On August 23rd, 2011 I was in the early stages of my knife skills demo when there was a very deep roar and the floor started shaking. I told all the students to take cover next to the cinder block wall as I figured we were in the middle of a tornado. Turns out, it was an earthquake and it took us three years to get back into a brand new high school. During that time culinary class went on. We did the best we could, improvising and adapting as our circumstances changed, always focused on getting what we could out of every situation.
In the coming school year we will also be facing many obstacles and challenges, but I am looking forward to overcoming them together. I haven’t been in these circumstances, but I’m confident that we’re going to solve problems and cook some cool stuff.
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Kitchen Days
As our time together will be limited, depending on the final version of the schedules adopted by your school as well as Bridging, it will be very important for us to make our working days as productive and efficient as possible. This is actually quite realistic as productivity, getting as much done in as little time as possible is a huge component of a busy commercial kitchen. You will need to know what it is you are working on that day and what you will need to get your work done. This makes our online work very important as that is where you will plan and decide the mise en place. You will be requisitioning your product and your prep list will need to be set before you get to the kitchen.
Systeme D
The details of how our class is going to work aren’t fully finalized, but the fundamental structure of how class is going to go doesn’t actually depend on what that winds up looking like. Just as in good kitchens, we are going to adapt to whatever we have and make it work. In France this concept is known as “Systeme D”. The “D” stands for debrouillard which is a person who gets things accomplished regardless of the situation. They find a way to get the end result they need, through creativity and resilience. They find a way. We will find a way.
Fixing Dinner
Bridging Culinary is going to become a catering company. Everything we will be doing will move us toward the goal of running a successful business. We’re going to learn the skills and competencies we need to learn the same way I learned them as an apprentice at Colonial Williamsburg – by making food for guests.
Similar to what we did for final projects last year, we’re going to create an extremely tailored, bespoke meal for our guests to heat up at home. We’re going to find out what they like, create options, create and receive feedback about prototypes and finally provide a delicious meal designed specifically for them. Once that meal is created, we will offer it by subscription, perhaps the guest would like to have it once a month, once a week. We’re going to focus on constantly experimenting, constantly learning from feedback and constantly improving. We have a unique opportunity to build favorite meals for our guests while learning the fundamentals of cooking. It’s actually simple, but it isn’t easy. But it will probably be pretty cool.
Mise en Plaos 