#pers1229

On Monday I had the opportunity to participate in the Harbour lights breakfast, even though I had to wake up at 4 am I really had a lot of fun.

We started to prep everything at 5 am, we grab all of the utensils and ingredients we needed for the three stations: The french toast, the eggs benedict, and the brownie station.

People from the TV and the radio showed up around 6am, and they interviewed chef Darren and ask him about the menu we were having for breakfast.

The french toast was served with a delicious blueberry sauce, maple syrup and a little bit of icing sugar, the eggs benedict were served on top of a delicious toasted English muffin with smoked salmon, and the brownies were served with a drizzle of chocolate, chantilly cream and smashed chicken bone candies as sprinkles.

It got busy around 7am, we had to cook a lot of plates and in the french toast station we ran out of baguette, so we instead we started to use English muffin, but everyone was happy and enjoying their breakfast.

We stopped service around 8:30 am and started to clean everything, after that our day was done. It was a really fun day.

And I can’t say why. I think it has to do with the chronic lack of both “hot” hot sauces and good ground beef in the banquet cooking I’ve been doing in school thus far. It makes total sense to be sure, especially from a training standpoint for a banquet setting- burgers are both basic and relatively expensive compared to pork, hot sauce of any kind (let alone the good kind) is probably a bad choice with all the older folks who tend to frequent banquets being typically conservative in taste. So, two of my favorite culinary experiences are taking a significant backseat and I think its time to highlight some of my recent extra curricular encounters with both. 

    First let us consider the humble cheeseburger, an item often overlooked and considered basic by some more traditional chefs, but that I find instead to be one of the simplest most delicious and accessible foods ever assembled. First off you have all your most important food groups, cheese meat and bread, and its all in homogeneous cross sections for your busy on the go life. As simple as cheddar ground beef and buns all the way up to.....well anything that will fit between two buns. Every culture has their easy convenience meal on the go foods, falafels, gyros, meat pies, baozi, but I think its been scientifically proven that burgers are the best of them all. 

    Now for hot sauces. Many people don't understand the power of hot sauce, especially here in eastern Canada where the deep French English and Irish roots often lack any sort of hot sauce. What it does for food is similarly important to what salt and pepper do for food, that is that it adds an instant complexity of flavour which is especially important for otherwise boring and bland food. Anything fried, rice, salads, as dipping sauce for meats, and for bland freezer meals, putting a little sauce on it takes it to a whole other level. The key is finding a sauce that isn't too hot for what your eating and with a flavour that you enjoy. I tend to go for vinegar based sauces that are relatively hot, and right now the two I’m enjoying are Franks red hot extra hot and traditional Peri Peri by wildly delicious. The franks is an amplified version of their very mild flagship sauce, smoky cayenne goodness I find goes good with beef or on burgers, and the Peri Peri is a more intense and lingering burn with a nice smooth lemon and garlic base. 

The Day of the death is one of the most historic holidays; Although is celebrated in some countries of central america and Spain, in Mexico is a really special holiday, with all the different and bright colours, catrinas, catrines, altar of the dead and of course the traditional: Pan de Muerto (Day of the death bread), which is one of my favourite types of bread.

Pan de muerto is served as gift in the altar of the dead for our relatives and friends who have passed away.

Some people say that the ritual from which the idea of making Pan de muerto came was to offer a princess to the gods, then take out her heart and while the heart was still beating they put it in a pot with amaranth and the "priest" or manager of the ritual had to eat it to thank the deities. Other people say that in order to bury the dead people they made bread with amaranth seeds that were soaked in the blood that was left over from the sacrifices.

When the spanish arrived to America they eliminate these types of rituals, people say that they started to represent the heart with a bread dyed red.

Nowadays Pan de Muerto represent a corpse, the top is a skull and the four lines are the bones of the body that point to the directions of the universe; Some of them are just sprinkled with sugar or sesame seed and some are filled with pastry cream, chocolate or dulce de leche.

Even though Pan de muerto has a weird story, it's a delicious type of bread that is only on sale in october and the first week of november, and is one of the most iconic Day of the death things.

Yucatán is one of my favorite Mexican states, is a really magical place and it’s colors, crafts, and flavors make your stay in the place unforgettable.

It was the last day of my summer trip and as we had previously decided to spend the last 2 days in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo we had to go back to Mérida, Yucatán to take our flight back to Monterrey, so on our way back we decided to stop at Valladolid, Chichen Itza, and my favourite Mexican small town: Izamal.

It was on the highway from Chichen Itza to Izamal where we saw a sign “Se venden Pibes Enterrados” (Pibes Enterrados for Sale) and since we were starving we decided to stop to see what a “Pibe” was.

I talked with the lady who served the “Pibe” and with a kid that told me the whole process for making this delicacy that is traditionally eaten on the day of the dead.

The kid told me that he and some other people are the ones in charge of making the “oven” in which it is cooked, a pit is made in the soil and then is covered with firewood and stones, when the oven is hot enough they put the “pibes” inside and then they cover it with rubber sheets to keep it warm and so that the fire is not extinguished during the night.

The “Pibe” that we bought was shaped as a circle and it was basically like a tamale pie filled with “pibil chicken” which is shredded chicken with achiote and some other spices.

Before going to this trip de Yucatán I did a list with a lot of traditional dishes I wanted to try, and even though this one wasn’t in the list I loved it and it was one of my favorites.

This week was one spend catching up on sleep, catching up on chores, and catching up with friends and family. My parents came down last Saturday, took me out to lunch and dropped off some groceries, and that really set the stage for my lazy week. Regular classes were sidelined Monday and Tuesday for a speech at the Algonquin and Halloween fun, and the dinners we served Wednesday and Thursday both went off without any issues. I was able to take a break from some of the usual homework, sleep in, get my laundry done, sweep clean and generally tidy the house; all mundane little chores that weigh me down no longer.

    I was also lucky enough to spend Wednesday night celebrating with a bunch of my foolish classmates which was a good bit of fun, I wont get into too much detail but there were lots of laughs, spilled drinks, confused patrons, gambling, and good old paid for juke box tunes. The best part was, we all made it to class in the morning! Moderation is key you see, its a lesson learned with age. 

    One area of constant struggle however is my work at the Algonquin. I find it to be a confusing environment and the fact that I am a know nothing practicum student really stands out. Little things from using the wrong coloured cloths or putting something in the wrong fridge to more substantial issues of not correctly identifying equipment or keeping pace on the line, It’ s just worrying how much more I have to learn and become competent at before I will be any good in a kitchen. I really hope slow and steady is indicative of a winning approach, because its certainly mine. 

This weekend I did my first practicum hours and it was awesome and I had so much fun.

At first I was scared because It was going to be my first time in St John and I didn’t want to get lost, so the night before my practicum I was kind of freaking out looking at the bus schedule and other stuff.

I arrived to Saint John and I went to my friend’s apartment, actually my friend and I were not that close before this weekend, but it was super funny because the whole weekend we talked a lot of time and we got to actually meet each other, after my saturday’s shift we stayed awake until 3 am just talking and I think that is cool that with this opportunity im not only learning a lot from the chefs, but im making friends and learning from them too.

My first shift was cool, I did some prep work for chop chop which is next week, and after I finish , Julia, one of the cooks, started to teach me the plating of the desserts. The first one was the Budino which is an Italian bread pudding drizzled with warm butterscotch sauce, chocolate sauce and Maldon sea salt flakes, then she taught me how to plate the Tiramisu, which was delicious, after that I learned how to plate the salted caramel Creme Brûlée, and my favourite one was the Pavlova which is an Italian style meringue, topped with lemon curd, fresh fruit, whipped cream and toasted almonds; What I like the most about that day it was that I was in the desserts line, so I was plating the desserts every time we had an order, I really had a lot of fun and learned a lot.

My second shift was different, I was in the front line plating all the main dishes with the sous chef, I really enjoyed that day because I went out of my comfort zone, and actually learned a lot about service; My favourite dish to plate is the Gnocchi, it smells amazing and the plate that they use for plating is beautiful.

One of the things that I am enjoying the most of my stay in St. Andrews is that I have the opportunity to make things that I definitely I can’t do back in home; For example: A few days ago I went Clam Digging with the whole class and I really had so much fun because in Mexico I don’t get to do all of this outdoor activities, so this was new for me.

The day was great, we had an awesome weather, good company and we were going to cook delicious food at the end of the day.

We went near Minister’s Island with buckets and shovels and got ready for some clam digging! We started to look for little holes, which were a sign of clams living down there. With the help of the shovel we made some holes so we can see if there were some clams down there, if we were lucky we will find some, and if not we will just find some clam shells filled with mud.

At the end we got two or three whole buckets filled with clams, but since Clam Digging was prohibited in the zone we had to leave them in the sea.

Since we needed to let the clams in the sea we cooked some clams that the Chefs bought for us.

For cooking the clams the chefs made a hole in the ground and filled it with rocks, seaweed and more stuff, then they start a fire and added the clams; they covered them with a wet blanket and baked them for about forty minutes. We served them straight out from the pit just with a little bit of butter and I really can tell that It was delicious.

I think it was so cool to have the experience to eat something that fresh and the way of cooking them was so interesting.

Although it was not my actual performing as a server in an actual working place, I’m excited to share with you the experience I had when serving a buffer for staff at school.

I started the day by waking up at 6:30 in the morning to prepare for my shift at the Algonquin hotel. It was a tough day for me as I worked from 9 AM to 3 PM. Still, I had some time for dinner before heading to school for the buffet serving. Fortunately, we had prepared everything the day before. All tables were set and all decoration were done so we didn’t have to rush. Most of the time, we were waiting for all the guests to come and settle. When it was time, we came out and greet them. Each of us took care of a table and guide the guests to the kitchen where the buffet was served. Since it was a buffet, we were not very busy. All I had to do was to “refill, replace and remove”. That is to refill their water, remove their dishes when they finished and replace their cutlery.