Weekly Reflection, February 18, 2010

Weekly Reflection: Fundamentals of Cookery
February 18, 2010
by Mark Enomoto

Goals:
With the final coming around my goal is to use every opportunity to practice for the final, whether it’s in class or at home. The final is going to have a completely different flow from a regular class. There will not be any breaks for a demo, time to use the restroom, a chance to look too long at my final plan notes, or possibly breath. The mentality I’m taking is: the tour bus drops the guests off at 7am, and the breakfast rush is going to last four and a half hours until 11:30am. Better be ready.
I’m hoping to make some money this weekend at work so that I can go to the market and buy some practice materials to work with – luckily Jodi’s willing to help out as well. Using my “Final Draft” outline, I’ll take a series of tasks and do a run through, so that I have a better idea of where I’m really weak.
In class I want to remain focused, organized and clean during the production portion of class. I need to work on hustling and getting my work done ahead of time, and move forward onto the next task at hand. Besides competing with myself, I could try to have my own personal competition with my classmates; who’s doing great work, and getting done first? This could be a way to push myself to another level. Competition to me is more about personal development, but the competition with others shouldn’t be disregarded because, that too, has it’s developmental benefits.

Expectations:
I have two expectations for next week. The first is that next weeks breakfast cookery module will be extremely challenging. However, I still look forward to breakfast cookery, despite the fear that’s been instilled in us. Eggs are one of those seemingly harmless items, but from this week’s experience with rice, I know not to discount it. I look forward to learning some of the classical skill that Escoffier mentions in his chapter on eggs in his book “Le Guide Culinaire”.
My second expectation is that next week will fly by and hit me like me right hook. Each week has picked up in pace faster than the previous week. With school, work, and homework I’ve been getting more and more exhausted. I think it probably looks like school gave me two black eyes some days when I get home. But, it’ll all be over soon before I know it.
Despite the challenges I have no regrets or complaints about where I am, what I’m doing, and what I’m trying to accomplish in life. And I still believe, like Chef Lance Nitahara, that I am an accumulation of all the people that have affected me, and of all of my past experiences.

Reflection of Experiences:

The experience that left the biggest impression on me is my three stike brown rice. It showed me that even the seemingly easy most recognizable tasks can be challenging. The learning experience that was presented to me is, among other things, this: never underestimate simplicity. My other learning experience is that I can’t cook brown rice in a pan – but I do know how.
“Never underestimating simplicity” is not a new thing to me, but its being revealed to me in a different context. This idea definitely has place when it comes to the culinary world. Everything that we think is new has already been done before. It’s just being presented differently because someone knew the basics of something simple.
If I learn to make a decent quarter cup of brown rice in a small sauté pan one day, maybe I’ll be able to serve it as something special as well.

Positive Experiences:

Teamwork and camaraderie were necessary for my personal development this week. I experienced really great camaraderie this week when I met up with Reid to discuss our final drafts. Before meeting up with Reid, I just couldn’t figure out where to start. I don’t know why, but it was as if I was standing in front of a brick wall. But with a little discussion and referring back to our notes, I was able to get a little kick start in a decent direction and I could go on my own from there.
In many aspects our industry is at it’s best when teamwork is involved, as well, whether it’s two people who work side by side, or two industries that work with each other to generate business. Ultimately, we want to be able to work independently, but it’s a great investment to have a school, work, or personal relationship that is reciprocal when it comes to sincere teamwork.

Humbling Moments:

My humbling moment for the week was mismeasuring, burning, and not being able to cook a decent ¼ cup of brown rice. This reminded me that everything I’m doing should be looked at as something new, and I should receive all this information as though I’ve never done it before. This is probably why, some students who may not have made risotto before may have scored higher than me – they came to the task as an empty vessel and received the information without any preconceived ideas.


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

• White Rice
• Wild Rice
• Navarin of Lamb
• Pasta
• Risotto
• Polenta
• Baked potato
• Whipped potato
• Blue cheese dressing
• Filleting a roundfish
• Buerre noisette
• Shuck clams and oysters
• Clean shrimp and squid
• Ciopinno

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

On my disastrous Tuesday rice day, the feedback I received from Chef wasn’t any particular words, but facial expressions. I never want to cook food that causes people to convulse from over salted food, nor do I want a guest to pick through their food with a “what’s going on here?” expression. Of course Chef gave me constructive feed back, but sometimes nothing stings more than a facial expression. But this is how I learn. The next time I made chicken stock, I tasted it. And the next time I measured vinegar and it didn’t look right, I double checked and triple checked.