June 4th, 2004 marked the mid-term point of our 15 week class. Mathematically, this means that half is done, and half remains. But when I look at the curriculum, and what we're developing in terms of new skills now, it is unequivocally"all downhill from here". Poof. Seemed like we started yesterday, yet we've pretty much completed the cooking part of the class, leaving more administrative stuff (menu development, testing...).

Not that it is exactly boring, it is just that the rush seems a little less rushed, the grind seems less... grinding.

We can cut (some of us better than others :). Make sauces [that link is in Belgium (read: slow), translated from French (read: odd)]. Match cooking methods to ingredients by rule rather than route (i.e. we better appreciate the chemistry of foods, we don't need a list of what to cook which way). A dozen techniques and hundreds of culinary facts - There are a host of things that few of us took for granted when we started, but most do now. We clearly know a lot more than we did 11 weeks ago. The wise[ned] among us have a new level of understanding of the depths of our ignorance -- "we know what we do not know".

Is this progress at a breakneck rate, followed by inevitable doldrums? Or have we reached a level of competence, of efficiency, where it starts to "click" and the previously-intractable becomes route . I'm really not sure. I'd love to pat myself and classmates on the back: "look what we done, kids" (ignoring for the moment that the average student age is just under 37). But I'm not entirely sure where we stand -- are we building to a bang-up finish, or whimpering-out to an uninspired conclusion?

Meanwhile, a taste (pardon the pun) from today's menu:

After yesterday's bouillabaisse [with fresh mussels, clams, scallops (I'd never seen a live scallop before) and live prawn (large shrimp), saffron and salmon], I thought it'd be downhill, food-wise today. No.

Today we made French style (6 egg yolks and about 2C of cream...) ice cream (which we'll eat tomorrow) -- chocolate, vanilla and pistachio and salmon rillette (a cold, molded poached salmon dish with a layer of guacamole and a layer of creme fraiche / horseradish sauces + a few salmon row, served on cucumber slices, and in the afternoon, tournedos rossini served on top of halved-BC new potatoes (these are like our "red bliss" but about 1 1/2 x the size of a thumb -- if that). The potatoes were simply cut in half, shallow-fried in butter. The tournedos (what we call a fillet mignon that is over about 6oz is technically a tournedo -- I thought it was the other way around) were:

-- Also pan fried in butter
-- Topped with duck liver (foie gras)
-- Topped with black truffles
-- Finished with Madeira, veal demi-glace (reduced veal stock) and butter sauce

This was way over the top: calorie, expense, and saturated-fat-wise.

To "wash" it down... Crepes Suzette.

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