Week 2

This week was crazy! I can’t believe how fast time is flying by and how much I’ve learned this week. It was more of the same, prepping and plating for service, but this time I’d done everything before, knew where everything was and really gotten into the swing of things, so I did much better the second time around. I even got a few “perfects!” on things I made and even on some things that involved piping, so I have a lot more confidence this week. Oh and I got to make Dip n Dots - tedious, but also amazing and definitely worth it.

One of the questions on my homework this week asks what I consider to be my strengths and weaknesses. Going on the last two weeks, I would say my biggest weakness is that I don’t always have the confidence to take initiative and just do something - mostly I’m afraid of doing something wrong and wasting everyone’s time rather than waiting to be told or shown what to do, but sometimes you just gotta wing it. My biggest strength is that I’m a fast learner and I don’t ever need to be told twice what to do, and that I always learn from my mistakes. For instance, earlier in the week, Chef told me that my piping was pretty terrible, which made me feel bad, but it was totally true. So on a few things that involved piping, the next time I started slowly to make sure I did it perfectly instead of trying to do it quickly and messing up, and by the end of the week have greatly improved. Maybe that goes along with having a lot of motivation to do well and do something with my career instead of work at Wolfgang Puck for the next 5 years, haha. 

Anyway, it’s been another week of long hours and hard work, but I am still really liking it. Going to work actually put me in a BETTER mood today, instead of making me feel crappier like I thought it might. When does that ever happen??? I’m still conflicted about my plans when I get back to LA though… I don’t know if i should look for an upscale, Michelin star restaurant, or if a store front bakery is something I’d enjoy. Or maybe I should use my love of art, sculpting and painting and go for a specialty cake shop? It’s overwhelming, to say the least.

Here are a couple pictures from this week:

My weekend starts NOW, definitely need a couple days to rest after a super busy 11 hour Saturday - see you next week!

1 year ago  /  3 notes

One week.

OOOF, it’s been one week already?? I can’t believe it!! When chef signed my externship paperwork, he said that I had done great this week and that I’m one of the better students to come through in a long time, so that made me feel super good at the end of an 11 hour work day. Today was super busy though, one thing after the other. They’re opening the patio on Tuesday so in addition to all the prepping for a busy Saturday night, we also had to make hundreds of pastries for lunches! I made chocolate souffles, dark chocolate mousse, milk chocolate praline paste, liquid pie dough, several batches of meringue cookies and key lime pie filling, and then it was a lot of plating and cleaning. 

It’s 2am so I’m not going to write anymore tonight, BUT I have some paperwork due for tomorrow for school; if the questions are interesting, I might post my answers here! If not too bad, I’ll be at brunch and shoe shopping, woohoo!

1 year ago  /  0 notes

Trifecta

Three good things that happened today:

1. Everything I made for prep today turned out perfect (don’t have to tell me twice, what whaaaaaaaat.)

2. Cheese tasting.

3. Family dinner.

I made grapefruit sorbet, nutella sauce, brownies, poached pears, and brandy foam. I also did not freeze off any limbs with the liquid nitrogen, so definitely a success there. During the cheese tasting, I had the best goat cheese I’ve ever had - soft and creamy and fresh with just the right amount of stank, it was so delicious. I also had one of the most unfortunate tasting cheeses ever… it tasted like a petting zoo, no joke. Chef described it as tasting like he “had just gotten intimate with a sheep”, and it was too accurate. Then during the break between prep and service, some of the guys up front threw together a family meal for everyone. This is awesome because usually we get about 15 minutes to go down to the employee cafeteria and eat whatever they have, which is dismal at best; my lunch is usually a stale roll and two hardboiled eggs. Not today! Macaroni and cheese and garlicky fingerling potatoes, it was straight up decadent (even though I had to eat it with a plastic soup spoon). On top of that, we sat in the banquet hall instead of in the gross cafeteria or standing at your station shoveling food in as fast as you can, so it was quite luxurious.

Service today was busier than usual since it was a Friday and there were about twice as many reservations as there are on weeknights, but we got through everything pretty quickly. I know all but one of the plates and thankfully am a lot better at assembling them. Still can’t make a quenelle to save my life, but I’ll get there. 

I think I’m getting used to the long hours and being on my feet all day because I did not want to die walking to the train after work, and I still had (some) energy when I got home, crazy! Thank god though, one more day of feeling like my feet had been beaten with a hammer and I was going to have to look into bionic feet. I would say “just kidding” but yeah, totally not.

1 year ago  /  2 notes

One of those days.

I felt like I did everything wrong today, but in hindsight, I suppose it wasn’t that bad. Mostly the fact that I tried for hours to make a good quenelle and still can’t do it is what’s bugging me, but the only thing that will fix that is practice. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s only the third day and there is a learning curve - I know in a day or two it will click and then I will wonder how I could ever NOT do it! It’s just really frustrating and almost embarrassing in a way. Blerg.

I plated a lot again today, I think I know how to do most of the desserts now, yay! Considering each dessert is on a different plate and has usually 8-12 components and I’ve only been doing it for two days, this is a big accomplishment. Still, it’s a lot of things to remember and only a short period of time to assemble it while making it look attractive, so you know, stress and stuff. 

Apart from work, I am really enjoying being in New York. It’s so different from LA in so many ways. One thing I love in particular is taking the train home at the end of the day… it’s a strange sense of camaraderie, sitting with a handful of strangers all on their way home from work, trying to keep their eyes open and listening to their ipods, it’s like “oh, you feel just like I do!” This opposed to people with vanity plates that say “IMDB ME” cutting you off in traffic on the 101, as if to say “I’m more important than you and I deserve to get where I’m going much faster than you.” That, and everyone is SO friendly! Everyone says New Yorkers are assholes, but so far I haven’t really felt any of that, it’s not nearly as bad as it is in LA. For example, I worked several all day events for Wolfgang Puck and there are probably two people that would recognize me, and definitely no one knows my name. I’ve been at Gilt for three days and every single person that works at Gilt, in the hotel kitchen and for the hotel in general has introduced themselves to me. Seriously awesome. 

Ugh, another late night. Time for bed, BOO.

1 year ago  /  0 notes

Late nights

I hate thinking of clever ways to start a story, so I’m going to start typing and see what happens. It’s 1:20 in the morning and I just got home, forgive me. 

Today was more of the same, lots of prepping for dinner service. I made a handful of things - gingerbread cake, mascarpone custard, pie dough, apple gelée to name a few - and then got to start plating for service! The pastry kitchen is so different from my experiences in the hot kitchen during service… even when you have a lot of stuff to go out at once, it’s quiet, precise, and organized. I also got to write on some birthday and anniversary dessert plates, fry donuts (burned myself because I am an idiot), and a surprising amount of math. Oh, and I’m forgetting the best part - I got to help come up with a vegan dessert! 

Oh man, so much more happened today but I think my legs are going to fall off if I don’t go to sleep soon. So far loving the experience though, and not just at Gilt. Every day I go to the train and my MetroCard is still in my wallet, every time I don’t get on the wrong train, and every time I make it home with all the belongings I left the house with is like, the biggest success of all, haha.

Okay but seriously, nap time.

1 year ago  /  2 notes

Welcome to NYC, bitch.

Today was my first day of my internship at Gilt at the New York Palace Hotel! It was also my first day experiencing the season of spring in about 6 years… you see, in LA, “winter” is from December through February, and after that it’s pretty much 80 and sunny, with no discernible seasons, so after living there for so long, you forget that it’s a fantasy land with mostly perfect weather. Anyway, when I got on the train it was not raining, but when I got off it was pouring sheets of rain - people’s umbrellas were turned inside out like in old timey movies!! Guess who didn’t bring an umbrella - ROOKIE MISTAKE. I told this to my friend Brian, who replied “Welcome to NYC, bitch!” Yep, pretty much.

Anyway, first day was amazing, and I am so happy that I chose to come here. Everyone was super friendly, but the best part was that they trusted me to actually make things instead of only giving me jobs that a trained monkey could do. I learn by doing, and since the hardest thing I’ve done working one time events is count out 5 asparagus and put them on a plate, it’s so great to finally be able to apply really anything that I learned in school in a professional setting.

Things I made or assisted with today, in no particular order:

-Pate Sucré

-Chocolate Mousse

-Grapefruit Sorbet

Tomorrow I am responsible for making the grapefruit sorbet on my own. It involves liquid nitrogen, so let’s hope I don’t freeze an arm off or something. I know I did more, but to be honest I was so focused on learning where everything was and writing down the recipes that apparently I’ve forgotten! However, I did NOT forget the excellent dinner I got though - I didn’t take a break so I missed out on the (apparently laughable) cafeteria food, so instead the pastry chef had the hot kitchen make me a vegetarian pizza with kalamata olives, arugula, some kind of fancy cheese (gruyere I think, but I pretty much shoveled it in my face too quick to notice so who knows), and truffle french fries! 

I’m hoping to update every day about what my day was like, what I learned, what I made and all that kind of stuff - it’s something that looking back, I wish I had done through school, so I’m going to try to write every day so I can remember everything about this experience, both the good and bad :)

1 year ago  /  4 notes