Johnson and Wales University First Weeks

Johnson and Wales University

This past week was a very exciting start to the rest of my life.  I started school at JWU- North Miami.  Where do I begin, in such a short time so much has happened.

I guess the first place to start is move in.  

All went well; with several trips to bed bath and beyond, a lot of command strips, and a whole room rearrangement, 3 maybe 4 times.  Now everything is nicely squared away and I'm all settled in. 

My first day of class was AMAZING.  I was so stressed out before I went in but wow am I thankful I made it.  Just like always the moment I stepped into the kitchen all of my fears, worries, and anxieties immediately disappeared.  Is that how you know a job is meant for you?  I really hope so.  Even at home, when I would go to work, no matter how bad of a mood I was in, or how bad my day was,  stepping into the restaurant, cured all of my problems and instantly, everything was okay.  Throughout this week, I've experienced the same thing, before class I stressed about every little thing, but once I hit the kitchen door, everything in the world seems right.  

The first thing I made was Brushetta.  Yes, we got right to cooking on the first day!  I thought that this was kind of ironic, as the first thing I ever made, at my first kitchen job, was Brushetta.  I guess it was meant to be. 

If you don't know what Brushetta is, it's basically a cracker or toasted bread slice of some sort, with a cheese and typically a fruit.  There is thousands of ways to make this.  The one we made has Parmesan cheese, tomato concasse, and basil.

Throughout the days following; I made tons of different things; mostly stocks, sauces, and soups.  We made four different stocks;  fish, chicken, beef, and vegetable.  We've made so many soups; french onion, cream of carrot, minestrone, cream of asparagus, leek and potato, and probably more that I can't even remember.  We made the Mother Sauces, which are the five basic sauces that make up pretty much every other sauce, it consists of; Bechemel, Veloute, Espangole, Tomato, and Hollandaise.  The only one we didn't actually make this week, was hollandaise.  I could go on and on about the mother sauces; everything they're used for, their history, ect. I might make a whole blog post dedicated to Escoffier and his sauces.  Let me know if you'd be interested in that! 

We also made homemade pasta and shrimp, with tomato sauce, various different chicken dishes, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, different vegetables, and of course, worked on our knife cuts, again, and again...and again. 

This week was definitely very informative and believe it or not my final exam for this class is Monday.  Yep, the classes here are only 9 days long. Then you move onto the next class, but you do stay with the same group of kids, but you get a new chef.  This leaves very little time for much of anything.  Every night we get out of class and take a quiz about what we did that day in class, and some things from the book.  Then we stay up until insane hours of the morning cramming to do all of our reading from the textbook for the next day, wake up and do it all over again.

I've gone to a few restaurants that are around campus, they're all pretty good, I haven't had a bad experience yet.  Yes, I went to Miami Beach, in my opinion I like my St. Pete beach more.  Their beaches are over crowded, and because there's so many people-meaning more trash, and just overall not that great.  However, the art district is BEAUTIFUL.  The architecture is absolutely amazing, all the buildings are old and  I can't even begin to describe them, I wish I had taken pictures.  The strip down the beach is nice, there's a lot to do and I wish I had more free time, that will come with time though.

Overall, so far I am loving college, I feel so inspired and I've been very back and forth with what I want to do when I get out of college, and I'm still pretty unsure but I think my overall goal, just like most chefs, is too receive a Michelin Star.  I know that this is going to take a lot of hard work and dedication but I think that it would just be truly amazing and it's something I want to work towards. 

On a complete side note, if you're looking for a motivational movie to watch, or even just a good movie, I have three suggestions; Burnt, For Grace, and 42 Grams.  All of them are available on Netflix and I just think that they're incredible.  All three are about chefs trying to obtain Michelin Stars, but I think they're good, even if you're not in the culinary industry.  

If you have any questions about any of things I talked about in this post or you want me to post recipes for any of the soups, stocks or pasta let me know!  Same goes for any of the vocabulary or techniques, let me know what you want to learn about!

From my kitchen to yours,
MallaryMade💗