Foundations II - The Beginning

We are three weeks into the Foundations II class, which is back to the culinary side of cooking and frankly, I've had to pound some French bread dough this morning just to get a break from studying how acids and alkalis affect red cabbage. Culinary. You devil.

The first practical exam, I drew hollandaise and a veloute sauce. I sailed through the hollandaise without breaking it and quietly declared it brilliant, best ever. Well done. The chef was not of the same mind. He found it too salty, too lemony and too thick. (Just the way we like at it home.) You see how humbling a culinary practical exam is? Got whipped on that one. And then, the veloute.

I cooked it for an hour, well beyond the minimum 30 minutes, but the chef found it "too starchy." Mein hair, how can it be? Overall score: 89. I'll take it. I was happy in fact, because I'd finished on time, nothing broke, and nothing slid to the floor. Nothing caught on fire, and I got a perfect score on station cleanliness (this is harder than it sounds).

On Practical No. 2, my paper slip said "consomme and potato soup." Uh-oh. I had practiced every soup in our packet - except the potato, and we had not had time in class to do  it. Confident that I could get through the consomme with love, love, love as I'd given it in my own kitchen, I swanned through it with an excellent result and a respectable 9.5 of 10 on the knife cuts (braise heaven) and a 9 of 10 on seasoning. It didn't break, and chef said it was the "clearest soup" he had seen that day. Brava. How hard could simple-minded potato soup be, I'd already done the hard one.

With no clarification to bilge up, I raised my knife. The devil is in those knife cuts, those medium size perfect squares you need to cut those potatoes into. It had been 9 weeks since I had done knife cuts, and they just weren't falling for me. I used too much time trying to get perfect squares, instead of applying that time to reducing the soup. With time running out, like you see on TV, I threw everything into the sauce pot - this is so infantile. Why didn't I just pour a little milk and cream, and use my eyes? Would I do such a thing to bread dough? Of course not.

The soup took a beating like you wouldn't believe - a 5 out of a possible 15, and all on the consistency mark; the flavor was fine. YeastGods. Final result for both: An 81, OK for a mechanical bull-riding score but not so good for a practical exam. I left class a little more glum that day, my commis hat a little slumped on my face. I know I've had a tough day when my cravat breaks free of its pristine knot.

And so for a photo above, you get a lovely image of tourned carrots, one of them cut bv the chef to check the degree of doneness. It's the only plate I've had a chance to take a shot of with my cell phone, because Foundations II is all about hustling and hurtling from station to stove. Learning on the fly. Salting wounds. Listening with our tongues.

Shaking things off at the nearest Buck.

Bread in Santa Fe

Some people seek the turquoise, others the high-end art and the funky clothing and cowboy boots. Me, I go shopping for bread when I'm in Santa Fe, the City Different. What am I doing in Santa Fe when I'm supposed to be in culinary college? I'm looking for bread, of course, examining how things get plated, tasting laminations, that sort of thing. It's summer break, n'est-ce pas?

Here are two delightful pieces from Clafoutis, a French patisserie on Guadalupe Street within walking distance of the plaza. A local told us about it, so we sailed in and waltzed out with some pain au chocolat and a croissant. Here they are, resting on a plate made by the skillful hands of porcelain gallery owner Heidi Loewen. That's how things work here. One moment you're hearing French spoken in a high, lilting voice over the bakery counter, and then you're just a few strolls down the street, watching clay become a handcrafted bowl of exquisite design.

Heidi's work looked so delicious, it felt important to give her the bread as a token of appreciation.

Our morning actually began at Sage Bakehouse on Cerrillos Road, a bakery I always try to visit when I'm in town. I love the chili cheese bread and the rustic, hearty nature of the loaves. It's good to know that Santa Fe can support both French pastry and artisanal breads - it doesn't have to be one lording it over the other.

Lunch at Restaurant Martin produced another discovery - their excellent organic bread comes from Albuquerque. I'm told that the restaurant Aqua Santa on Alameda makes its own, but we didn't quite get there.

I ended up going back to Clafoutis for breakfast and was delighted with the plating of the coconut French toast with fruit, lovingly squirted with a ripple of chocolate so you could swish your berries in the chocolate sauce. C'est mervellieux.

Here you see the happy toast, and below is a shot of co-owner Anne and her daughter, Charlotte. They'll greet you in French, which seems just so right with morning latte and sunshine in the City Different.

Fruit tart, anyone? Meringues? Eclairs? So many choices, so little time.