Fish

I'm not a huge fish fan, so I wasn't looking forward to eating the food today. This is the first of 3 weeks of fish/shellfish. There wasn't much to lecture except the families of fish. Nothing too disturbing...we talked a lot about Japan and how their standards for fish are so much higher than America's since fish is in such high demand there.

Chef decided that today he was going to try to do something different. He said in the past it either works out great or doesn't. He told us that we would be eating the appetizers first, then get up and cook the entrees and eat them later. He said this doesn't have a high success rate since people will sit, eat the apps, then just sit there in a food-induced coma and not get anything done past that point. At least he was giving us the chance. He broke us up into 3 people on apps, 3 people on entrees and 1 person on dessert. I chose to do the entree section because I though it was more of a challenge there. I focused on getting the prep done for the 3 side dishes we were assigned while one of my other team members did the salmon and the other did the snapper. We pretty much had a lot of down time because we couldn't start anything until after we ate. It was nice because it allowed us to keep up on the dishes so there weren't that many at the end of the day. Once we finished eating apps, we were right into the kitchen to start our meal. Everything came together perfectly and my team was 15 minutes ahead of schedule. The picture above shows our meal minus the whole snapper. For not liking fish, I sure had a pretty good amount to eat!

The chef that teaches my Food Basics Class is also the chef that teaches the 4-week butchering seminar that ended last week. He gave us our grades for the 4 weeks and I received a 100. I can't imagine how anyone could get lower than an A in that class, so it's not liked a accomplished the impossible.

Tomorrow, in baking, is cake decorating. As most of you know, I like to decorate the cakes, just not bake them...that's what Dawn is for, she bakes, I decorate! I also get my second quiz back. I'm anxious to see what I got for a grade because it was a little bit harder than the first one...I'll keep you posted!

Today's Recipes:Orange-Flavored Gratineed Smelts, Hot and Sour Fish Soup (yummy!), Salmon in Parchment with Herb Vinaigrette, Pescado al Forno, Saltimbocca Di Alberto Ciarla, Summer Squash Saute, Rice Pilaf, Green Beans with Lemon, Warm Spinach, Egg and Bacon Salad, Blood Orange Crostata