*Marching Into Battle

With the advent of cooking shows taking up airtime and attention spans all over the world, its hard to be on the inside looking out at it and not lose my cool. Sure, Iron Chef, the original Japanese version, was all about creativity and grace under fire (with cheesy theatrics thrown in for effect), but it was a real glimpse of what its like to be judged on what one can produce with a live, pissed off  sea monster and a metric ton of unclassified fungus. My finals week feels a little like that, actually.

Its term finals here at Oregon Culinary Institute. Today is my chance to redeem myself on my knife skills test. Starting tomorrow we have our first attempt at double production. That means, my homies and I have to put out two different plates of two different meals with their own small sauces, starch and some unnamed mystery vegetable. It seems easy until you realize what the labor looks like. So far, we’ve only done one plate per class. Its going to be insane. Come take a tour with me…

First, the kitchen has to be set up with floor mats, sanitizer buckets, correctly colored cutting boards (raw meats are red, violets are blue…veggies are green), preheat ovens or fryers and whip out our hand tools, knives. Sharp ones. We then have to pick our Mise en Place, our gear to get it done. Scales, compostable recyclable portion cups for components, bowls, pots, pans, braziers, china caps, food mills…Whatever we need to get the job done has to be in place or we get nailed for running across the kitchen to get it. Ingredients have to be collected, measured, stored correctly before, during and after usage. We have to prep our ingredients, parcook items that need it, set things into brine, toast and grind spices by hand in a prehistoric looking mortar, fabricate our meats into the proper cut for cooking or service as the case may be, reduce stock or cream for later usage… it goes on and on.

Once we finally get to cooking, we have to filter out the noise and tension from the other three groups as we all fight for a few burners at the stove, try not to kill someone with an open oven door, not shank anyone as we run through the kitchen with a dirty knife, defensively block a hit to the rib cage as we pile up at the triple sink to wash our own dishes as we go, ignore the chef following you around telling stories of alcohol fueled table dancing with beer company twin spokesmodels when he was in college… the usual pressure.

Once you get into all the cooking, its total maintenance and flying hands in all directions. Stirring, shaking pans, adjusting flames, tasting spoons flying like moon fish on a Baja Mexicana shoreline at night. Keeping an eye on time, fingers checking for doneness, not burning the sexy pan nubbins (fond) of pork or chicken that are more precious than gold, reducing pan sauces down to a few tablespoons and then rehydrating them over and over again to concentrate the flavor. All this keeps you busy as you feel the weight of the world on your ass when it all comes down to readiness at the same time. If you did it right to that point, you have a clear table, warm plates, flatware and hand tools at the ready for the preliminary evaluation. Plating.

Christ.

Plating is pissing me off. I’ve seen only ONE book at Powells on plating food. My textbook says this, essentially: Meat goes up front. If its soft, add crunch. If its crunchy, add soft. If its blah, add color. But make it look like the pyramids at Giza. Then you flip through a Nobu book and the rules go out the window. All I have gathered so far on my own is to not put a tree of greens on my plate, and slap the sauce down first if its a meat dish. Thats just gonna have to carry me through for now. I had to plate a red curry yesterday- slimy, oozy stuff all over a plate, and I got clever enough to lay my basil leaf garnish down in a half flower pattern just under the edge of the rice. I got bitched at for having used one slightly blemished basil leaf, the only leaves I was provided with. (sigh)

Once we are finished trying to make our stuff look good, we have to take our own plate of food, if we even have any appetite left, and leave the kitchen. Our plates will be poked, prodded, fondled, molested and sampled by our outgoing and incoming instructors. We will all be vomiting into a dumpster outside while our lunch plates are abandoned in the student lounge.

Did I mention that this goes on for four days? And did I mention that we have to butcher our own poultry? Or that we have had to create our own menu from top to bottom based on the protein they have chosen for us? And that our vegetable accompaniment will be unveiled that day? Did I also mention that I have a blind guy in my group?

No pressure.