knife fight!

More orientation today, and in our knife skills class we learned how to pick out a good knife.  Basically, get steel, stainless or blended, as high carbon + acidic things like lemons are a bad combo. The knife gets stained and occasionally stains the food. Plus you have to clean it and wipe it off all the time.  Prissy knifes = no good.

Also, you grow into knifes, and while at first at 7″ or 8″ chef (or “french”) knife may seem more comfortable, once you actually know how to use it properly, you’re going to want something bigger. And a smaller one will actually hinder you / slow you down. So 9-10″ is what we are supposed to get.

There are different types of grips, but generally whatever feels most comfortable is fine.  Some people prefer wood because it is the least slippery when your hands are wet, and it’s no longer a sanitation issue (before wood handles tended to rot, but it’s all good now). 

Also to be considered is the tang.  Which as a word makes me giggle, I’m not sure why.  It just doesn’t seem like a very serious term.  And not just because it’s a drink mix.  Anyway.  The tang is the part of the metal blade that goes into the handle.  In a really good knife, the tang goes all the way to the end of the knife (a full tang).  A full tang, down to one that goes through 2/3 of the handle are good, partial ones are acceptable, and rat-tail tangs (rat-tail… continuing 80’s flashback…) are no good, because the knife is not properly balanced.

Tang:

*ahem* Tang:

Balanced Knife:

Me Pretending My Knife is Not Balanced to Belabor My Point:

And finally, a cursory list of knife brands from ludicrously expensive and super good, to affordable and good, to affordable and dinky:   

Shun – drool
Global – see above
Henckels – heard that they can be brittle and the blade can get chipped
Wusthof – the knife in the photos is a Wusthof. It’s wonderful.
F Dick – who named this and why? good knife though
Forschners – wood handles, “excellent bang for the buck”
Mundial – a value knife
Dexter – the plastic white handled things that you see in most kitchens

Final note:  Be proud to have an eclectic and mismatched set of knifes.  The qualities you’re looking for in a chef’s knife are not what you’re looking for in a paring knife.  Also, no need to by a Shun oyster shucker if you’re going to use it once or twice a year.  A Dexter in that case would be fine.

At any rate I’m super stoked to go knife shopping this weekend.  Will post photos of my purchases!

Quote of the Day:  “I’m a pastry chef, I ain’t no paramedic.  So you could bleed to death.”  

(why we should try and avoid getting our hands caught in mixers.  point taken.)

first impressions

This is me.  
I think it’s apparent that I need to rethink my life a little bit.  
I can’t help myself.  I like good food!!!

This seemed to be the theme of the day today, as all our chef instructors introduced themselves and their reasons for getting involved in the culinary field, and then we all got to explain why we enrolled. It also happens to be from Ratatouille, which got a lot of screen time at the orientation:

My own explanation involved how I lived in France and then couldn’t find any jobs except baking when I got back from France, but I think it came off as too simplistic and everyone stopped listening after I said the word France. 

The chef instructor said my story was inspiring, which he hopefully meant, but now I’m worried I came across as one of those girls who things they know everything because they know how to pronounce croissant (and now that I’m trying it, I’m not even sure of that,) and because they’ve ordered one in France.

I’m not that kind of girl!!!!

But explaining how I only worked 12 hours a week to start with and how the French teachers kept changing class without telling me because they didn’t really want me around to watch them butcher *ahem* teach English so I didn’t really work at all, and fell into frequenting pastry shops and baking good stores just to fill the time and give some small purpose to my life just seems overkill for a 5 second intro. And to say that I bake because I seem to have a knack for it, and that while many people wonder how I can bake certain things so well, I wonder how anyone manages to f– up baking that badly… well, that is somehow even more condescending and snooty.  
 

So girl-who-lived-in-France who wears a scarf I will be. Rah rah rah.

My class is pretty large, I’d say 14-15 people but I didn’t bother to count.  They all seem pretty nice and interesting, a good range of ages and backgrounds. 2 guys. At least one of them’s gay.  Apparently not a lot of guys are just dying to be pastry chefs.

Got shown around the kitchen, am itching to get started on schmancy molded deserts, or with anything actually.  It’s more going over the syllabus etc etc until this Friday, when we are making baguettes.  

Baguettes… hon hon hon! hon hon hon hon hon!!!

At some point I will actually post recipes and photos of my creations but at this point I”ll fall back on old youtube stables.

Jacques Costeau! Baguette!

tomorrow!

Is my first day of culinary school. dum dum dum…