Week 4 | Pâte à Choux

This week we made cream puffs on Monday and rarebit sauce and omelets on Wednesday.

The cream puff lab was intense. Our lab is three hours and 15 minutes, which can be a lot of time or a little bit of time, depending on what you're making. No matter what you're making, it goes by super fast. It was a lot to make both pâte à choux and pastry cream done in three hours. Lab time includes set up, demos, and cleanup. Pâte à choux is fast and manageable. You melt butter and water, add flour, and stir vigorously. Once it's nice and thick, you beat it in an electric mix while slowly adding eggs. When you bake them, steam is created from the butter and eggs, causing them to puff up, making lovely little hollow pastries ready to be filled with a sweet or savory filling. The batch I made at home, was once again, undercooked. They collapsed after I took them out of the oven. However, in class, they turned out perfect.

For the pastry cream, you cook flour and cornstarch over heat until it's nice and thick, temper in eggs and then fold in whipped cream. It creates a smooth, silky pastry cream. My pastry cream turned out perfect at home and ok in class. I scorched a little bit of my milk, so my pastry cream wasn't as smooth as I would have liked.

On Wednesday, we made a rarebit sauce which was a simple cheese sauce with some kick. I didn't make the exact recipe at home since I'm pretty comfortable making a roux. Hello, mac and cheese. I did, however, make mac and cheese for dinner on Tuesday night to practice. It's straightforward, you cook flour and butter together, slowly add milk and then the cheese, and off the heat, fold in shredded cheese. One interesting thing we learned this week is that American cheese melts beautifully, while harder cheeses like mild cheddar, sharp cheddar, or parmesan, create a chunky, grainy sauce. However, those cheeses add great flavor. I like to use a blend of cheese. For macaroni and cheese, I use gruyere because it melts so beautifully and sharp cheddar because it creates great flavor.

Finally, we made omelets. My omelet turned out ok. Thankfully, we didn't have to flip them. I want to master that skill. I used too much oil and got a little break at my fold. I made a practice omelet at home; it turned out pretty brown because I used butter. I also had a pretty significant crack at my fold.

All in all, it was a good week. Next week we're making crème anglaise, yeast bread, and an angel food cake.

Week 3 | Blueberry Muffins and Biscuits

The third week of culinary school, we got to cook. Yay! It was really fun and really intense.

We kicked things off with blueberry muffins and biscuits. ICI provides us with the recipes and we are not allowed to make any adjustments. Even if we know, how to make the recipes tastier. The focus for the first semester isn’t so much about flavor as it is about technique. It's learning the basics and then building flavor on top of the basics. It's hard not to spice up the recipes a bit, but that's not the point.

I have made both blueberry muffins and biscuits before, but I still stressed about getting them just right. We learned all about gluten development, fat, and liquid ratios, and leavening agents. I am learning the basics of what makes a muffin taste good, not how to find a good muffin recipe. THAT feels good. The muffins that I made in class turned out great.

As far as the biscuits, they turned out great, as well. I had a ton of flaky layers, and they were still nice and moist in the middle. For the biscuits, you cut the solid fat (butter or shortening) into the flour in the first step. Since the fat stays solid, it creates steam when baked, which creates the desired layers. You also kneed the dough, slightly. You want to develop a little bit of gluten to build some structure.

Now, a couple of things I'm still working out. In class, we use a convection oven (which heats by a fan). At home, I use a conventional oven. I'm still working out the differences between the two. Everything I have made at home has been pretty underbaked. I think the temperature I'm using is just too low. Convection ovens cook a lot faster since the air is continually moving. I'll need to continue to figure that out. Practicing my recipes at home is helpful. I feel that much more confident in the kitchen.

Also, I cut my finger in my fist lab. So that was embarrassing. We weren't even using knives. I did it washing the pastry cutter. I stuck my finger between the tines to clean and sliced it. It wasn't too bad of a cut; it just bled a lot since it was on the joint. My Instructor was very funny about it, which made me feel a lot better and less embarrassed.

Next week on to Cream Puffs!

Week 2 | Mise En Place

Mise en place. Mise en place is a French term meaning "everything put into place." If you know me at all, this is absolutely my jam. When I learned mise en place is one of the fundamental principals of culinary school??! It felt like home. The basic idea is to have a plan before you start cooking; know what you're cooking, how to cook it, what equipment and ingredients you will need. Before you begin cooking, measure, and prep all of your equipment and ingredients so you can focus on cooking. I have practiced mise en place cooking at home and didn't even realize I was doing it right. It 's so affirming!

I am thoroughly enjoying my textbook, Professional Cooking. I want to know every single thing in this book. I could look at pictures of knives, pots, pans, tools, and how to sharpen knives all day. I was extremely excited to learn how to use a knife stone and correctly sharpen knives.

Everything at school is going great. I am getting to know my Chef Professors, and so far, I adore them, particularly in my lab and lecture. I am feeling slightly overwhelmed. Between working part-time, going to school full-time, homework, Little Grey Heart, friends, family, and being a responsible adult (laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping), it's a lot. I think once I get into a routine, it will get easier, but I'm currently feeling overwhelmed. I am so happy, though. I know culinary school is the right choice, and I am so happy to be here. For me, feeling overwhelmed by something you love still feels good.

Week 1 | Back to School

I did it! My first week of culinary school! It was scary and exciting, and I really can't believe I did it. The change in my daily routine is enormous: I wake up at 5 AM instead of 7:30 AM, I have to wear a uniform complete with houndstooth pants and clogs, and I have to leave the house! On my second day of class when I was driving at 7:30 AM, I couldn't stop smiling. I'm doing it. I'm doing the thing I want to be doing.

I am taking six classes this semester, which sounds like a lot, but a couple of them won't have too much outside work. I'm taking Food Prep I Lecture, Food Prep I Lab, Intro to Hospitality, Safety and Sanitation, The College Experience, and Fine Dining. I'm most excited about Food Prep I Lecture and Lab. These classes are what you think of when you think of culinary school. This semester we'll be learning about quick breads, pies, pastry, bread, CHEESE, salad dressing, vegetables, starches, grains, pasta, soups, stocks, sauces, and proteins. In the lecture, we'll talk about food and techniques, and in lab, we'll actually make the food. I have two different chef instructors for these classes, and they seem really different, but I like them both. I think Safety and Sanitation will also be fun. I know, I know, sounds boring, but tbh, cleaning the kitchen is kinda my favorite. Fine Dining is working in the DMACC restaurant. I am incredibly nervous about this. It's a serving job. I have never once in my life worked or wanted to work in a restaurant. I feel like I am going to be terrible. While I don't plan on working in a restaurant when I complete school, I want to learn and understand how cooking and serving work on that scale. Understanding that level of organization will be extremely valuable.

As far as Intro to Hospitality and The College Experience, I haven't had either class yet, so I'm not too sure what to expect.

It is going to take a couple of weeks to get up and running. For now, we're just reviewing the syllabi, getting to know each other, the school, getting our lockers (YEP! I am a 37-year-old woman with a locker).

I didn't get a chance to take a ton of pictures. But I am so in love with these rolling pins and tart tins lining the walls. It's on the way back to the women's locker room. Everything is so organized, and it's glorius. Mise en place.

A New Chapter | Midlife Culinary School Student

I am 37 years old, and I have worked for a website design company for the last 12 years. I have decided to go to culinary school.

When I fall asleep at night, and I try not to worry about things big and small, I imagine my life if I could do anything, be anything. My most common and favorite scenario is going to culinary school and opening a beautiful bakery/yarn store. As my job felt more and more robotic and less and less exciting, I crept closer and closer to actually quitting my job and actually going to culinary school.

How do you know when the time is right? Is the time ever right? Can you ever know? For me, I reached the point of staying at my job felt scarier than going to culinary school. In my heart, I knew if I didn't go, I would regret it for the rest of my life. I don't want that.

I don't know if I'll be a good chef. I don't know if I want to be a chef. I don't know if I'll be successful. I am terrified of leaving a job I know, people I love, and a company that has supported me for 12 years. I really am. I am terrified to go to school and be surrounded by 18-year-old humans who may not realize how lucky they are to have this experience at such a young age. I am terrified to be surrounded by 18-year-old-humans. I am a 37-year-old woman who loves to cook, garden, and knit. What on earth could we possibly have in common?

I do know that I love food. I have spent the last 12 years working for a company that builds and develops beautiful and inspiring websites. My coworkers are incredibly smart and passionate about the work they do. I am not. I have loved my job. I have been able to travel the world and see some fantastic places and meet some incredible people. But my job is not my passion. It's not what I want to talk about at the end of the day. At the end of the day, I want to cook. What if I could cook all day and then at the end of the day, cook. That. I want that. I want to have a career that is focused on and around food. I want to be excited about the work I do. I want to share my work with the world. I don't want to have a work-life and a home-life and try to balance the two. I just want to have a life surround by my wife, delicious food, people I love, knitting, and two stinky Boston Terriers, Eleanor and Fern.

So, this is my journey through culinary school and towards a life that inspires me deeply.