These are just little things you pick up when you volunteer for production kitchen. It is good that you have a chef and a couple of work-study students to guide you as you learn from experience (or learn by doing things).
(Aside: The production kitchen usually has two work-study students, who work under the guidance of Chef CP, and they help to run the kitchen and supervise students who volunteer for production kitchen shifts. Work-study students are those who have completed at least one course at LCB Ottawa -- usually Basic/Intermediate Cuisine -- and they apply to work in the production kitchen for no pay for six months, in return for the School paying for their next course, e.g. Intermediate/Superior Cuisine. This only applies to those who have not paid their tuition fees in full yet. In other words, if you have already paid for your tuition fees in the next course, then the School does not refund you, even if you are lucky enough to get into the work-study programme, which (as you can imagine) is quite competitive. Disclaimer: The above is based on what I have heard from other students about the work-study programme. It is not from any official LCB Ottawa source.)
Anyway, I then made a batch of Ale dough (a dough with smaller quantities of yeast, but has a fair amount of beer in it). This time I knew what to pay attention to, so the dough turned out well.
On Friday (Halloween), I helped with the pastries again -- the usual tasks for staff meals, e.g. baking the muffins, making cinnamon twists, egg-washing the croissant, and so on.
After that, I assembled some demo and prac boxes (i.e. gather all the ingredients required by the chef and students for a particular demo or prac class). This is usually the most time-consuming part of the shift, and I know a lot of students dislike doing this because they consider it boring.
When I do "the boxes" (as everyone here refers to the demo & prac boxes), I try to focus on improving my skills in the following (just to name a few):
* estimating the weights and volumes of various products (e.g. I can now tell roughly how full to fill a particular syrofoam container for 50ml of olive oil or 200ml of madeira wine, for instance -- of course we still have to use our kitchen scales to check for exact measurements)
* mentally calculate the quantities required for 19 (or whatever the number happens to be) portions (e.g. 19 portions of 70g butter is about 1400g, and that requires 3 slabs of butter from the walk-in fridge)
* how best to preserve a product (e.g. put liquids in a styrofoam container and label it, wrap peeled shallots with cling wrap, wrap herbs in wet paper towels to keep them from drying out in the walk-in fridge)
* how to prepare the products for the chef who is doing the demo in a couple of days' time (e.g. when a recipe calls for 50g mirepoix, we know we must roughly chop 20g of carrots, 20g onions and 10g of celery and put all of these into a container; or when a recipe says "bouquet garni", we gather leek leaves, put some thyme, parsley stalks, black peppercorns and bay leaves inside the leaf and tie it with string, then we wrap the bouquet garni in cling wrap; and any peeled potatoes/turnips or dried beans or mushrooms must be soaked in water inside a container)
When "the boxes" were done, I peeled a large bowl of shallots and garlic for staff meals. In the meantime, Chef A was working in the station across from where I was, and I could see him carving some pumpkins for Halloween. When he finished (in a matter of minutes), I quietly asked to take a few photos of his carvings, and he acceded. He said I could show everyone the photos.
Chef A, with his amazing pumpkin carvings
On Friday night, the housemates from Wilbrod House invited friends from School over to the Halloween costume party. It was a lot of fun to see all the different characters! Even I got into the spirit of things (I wore an outfit I would not have dreamed of wearing in my previous career), and I giggled and laughed until I was near hysterical...
The highlight of the evening would have to be seeing a male (caucasian) housemate dressed up as a geisha. He looked pretty good in the costume (made of bedsheets and pillow cases) too. :) That's the thing about LCB Ottawa students: They work hard, they play hard (and they are very creative and resourceful indeed). I love being around my fellow students because they inspire me to be more spontaneous and creative (the opposite of what I am usually like).
