Category: Blog (Page 5 of 30)

What the hell is it with all these roses? I learned how to make one out of a tomato many moons ago and left it at that. These past three weeks I’ve worked with molten lava sugar, marzipan and butter…over and over and over again. Is there some sort of culinary school fetish I don’t know about? Perhaps they are applying the 1,1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9 Fibonacci code to torment us for shits and giggles. Suffice it to say, I was the worst in my class at making said blossom from sugar and marzipan; but for some odd reason, my butter roses were pretty good. Who woulda thunk it?

I’ve had my share of culinary dreams during my last 15 weeks here; however; none of them were nightmares until I started Advanced Baking and Showpieces. The worst was when Chef Wolf had to expel me from school due to thorny issues and then he was excommunicated to Boston. WTF? Of course, the morning after said excommunication nightmare, talk radio told me that those occur because you’re not meeting your own expectations. Really???

I’m a bit of a control freak and my inability to dexterously transfer small domes of glazed mousse onto a teeny, weeny cookie and place it on a sheet pan without sabotage drove me nuts! Landing my offset spat plane to create a perfect plane on a turntable of cake was nearly my undoing. Can’t forget this little gem: homework required the piping of “Happy Whatevers” and odd little geometric shapes and swirly-q stuff within the confinement of a square border! I need a cocktail just thinking about it!

I question everything, especially when it comes to money I’m spending to be taught. Who the hell needs to learn how to make a chocolate box? Or, blow air into fire hot sugar to make a bird or a fish? Did I really need to labor at creating those intricate, little gumpaste flowers and leaves; not to mention, the mind-blowing rose applications? YES, I DID! And again, oddly enough, my showpieces were my favorite things to do…and I did them well. ACI’s curriculum proved me wrong; which is why it was so very right for me (or anyone for that matter) to come to this school.

The other day, with much pride, I posted a picture of the wedding cake I made. A friend replied, “Wow! That’s gorgeous! You’re a natural!” It’s all in your instructor and I’m so grateful for Chef DeWitt. She was on my ass constantly because she knew she would get through..and she did.

So, while not being a ‘natural’; in a pinch, I can make a piping bag out of parchment paper, temper some chocolate and decorate a dessert plate; or, make that simple wedding cake for a friend in need; and, I plan on coming back to Chef DeWitt’s class at Christmas time to pull some sugar and make the most glorious ribbon candy for my family, friends and clients. While my roses may not be perfect, I may just go out and buy some marzipan and take the time to perfect them. I LOVE MY SCHOOL!!!!

When I think of Chef Jean-Marie Rigollet, I think of gratitude. Not my own, but his. He is one of the most grateful people I have ever met. He is completely and utterly serene in his own skin and is tied to this earth the way his apron his tied around him – snug and comfortable. He admits to having been a bit of a cocky French Chef when he first came to America more than 40 years ago. Lucky for him, and for us, he mellowed. And, after living a very successful restaurant life, he moved on and pursued his passion to be a cowboy and a teacher.

While I know he loves his wide open range, I think that deep down in his heart, he’s a farmer. You should have seen him beaming as he brought in box after box of figs from his tree; and no one loves their cheekins (that’s how he pronounces it) more than this guy! He was quoted once as saying, “Then you go outside before the sun comes up and apologize to the chicken before you take its life….That’s chicken with integrity.” He can’t stand to see anything wasted and at the end of each day, after we’ve all contributed our scraps to his blue bucket, he throws them in the back of his humongous pickup truck and goes out into the desert to feed his fowl and ride off into the sunset. No shit!!

The other day I asked him, “What is the thing you love most about life?” Without hesitation he said, “People!” Again, lucky us. A teaching kitchen can be a very vulnerable place. You open your heart and soul to your instructor, whether you recognize it or not. That’s a great deal of trust and he respects it implicitly. It’s the only way he can guide you to your personal vision of success. The first day of class he asked me if I was nervous. I admitted that yes, I was…a little. He took my hands in his, kissed the palms and said, “Voila! Now I have all your nervous!”

We are entering week 3 of Meat Fab and Saucier and I want nothing more, than more! We are a full on production kitchen and there is a sense of urgency, pressure and humility here which are essential to achieving the goals set for us. He watches us constantly and knows the amount of rein he can give. I felt it loosening on a daily basis and then, he let go! It’s akin to the first time you start pedaling ‘wissout ze training wheelz’! Freedom begets creativity, liberation creates opportunity, opportunity fulfills dreams…and that’s why we’re here.

So, back to that farmer/cowboy conundrum! Sure, you can be both and I’m sure that he is. However, he is a tender, a cultivator and a keeper of things simple and slow. You can’t rush a cheekin to lay an egg any more than you can boil the shit out of something and reach that perfect consistency and flavor. In the end, it’s all about gratitude and I’m so grateful for that….and for him! Oui, Oui!!

*I highly recommend that you read ‘Creating Chefs’ by Carol Maybach, a former culinary student of Chef Rigollet’s and many others.  Click here to read

Heid’s Blog is brought to you today by the numbers ‘8’ and ‘1’, and the letter ‘L’. If you’ve ever taken a Baking or Pastry class, you’ll get that reference immediately. If your only thought was of the gang on the left, that’s fine, too!!

Prior to laminating dough for Croissants, Danish or Puff Pastry, I would highly recommend a few weeks with a personal trainer focusing on an upper body routine including shoulders, lats, triceps, biceps and consistently squeezing a tennis ball in each hand. If you ain’t all pumped up, you could wind up with that metaphorical feeling of a head on collision with a Mack truck! Week 2 in Baking 101 totally kicked my….entire body!! Was it worth it? Hell, yes!!!

I used muscles I’d forgotten existed, and after having resurrected them from their deep, dark coma; they came kicking and screaming back to life, leaving me on the couch with my feet propped up on 3 pillows and an ice bucket containing a bottle of Pinot Gris. Oddly enough, ‘3’ and ‘pillows’ are essential to the process of laminating dough.

Regardless of how many layers one espouses for a particular end product, they are all divisible by 3 and each roll of the dough multiples your layers exponentially. So, you start with your first set of dough/butter/dough and ‘lock in’ the butter so it looks like a pillow, 3; then roll, tri fold, rest, 9; roll, tri fold rest, 27; roll, tri fold rest…..81 layers, baby!!

Being the inquisitive gal that I am, I googled the history of laminated dough and found that there are as many power grabbers for this invention as there are for Eggs Benedict and The Reuben. Remaining loyal to my current classical education, I went with the French. In 1645 an apprentice baker named Claudius Gele wanted to make a bread for his sick father who was prescribed a whacked out diet of flour, water and butter. His master baker wasn’t too thrilled with the idea, but Claudius persevered and voila! Puff pastry was born. Bummer for CG’s dad was that his serum cholesterol levels spiked and another quack prescribed a diet of oysters, blubber and Zagnut bars. YIKES! Next time I take a tasting tour of France, remind me to pop over to Germany in case I fall ill.

In my desire to keep things relative, I was sipping my 3rd glass of grape, randomly researched the number 81, and found some pretty, well, random shit! Numerologists can be fascinating, but I wouldn’t date one, or quote them. Here’s a little looky loo at what I discovered. 81 is:

The number of squares on a shogi laying board
The code for international direct dial phone calls to Japan
The atomic number of thallium
A perfect totient
Number of prayers said in the Rosary in each night
‘The 81’ is a 1965 song by Candy and the Kisses

How interesting is that? However, my favorite and the one that made my heart skip a beat was this: 81 is the symbolic number of the Hells Angels in that ‘H’ and ‘A’ are the 8th and 1st letter of the alphabet. Although he wasn’t in that club, I was instantly reminded of my friend Chef Glenn Humphrey, so I raised my glass in a toast! He played a major part in my decision to attend ACI and I guess he’s watching over my shoulder, urging me to explore this wonderful world of culinary. To learn, to live, to laugh to love and to laminate! Oh, and he’s probably saying something like: “Wine? Where’s the tequila?”