I didn't exactly lie

Truth will set you free

So in my last post several of you commented on the presentation of the crudité platter. In a complimentary way. Which I loved. And I wished it was mine—but alas it was not. It was a picture of Chef’s demonstration. I thought about letting you all believe it was and just moving on but my pesky conscience got the better of me and I am here to report the truth of what actually occurred. Mea culpa.

On Monday, it was my turn to make the crudité plate you saw in the picture. And things were going along pretty well—for awhile. I was chopping vegetables and swirling sauces and generally keeping up with what were supposed to be doing until Chef announced that we had 5 minutes left and we would at that time put our knives down and be ready for evaluation. What????

I was only about three-quarters of the way through and one of the steps left involved putting a mousse in a pastry bag and then piping it out onto that stupid egg which they call eggs mimosa, but as we, here in Texas, accurately know as deviled eggs. Truth is, I don’t even barely know how to use a pastry bag. Let alone get it stuffed, get the right tip, do the piping, garnish it and clean up in 5 minutes. I was paralyzed with anxiety. I rushed to fill my pastry bag—getting the mousse everywhere in my frantic attempt. It was all over my chef’s jacket sleeves and my workspace—bad girl! Then I actually got some to come out but it was such a paltry little amount it just kind of hung at the end of the piping tip as I had not properly turned the bag inside out to fill it before I started. The mousse clung to the sides of the pastry bag too high up to pipe out and no amount of coaxing—ok truth here— silent begging and promises of deals with our Lord, was going to help. It was kind of like trying to slide down a water slide with no water—on hot, sticky, bare legs. That stuff, at least the little bit I wasn’t wearing, was stuck. Permanently. In the pastry bag.

Forget that I had not plated anything yet for the Chef’s impending eagle -eyed inspection. I was desperate. I threw the other items on to the plate—not exactly as they appeared in the picture. Especially the hateful radishes cut like roses. Mine more accurately resembled victims of a land mine than carved roses. ( sorry to radishes everywhere). When Chef came to my station he took one look at my speck of mousse inside the egg, cut it in half and said “not enough and your workspace is a disaster.” I hung my head in shame. Cheeks burning, I cleaned my workspace and my offensive presentation plate and vowed —Never again!

Bad radishes, bad egg! Over dressed daikon. No dressing on carrots. Ugh!!!

Last night I spent three hours rewatching the demo for today and channeling my inner speed skater. I was not going to be outmaneuvered by the potage cultivator (vegetable soup with lardons) that was on deck for Tuesday.

Fast forward to today. I arrived armed with my very well-documented notations at 6:45am. I changed into my uniform, gave myself a pep talk and headed to the kitchen. The potage to be made involved a lot of chopping but I was steady and slightly faster than yesterday and I worked like the Ghost of Christmas Past was rattling chains in my bedroom. Two hours flew by and when Chef said, “ you have twenty minutes left”, I fired up my stovetop, melted my butter, “sweated my vegetables”, added the lardons, skimmed the fat, added the last few ingredients, prepared my croutons and shoved them in the broiler. Then I grabbed the presentation plate and bowl—and voilá—I plated my soup, artfully arranged my croutons and Chef said “bon.” Maybe I got this.

Better than yesterday!