the communal wash station. So, I got down, just as Chef did, and I scrubbed and bleached. Happily, I scored a prize though – a bloody, used band-aide. Yes!

Of the things that I learned this week, I am best prepared to demonstrate to someone else? (list in bullet form)

• Perfect cuts of onion (small dice, julienne, brunoise)
• Celery cuts (small dice, bias, brunoise)
• Carrot cuts (small dice, oblique, rondelle, bias)
• Sachet d’espice
• Tomato Concasse
• Chop parsley
• Chop garlic (ruff chop, mince, puree)
• Roux’s
• How to clean a floor sink

What feedback did I receive from my instructor and how did I use the information to improve my performance?

The feed back from Chef Leake today that, could quite possibly, leave a lasting impression on me is when he encouragingly said, “Remember, you are CIA quality!” If anyone’s ever felt pressure to step it up, this would be it for me. For me, the last time I felt really good about school was in 1993 when I almost made a 3.0 GPA - I made a 2.9 GPA. My father was happy about that, but humorously my baby brother went hysterical because he was jealous I was getting complements on my pretty good GPA. Unfortunately, I’ve never done any better than that report card. So, when Chef said that I could go onto the CIA, the Harvard of culinary schools, I stood in disbelief. Harvard and my name should never be that close together in a sentence – for Harvard’s sake. And before these first two weeks in Fundamentals, I don’t think I’ve really given it a second thought after finding out the cost of tuition.
But, what did I do next? I turned to my girlfriend Jodi (who’s name is being mentioned for the first time, but, who is in relation, my confidence and the boot which kicked me into culinary school) and mumbled Chef Leakes comment. But, by now I think she’s almost unimpressed, and thinks I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be in life anyway. I think she’s more excited about the possibility of fulfilling her dream of living in New York.
Chef Leakes comment gave me a second wind for the day. Jodi said I should’ve just did my daily on roux, which I explained to her in fifteen minutes on the way home from work. True, a daily reflection on roux would have taken me less time than a veal stock, and would’ve given me more time for my other assignments. Veal stock was important to me today, thus being what I honestly should reflect upon. Besides, if/when I do go to CIA, I should be able comprehend and produce a 20 point fond brun with ease coming from Chef Leake’s Fundamentals to Cookery Course.