Week Two- Internship Experiences Galore at Black Star Farms

Revold Road Sunrise on my way into work 

Internship- Black Star Farms

Steph Sheffer

Week 2

I spent an entire evening researching what I could do for my very first breakfast at the Inn.  Once I came up with a plan and a recipe to work off from, I ok’d it with the chef the day before and then I experimented it on the family at home. 

My test run plate at home the night before

I decided to make a crustless quiche since I would be cooking for a smaller group that morning.  The Inn can accommodate up to 20 guests at a time, this particular morning we would be serving 6 guests.  I used ramekins to cook my quiches that had to be done in the oven inside a water bath.  At home when I practiced I found a few things that didn’t work quite right or needed to be changed.  This was good for when I recreated them for my first breakfast because they came out really nice.  

There are a lot of things I would do differently now- but for a first try this was alright :)

Most breakfasts at the Inn are expected to have a starch, meat of some kind, vegetable, sauce and a garnish.  There is a little bit of room for changing this up, in the case of a sweet breakfast like waffles you may omit the veggies or you could be creative and put your veggies in the waffles!  So for my first breakfast I made “A crustless roasted vegetable quiche with a Red House White and Crimson tomato sauce, finished with Raclette cheese.  I garnished it with a fresh chive and rested the quiche on top of some wilted spinach too!  I had two guests hug me after the finished breakfast that morning and one couple even clapped in applause.  It felt good to have accomplished my first breakfast at the Inn so successfully.

Another aspect that is required when you work at the Inn is to create appetizer plates for “Hospitality.”  This is the reception that the guests can attend when they first arrive that offers wine tasting and a few appetizers to celebrate their arrival.  For the second week I am put in charge of creating some of the appetizers.  Chef Jon helps me with a few ideas that have worked in the past, but gives me some room to come up with my own too.  One of my first appetizers I created was asparagus wrapped in prociutto and then baked in the oven with a Parmesan garnish.  They turned out really nice!

I also had an opportunity to shadow Chef Paul this week at the Hearth and Vine.  This was a really great experience as well.  Chef Paul cooks an entire meal for their patrons out of a  wood-fired brick oven!  They can only accommodate up to 20- 25 reservations at the Café, which does a lunch menu of pizzas, salads and sandwiches in the daytime and then transitions to the more formal dining restaurant in the evening.  I helped prep a lot of the elements of dinner that afternoon while also having the chance to create a few pizzas and learn how to use the brick oven.  I had a great time and was completely enthralled with the talent of Chef Paul, as he would create up to four entrees at a time in the brick oven that evening.  He was like a one-man band, completing five different tasks at a time to complete each entrée.  Every single patron that night was gushing with compliments. 

Chef Paul in action- cooking with the brick oven- very cool!

-The brick oven with dinner being created inside

One of the plated dinners that evening

I am starting to see why I love culinary so much.  There is a specific artistry that each chef applies to his or her craft.  I love how we are creating not only great food, but touching all the emotions and senses that are required to make our food memorable.  At Blackstar the culinary staff is contributing to a very satisfying experience for all their guests and patrons.  Every person that I have seen experience a meal here, leaves with such satisfied smiles and gushing with compliments.  I love it here!  

Tuesdays Top Ten- Things To Remember when you are a 1st Year Culinary Student Making Bread

I was being very patient...  

I really wanted Chef Fred to give my team the opportunity to bake some bread.

The way our kitchen lab time works is that there are 16 students, 8 teams, 2 students each.  In the beginning of every class we are given a production sheet that outlines at least two items each group will be working on for that day.  Chef tries to give each group the opportunity to work on different items each lab.  That way we can mark off the different competencies from our skills checklist.  What is nice about each group doing different recipes is the opportunity to see and taste a lot of different products.  It also gives Chef Fred the chance to do different demonstrations too.  If one group is doing a sauce, he call the students over to watch how it should be properly assembled.  If we are learning about how to use a pastry bag to dispense a decorative spritz cookie, Chef will demonstrate this skill and then let each of us come up and try it.  It is a very nice way to get a lot of baking exposure in one class period.

Last week Our lab sheet finally said  "Bread!!"

All of the book knowledge I had practiced for quizzes and our first exam would finally be put to use.  The specific steps I had practiced, studied, imagined myself performing, and also watched other groups carry out- it was finally our turn!

Here are the Top Ten steps we use in class and that you need to know and adhere to, they are the "Production stages".  It is important to follow these to produce a hearty, and most delicious loaf or baguette of bread, yeast bread to be specific. First things First:

1.  "Mise En Place"-  This means make sure you have all your ingredients available and any tools necessary to complete your recipe.  This is very important since you don't want to get halfway through your recipe and find out you are missing an ingredient or be unprepared to scrap the bowl because you didn't get everything you needed before you started.  Time is always of the essence.

Pan Rustique dough- it starts out like pancake batter, but very quickly turns into a beautiful dough

2.  "Scaling the Ingredients"- and you better check them twice too!  Especially in the baking kitchen where we are mixing 9 and 12 lb batters.  It would be a sickening shame to mess it up because of an error in the amounts of ingredients.  

3. "Mixing and Kneading the Dough" - This is important to moisten the ingredients and develop the wheat gluten.  If you don't do enough your dough will simply not turn out right- there is a way to test if your dough is ready for the next stage- it is called the:

4. "The Windowpane Test" - This is a great way to check and see if your dough is ready for the next stage.  Tear a small piece of dough and slowly stretch it between your fingers to make a semi-transparent "window".  The dough is ready if it stretches without breaking and has a smooth appearance.

Windowpane Test

5.  "Fermenting the Dough" -Let it rise, Let it rise!  This is the dough's chance to create flavor and texture.  The temperature of your room is important to the rate of rise, as well as the temp of the dough and the certain ingredients you are using too.

6.  "Punching Down the Dough" - This is your opportunity to give your dough some relief or as we say in class "De-Gas" and let all that CO2 the fermentation process created escape into the atmosphere.

7.  "Portion your Dough"- Depending on how much dough you have made this is the time to cut it into the set amounts.  In class this could be 14 pieces for Baguettes, or 10 pieces for Boules.  At home I find I am usually portioning a recipe into 2 or 3 loaves.

8.  "Rounding and Making up or Shaping the portions"- You spin your dough right round, right round- like a record baby right round, right round :)  Rounding it into a ball- this may be your time to shape it too.

These are our Baguettes after shaping them- we put them in the clothes on baking boards to proof first.

9.  "Proofing"- At school we have a proof box that we can put our shaped doughs into to get ready to be baked.  It has a set humidity and temp of about 70-85 degrees.  The dough is in the proof box until it "feels" ready to go.  We are learning to sense when they are ready by touch.  You want your dough to have a light springiness - not too tough, not too soft.  At least I think that is the case- I am still learning about this one.

This is our classroom deck oven- A most beautiful machine that produces the most beautiful breads

10. "The Grand Finale ~  Baking and Cooling" - This is show time, all the steps have been applied, you followed the rules, you are ready to see the doughs of your labor expand and develop into the most wonderful masterpiece.

We dock the bread by cutting shallow lines into the tops

We transfer the proofed loaves onto trays that will then be used to transfer the bread onto the bare rack of the deck oven

We wait for the bread to bake

And Voila!!!

Bread- Glorious Bread!

The cooling rack

We finally had our chance to make bread

There is nothing I would have rather do instead

I am totally in love with this newly learned process

When I make bread at home, no longer will I have to guess!

The Black Box- Pro Cookery Final

Old fashioned Vegetable Beef Barley Soup

Roast Rack of Lamb with Corn and Tomato Risotto, roasted Zucchini and Beurre Blanc Sauce

If you watch Food Network (As far as I am concerned it is the only channel that exists, except for when Heroes or Grey's Anatomy is on) -then you are familiar with the show "Chopped" by chance. For those of you unfamiliar with this show I will give you a quick recap. Four different chefs complete for $10,000 by being presented with a black box- In the #1 round they find 3-5 mystery ingredients inside the box that they have 20 minutes to make an appetizer out of to be judged. Four chefs get Chopped down to three and Round #2 presents a second black box with another set of mystery ingredients and 30 minutes to create an entree to be judged. Once again a chef is chopped if their dish doesn't compare to the other competitors. Finally, the Final two chefs compete in a dessert round- 30 minutes- new Black Box and then they are judged to determine a winner based on all three of their dishes from the competition. Its a really fun show- my whole family loves it!

So in Professional Cookery we have a Lab practical that has a similar idea, except there is only one judge "The Chef Instructor" and you have a total of three hours to present a plated soup and entree from your mystery tray -"Black Box" The menu we have to create from all the tray ingredients must be presented to the Chef in the first 30 minutes after start time, so he can know what to expect. Then the soup must be presented two hours after the start time, and the entree an hour later. You can expect to have two different proteins (I was hopeful for Tofu or tempeh, but no luck) various vegetables, a starch, and things like butter, or a list with vinegar or white wine on it. The Chef has a certain expectation of what you might make with these ingredients but you are not deducted in points if you come up with something totally different. The major criteria is that you have a soup properly plated and garnished, and an entree that includes a protein, starch, vegetable and sauce properly and pleasingly plated.

Make sense???

So In my Black Box I had :
-Flank Steak
- Rack of Lamb
-Carrots
-peppers
-sweet corn fresh
-zucchini
-onion,
-a leek
-tomato
-barley
-garlic
-a pound of butter
-arborio rice
-white vinegar and white wine.

What I made was:
~~ A Old Fashioned Vegetable Beef with Barley Soup with the Flank Steak

~~ A Thyme and Cumin Crusted Roast Rack of Lamb with a Fresh Corn and Tomato Parmesan Risotto, Roasted Zucchini Moons and a Red Pepper Beurre Blanc (Butter) Sauce.

Whew- that was the fasted and most focused three hours in that kitchen all semester. Everything I did came together on time, and with the help of my classmates (who already did their black boxes on Monday) as food runners, I was able to successfully create the dishes that made sense to me with those ingredients for that moment. When I presented to the Chef, there were some good points to my dishes and some constructive criticism too- he acknowledged some of the timing issues with cooking the flank steak long enough to draw out maximum flavor which I struggled with for my soup. The Rack of Lamb dish came out pretty nice, though he said I may have overloaded the plate a little too much and added too much sauce- I knew he would say that- but he also said some restaurants do their plates like that and the clients love it- more bang for the buck for the customer, but as a chef you have to watch food cost and portion control. Good learning lessons.

The best part of the whole experience was that overall the Chef was very pleased with my work and it made me cry! No worries- it was a Happy, Relieved cry. It may have been all the emotion of not feeling well the day before and just being so worked up about doing well for this test, either way I am just happy to have made it through this first semester in Culinary school successfully. It is such a life blessing to know I am exactly where I should be right now. The shoe fits beautifully and I thank God and my family and friends daily for all your love and support. I couldn't do this without it. The daily encouragements, the hugs from my kids, Tod asking me about my day at school- all of it just energizes me and pushes me to do the best that I can. Yesterday worked out because of all these connections and the love and friendship in my life. Thanks again to everyone who sent encouragements yesterday, the phone calls and the hugs and love from my family.

Bring on the next Black Box- I am not afraid- and I am ready for the next challenge!!!

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Foods

We all have to eat to live- it is essential to our survival. When we are younger we rely on our parents to provide the ingredients to sustain our lives. It is usually at this time when we discover some of our most favorite foods- you know the ones that even to this day when you sense them- an instant memory of happiness blossoms and you just have to find it and eat it. What I also find interesting though is that heir are new tastes we develop as we get older too. My example of this is tomatoes. I could never understand how anyone could enjoy the taste of a juicy tomato unless it was in a spaghetti sauce, ketchup or salsa- but now- Ah yes- heaven has more recently become a vine ripened ruby red sphere, and I can’t believe I never appreciated a tomatoes delicious flavor until later in my life. 

So what I would love to know is what are your absolute favorite foods. If you could have any food in the world what would you choose? One benefit to being an adult is we have the ability to eat whatever we want- or make what we want- and savor it to our hearts content. I am a self-proclaimed, foodie, food-a-holic, food lover- and I don’t plan on changing this status anytime soon. As I learn and prepare myself to become a Registered Dietitian I am curious to learn what other people love and take pleasure in eating. 

So please share with me and post your top ten most favorite foods or drinks-(yes I’ll let coffee count as food I guess) There are no rules to this thing and if you even have time to tell me why I would love to know that too. At the end of the list I think it would be fun to name the single food or drink that you think is disgusting, or maybe you tried it and know you can live without it. When you are done- if you want to post the note to other friends and learn about their favorites too then go for it. I know not everyone is as passionate about food as I am but I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have favorites- and maybe we will discover some new favorite cuisine as we read each others list. 

Eat well and prosper my friends!

Here is my top ten - which only will scratch the surface of my favorites:
1. Sweet potatoes. They can be in any form and I am in love. Baked, oven fries, in bread, in soup, even sweet potato burgers. As a treat sometimes I can hardly resist ordering sweet potato fries at Firefly Restaurant- sooo yummy!

2. Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. I am not aloud to make them anymore because I will consume more batter than should ever be allowed. This is the only food that can strip me of all my willpower. (Don’t worry I make then eggless and they are AWESOME!)

3. Blueberries. My mom used to call me the Blueberry kid since my birthday is in August when blueberries are ripe for picking. I love to freeze blueberries and then eat them like candy!  And the health properties are endless which makes them even more awesome!

4. Smoothies. Frozen Fruit, vegetable, soy milk, the icier the better. I love to concoct new and exciting flavor combinations all the time. My newest favorite is a strawberry banana carrot smoothie, or peach, flax, vanilla and cinnamon. I put things like bok choy and kale in there too, the kids never notice and it is another great way to get your greens!

5. Celery with Peanutbutter. I could seriously eat this every day and be happy. Apples with peanutbutter is a close second in this category for sure. This would be my go to snack everytime.

6. Avocados are amazing and I love them. I just love them.

7. Ginger. Used to not be so fond of this flavor- or maybe I just didn’t understand it- Now I wish I could put ginger in everything- As a treat I love Ginger spice cookies!

8. Rice Pilaf. This is a family tradition and no one makes it better than my Mom. I love the smell of it cooking- I love it reheated with a little pepper on top. I love that my kids love it just as much as I did when I was their age.

9. Ice Cream. I used to work at Wares Brothers for anyone that didn’t know and loved being able to create my own mixtures of sundaes and flurries.  I don’t eat dairy anymore- so I have started to make my own great alternative ice cream at home with the ice cream maker that Tod and the kids got me for Christmas. It is a ton of fun and our favorite so far was a chocolate rice ice cream that was out of this world! I always challenge myself to come up with healthier versions of everything we eat and this category has been the most fun to experiment with.

10. I am sorry but for me ten is not enough so for this last one I am going to say this: If it is a green and growing, a sun loving plant that is safe to eat then I am most likely in love- In its fresh unprocessed whole form though- this includes especially peppers, cucumbers, brussel sprouts, swiss chard, kale, bok choy, zucchini, raspberries, blackberries, pears, cherries and then list goes on into infinity…..  Oh and Quinoa!!!!  I can't leave that one out because I just think it is the coolest grain ever and so healthy as an added bonus! 

The Food I could live without:
The one food that I can live without most obviously for anyone that knows me is any animal/animal byproduct.  The more I learn about being a compassionate eater, it only makes sense to me. I have lived more happily and healthily this past year since I made the choice to eliminate this source of what I don't even consider food anymore.  While I understand that this choice might not seem to be for everyone, I challenge people to take a deeper look at what animal food sources really are and where most of them come from.  Having such a deep love for animals as I have had my entire life, and then stripping away the desensitization of many years of just eating what I was taught was OK- well it comes down once again to how I cannot ignore what I know.  What I know is that my new truth says it seems completely unfair that someone should suffer for my own eating pleasure.  Just watch any wildlife show or right out your back window if you have a yard and you will see that animals have the same capacity as we humans do with a will to want to live.  In nature they only take what they need to survive, and they only produce as much as is needed to nurture their own babies.  I don't believe that God put animals on this earth for our own pleasure, other than the happiness they bring when witnessing their own curiosities and silly frolicking. I mean isn't that why we have pets, the simple joy that they bring to our families and lives?  Farm animals only exist because humans chose to put them there, and I think if they had a choice most of them would not choose the type of service they have been forced into doing or dying for.  Please understand that I have been on the other side of the coin and that I didn't always think this way.  There was a point  in my life when I would have proudly called myself a "meatatarian."  The thought makes me shutter just a little now, but that is OK because it is a part of who I am and what helps me understand why people make the choices that they do.  I am in no way perfect either, but I only try my best to live my truth and share my truth with anyone who asks.  

A Stellar life includes standing up for what you believe in and not being afraid to be a shining beacon of love and compassion.  Be Bold, Be strong, and smile- and in the words of Ghandi: Be the change you want to see in the world.

xoxo- Stephie