Consomme doesn't come from a can? What the what?

Last night was my 3rd class in Concepts and Theories of Classical Techniques. We talked about soups, which may sound boring, but is way funner to talk about than how to make stock or broth. And even yummier than sauces because you aren't supposed to eat sauces alone (although I have been known to eat spaghetti sauce right out of the pot minus the pasta). And while we were going over the different kinds of soups, they were preparing something delicious in one of the lab kitchens next door. So, basically, my mouth watered for 3 hours while I snacked on my Luna bar and drank water.

I thought it would be fun to give you guys some of the recipes my Chef is giving us. Now, keep in mind, I am not actually making any of this stuff yet because I am not in the lab until next quarter. But these are directly from a Chef that has been in the business for 15 years, traveled the world and worked with Chef Mario Batali, so I'll pretty much take his word on it.

I will try and explain as much as I can, but if I do a crappy job, just email me and I'll try and explain it better.

Beef or Chicken Consomme

1 Gallon Beef or Chicken Stock, (homemade is preferred, of course)
-Stock should be cold, not warm or fresh from the stove

10 Egg Whites, lightly frothed (not stiff)

3 Pounds Ground Chicken or Ground Beef
-Use a lean meat, you don't want to add fat to the stock or you won't end up with a clear consomme. Chef says grinding your own is best, but if you can find ground chicken breast or ground beef that is from lean cuts, that should be fine. Most butchers will grind fresh meat for you if you ask.

1 Pound Mirepoix, Julienne cut works best
-1/2 pound onions, 1/4 pound carrots, 1/4 pound celery

1 Sachet
-10 whole peppercorns, 6 pieces parsley stems, 2 pieces thyme (stems and leaves), and 1 bay leaf. Put in cheesecloth and tie with kitchen twine.

1/2 Onion Brulee
-Cut onion in half and torch the hell out of the open side. You only need half the onion.

Small amount fresh cut tomatoes


Combine mirepoix, egg whites, and ground meat/poultry in a metal bowl. Use your hands to work the eggs over all surfaces of mirepoix and meat for 20-30 seconds.

Take cold stock, put in narrow, tall pot and add cold meat mixture and mix all around. Add sachet, onion Brulee, and tomatoes.

Turn heat to medium and slowly heat, stirring gently with wooden spoon often. When it hits 135-140 degrees, stop stirring so the proteins can form a raft. Let SIMMER (you never, ever, ever boil a stock or broth, you will never get it clear if you boil it) for 35 minutes. You will need to gently poke a hole in the middle of the raft in order to baste the top and so it won't boil over the pot.

After 35 minutes, take off heat. Put some damp cheesecloth in a chinois (these are expensive, so if you don't have one, use a fine mesh strainer, and put a coffee filter over the cheesecloth), and gently strain, ladle full by ladle full. Be careful not to break the raft, you can gently press down on it to get the broth out.

Once strained, put back on stove and season to taste with salt and finely ground white pepper (remember, a consomme is a clear broth, if you add black pepper, it will ruin the presentation).

If you have any fat floating on top, you can do 2 things:

1. Let it cool completely in the fridge so the fats can harden, which makes it easier to just skim the fat off the surface.

2. Skim a paper towel over the surface of the warm stock. This should absorb into the towel. This method is kind of a quicky thing and not preferred.


I know it sounds like a huge process, but it doesn't take that long to make, and the outcome is so much better than a can of consomme you buy at the store. This is the perfect base to French onion soup, minestrone, or chicken noodle soup.

I hope you guys enjoy it. I am out of town the rest of this week, and when I get back, my brother-in-law will be in town, so I won't be able to try it out until next weekend. But I promise I'll take pictures and post them for your viewing pleasure.

Gray

I hate to do it again, but I need to. I just don't have the time to sit and pluck every gray hair in my head. I asked Jay to help, and he told me he doesn't have that much time (he is still suffering for that one. Fucker.). They are over-powering me, it's all I can see. Gray, gray, gray. It wouldn't be so bad if I still had blond hair, but no, it had to go and get darker the older I got. Mother Fucking Nature is a real bitch. It's time to fork out some cash and get my hair did, I guess.

On another note, I am now in my 3rd week of school and still loving it. I have my first test in Safety and Sanitation tonight, and I have total test anxiety. I haven't been quizzed on anything in over 16 years. I'm scared I'm going to run screaming from the room or break out in hives (remember to wear turtleneck to cover hives). For my Concepts and Theories class, I had to write a quick paper on Chevreuil sauce. It took longer to look it up and then have Jay tell me how to interpret it on Wikipedia than it took me to write the freaken' paper. Sometimes that guy has his uses.

The Pacific Northwest has been showing how A.D.D. it is with the weather. It's sunny, then it's hailing, then it's sunny, then it's raining with a snow mix, then it's sunny. The next day, it's in the mid-60's, and then the next day it's back to torrential down pour. Just pick something for 5 flippen minutes and stick with it, please. Can I wear flip-flops today? Who knows? Should I straighten my hair, because it's sunny? Yeah, do it. Then the heavens open up and I look like a frizzy poodle.

Yesterday, it was around 70 degrees, which rocked. We took the kids to the beach for the first time this year, which meant hiking 1 1/2 miles down a trail, which was no problem. We played on the beach for about an hour, and then it was time to head back. And I had to hike back up the hill, and by hill, I mean mountain. I had to keep stopping because I thought I was going to die. Literally. Of course, we ran into plenty of young, skinny, fit girls as I was huffing my way back, red faced and dripping with sweat. Once we got to the top, I threw myself into the car, cranked on the air conditioning and fell into a coma for 20 minutes while Jay and the kids played on the playground. When we got home, I forced myself to walk, not crawl, into the house and into the shower. I woke up this morning, tried getting out of bed, and my legs basically gave me the "what the hell do you think you're doing" kind of pain, so I laid back down and thanked every God there is that it's Spring Break in Shoreline. There was no way I was getting my broken body up and working for awhile.

There are some days I feel much younger than my 33 years, and I feel like I can do anything. Then there are days like yesterday, when I felt 133. Old, creaky, and near death. One thing is certain, I need to get in better shape. Which is what I said as I lay broken on the couch yesterday, right before I got up and made toffee bar cookies. And barbecued steak, mushrooms, and asparagus. And then ate a ton of cookies.

Here's a picture of the younger kidlets in Puget Sound. And of Jay with our daughter. Evan may look more like his Daddy, but Kenzie has his goofy sense of humor.

Jay and Kenzie posing on a cool tree.

Evan and Kenzie jumping the waves.

Eweeeee, gross.

Our lives are not in the lap of Gods,
But in the lap of our cooks.

Lin Yutang,
The Importance of Living

When I made the decision to enroll in Culinary School, I never imaged that I would be totally grossed out when I took a class there. Well, I knew I would be grossed out when it came to deboneing poultry and fish, or when I had to sample anything that had shellfish in it, but I never thought a lecture class could sick me out.

Well, it can. The first class of my nearly $20,000 education is Sanitation and Safety, and our first 3 hour lecture was on food-borne illnesses and how it achieves full growth, and the side effects when you have said illness. Thank God I didn't eat before class, because talking about diarrhea would have made me lose it, especially when you're talking about the process of how you get the diarrhea from gross people in gross kitchens. Unfortunately, most food-borne illnesses happen from your own kitchen. At home, we have no safety standard. The health department is not going to show up at your door and demand to inspect your kitchen. Most people do not use bleach water on every surface in their kitchen, or to rinse their dishes. Most of us don't constantly use thermometers to check our foods to make sure they are out of the danger zone of 41-135 degrees. Mostly I learned that it doesn't take much to make you sick. And that if where you are eating has a disgusting chef or kitchen, you are basically fucked.

Luckily, our instructor is great and her course syllabus is easy to follow. Now if we could only have adult sized desks, I would be a much happier girl.

Last night, I had another 3 hour lecture in my Concepts and Theories on Classical Cooking class, but this time it was on stock. Chicken, beef, fish, and vegetables. Stock is NOT the same as broth, which my Chef instructor was quick to point out. I did learn that I have been making chicken and vegetable stock wrong all these years. Shit. Anyway, most of the 20 vocabulary words I have to memorize are in French, and nearly impossible to pronounce, even when I had the pronunciation right in front of me. That should make for an interesting final, right.

Interesting fact: most kitchen terms are racial slurs.

Example: The strainers we use in professional kitchens are called china caps, which are cone shaped and have larger holes to get the big bits of food, and the very fine mesh strainer, also cone shaped, is called a chinios, which is French for Chinese.

I have to say, I had my doubts about returning to school after being out of it for 16 years, but I am really liking it. More than likely it's because I'm not taking those damn core classes we all have to take as freshman, and because at the ripe old age of 33, I know what I want to do. I had no clue at 18 what I wanted to do with my whole life. I just wanted to party.

Plus, I think Jay would severely punish me if I bomb out. We have a lot of student loans to pay off regardless.

I'm rad like that

Because I don't have enough shit going on in my loony bin life, I decided to take on Girl Scouts. As in, "Hi, my name is Christie and I'm your Troop Leader".

Remember, I have a little girl who thrives on social activities. She has been begging me to do this for awhile, so I finally bit the bullet and took care of it. But I'm doing it a little differently. Every girl that joins has to have a Mommy that is willing to host a meeting or 2, and take over some part of the troop. I refuse to do all the training, paper work, handling of money, meetings, badge stuff, ceremonies, etc., etc. Basically, if the little ladies want to join, their Mommy has to do offer up a skill that we need.

I'm hoping to be fully "staffed" before summer hits.

Now Evan wants to join Boy Scouts, and I have to explain to him why I will never allow him to join that homophobic group. The kids have always been taught about equality and how they are allowed to love anyone they want to love as long as that person treats them well and loves them in return. They don't understand that not everyone believes in equal rights for everyone. Why do stupid people have to make my parenting life suck stinky wiener cheese? Besides, what do they have to offer me other than Christmas tree removal? I'm going for the cookies, baby.

Now I'm off, I have a mommy to interview regarding her sewing skills. Because this mommy knows nothing. at. all. about sewing.

That's right

Two posts in one week, holy fuck, what is the world coming to? Maybe it's the fact the kids are on mid-winter break and I have "time" to kill. Most likely it's the fact that the freezing office has the computer and no screaming, fighting, yelling kids in it to bother me. Call it hiding out if you want to, but you'd do the same damn thing in my shoes.

I love them, but God almighty would be sick of them after this week. Since they both started school this year, they have been getting along pretty well. They aren't around each other that much during the week, and when they are, we are busy with stuff. And when the weekends come, we are off doing stuff, or they are playing pretty well together. But a whole week off from school, and it's like World War III up in here.

And it's not like I'm not keeping them busy. We have been everywhere, had a few friends over to play or they've gone on play dates at their friends home. We've done Pacific Science Center, the park, visited Daddy at work, and so on and so on. It's now Friday, and I can tell you straight up, Momma needs a damn break. I need a day to wear no bra and wear pajama pants all day, with a bowl of popcorn, a large coffee, and I don't know, Twilight to let me go brain dead for 2 damn hours.

To make matters just a tad worse, when they are home, all hell seems to break lose, and the poor house becomes a disaster. It's like they forget how to clean up after themselves, and the garbage can, what is that? It's apparently so much easier to throw shit in the general direction of the garbage can, or better yet, how about just tossing it on the counter. Dishes sit wherever they used them, never coming close to the damn sink. And dirty clothes? Not a chance they make it to the hamper. I actually felt like I'd accomplished something the other day because the hamper was empty, and then Kenzie brings out 2 arm loads of clothes. Half of which I bet are clean. Grrrrrrrrrr........................grrr.

Thank God they go back on Monday. Thank God I don't work at school on Monday. I promise here and now, I am dropping them off in my pajamas. I will come home, plop my ass on the couch and watch some mind numbing show, and maybe suck down a whole pot of coffee, uninterrupted. I will keep the volume at a normal level, never once turning it up so it can be heard over "KENZIE, GIVE IT BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" or "EVAN WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!" or "I WANT TO PLAY WITH THAT, IT'S MINE!!!!!!! MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!". I will get Kenzie off the bus in my pajamas. I will feed her lunch, put her down for quiet time, and sit back on the couch, and maybe read a book without interruption. I will eventually put pants on to walk down the street to get Evan off the bus, then come home to put pajamas back on. We will eat hot dogs for dinner, that I will make Jay make. And then I will go to bed. Fully rested and happier than ever. Amen.

Who am I kidding? That will never fucking happen.

I know this

I know none of you are reading this, and I know this because I got one single comment on my last blog about our beloved Captain Phil.

But I feel like I should be writing something, anything at this point because I really enjoy doing it and that's what matters, right.

Last night, while trying to sleep, I realized that I haven't been a freshman in high school in 20 years. Twenty years! I started to freak out a little, and Jay tried calming me down by pointing out that kids that just got their licenses weren't even born when I graduated, and surprise surprise, I felt worse. Fucker. Absolutely no help at all, but thanks.

And the reason I am thinking about being a freshman, is because I will be heading back to school April 5. I applied and was accepted to The Art Institute of Seattle in the Culinary Arts program. I will officially be in the Baking and Pastry program, and will graduate in a little over a year. Because I graduated with a 3.7 (which isn't impressive if you know that I was a t.a., took CWP (Current World Problems, which basically consisted of watching the news)stoned every day, and accounting the last semester of my senior year, so I would basically have to be in the special ed. department to NOT graduate with at least a 3.7), I got some great scholarships, along with some grants, and good old financial aid. All I've had to pay is the application and program fee, and the rest comes 6 months after graduation. They were able to tell me my monthly payments up front, which helped out a lot. I like knowing how far in the ass I'll be taking it beforehand, it helps me relax a little.

Anyway, Jay and everyone else has been telling me to take classes on baking and pastry for years, and I finally just decided to check out some schools. When it came down to it, I didn't want to take a class here or a class there at a community college. Not that they don't have some great programs, but it wasn't what I was looking for. I guess if we're going to go into debt for school, it had better be a good school that has some weight to it. Luckily, Jay was on board. I loved the woman that would be my adviser, she answered all the questions I threw at her while taking me on a tour of the Culinary Arts building. I have to say I got a little moist when I saw the industrial size stand mixers I would be using. Sweet goodness, I was beyond hooked at that point. And to make it all the more appeal ling, the school is right on Elliott Bay, so all the windows face Puget Sound. It was breath taking. I was even more impressed with the fact I can take all my classes at night, 2 days a week. The more she talked, the more doable it seemed. And then came the part of the tour I had been dreading. Financial Aid. I swear I heard "Dun dun duuuuuuunnnnnnnnn" when I walked through the financial aid officers door.

Luckily, she calmed me down and said that most people, bad credit people included, received close to, if not all, of their tuition through financial aid, scholarships and grants. After filling out the paperwork, she checked it out, and without giving me a for sure answer, she said my chances of getting most of it not all of my schooling paid was pretty high. Let's face it, we are a single income family for 5 people. She gave me all the information to go home and fill out, along with my FAFSA information. And the minute I got home, I filled it out online and had it back to her the next day.

A few days later, the news came that the Board loved me, and I had full financial backing that covered not only my tuition, but my uniforms and supplies, too. I was so very excited!

Anyway, I cannot wait for April 5 to get here. I go in for my uniform fittings and to get my supply case full of knives and pastry products early in March, and I cannot wait to play around with them.

The best part of all is knowing that if Jay kicks the bucket at some point, I will have something in place to help my family along. I have been a stay at home mom for almost 7 years now, and what I knew back then is out of date. I know that all sounds morbid, and I've put off thinking like that for years. But as my best friend, Melissa, pointed out, burying my head in the sand doesn't mean it won't happen.

He shall be missed

Earlier this year, Jay and I had the privilege of meeting all of the captains from the Deadliest Catch. We were very excited about this, but we were especially excited about meeting 2 of our favorite captains, Phil and Sig. They were both very funny and answered every question Jay threw at them for his interview. All of them posed for pictures with us, cracking jokes the whole time.

Jay and I were both very sad when we heard the news that Captain Phil had suffered from a stroke on January 29, but were encouraged when we read that he was recovering quickly.

Unfortunately, he passed away yesterday from what we can assume were complications.

All I can say is that I am glad that I met such a funny man, and that he will be greatly missed. The show will never be the same for me.