Garlic Scape Jam 5/31

Today was the first day of my first full week of work. My first task on this first day of my first full week of work was to complete a dish that I had started on my very first day of work. If you read the post from my first day of work, you should remember the the dish that I am referring to, the kimchi. This isn't your run of the mill fermented Korean vegetable dish though, this kimchi was made with all local ingredients including bok choi, turnips, and nappa cabbage.

David and I were clearing out space in the fridge for the kimchi, and David noticed that there were a good amount of outdated ingredients and containers of items that were almost completely used up. So, David had me clean out these items, throw their contents in the trash, and clean the containers. This allowed me an opportunity to get a good look at all the interesting things we keep in the fridge. Some of the more intriguing items were pickled shrimp, blackberry jus, and beer mustard. Interesting indeed.

If you read the post about my 2nd day of work, you should remember that I was a little bummed that someone else was going to be finishing the jam that I had spent 5 hours cutting garlic scapes for. Well, as I was putting the freshly jarred kimchi in the fridge, I noticed that the garlic scapes were still there. Upon further investigation of the walk-in, a also noticed a large tub of purple-looking liquid with "Ben's" followed by some illegible scribble on it. Apparently, after Friday service, someone just stored my jam and no one bothered to complete it over the weekend. I GET TO FINNISH MY JAM! I was pretty excited.
Jam on the stove.

The tricky part about the jam actually came during the jarring process. I had to try to get an even amount of scapes and liquid into 14 separate jars. Needless to say, I didn't get it on the first try. Some jars had a lot of scapes and a little liquid, while others had the exact oposite (lots of liquid and a little scapes). I had to make sure that all the jars were at least close to uniform, so I was now dealing with a very tricky and very sticky puzzle. I was moving liquid from this jar to that jar and scapes from that other jar to that jar over there. It was very complicated, but eventually I got close enough.

As some of you may know, everything has to be labeled and dated in a professional kitchen to keep track of new and old ingredients and to know what is what. Typically, and as is the case at Restaurant Eugene, people just use tape and write on the tape. So, as I was writing the same label over and over 14 times for my jam (Garlic Scape Jam 5/31), I began to feel like I was promoting some sort of weird music festival.

My next task was to sort out the good and bad leaves of arugula, which we would be using later in the week to make a pesto.

As David informed me, "We only want the good ones. No yellow leaves or spots. If there is a yellow leaf of arugula in the mix, then the pesto might not hold together." With instructions like these, it was difficult to find leaves of arugula that meet the criteria.
If you had a little bit of yellow around the edges, you go in the compost bin. If you had one small brown spot, into the compost bin. If you look slightly wilted, into the compost bin.
We use only the best leaves of arugula for our pesto!

After all of this, it was time for family meal, which was at Holeman and Finch Public House this time. When I showed up at H&F, one of the chefs there (who often hangs out in the Restaurant Eugene kitchen in the mornings) saw me and said, "I didn't know that we fed the interns." To which I replied, "You don't. Shhh, don't tell." Everyone seemed to get a laugh out of that.

When I got back to my station at Restaurant Eugene with the wonderful-looking plate of food that you see above, the Sous Chef (Jason) asked, "They Didn't put out a meat? Only pasta and salad?" "No, they had pans of meatloaf." I said, pointing to the brown square on my plate. Jason gave me a confused look and tasted a piece. "That's chocolate toffee cake." Apparently, there was a pan of this cake and a pan of the similar-looking meat right next to it on the counter. The pan with the meat was almost gone, so I decided to take a piece from the other pan of what I thought was the same meat dish. Oh well, the cake was absolutely delicious!

Till next time,

Ben

376 hours left

Time flies when you're chopping garlic scapes

I was the second person to arrive in the kitchen today. Second only to David, the Chef de Jardin. David told me that the other guy that works with us in the morning won't be with us today, so we'll have more work to do. However, I got to take over his station!

My station for the day

David also told me that I would be picking up where I left of with the garlic scapes (which I was incorrectly calling "garlic shoots" in my last post because I couldn't remember what they were called) from yesterday. This was not very good news because in the two hours that I worked on chopping garlic scapes yesterday, I had only managed to get through about 1/3 of a bag. We HAD to get through four bags of them today. FOUR BAGS! The garlic scapes had to be finished today because we were going to make them into a jam. So, knowing the task ahead of me, I started chopping and didn't stop until 3:00 (5 hours later). So, if you ever need someone to chop garlic scapes, I'm your guy.

I knew that chopping up all those garlic scapes would take a while, so I used the time to get to know David since I would be spending a lot of my time working with him.

David is a tall, thin man that never seems to be in a hurry to get anything done, yet works at a deceivingly fast pace (I would later find out that he is 40 years old when gave his opinion on something and followed with, "but that's just me being cynical, and I'm 40, so I can be cynical."). He talks softly, but still loud enough to be heard, with a high society quality of voice. Picture the restaurant critic from Ratatouille, only younger, less hunched over, and A LOT less judgemental.

David is a self proclaimed military brat and grew up all over the world, though when asked where he is from, he answers with Augusta. David told me that he has a sister that lives in Dallas. I said, "Oh, that's cool!" David answered with, "Not really. It's a filthy city." That is when I decided to ask the question that would determine how well we would get along with each other this summer..."So, how do you like Atlanta?" David answered with "When I first moved here, I really liked it. Then I opened a business (a restaurant) and had to deal with the county and corrupt politics and I didn't like it. But now, it's growing on me again." Phew!

After I finally finished with all of those garlic scapes, David and I gathered and measured out everything else that we would need to make the jelly. For this jelly (a pepper jam recipe), we combined 8 quarts of apple cider vinegar and 8 quarts of sugar in a large pot and brought that to a boil. This mixture has to reduce by half before we add the almost 9 pounds of garlic scapes (taking place of the peppers) and simmer for 5 minutes. Then we add apple pectin and simmer for one minute. Finally, we portion the jam into sterile jars and move them into the fridge only after they have cooled to room temperature.

Now that I had everything for the jam going, David pulled out a huge case of Lambs Quarter for me to prep for the line.

I was under the impression that I had to pick off the leaves of this entire case of lambs quarter, but I would later find out that I only had to pick enough for tonight's service.

While I was picking lambs quarter, 4:00 rolled around. Everyday at 4:00 we have Family Meal. Often times people don't even think about it, but the people in the kitchen are working through whatever meal you are there to have. They don't get to eat when you eat, other than tasting food to make sure that the food that you're getting tastes good, but that's not enough sustenance for a person. That's why we have family meal, for the kitchen to have something to eat and still be able to do their job.

Earlier in the day (while I was still chopping garlic scapes), I overheard the sous chef say that we were having lasagna for family meal today. I LOVE LASAGNA! I couldn't wait.

Finally it was 4:00 and I went and fixed my plate...

Oh yeah, we had some other stuff too like sauteed swiss chard, a salad with a peanut vinaigrette, and a roasted garlic and parmesan crostini. But I didn't care about all of that, I was there for the lasagna. When I got around to taking my first bite of lasagna, I realized that this wasn't your every day lasagna. They had used they leftover pulled pork that was used for a demo yesterday in place of ground beef. Now, I've heard of barbeque nachos before, but barbeque lasagna??? This is something I will have to remember for later use.

Now that I had finished prepping the lambs quarter for the line, I was still waiting for the jam to reduce when we got two huge baskets of peaches...

I now had the task of placing all of the peaches, stem side down, on a baking sheet and then onto a cooling rack for them to ripen. While this didn't take very long, it reminded me of how much I love peaches. I can't wait to see what we get to use the peaches for!

The jam never reduced far enough to continue. I had about 30 minutes left before I had to leave and had cleaned just about everything that I could find when the sous chef told me that I would have to move the jam to make room on the line for the nights service. I was pretty bummed. I worked all day to be able to make this jam and I had everything ready to go, but it would have to wait till tomorrow when someone else who didn't do anything would get to make the jam.

Now that I wasn't making the jam anymore, I had 20 minutes to kill. I asked around to see if anyone had anything that I could do or help them with, but there was nothing for me. With nothing to clean and nothing to do, I decided to observe the beginning to the nights service on the line. Even though it wasn't hectic right away, there was still a lot going on. This is what I wanted to see, a real dinner service in one of the best restaurants in the city. I was in awe. Unfortunately, I started to feel like I was getting in the way, and it was already after 6:00. So, I said goodbye and wished everyone a good service and weekend.

Till next time,

Ben

384 hours left

Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

Today was my first day of work at Restaurant Eugene and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous/anxious. I didn't fall asleep until 3am and woke up at 7am.

I was told to show up for work at 10am so that I could fill out all the paperwork needed for me to work at Restaurant Eugene and be finished by 11am, when most other people get there. However, when I showed up at about 9:50, no one there knew which forms I needed to fill out, so after a few introductions, the Chef de Jardin (which translates to chef of the garden) told me to find a spot, gave me some beets, and told me to peel them so that they can be pickled. I now officially had my first job in the kitchen.

As I was peeling beet after beet, I couldn't help but think of Dwight Schrute and that I should leave the prettiest beets on top (which I did), because those are the Money Beets. I had barely made a dent in the few handfulls of beets that were given to me before the Chef de Jardin came back with even more beets! I sarcastically said, "SWEET!" under my breath and barely got a chuckle from the Chef de Jardin. This guy was all business.

A few minutes later two children casually walked into the kitchen. They started talking to the other cooks in the kitchen, so I assumed that they were the Chef Hopkins' children. Sure enough, Chef Hopkins walked in a few minutes after them.

After another wave of introductions (a common theme throughout the day), Chef Hopkins told me that in his kitchen, mis en place (translation: everything in its place) is a big deal and that everything starts from mis en place. Shortly after Chefs declaration of the importance of mis en place, his son (who is still in elementary school) asked if he could make some eggs. Chef said, "Sure you can. But make sure that you have your mis en place together before you start." With that, Chefs son threw on an apron and was hustling around the kitchen gathering the ingredients he needed for his scrambled eggs. It was pretty obvious that this kid wants to be just like his dad when he grows up.

I got back to peeling my beets stopping and Chef Hopkins started MAKING UP a recipe for a barbeque sauce (which he calls Georgia Barbeque). He turns to me and says, "Ben. This is the difference between us and cavemen." I'm sure I gave him a very confused look. "Sauce. Without sauce, we're just roasting meat." This was both hilarious to me and also true. I feel like there will be a lot of these types of sayings coming from Chef Hopkins. In fact, not long after that comment, he taught his son hoe to properly fold a kitchen towel and said, "If you can't fold a towel right, then you shouldn't be in the kitchen."

I had finished peeling all my beets...

and was then instructed to use a mandoline (not a mandolin) to slice all of my freshly peeled beets and to put them in jars.

Then I added the pickling brine and put the jars of soon to be pickled beets into the steam oven for 20 minutes.

At this point, I had gotten the paperwork that I needed to fill out, so I took a break to complete them and to talk about what my schedule will be like for the Summer. After some discussion with the Sous Chef about what I wanted to do and what they wanted me to do, this is what was decided on:

I would mainly be working in the morning with the Chef de Jardin, receiving produce, pickling and canning foods, prepping for the line cooks, and keeping the walk-in organized.
My schedule, unless otherwise told, will be 10am - 6pm Tuesday - Thursday and 12pm - 8pm on Saturdays.
So, to all my friends that asked, "What would they do if I said something is wrong with my food and I demand to see Ben Whittington!" They will say, "He did not cook your food for you and he is not here." So, don't do that.

Upon my return to the pickled beets, the Chef de Jardin (David) informed me that one of the jars busted and that it always happens. It was a quick fix. We just put the beets into a new jar, added some new pickling brine, and put it back in the oven. This time they came out perfectly.

Now, I was free to help David with the kimchi (a Korean fermented vegetable dish) that he was working on. It was about this time, when I was cleaning and moving my station, that I discovered the best thing about this kitchen. We had a dishwasher. Not a machine, but a person that washed our dishes and tools for us. I HATE washing dishes. Whenever I asked David what I should do with (insert various messy item here), he told me to put it in the sink. Music to my ears.

The rest of the day was devoted to finely chopping garlic shoots and placing them in a tub for use tomorrow. However, I was surprised when David told me that he was leaving at 5pm. I had an hour with no one looking over my shoulder. An hour with not worrying about nonuniform cuts of garlic shoots. An hour to work on my knife cuts on the never ending pile of garlic shoots. It was a great way to end my firs day of work.

Till next time,

Ben

392 hours left.

How I got my Internship

I decided to make this a separate post because it's a long story and I didn't want my first post to be overwhelming.

Believe it or not, it all started about 3 years ago when Grace, one of my really good friends from high school (you can check out her awesome blog here), told me that she was going with her cousin (who works for Food Network Magazine) to check out a restaurant in Atlanta for an article.

Now, before you get ahead of yourself, they did not go to Restaurant Eugene.  They went to another restaurant called Holeman and Finch Public House.  The went to H&F because every night they serve 24, and only 24, cheeseburgers at 10:00 pm.

Fast forward about 2 years and I remember about the restaurant that Grace and her cousin went to and decided to look it up and check it out.  So, we show up at Holeman and Finch one Monday at about 9pm and ask the waiter to reserve me and my friends each a burger.  At this point, the waiter starts gushing about these burgers and about how much we are going to love them.  So, I'm thinking, "These had better be good".  Luckily for me, they were out of this world.

Towards the end fall semester 2010, I knew that I needed to start looking for culinary internships for the summer.  I sent out emails to friends and family who knew people in the industry hoping that I could find a pretty cool place to work.

A long time family friend said that they know the head chef of a place called Restaurant Eugene, Chef Linton Hopkins, and would give him my information.  I immediately did some research on Chef Hopkins and learned that he has been nominated for the James Beard Award (the Heisman of the culinary world) multiple times and that he owns and operates Holeman and Finch Public House as well as Restaurant Eugene!

So, a few emails, a couple phone calls, and an amazing interview later, and they asked me if I would like to do my internship at Restaurant Eugene over the summer.  I was ecstatic beyond belief.  I simply could not wait for summer to get here.  I went back to Clemson and told my friends that I got the job and they were just as excited about it as I was.

Now summer is here, I'm a little over a week away from starting my internship at Restaruant Eugene, and I'm still as excited, if not more excited, about my internship as I was after my interview.

That's the story my friends.

Till next time,

Ben

Welcome!

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog.

This is my first blog ever, so forgive me if and when I make mistakes.

A little bit about me and the purpose of this blog:

I am currently going into my senior year at Clemson University and am majoring in Food Science with an emphasis on Culinology (fancy way of saying that I like to cook).  That being said, I have never worked in a professional kitchen before (hence the title of this blog).  In the next couple of weeks I will be starting a culinary internship at Restaurant Eugene in Atlanta, Georgia where I will be working in a professional kitchen.  As part of my internship, I have to keep a journal or a log of what I did and learned during my internship.  Over the years, I've seen some other people that were doing their culinary internship keep their journal as a blog and I thought, "I should do that when I am doing my culinary internship." so, here we are.

To put it simply, this blog is a fun way for me to keep up with what my professors require for my internship.  However, it also serves as a great way for family and friends know exactly what I am doing during my internship (which is great because I hate having to tell people the same thing over and over and over...).

I am going to try my hardest to post something every day of my internship, but I am liable to miss a few days here and there.  I'm also going to post pictures of things I made in the kitchen or things that I experience in the kitchen.

So, I think those are the basics (or at least everything I can think of right now).

Till next time,

Ben