Day Eight

To day at school I got to go to the president’s orientation. 3 hours of listening to Allen LeNotre talk on about a billion subjects and throw out so much information it was hard to get it all down. Here are the highlights.

First we all went around and said who we were, where we were from, and what we wanted to do after school. There were a lot of restaurants, bakeries, and what not. I said I want to get into artisan bread, at which LeNotre said that in July a new instructor was coming who was like a bread god. Now Mr. LeNotre was kind of hard to hear, and had a strong accent, but I think he said this guy just finished a ten year study during which he lived like a monk. What’s that all about and how do I get in? When he had written them all down he added some, like country clubs and food writer. Food writer sounds fun. He then said that those things on the list were Niches, and that we all needed to find our niche.

Next he said we needed to find an idol, I was thinking Indiana Jones type of finding idols, but he meant a successful chef from our niche who we could use for inspiration.

Then he went on to talk about tools. He pulled several books and magazines that we should start reading. One was RESTAURANT STARTUP & GROWTH Magazine, and another was Leadership Lessons from a Chef: Finding Time to Be Great by Charles Carroll. He also talked about the recourse center at school and how we need to learn to use, wait for it, GAIL. That’s right, this school has GAIL.

He talked about how we need to practice at home; it will make us better and make our friends and family love us more. Then he talked about putting together a port folio of the great things we make, competitions pieces, awards, and letters of commendation. He said it is a great way to get a job and remember your achievements.

Then he turned to ethics, which was a long lecture about that Charles Carroll guy we mentioned earlier and he made us write down a quote from him. “Complete every job better then it was expected.” He wrapped up by talking about excellences and respect and then sent us on our ways.

There was a lot more covered in there but that’s what I got from my notes.

Went back to class where I worked on my tart dough from the day before, I was much better at it today but still not great. Then we made lemon cream. It was made by heating lemon juice and zests in a pot then tampering it into some egg yoke and sugar, and then heating it back up again whisking the whole time. When it comes off it gets a gelatin sheet that was soften in ice water and some butter. When all the butter is melted cool it down in an ice bath and put it in the fridge. It was really tasty too, just saying. Then we took some of our tart dough which we had formed into rings and covered them with plastic wrap, then filled the plastic wrap with beans and baked the tarts. Why fill them with beans you ask? Well it’s to keep the bottom of the tart from bubbling up while it cooks. The rest of the class had already done this because they did not have to go to orientation today so they started on Italian meringue and finished some of their tarts. I will finish mine on Thursday.

Dinner tonight was wonderful, we brought tarts, and another class brought hamburger filled puff pastry that was served with a compound butter cheese pimento sauce. There was chicken and piped baked potatoes, along with some cabbage wrapped steamed things and some salad. Also there was a giant platter of potato chips a class had made; they were so good I had a hard time stopping eating them. Well it’s late, I gots a headache, and just took a sleeping pill. See you later.