#wsgr

THE WINE SPECTATOR GREYSTONE BRIGADE 

The kitchen of the on-campus restaurant where we will finish up our culinary school career utilizes the traditional brigade system as conceived by Escoffier. Unlike a modern kitchen in which each line cook is responsible for the a la minute* preparation and plating of all the components for each dish coming off his station, in the Brigade system each station specializes in a different fundamental component (protein, veg, starch, sauce etc) then passes their contribution to the expeditor, or expo, who plates the food as a cohesive dish. At school the break down is between proteins, which are cooked by the rotisseur, or roti, and starches/veg, which are cooked by the entremetier, or entremet. This means that when an order comes in for the restaurant's strip steak dish, for example, the expo calls out the order and roti immediately throws a steak into screaming hot pan. A few minutes later entremet starts the corn, mushrooms, and romano beans to accompany the steak. When the vegetables are cooked, he passes them to expo where they go onto a plate followed by the finished steak which arrives from roti shortly there after. The expo then sauces the steak, garnishes the dish with watercress and places the dish onto the pass for pick up by front of house. 

Our twelve weeks in the restaurant are divided into four, three week units alternating front of house and back of house work. In back of house we cycle around the different stations of the kitchen spending two days training with a professional line cook at each. The specialization inherent to the brigade system allows us to focus on the few cooking techniques utilized by each station practicing them over and over through out service. This, combined with the patient guidance of the restaurant staff, delivers the invaluable opportunity to fill in any gaps and polish up our culinary education before heading out into the industry. 

Interview: Westside German Shepherd Rescue

Web Commercial: Cribs puppy style- Westside German Shepherd Rescue

What happens on Wednesdays….

What happens on Wednesdays, at least in the early afternoon on WSGR 91.3FM, is a radio show featuring myself, Mark Will, and my good friend Jamison Shaw. Unlike Tuesday nights, when I come in armed in advance with a good idea of what I intend to play, we wander in and wing it. He tosses stuff out I, toss stuff out, and some times all that tossing leads to sets that nicely compliment each other, other times they contrast strongly, broken up between bouts of our sometimes quite interesting on-air yammering.

The trouble with that is that with both of us being easily distracted by shiny things, neither one of us is especially good with keeping track of things on a nicely written playlist that will be a part of our  permanent record, a record that will follow us for the rest of our lives. And god knows, we’ve got enough following us now, we sure as hell don’t need more, so much like Vegas,  what happens on Wednesdays pretty much stays on Wednesdays.

Until now, via the magic of the digital age.