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Today we learn all about custards. There are three types of custards:
baked, boiled, and nappe, which is simply mixed together without any
cooking. Some examples of baked custards are créme brulee, flan, and bread
pudding; boiled custards include pastry cream and puddings; nappes include
vanilla sauce and créme anglaise.
My team will be working on créme caramels. First, we heat water, sugar, and
lemon juice to caramelize the sugar (lemon juice, an acid, helps break
down the sugar molecules to prevent crystalization), and coat the bottom of
16 ramekins with the caramel.
Next, we heat milk and sugar, while mixing together egg yolks, whole eggs,
and sugar in a separate bowl. We remove the heated milk/sugar and slowly
temper the eggs with it. We continue to whisk this mixture together until
it forms a smooth consistency, careful not to overwhisk and form a foam on
top. Then we divide the mixture among the ramekins, placing them all on a
baking tray. We place the baking tray in the oven and then fill the entire
tray halfway with hot water. This will cook the custards more evenly, but
will make the tray difficult to remove from the oven.
Today is the day that I realize I must take more notes than the other
students. Everyone else in the class seems to have no trouble remembering
all the steps that Chef demos. When I try to just stand there and watch,
like them, I get back to my station and realize I have no idea what I'm
supposed to do, or when. I took almost no notes on Day 3, and afterward
could not remember some of the most basic things. So after today I always
go over to the demos with my notebook in hand, and take lots of notes.
I talk to Christine, who is, at 20, the youngest student in the class. She
did her externship in Florida, and then took three weeks off before coming
back to campus, so she is out of her old group. (At the CIA, everyone
enters with a group of 60-90 students, and then proceeds through the
program with them. This actually makes for a lot of interesting group
dynamics, and when someone does something like taking a break, or easing
their courseload, they find themselves in an unfamiliar group, having to
navigate the tricky waters of entering a group that has already formed
itself into a whole. I notice that the two students who are out of group in
my class often eat alone at dinner.)
Christine wants to know if I'm out of group, too. No, I tell her, I'm a
writing instructor, and I'm just taking this one class. She seems
interested. "Can you take as many classes as you want?" she asks. "As long
as they fit into my schedule," I say. "That's a great deal," she says. "You
could get a whole education here for free." I tell her it would be
exhausting for me to teach fulltime and take a full courseload, and that's
why I'm doing this in the summer, when I'm only teaching one class. She
seems unconvinced. Students here seem to take exhaustion for granted.
At dinner, I talk to Aaron, another student who is out of group. Aaron is
a jovial fellow whom the other students (I will later learn) don't like
because they don't feel he is pulling his weight in the kitchen in terms of
chores. But that doesn't really affect me, so I like him. He did his
externship at the Washington University Club in St. Louis, where he's from.
When he graduates, he wants to run his own restaurant in Washington State,
on the shore. He thinks it's cool that I'm taking the class. I tell him
that I'm enjoying it, but I hope I'm not slowing the rest of the class
down. He says, nah, he likes it when there are faculty or staff members in
the class. He tells me about a guy from the finance department who took a
Hot Cooking class with him. "He had never been in a kitchen before, but by
the end of class he was cooking and sauteing like a pro."
Back in class after dinner, some of the students are chatting. Vincent,
who sits behind me, is complaining that he is the oldest person in the
class (he's 28). I tell him, no, I'm the oldest person in the class.
Christine, Aaron, Vincent, and Geoff want to know how old I am. "I'm 37," I
say. They stare in disbelief. This makes me feel good. "On the other
hand," I say to Vincent, "I'm not trying to be a professional chef. So
there's that." I smile good-naturedly.
Later, at the sink, Vincent warns me not to get stuck at the sink all the
time. "I've seen that happen, where one or two students end up doing all
the washing, and a few never do any at all." "Thanks for the advice," I
say, "But I'm only taking this one class, and I want to participate, and
this is one of the few things I know how to do." "Ah, I hear you," says
Vincent.
But this evening I do venture into a different cleanup chore: I get a bowl
and fill it with a bleach and warm water solution, and scrub down the
tabletops with this and a brillo pad. My hands will smell like bleach for
the rest of the night and the next morning, but I'm pleased that I've
learned a new task.
(notice how little I wrote about actual baking in that entry; I didn't
take enough notes!)
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