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Well folks, this is my last week of work at Restaurant Eugene.  It's a little weird to see my time at Restaurant Eugene coming to an end.  I've been learning and working in this place for two and a half months and, though I have learned more than I ever anticipated, I still feel like there is much more to be learned from working at Restaurant Eugene.  But, it's not over yet, I still have a week left, so let's got to it.

Tuesday
I started off the day by figuring out what all I would need for the garlic confit, but realized that I wouldn't have enough duck fat to use all the garlic.  So, I started doing the usual line prep, cutting lemons, picking and chopping parsley, picking thyme, and peeling shallots.

While doing all the line prep, I noticed that there weren't anymore breadcrumbs in the walk-in.  This made me kinda nervous and frustrated.  Frustrated because I had made about 6 quarts of breadcrumbs the week before and now they were all gone, and nervous because if they had used all those breadcrumbs then I am going to have to make a lot more breadcrumbs and fast.  After I had cut and dried out all the bread that I was going to use and started actually making the breadcrumbs, I realized what had happened to all the breadcrumbs from the week before...they were frozen so that they could last longer.  Oh well, now we have more breadcrumbs.

Next, we got a pretty large delivery of produce, so I started putting it all away and organizing the walk-in.  I noticed that there were about six large boxes of okra for the bottle shop at the front of the kitchen.  I was told that I needed to wash and store that okra as well.  This was a wrench in my plan since I had already fit everything into the walk-in and now had to find enough space for six boxes of okra.  Eventually, I made enough space.

Family meal today was provided by Holeman and Finch and consisted of fried fish, a spicy bean salad, an ice cream sandwich, and mini cheeseburgers.  For those that don't know, Holeman and Finch have (in my opinion) the best burger.  I never dreamed that I would get to eat one of these culinary masterpieces for family meal.

After family meal, Jackson had me pick some herbs for him for service (which took up the majority of the two hours that I have after family meal) and I spent the rest of my time organizing the walk-in and making sure that everything was labeled.





Wednesday
Today I finally got to make the garlic confit.  The reason I hadn't made it earlier was that the confit needs four hours to simmer on the stove before I can jar and process it.  So, because it needs so much time, the confit was the first thing I worked on when I arrived at work.

The rest of the day, I worked on receiving deliveries and storing them in the walk-in.  We had about six different deliveries and that was more than enough to keep me busy for the entire day.  After a lot of time and a lot of moving things around in the walk-in, though, I was finally finished with all of the deliveries just in time for family meal.

Family meal consisted of sausage and peppers, potato chips, and some delicious garlic bread.  I had three pieces of this garlic bread, it was that good.

The rest of my evening was spent jarring and processing my garlic confit and the chow-chow that Ryan had been working on for the majority of the day.

Garlic Confit

Chow-chow

Thursday
Today was almost entirely spent making ketchup for Holeman and Finch.  I mised everything out for a double batch of ketchup while the tomatoes cooked on the stove.  The only problem was that we had to bring the tomatoes to a boil and then reduce them to a simmer for two hours.  However, we couldn't bring the tomatoes to a boil because then they would scorch and ruin the ketchup, so we had to bring them to a simmer slowly and let them cook longer.  All in all, the tomatoes cooked from 11am to 4pm.  Then, we had to mill the tomatoes for the ketchup and bring them back to a boil and add more ingredients, but since it was already 4pm and they needed the stovetops for service, that part of the ketchup making process would have to wait until tomorrow.

While waiting for the tomatoes to cook, I worked on the line prep with Chris.  This was pretty fun because Chris, Ryan, and I were joking with each other the whole time while we were working.

Next, while the tomatoes were still cooking, Chris showed me how to make part of the amuse with compressed melon.  I took cantaloupe, cut the rind off, and took the seeds out.  Then I made a simple syrup with with water, sugar, and lemon juice and added some fresh basil at the very end.  The simple syrup had to cool before it could be put in the cryovac bag with the melon, so I put the simple syrup in an ice bath.  Once the simple syrup was cool, I put it in a cryovac bag with the melon and compressed them in the cryovac.  What this does is take all of the air out of the cantaloupe and replaces it with the simple syrup.  After this is completed, I took the cantaloupe out of the bags and cut them into cubes.  These cubes are used as part of the amuse.

When I was finished with the compressed melon, it was time for family meal and for me to have a meeting with Chef Hopkins.  You may or may not remember, but at the very beginning of my internship (aka 400 hours ago) Chef Hopkins met with me and asked me to make HACCP plans for all the low temperature cooking and cryovac recipes.  My meeting with Chef Hopkins today was to show him what I had done for the HACCP plans and to see if that was what he was looking for.  Turns out that what I had done was exactly what Chef Hopkins was looking for.  He seemed impressed and excited to have the HACCP plans for the low temperature and cryovac recipes and was very appreciative of my hard work on them.

When I got back from my meeting with Chef Hopkins, I got to work on soaking the okra for the bottle shop.  The okra has to soak in water and pickling spices overnight before we can jar them.  The biggest problem with this was that I had to find a place in the walk-in for these two huge boxes of okra in pickling water.  After flexing some amazing jenga and puzzle skills, though, I had made enough room in the walk-in for the containers of okra.

The last thing I did for the evening was mill the tomatoes for the ketchup.  Even though we couldn't completely finish the ketchup today, I figured that I could at least finish that part of the ketchup making process.

Till next time,

Ben

-2 hours left.  Yes, that's right, -2.  That means that I am two hours over my required 400 hours for my internship.  So, I am technically finished with my internship, but I will not officially be finished with my internship until this Saturday, my last day of work.  That being said, after this post, I will be changing the  "hours left" count to a "hours completed" count since I am now past the number that I was counting down to.