Skills 2 Day 6

Flounder



Taking the fillets off the Flounder



Flounder Entree

Today we would have to fillet a whole flounder before we could start cooking. After filleting the flounder we put the bones and skin in a little stock pot and made our own fish stock. Then to go with the fish we had to make sauce Vin Blanc with the addition of tomatoes and chives. To prepare the fish we would be shallow poaching them. We would also be making glazed carrots, sauteed spinach and jasmine rice pilaf with saffron. It sounded all really good to me. We started out the day and for some reason everyone seemed very unorganized. We came to the conclusion that we think this was because the day before we had a substitute chef and she did not really explain what we would be doing for the next days production, so we were all just very confused. It finally came time to serve and I thought everything had gone really well. As I was plating my food I put the sauce over my fish and a little dripped on my spinach, I thought to myself that I did not want to leave that there and I was not going to wipe it off with my finger so I took my rubber spatula picked up one leaf of spinach and placed it on top of the little drop of sauce. I take it up to chef and the first thing he says to me is "Tallulah what is the difference between a spoon and a spatula?" I was confused and just kind of looked at him, he then goes on to say, "a spatula is not a serving utensil...minus 20 points!" I was shocked and really upset about that because I picked up one little leaf with my spatula and I ended up getting 20 points off so I was automatically down to an 80 for the day. To add to that horrible moment, I had totally forgotten to check and make sure my carrots were done and of course they were a little undercooked and as aways there could be just a pinch more salt on my rice. It was a horrible day for me I was not happy with the end result. The only positive was my sauce was right on the money and my fish was cooked perfectly, which I think is probably one of the most important things, ohh well. The day was finally over and my team decided that we should meet so we could perform better the next day, because nobody did well for shallow poach day. During our meeting we found out that school would be closed the next day for the big snow storm that was coming. We were so excited words can't even explain! We would get a day break from the horrible day we had all just had. This would be the first time AM classes would be cancelled at the CIA in 22 years. The CIA closes for seriously nothing, so this was pretty darn exciting!! I heard one time that the only reason they close the school is if all the pilot lights were off and had stopped working and that has happened in previous years apparently. The only down fall to this good news was the fact that we would no longer have a three day weekend, they took our original Monday holiday from us. It's ok with me though because I did not even realize we had it off!