Just Desserts

     If you don't already watch Top Chef you should start.  Particularly Top Chef Just Desserts which is on Bravo at 9c on Wednesdays.  This seasons finale is tomorrow and the guests on the show are the best of the best IN THE WHOLE WORLD and I just happen to know a couple of them.  They started my school, yeah that's right.

Click Me! 

It's a link to read a blurb about the episode and there is a link to the teaser trailer =)

First Week @ Work

     I've been working at the restaurant a week now and I'm sure some people are wondering what it is that I do.  Well here you go...
     There are three pastry cooks (including me) and the pastry chef.  The kitchen itself isn't very big but the pastry people have just as much room as the savory, which is unheard of.  The restaurant is huge and the main prep kitchen is upstairs. It's a steakhouse so the only savory foods being prepared in the kitchen are the sides and all of the meat is grilled in the dinning room.  There is a small kitchen behind what I would call the "grill bar" where they do all of the savory plating.  Pastry does plating in the dinning room in front of the "grill bar".  The restaurant is only open for dinner during the week and has brunch and dinner on the weekends. 
     This was my first week and I worked three mornings and one dinner service.  Mornings start at eight and it takes me about forty minutes on a train and a bus to get there, not bad (it's downtown in River North).  There are six plated desserts and five of them are served with ice cream and such.
     Everyday everything gets counted and you make sure there are enough desserts for dinner service.  The S'more Pie is a dessert that is pretty big and is meant to be shared, I'm going to use it as an example.  The pie itself has a graham cracker crust, chocolate ganache with marshmallow on top and it's served with peanut butter cookies and two flavors of ice cream.  These are not dainty desserts.  Anyway, everything is made in large quantities so if you need to make more pies you might already have graham cracker crust made but need to make more ganache and then build them and so on.  There are also a lot of large parties that book desserts ahead.  They'll order a variety of one bite desserts and we'll bake, cut and plate them, all ahead of time. 
     Saturday was my first dinner service and it wasn't too bad.  They have a cheat sheet with pictures of the finished plate though two of the desserts aren't on it.  The night started pretty slow and picked up at about 9ish and I was left alone for a short period of time.  I was glad it was a short time though, I got a little frazzled.  All in all it was a good experience, I think I'll pick it up pretty quick.  It's nice being out in the dinning room too.  The chef's walk around with all of the meat and fish and there are "harvest tables" with all of the sides.  Our pastry station is behind the harvest tables and in front of the grill bar where people can sit.  So during the slow times you can people watch but you're not really in a place where the customers are going to be talking to you. 
    From the questions some people ask I guess people don't really know what's involved in plating desserts.  Everything is already made and baked and you're just putting it together on the plate.  Some desserts are heated up in a little oven at our station.  Example: apple tart.  An apple tart gets heated just until it's warm.  The plate gets a flower of caramel drizzle with the warm tart, caramel ice cream scoop on top and an apple chip on top of the ice cream.  Ta Da!

Yay Me!

     A little over a week ago I got an e-mail asking me to come in for a stage at a restaurant called ZED451 and set it up for last thursday.  I had sent them my resume just the night before and was excited to hear back from them so quickly.  In the e-mails the pastry chef sent me, she seemed very nice and answered all my usual questions in one very informative and appreciated e-mail.
     So I was hoping she was awesome when I ended up being a little late (though I don't think she even noticed).  I'm always super paranoid about getting lost and I don't have a fancy smart phone so I have to do my research before I leave the house.  There is one thing you can't always be prepared for and that's stupidity, my own stupidity.  I took the blueline + a bus to get there and I've taken the blueline countless times yet I still got off one stop too early.  And it was rush hour on the el.  I had to wait for three packed trains to go by before I could cram my little body on one.

     Anyway, when I got there they were all super cool.  I basically spent my day cutting and assembling what I like to call teeny tiny tasties or petit fours.  They didn't make me feel tense or uncomfortable or anything, the mood was really relaxed.  Other people said hi and such, it's always nice when people who don't have to still acknowledge you. So when they offered me a job I said "Yes please!" not literally though, I was cool about it.
     My day ended with plating the petit fours.  They make those for large parties who order desserts ahead of time.  So those are totally ready to go and they rotate who works plating at dinner service.  The pastry chef said some people can be a little overwhelmed doing all the plating and such on their first day but I did great.  And I felt great, not flustered at all.

     So needless to say I'm super pumped.  I'm excited to start working and to get over the "I'm super new and don't have a clue" phase.  I'm also excited to think about moving out of the sisters place.  This is somewhere to be proud of, they really take pride in the quality of ingredients.  And look at this place, it's awesome!  Look at me all grown up (tear).
www.zed451.com