We Are...

I know this picture is all wrong. You can't wear uggs in the kitchen.

The plated desserts section of the curriculum was really interesting. Cooking is not only about making beautiful items, it is also about presentation. We are artists. If you want to see amazing styles of plating just look at the Alinea or El Bulli websites. The amazing chefs there create art that I can only imagine in my wildest dreams.

In this section we took it one step further then just "cooking". We learned how to design plates, sort of like fashion designing with sauces as fabrics and tuiles as buttons. Thought goes into texture, taste, height, color, lines and shapes. We are designers. Before a chef plates anything up he builds the plate, deciding what to put on it, where, and how. We are sculptors. He then draws a diagram that is an exact blueprint of the plate. We are architects.

Throughout the whole curriculum we've been writing production lists for each days duty. Everything is organized and planned. There's a lot of paper work involved. In the field, cooks will check their inventory at the end of the day and write out a production list for the next day. So it really is a lot more then just cooking or baking.

Before plating a chef must "sell" the item. The words on the menu have to make the customer conjure up thoughts of exstacy. It's easy to sell a product if it "looks" tasty but it is much more difficult to make it "sound" tasty. We are writers and poets. During this section our chef had us make a list of 20 words that describe: flavor, action, texture, and style. Using these words we had to name all the plated desserts that we made and describe them. Here are some of the words I really liked;

FLAVOR: effervescent, full bodied, umami (look it up!), pungent, subtle, briny, along with the usual words like caramelized, crunchy, zesty, nutty, etc

ACTION: sizzling, infused, candy coated, sous vide, enrobed, fermented, flambeed, molded, along with the usual words like broiled, sauteed, barbecued, reduced, baked, etc

TEXTURE: moist, flaky, soft, tender, foamy, stickprovocative, silky, velvety (fashion and food are the same thing I'm telling you!)

STYLE: old fashioned, home-made, eclectic, seasonal, rustic, artisanal, avante garde, French, cutting edge

The menu wording assignment was harder then I thought it would be. I wanted to be descriptive and creative while not using the same words over and over again. I also didn't want to use too many words because customers want to eat not read. People get bored easily.

I'm starting to work on my next project which is designing and making up my own menu and restaurant. Things are getting busy!