French Sounds

The French are known for many things, but one thing I've now discovered are their unique sounds. The Chefs during demo and practical make the silliest noises that I've only heard since being here. When you're demonstrating how to cut something, they use the word 'tac'. It's commonly used in succession while making several cuts 'tac tac tac'. When removing the wishbone of some sort of bird- you run your knife down either side of the bone and at the end you need to make a sharp movement to make sure the ends are cut- that's a 'CLACK'. Chef Lesourd is the king of the CLACK (pronounced somewhere between clock and clack) There's also the recent discovery of Chef Clergue (who is perfect) who says 'hupp' when lifting something heavy, or just generally moving around the kitchen. I'd think these words were unique to the Chef that says them except that I've heard all of the Chefs at one point or another use one or more of those French sounds. Caals today in our demo kept saying 'hupp' so either they have a conference about it in their locker room or they are very typical French words.

We had our first Caals practical yesterday afternoon. Anthony and I are assistants together which adds another level of stress onto everything. Sprinting up 3 flights of stairs several times within a 2.5 hour period isn't easy or fun when you have a sauce to strain, or a bird roasting in the oven. Our recipe was a roasted chicken cut into 8 pieces that we haven't done before, potato pancakes and an herb salad. I ended up doing well, receiving a tres bien from Caals- but I felt really stressed the whole time. I feel like I did at the beginning of basic- constantly stress, running around the entire time and leaving completely drenched in sweat. I lack the confidence that I gained at the end of basic- where I knew that I knew what I was doing, and that I could fix any mistake. I freak out, I stress and the Chef was watching me the whole time (or so it seemed to me). We had to rip the achilles tendons out of the chickens and like I thought I would, I nearly gagged all over the darn thing. When Chef watched me, I just took the tendons in a hook on the end of a ladle, twisted and YANKED- but on the inside my stomach was completely turned. I know it was dead, and I know it couldn't feel it- but I felt awful doing that to an animal! I'm fine chopping off heads and removing gills for fish (not quite there yet with popping out eyeballs, but getting there) but this was TORTURE! I'm excited to get my confidence back, I'm excited to walk into the kitchen and KNOW what I'm supposed to do at any given time, I'm just not there yet in intermediate. As Allison told me last night "they wouldn't call it intermediate if it were the same as basic", and I need to remember that. I've passed basic, I'm getting better and soon will be a Chef myself, but I just want to feel good about myself in the kitchen again.

We had 8:30 demo and Caals was in good shape today. He was on top of his game and ripped through the recipes. The entree was fantastic, so I came right home and tried to re-create it. I failed at my first attempt at homemade mayo and had to eat crow and walk to franpriz to buy hellman's, but the chicken salad was fantastic. I poached the chicken in veal stock instead of chicken stock and it tasted great, the chiffonade of my greens was beautiful and my julienne of apples were works of art, but I can't get past that my mayonnaise was a failure! Oh well, better luck next time?

I'm really wanting to make lamb this weekend in honor of Easter and want to make a mint crust to go over it...if anyone has any recipes- let me know! We learned rack of lamb with a parsley crust in basic, I bet I can use the same technique with mint, no?

A Bientot!