Looking towards the future…
Hey everybody what is going on? Since everyone asks me all the time what its like to cook, and are wondering about the adventure ill be going on I decided to make a blog. It is a thousand times easier than calling everyone to update them all the time. So lets give you the where, what, when, and why? I will be traveling to Glacier National Park in Montana and will basically be in the middle of nowhere haha. Hence the title of the blog. I will be working at the restaurant at St. Mary Lodge as a second cook. A second cook is basically a glorified vegetable cutter, and part time dish washer. For those of you who are like why the hell would you go all the way out there to do that? Here is your answer. No matter where I was going to work I would be doing exactly that anyway, so for me it was the idea that if I am going to do that anyway why not try to spread my wings and see if I fly. I have always wanted to go out west to Seattle and California, and if this is a stepping stone then why the hell not let’s do it up! With that being said I will be leaving May 23rd so toget ready for the culture shock I’m trying to fit in as many F-bombs and dropping R’s in words as much as I can.
School Life!
So for those who don’t know or have forgotten I am currently going to Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Cambridge, MA. I have been going since October and it is crazy how much I have learned and done since I have been there. Our classes are broken up into modules which go for 6 weeks. First classe is basically an introduction to food safety and what you think you are getting yourself into. You learn the “Mother Sauces” and start to learn knife cuts. It was particularly brutal for me because it brought me right back to high school which was…boring to me haha.
The second class you start to learn secondary sauces how to make side dishes while getting to starting to expand your palate. My chef for that class was Jess Roy. She is freaking awesome. She is a sushi chef and left handed which are unheard of, in Japan and America for the most part women are not allowed to make sushi and to be a left handed is a no no too. She’s a badass, and was a semi pro snowboarder too no big deal. She killed us on cleaning but it was cool and I didn’t mind because she was straight up with us, and pushed us all the time to do be better.
In my third class you work on making full plates and plating. I got to admit this is when I realized I didn’t just like to cook, I love it. My chef was Eric Ullman. He is another guy who to me is awesome. He started off wanting to persue music and opened for a lot of well known bands from the area and for the longest time restaurants were just a way to pay the bills until he got into it and saw what cooking can become not just money but beauty. He was straight up no bullshit with us. If he didn’t like your plate it was “looks crappy and if your not going to eat something raw, what makes you think I want to?” I have learned a ton from him and I feel bad because I always buzz around him because I want to learn (same with Chef Roy too, if they ever see this I hope you don’t hate me haha) and he has asked me to help him do catering events with him and master chef classes which are fun.
In my fourth class it is all baking and pastry. I am not going to lie, it was brutal because to me that is not cooking. My chef for that class owned Konditermister in Braintree and it was cool to see the things she could pipe. It was crazy hard though I struggled a little with the class but tried my hardest to get through it.
Currently the class I am taking is fine tuning our cooking techniques and opening up to different seasonings around the world. It is called Cuisine Across Cultures. I love it because we get the different seasonings but it is also a little agravating because we are starting to get some people that are losing interest which means crappy dishes be served.
I will try and update as often as possible but with no clue on what the interent connection is going to be like in Montana it might be one of those things that is to be determined!
Peace, Love, and Food!!!
– Jesse
The Adventure to Nowhere 