Skills 1 Day 9

Skills day 9, wow I can't believe it is day 9 already. Time here at the CIA goes by so fast, I can hardly remember what I did on Monday because everything is moving so fast. We would be making cream of broccoli soup! One of my favorites with out a doubt, so I was excited to finally learn how. For this soup we had to make a veloute in order to thicken the soup, I had never made a veloute before so this would be a first time also. We did our knife trays as usual in 50 minutes and we took advantage of those 50 minutes because day 10 we had to do it in 45 minutes! I did my knife tray and completed it with time left in the time we had given to us which was weird because I normally take the whole time. I kept looking at my tray and trying to figure out what I had left out, but after checking it for the 10th time I assured myself that I really had just done it with 10 minutes to spare which was awesome because we were going to not have as much time the next day so it prepared me. So like I said I was surprised at how fast I did it and when I took my tray up to chef he said "what are you doing up here so soon?" I laughed and so did he because he was also shocked to see me done early, it's not that I am ever late I just like to use all the time I have. It was time to make our soup for the day and we also had to cook broccoli and let him taste it to show that we knew how to properly cook it. I made my soup and it was coming down to the end of the time that he had given us to make it. I was running out of time because I still had to puree and strain my soup and also reheat the garnish so it would be hot when I put it on top. There are only 4 blenders in the kitchen for 20 of us...so pretty much there was a line waiting for the blenders, I was starting to enter freak out mode. Luckily the people in my kitchen are awesome and one of the guys offered to reheat my vegetable garnish for me because not only were the blenders all being used but my team took my pot of boiling water to the dish room with out making sure I was done with it, and I needed that for my garnish. Curve balls such as my boiling water being taken off the stove with out my knowledge are thrown at you all the time in the kitchen and you have to be able to react calmly and in a smart way. After all the craziness of the last five minutes I finally had my soup plated and I was on my way to take it up to him. He tried it and it was good...yayy, I was so relieved and happy do have that day done. So overall I learned a couple different things in class on day 9. I learned how to recover from a mistake made by my team and I also learned a little about myself and how I react to things in a kitchen. It is very interesting to see how you will react or respond to something in a kitchen under all that pressure. You would be surprised at the things you do when under stress and pressure in the hot kitchen. Overall day 9 was successful.