Nancy!

So we went to the MOMA and saw the original masterpieces of famous painters! As you can see, we saw Starry Night (Van Gogh), Salvador Dali, Monet, Kandinsky, Klimt, Seurat, Edvard Munch, Andy Warhol, Paul Klee, Picasso! and so much more....... it was an amazing experience (crowded as hell too!)

ALSO!!! I ate Wa-Gyu Kobe Beef!!!! At Yakiniku, they had it on the menu as a special. According to Chef Schneller, Wa-gyu is the most coveted Kobe Beef brand out there. Produced by Snake River Farms. (www.snakeriverfarms.com), this Kobe is the most marbled and the most flavorful and he was right! After cooking it it was So incredibly butter in its texture and full flavored. Oh man...a piece of heaven.






Tulips in Springtime! These were on 54th street close to Central Park (on the street)

NANCY'S HERE!!!!

Nancy came to visit me here in NY (actually she's still here and leaves Tuesday). It is SOOOO SOOO SOOSOSOSOS OS SO SO SO SO SO SOS OS OS OSOSo great to see her (did I mention so?) Anyway, we went to some great places (Central Park, Gray's Papaya, 9th Street Market (great BRUNCh!) MOMA, SOHO, Dean and Deluca, Yakiniku) I think this picture of us is really cute. There's a random picture of Jin Young ironing on Ariel too..just random that's all.

MEAT ID & FABRICATION

Chef Schneller ruled this class. In his past life, he owned and operated a German steakhouse in New York, grew up wit his family owning a meat company (butchering). He has been a professor at the CIA for a number of years. His teaching style is very kind and gentle. He teaches you how to fabricate items such as roasts, tenderloin, hind shank, whole lamb leg, pork loin, stew cubes, tying roasts, butchers knot, veal cutlets,, and much more! He is the type of person that will tell you what you are doing wrong but in a very polite way such as "That looks good but I think you can do better by tying it tighter on the right side). I think I learned a lot but it was only a 7 day class, just like seafood so it's hard to learn a lot in such a short period of time. The pictures below are of a shank bone, the meat room (where we do our fabrication) and Chef Schneller fabricating a shank piece of meat (deboning it)

Skills 1

In Skills 1 (our first kitchen production class), we learn how to make stocks (chicken, white beef, brown veal, fish fumet), sauces (Hollandaise, Mayonnaise, Bechamel, Tomato, Veloute, Espagnole, demi-glace, jus de veau lie), soups (vegetable beef, seafood chowder, cream of mushroom, cream of broccoli, consomme, vichyssoise) and cooking some vegetables (Broccoli, cauliflower,) Also, in this class we learn our KNIFE CUTS. Each day we are tested on a "knife tray" which means we must present to the chef the following:
Chopped parsley, diced onion, julienne onion, minced shallot, minced garlic, sachet d'epice, bouquet garni and
Potato cuts in: medium dice, batonnet, small dice, julienne, brunoise, fine julienne, fine brunoise
My Chef is Chef Jose Sanchez. He's taught my class so much so far. He pushes us every day to our most because he wants us to succeed. Although he is tough and strict, I appreciate it. It is VERY stressful though and I am always nervous I will mess up! Luckily, so far I'm doing pretty well :)

When I presented my French Onion Soup he said "oh...you want to marry me?"

Haha. SURE! jk.
The other soup picture is the Chicken Consomme with brunoised veggie garnish. This soups is very difficult to make and takes a lot of labor and effort. Afterward though, the result is extremely flavorful and must be crystal clear, similar to a cup of tea. I think I achieved that!






These other random pictures are of my roommate's sister's wedding dress it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL and some steak that my classmate Bart made. The meat room in the school wanted to do a survey on this type of steak that they had gotten in from a different company. It was well marbled and quite delicious!

Fish Class again

Here is our class in production. We are required to fabricate all of the seafood for the entire school. This means we follow what's on the board, each team makes certain types of seafood (45 fillets of salmon, pave cut 4 oz each) for example. We did lots of things like monkfish, dover sole, flounder, turbot, rainbow trout, king salmon, atlantic salmon, john dory, cod, haddock, hake, mahi mahi, swordfish, skate, mussels, clams, prawns, lobster, scallops!) WHEW!

More fish

Sorry I haven't updated this blog in so long!

Here are the rest of my Seafood photos, blue mussels, manila clams, littleneck clams, oysters, classmates taking notes...

Seafood ID & Fabrication

This class was 7 days long and very intense. We learned how to ID and cut different kinds of fish and seafood. My chef was Chef Hubert Martini, he's French but he lives in Canada. The class was really fun, we learned to identify Atlantic Farm Raised Salmon from Pacific King Salmon, different kinds of cod, Flatfish such as turbot, halibut, flounder, dover sole, Mahi Mahi, swordfish, mussels, clams, oysters, and lobster and shrimp! We had tastings everyday, needless to say, I LOVED the class :)
Atlantic Salmon (farm raised) pink tongue, white mouth, no black spots on their tails hehe...
Some people in class. Dan is the big guy.
Different kinds of Cod (Atlantic Cod, Hake, Haddock, Pollock)
(Rainbow Trout)
(Chef Martini doing our tastings for the night!) We would have fish for dessert haha.