Hey Guys,
Well today was AWESOME!!! I had so much fun and learnt soooo many things today. To start with I will tell you a bit about it. I arrived at TAFE and it was raining and cold, when I arrived into the classroom there were only 3 other students!! My classes will all be small, we started straight away by prepping onions, carrots and celery to do precision cuts, we learnt to do Julienne, Brunoise, Paysanne, Jardiniere, Macedoine, Battons and cubes, it was so much fun after those 3 veg we through in a few leeks and potatoes then vacum packed them to use in our soups when the time comes to make them it was so exciting, we also made a Tomato Concasse and Mushroom Duxelle, After that we went on a 15 minute break.
When we came back we learnt about cutting meats, before learning to cut different sized sirloin we had to weigh up the yield (lost fat, grissle) to see how much our 4kg sirloin really was (this is more an exercise focusing on portion control and why restaurants by the steaks already cut) after cutting away the Shane (overflap) and cutting away all the fat and grissle, we lost just on 1.5kg so if as a restaurant we purchased a whole cut at $20 a kg we would be throwing away $30 worth of unusable stock, it was such an eye opening experience to see that.
After that we deboned a whole chicken, one of the girls in the class was so squeamish i asked her is she was a vegetarian, she informed me she wasn't but like the idea of not knowing too much about what she eats (clearly she is in the wrong career), after we had finished all that it was time for our 45minute lunch break, by this stage we were already 2/3 of the way through the class.
When we all returned we had set up a table for the 4 of us to use together, due to the fact the teacher was only supposed to have 3 students in the class but another student showed up, so this practical meant the teacher needed to show us all what to do with our meat because he didnt have one to show us with. We filleted and skinned fish next, we started with some flatfish (sole) i have to tell you, i have never in my life filleted or skinned a fish! but i aced it, then we filleted some snapper.
We made some bechamel sauce, mayonaisse from scratch then turned it into Tartare.
It was extremely fun with heaps more to do tomorrow...
Monday, April 18, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
TAFE ORIENTATION
Hey Guys,
So I went in for my TAFE orientation today (for those that are in NZ, TAFE is like Polytech) it was a 9-1 class, I show up and search for what seems like forever just to find out where I am supposed to be, finally I found my class room D512, door locked no body inside, when the clock rolled around to 9:15 I rung the administration to find out if I was in fact at the right place, she asked me to come down to admin (room 512 is 5th floor room 12) when I got down to Admin they informed me the teacher didn't know there was a class on and would be up waiting for me by the time I got back to the class. So I go to the 5th floor again and wait outside the class, a few minutes later a group of students come past with a teacher saying "In this room guys" I thought it would be my class but didn't follow, I heard as the teacher started talking they were 3rd year students, a lady then walked out of the kitchen and informed me she was the teacher and I was the only student doing orientation today :)
Seeing as it was only me she decided she would make us a coffee in the kitchen and I was soon standing with 5 teachers drinking coffee, they all made me feel like I was one of them which was nice, they just talked about classes and I must have looked like a bit of an idiot just standing there. After a while another teacher Allan joined us, now the TAFE only has 7 chefs as teachers and I was drinking coffee now with 6 of them, the other teacher who signed me up to TAFE was teaching some students.
Chef Allan was going to do my orientation today as Chef Elizabeth had to go and sign up a new apprentice seeing as she didn't know there was a class today.
We went into class 512 and started going over a few things I would need to know about the course and TAFE, like they have 4 shrinks that are apparently good and a hair and beauty salon 3 floors down who are very cheap, we then went to the office so I could get my student ID and my Class Timetable, I also had to fill out a literacy and numeracy test. He sent me on a 30min break while he went chasing some more paperwork that we needed to go over. when I got back it was time to trial my online student centre, where I could do all my theory work online if I wish or in the old style exam booklets. I logged on and we found that although I was enrolled in 26 units I could only access 1. (the system only went online TODAY) so I was given Allan's email address and told to contact him everytime I couldn't get into the courses.
I was also given 5 workbooks to see if the online and the text book form were the same and all up finished TAFE at 2pm, an hour over the time I was supposed to, but i still get paid till the time i finish. It is such an amazing feeling knowing I am doing something with my life now. During my 30 min break they had a band from the music centre playing in the outside bistro for the students, everyone was super friendly and it is going to be an experience that I will enjoy.
BTW. The Kitchen at TAFE is HUGE!!!! They have 3 kitchens all joined together in one area that connects to a restaurant, they also have another kitchen to service the canteen/bistro area and another kitchen to service private functions, which isn't used at any other time.
I am going to have an awesome time at TAFE and I start at 8am-5:15pm on 18/4/11
Bye for Now!
So I went in for my TAFE orientation today (for those that are in NZ, TAFE is like Polytech) it was a 9-1 class, I show up and search for what seems like forever just to find out where I am supposed to be, finally I found my class room D512, door locked no body inside, when the clock rolled around to 9:15 I rung the administration to find out if I was in fact at the right place, she asked me to come down to admin (room 512 is 5th floor room 12) when I got down to Admin they informed me the teacher didn't know there was a class on and would be up waiting for me by the time I got back to the class. So I go to the 5th floor again and wait outside the class, a few minutes later a group of students come past with a teacher saying "In this room guys" I thought it would be my class but didn't follow, I heard as the teacher started talking they were 3rd year students, a lady then walked out of the kitchen and informed me she was the teacher and I was the only student doing orientation today :)
Seeing as it was only me she decided she would make us a coffee in the kitchen and I was soon standing with 5 teachers drinking coffee, they all made me feel like I was one of them which was nice, they just talked about classes and I must have looked like a bit of an idiot just standing there. After a while another teacher Allan joined us, now the TAFE only has 7 chefs as teachers and I was drinking coffee now with 6 of them, the other teacher who signed me up to TAFE was teaching some students.
Chef Allan was going to do my orientation today as Chef Elizabeth had to go and sign up a new apprentice seeing as she didn't know there was a class today.
We went into class 512 and started going over a few things I would need to know about the course and TAFE, like they have 4 shrinks that are apparently good and a hair and beauty salon 3 floors down who are very cheap, we then went to the office so I could get my student ID and my Class Timetable, I also had to fill out a literacy and numeracy test. He sent me on a 30min break while he went chasing some more paperwork that we needed to go over. when I got back it was time to trial my online student centre, where I could do all my theory work online if I wish or in the old style exam booklets. I logged on and we found that although I was enrolled in 26 units I could only access 1. (the system only went online TODAY) so I was given Allan's email address and told to contact him everytime I couldn't get into the courses.
I was also given 5 workbooks to see if the online and the text book form were the same and all up finished TAFE at 2pm, an hour over the time I was supposed to, but i still get paid till the time i finish. It is such an amazing feeling knowing I am doing something with my life now. During my 30 min break they had a band from the music centre playing in the outside bistro for the students, everyone was super friendly and it is going to be an experience that I will enjoy.
BTW. The Kitchen at TAFE is HUGE!!!! They have 3 kitchens all joined together in one area that connects to a restaurant, they also have another kitchen to service the canteen/bistro area and another kitchen to service private functions, which isn't used at any other time.
I am going to have an awesome time at TAFE and I start at 8am-5:15pm on 18/4/11
Bye for Now!
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