[Sca-cooks] I think I lit a small fire last night

[guillanedv at aol.com]

All of my textbooks from culinary school pay homage to Careme and Escoffier. Hope they both get a chance to get some "official" training.

Guillane

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network.
  Original Message  
From: Chef Christy
Sent: Thursday, October 9, 2014 12:09 PM
To: 'Cooks within the SCA'
Reply To: Cooks within the SCA
Subject: [Sca-cooks] I think I lit a small fire last night

My new roommate works in the restaurant industry, and is dating a nice young
man that is also. I got to meet him last night, after he worked two very
long shifts. He has a server job at night, but during the day he works as a
cook for the World Congress Center here in Atlanta, and regularly helps to
prepare meals for tens of thousands of people every day. I was asking him
about the staff, guessing they would need a cook staff of roughly a hundred
or so to manage that facility. He pretty much confirmed that, with 25 - 30
in the Garde Manger kitchen, another 2 teams of 25 - 30 in Banquet, then
additional folks in Pastry and assorted other positions. I said: "Escoffier
would be proud." I was met with blank stares. I said "Do you know who
Escoffier was?" and they both said they did not, so I gave them a brief
run-down of the King of Chefs, telling them about Peach Melba, the Corps de
Cuisine, and the black tome "The Escoffier Cook Book". A little while
later, I pulled the book off my shelf and handed it to him. Now here is a
kid with little formal training, but tons of OTJ. He could brunoise with
the best of them, but didn't know any of the background of why he was doing
it. He couldn't put the book down. My copy is well annotated with loads of
post-it notes marking sections such as Sauces, Meats, etc. He started
finding the names of dishes he made regularly, and was fascinated. I saw a
light come on in his exhausted head as he turned the pages. He would put it
down for a minute and then pick it back up again. 

I hope he goes in to his enormous work place among an army of cooks today
with a new appreciation for his profession, and a fire lit under him to
learn more about it. It sure was fun to watch that fire kindle into being.




Christianna

aka Ask Chef Christy ;)

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