In the Food Safety and Sanitation class, Chef Fleckinstein recommended Taylor brand digital thermometers. He also noted that the Lexington Fisherman's Wharf at New York had very high sanitation standards.

Today was my first day team leading. Items that a team leader need to check for:
- Uniforms
- Mise en place
- Recipe cards
- Understand vocab
- Do demonstration of new concepts

Our team had to make all six soup recipes in one day rather than spread it out over the course of two days because tomorrow we are going to Marta's home to see her garden. It was slight chaos today, but we finished out our soups. I made the clam chowder and the cream of broccoli soup with Sterling. Our product turned out really well. Sterling wanted to add more salt to the cream of broccoli, but instead we added chicken base per Chef Lipford's suggestion. It tasted much better because it had more flavor, but was not too salty.

Several of my classmates are extraordinarily interested in molecular gastronomy. The Big Fat Duck Cookbook was brought up as an excellent cookbook for molecular gastronomists.

We made Bechemel and Veloute today. We learned that Bechemel must be strained to get rid of the specks. A watery Veloute can be fixed by adding more roux. The butter that we used was not clarified very well and had residual scum. It did not make a large difference when making an opaque sauce.

Ben's Chili Bowl

Audrey and I headed over to the famous Ben's Chili Bowl in Dupont Circle. The chili cheese dog I ordered was delicious! MMM...They had a sign posted that I thought was amusing:

People who eat here for free:
Bill Cosby
The Obama Family (but he paid)

Marta shared with the class that her husband works for the UN created an organic garden that can grow with limited resources. We will be planning a field trip out to the garden that is part of The Growing Connection.

Chef Lipford asked Ty and Jonathan to make a hollandaise sauce for the the class to observe. It was a pale yellow and seemed to be very acidic.

I asked the chef what pointers he had for someone like me, with zero experience to get a job with in the restaurant industry. He basically told me to show enthusiasm and passion for the field. Volunteering is another great way to gain experience, Martha's Table was brought up as a good place to volunteer.

Art and Soul was brought up as a restaurant to try, the owner was a personal chef for Oprah and recently competed on Top Chef: Masters. The Little Inn at Washington was also brought up as a nice classic restaurant to try.

Online Journal Entries

As part of my skills class, we are required to keep a journal and I thought that it would be pretty fun to post the journal as a blog.