Interview Vampire Daily
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@cookingforscrubs
WEEKS 11-15
Day 8: Charcuterie and Garde Manger These are some of the themes of the other tables. One had a Hawaiian theme for pineapple cupcakes. One had a slideshow of pictures the team took throughout the class. It was fun to see the effort everyone put in to their dishes and themes for the last day. This class was fun times all around, I loved it :)
WEEKS 11-15
Day 8: Charcuterie and Garde Manger For our event we had trivia to keep our guests entertained. We asked them questions and about pies and the jungle as part of our theme. Hamad was very engaged with the tasters, he loved doing the trivia with them haha.
WEEKS 11-15
Day 7: Hor D'oeuvre and appetizers We baked our cookies on prep day even though we should have waited until event day so they were softer. The flavor was good and they were buttery. However, almost every guest commented on how the cookie was hard to eat.
WEEKS 11-15
Day 6: Salads and Sandwiches When beating the eggs and oil for mayonnaise it is important to first "introduce" the oil by starting off with only a few drops. Then once the oil is beaten into the egg well, you can add the oil a bit more liberally. The purpose of this is so the oil and egg will mix well and come out fluffy rather than runny.
WEEKS 11-15
Day 6: Salads and Sandwiches For a Waldorf Salad fresh made mayonnaise is the best and only dressing. When made fresh mayonnaise is light and tangy and delicious. Here chef is demonstrating how to separate the yolk from the white to be used for the mayonnaise.
WEEKS 11-15
Day 4: Cooking Eggs Every table chose a different theme for the Pasta Palooza event. Ours was the history of the Fettuccine Alfredo/1920s New York. Other people were coal miners because of the history of Carbonara. Every group chose a unique theme.
WEEKS 11-15
Day 3: Cooking Pasta When feeding pasta dough through a roller you need to do it slowly and carefully. This helps to ensure the dough goes through evenly and the thickness of the dough is even throughout. Wait to decrease the size until after the dough feeds through once without resistance.
Final Reflections
This class has been beneficial to me and has concepts I will carry with me past college and into my true adult life. Learning about flavors, the science behind cooking, and how certain spices such as salt can change the quality of a dish are just some of the things that come to mind when I reflect on what I’ve learned. My favorite part has been the science behind why we do what we do in cooking, to bring out flavor or texture for example. The most challenging part was getting past the idea that cooking was not something I could do. Now I see I just need to practice, like with all things. Cooking does not need to be something that is foreign to me. This is probably my biggest take away, because it helps me to think of the possibilities for cooking in the future. My cooking knowledge does not need to stop here. I can keep improving.
For future students I would tell them to keep in mind the points you lose if you miss a day of class or any of the quizzes, because they do add up. Sometimes the links for the quizzes mysteriously vanish, and you can’t access them. Be aware of when you are supposed to have them, and email chef if you can’t access them. I didn’t realize this until the end of the semester, and by then it was too late for me to be able to talk to chef about it since the quizzes are automatic and there is no way to prove why you missed it, so be mindful of that.
Concept Integration
Marketing is incredibly important in hospitality because it advertises and shows the product you are trying to tell. Advertising and presentation is important in the culinary world as well. In this class we had to make a dish for an event, such as Pasta Palooza, and create a theme for it. We needed to think about the presentation of the food as well as the atmosphere or theme we created for our "restaurant." Just as in marketing, we had to target and appeal to an audience to make them want to try our food. We had to think about the components that might draw them to our restaurant to try our dish, much in the same way marketers think about what might coerce people into buying a product or service.
Aha Moment Week 15
In my daily life I find myself applying concepts I learned from this class. This last week for example, I was eating fajitas and I thought about how combining different flavors can compliment them in unique ways. I tried each bite with different components each time- sour cream on one, beans with another- and I really noticed a difference in the flavors even though it was essentially the same food every time. This class has allowed me to appreciate what I eat and really taste better than I had before. Now that I can better understand the effort and thought that goes behind cooking, and recognize flavor and quality, I really do taste the food I eat rather than just eating to eat. The class has impacted be beyond the course, and I'm thankful for that.
Aha Moment Week 14
Trial and error can often be the most rewarding education because you learn from your mistakes. This is what happened for our event day. Perhaps it is a small error, but baking the cookies we used for our banana cream pie a couple days ahead of time made them too hard for the guests to eat comfortably. If we could have had another chance, it would have been better to bake the cookies the day of so they were still soft. Knowing this doesn't help me now, but in the future it may be helpful to remember. This is an aha Moment for me because I realized a way I could do something better, and constant improvement is the best path towards success.
Aha Moment Week 13
Despite its fame and importance in both the cooking and hospitality worlds, I knew very little about the Waldorf Astoria hotel before the class we made the traditional Waldorf salad in. In learning about the salad we were asked as a class to take a few minutes to research the hotel it originates from. The Waldorf Astoria hotel was home to Marylin Monroe for many years, had a rail system with a stop beneath the hotel, and was the first hotel to introduce room service. It is an industry leader in hospitality, and an inspiration to people like me going into the industry. Always be looking ahead and seeking ways you can improve. This is what made the Waldorf Astoria so fantastic, and is a good rule to live by personally as well as professionally.
Aha Moment Week 12
I can proudly say I have made my own pasta dough and cooked it from scratch. I honestly didn't notice much of a difference in taste or quality from using regular boxed pasta, but the process was exciting and worth the experience nonetheless. It really does make you think about the history of cooking, and cooking pasta particularly. We take a lot for granted now with all the food that is pre-made. It used to be a much more involved process if you wanted to eat a dish like spaghetti- making the pasta is just one step in the journey. Combining the ingredients, rolling and cutting the dough, and cooking the pasta was an educational and very fun time, and I feel I can appreciate the effort that chefs go through now and in history to make their fresh pasta.
Aha Moment Week 11
I always knew potatoes were a versatile food. You can make it into a potato pancake, mash it, cube it, bake it whole, basically anything you want to cook you could probably find a way to use a potato in it. The class where each table picked a different potato recipe especially helped to solidify this for me because we really got to see how the cooking process can affect flavor, texture, and presentation. We all used the same potato, but each recipe was so unique it really didn't seem like it. My favorite recipe was the one we made at my table, Rosti Potatoe panacakes, which was like a hash brown pancake. We even put Swiss cheese in the middle to spice it up. But in essence every table used the same ingredient to make totally unique dishes.
WEEKS 11-15
Day 8: Charcuterie and Garde Manger This was the final event for our cooking class, and our last day. It was fittingly called the “Sweet Endings” event, and each of the dishes was a sweet of some kind. Our group was given pies as the category, and we chose banana creme pie so we could do the jungle theme. The pie was deconstructed: a vanilla wafer for the crust, banana creme in the center, and whipped cream on top drizzled with chocolate. We made banana medallions dipped in chocolate as a garnish. The creme was good, but we should’ve baked the cookies the day of because they were too hard by event day. Most of the guests said the cookie was hard to eat. Overall though, we did well and it was a sweet ending to the class.
WEEKS 11-15
Day 7: Hor D'Oeuvre and Appetizers Prep day! For our event we were given pies as a category and made banana cream pie. We chose banana creme so we could do a jungle theme for event day. On prep day we made the Creme and the vanilla wafer cookies that we were going to use for our crust. We also gathered all the rest of our ingredients so we were ready. The bananas were added to the creme on event day, so for the most part our prep was relatively easy. The trickiest part was getting the consistency of the creme right, but once we did that we were golden.
WEEKS 11-15
Day 6: Salads and Sandwiches The Waldorf Salad was created in the Waldorf-Astoria hotel by a host in the restaurant. Now the dish is served table side. The mayonnaise is made and whisked in front of the guest and combined into the salad with celery, apple, and lemon juice. When fresh made this salad is delicious and the combination of flavors is interesting. You don’t think it would work but it does! By the end of class we each made our own mayo, our consistency turned out well.