Tournage? Boooo!

Yesterday was our third and final day of knife skills in the kitchen. We learned 'tournage' which is the technique used to make cuts resulting in faceted, oval shapes with seven sides. There are several cuts that can be done this way with different lengths but we focused on doing cocottes which are 5cm long. During the demo, Chef Jessica's cocottes were perfect and she made it look so easy...it's NOT. Let's hope I really do get better at this as time goes on because it ain't so pretty right now! I can tell you that it gives me a huge appreciation for when I've seen these lovely shapes of vegetables at various dinners I've been to. I understand much more what hard work is behind a lot of what I've had the pleasure of eating, that's for sure. We practiced tournage on patate (potatoes) for a while before getting into our recipe for the day, panzanella or bread salad. It's a lovely red wine vinegar based dish made with day old bread, fresh tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, scallion - it's a summer dish typically and great for picnics and so on. I really love it so I had fun learning how to make it!

The cool part of this panzanella is that we added anchovies. I was never an anchovy or sardine person until I went to Sicily last year. I had some of the most amazing dishes made with one or the other. It surprised me to no end that one of my very favorite dishes from the entire trip was fresh anchovies in lemon juice and olive oil, that's it. You wouldn't believe how delicious they were. Of course, they were basically pulled right out of the sea and put onto our plates so that certainly had something to do with it. We'll be working with anchovies a good bit in this program so yesterday was the day we learned to fillet them. I have never filleted anything in my life so, while an anchovy is quite a small fish, it still has a spine you have to pull out, eeeek. There are a ton of small pin bones in anchovies and it's impossible to get them all out. However, it was pretty cool to do something like that for the first time!

Unfortunately, there are no photos from today because I was slow as molasses in plating my final product. I needed to present to Chef Jessica and get my station cleaned up so you don't get to see the pretty panzanella, booo. She said my composition was really good overall and it was just lacking an extra bit of salt to make everything pop. I'll be quite excited to make it again when tomatoes are truly in season.

On an unrelated note, I have to share this awesome gift I got in the mail from Michael and Wynn when I got home. There was a cute little package in my mailbox and I opened it up to find the most beautiful leather luggage tags they'd had engraved for me. It's a congratulatory gift for basically having the balls to do this whole thing and I wasn't expecting it at all! The note said they were to help carry my new luggage (a lovely Christmas gift from Allison!) into my new life. How fitting! :) Aren't they awesome:

Such a thoughtful and special surprise!

I'm A Weakling

Ok, I'm not a weakling. I'm a kitchen weakling. At this point, anyway. Today was our first full day of school, combining language + kitchen. Obviously, we all knew we'd be tired but I think I seriously underestimated how much. Part of it is definitely just the adjustment all around to a new schedule, different energy and brain power exertion and keeping up with getting to know new people. All of this is super taxing so I certainly leave room for that when it comes to how I feel physically. Everyone felt the same way though after today was over so it's nice knowing we're all in it together.

Today went better for me in language class overall. I feel like I'm catching on and sincerely enjoying the process. It's been ages since I've been in a class setting like this and let's face it, I was always asleep on my desk when I was there. I had a tough time in school no matter what age I was. I always struggled with giving up immediately when something got tough or I couldn't understand the material. I hate to say it but I have those very same inclinations as an adult and I feel that creeping up. Clearly, the difference is that I'm passionate about what I'm doing and I have a desire to be there instead of sitting through algebra class not having a damn clue what was going on and hating life. I'd say that's a plus for this situation, eh?

This morning, we worked on really conversing with one another and writing out verb conjugations by memory. It's tough work, I tell you. There are some rules of the Italian language that come so easily to me and effortlessly stick in my mind but there are other things that I simply do not understand. I'm not worried, though. Even after one week in Sicily, I picked up a bunch of stuff so I think, once we're settled in Italy, it'll be much better as we speak continuously each day. Here we are working on those tricky little conjugations:

I wish Stefania was facing the camera in the first photo so you can see how cute she is. Each one of us is obsessed with her, seriously.

On to kitchen day one! I mentioned before that I was psyched to finally get our knife and tool kit so today was a big day, heehee. Without exaggeration, I haven't been so excited about something in quite a while. Behold, our bag o' joy:

I get weak in the knees just looking at it. Professional, top notch equipment that's mine. Allllll mine. It's a bag with three compartments housing all of my tools and we got to break a few things in today! We have three days of knife skills so today we focused on the different types of cuts most common in the kitchen that'll we'll use all the time. 

We were introduced to Chef Jessica, one of our three chef instructors, and we went over a lot of basic kitchen safety and protocol. She showed us where everything is in the kitchen and talked a bit about her history and what brought her to this program. She's so accomplished and so very skilled. You could see that in the first five minutes of the demo she did on how to chop. We practiced on cipolle, carote e patate (onions, carrots and potatoes). Um, I suck at it so far. It's amazing how different it is to learn the correct way of doing things vs. how I've always worked in my own kitchen. I thought I kinda knew my stuff but nope, I've been doing it all wrong. 

After going through what felt like a pound of each vegetable,  I actually produced pretty good work according to Chef Jessica:

It's hard as balls to cut down a carrot into a square or rectangle, just so you know. The perfectionist side of me sure did come through as I kept trying to get it done just right. Will I ever learn that most things in life are a work in progress? Sigh... I tire myself out sometimes, I swear.

It was a long and tiring but fantastic day. I have a lot of studying to do tonight after I decompress a bit. 6:00am comes quick, man. I'm very ready for day two in the kitchen, though!