Happy belated Independence Day,
everyone! This week was great, and I
hope you all had a great holiday. This
week, we did recipe testing/development for Washakie with chef Mark. We started by learning about all the
equipment in the kitchen. I was
impressed with the 80-gallon kettles and the combi-ovens that have the
capability of smoking food.
These kettles would be great for hide and seek
Washakie has all the basic
necessities as well as really cool items like a Mongolian Grill, gyro machines,
and a pizza oven. It was nice to get a
quick lesson on how the machinery is used.
Mmm....pizza
Next, Mark taught us knife
skills! We went over various sizes of
julienne, brunoise, and dice; and we even tried our hands at a tournée. Thank goodness I never plan to cook for
people who care about my knife cuts, but it was really fun to learn.
That potato should be scared
Proudly
holding my mediocre tournée
On Tuesday and Wednesday, we
tested lots of recipes. We learned how
important it is to weigh all the ingredients and weigh the final yield and
portion sizes so that everything can be entered into the computer properly. (I wished I had been more diligent about
weighing once I was entering my own recipes into CBORD on Friday.) Inaccurate yields lead to poor forecasting,
frustrated cooks, and either hungry students or wasted food.
From left to right: citrus-glazed fruit salad, curry-roasted cauliflower, and Dijon-roasted Brussels sprouts
Shakshuka! People were skeptical at first, but I think they liked it
We recruited the cooks and
managers for our taste panels. It always
makes me antsy when people are eating food I made while silently filling out
evaluation forms, but it looks like we found at least a few winning recipes.
On Wednesday afternoon, I got
the closest I’ll ever get to fame and stardom when Claire, Katlyn (another awesome intern who joined us last week), and I shot a film about healthy
eating at Washakie. I was dreading being
in front of the camera, but it was fun once we got going. Our cameraman was very patient with our
random attacks of giggles (I don’t know why the shot where we weren’t even
speaking was the hardest to get through; I felt ridiculous).
Yay for Independence Day! I loved being in Laramie for this holiday. There was a great festival going on in the
park with free watermelon, snow cones, and ice cream; live bands performing
throughout the park; and fun activities like pie eating contests for kids (I
thoroughly enjoyed watching 8-year-olds gleefully burying their faces in
whipped cream), walking on stilts, and a dunking booth. We ran into lots of friends from work, and we
got to see Mark perform in his band. In
the evening, Claire and I saw Monsters University and met up with some other
friends to watch the fireworks from campus.
All in all, it was a great day.
Catching bubbles! It disappeared, so she must have been successful
Listening to Basmati play some great jazz
Friday was a low-key day, which
was good because I was feeling sluggish after having the day off before. We entered our recipes into CBORD and wrote
nutrition articles for the newsletters. Time
is flying, and there’s still fun to enjoy.
I’m super excited for our bakery rotation next week.
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