Lemon zest

Not much to update you avid readers with but I’ll add some photos of my cooking progress. I'll also share an embarrassing secret later which will definitely make you laugh and wonder how I even made it to this stage of my cooking pursuit. I’ve been at school for 3 weeks now and starting to get into the routine of getting up early (getting out of bed really !!), getting the bus and to class on time. I’m getting to know the kids better in class – I’m enjoying working in the kitchen with them and we have quickly got the teamwork going which is nice. We’ve started learning about the various kitchen equipment and the basic precision cuts of food. So there’s been a lot of chopping, slicing, dicing and peeling and of course, cut fingers.!! We’ve made croutons which I burnt in 3 different shades of brown. One good thing about cutting up food is that sometimes we get to eat it for lunch. I have a long long long way to go to master the ‘craw’ by tucking my fingers back while cutting. It takes a lot of practice so I just have to persist.  

 

still got a lot of work to do with precision cuts

Today's menu was coleslaw and bruschetta. It's amazing how many little things I learnt in just doing that. I don't normally order bruschetta when I go out, it's just tomato on toast really but, it's pretty popular if it's done nice and right. Mine turned out quite tasty and I needed some help with my garnish presentation. It's good to look at what everyone else does but again, I learnt a lot and ended up with a decent looking plate.

 

One of my friends badly cut her finger last week and ended up needing surgery as she cut nerves. Poor bugger, she’s got her lower arm and hand covered in plaster and bandages and I think she’ll be off for a few weeks. I was proud of myself for not fainting that day but I was cafeful to not look to closely and just focus on ensuring my friend was feeling ok – which she was. The woman has had 3 children so she ain’t worried about a cut finger….fair enough I reckon.

I’ve put my resume out to quite a few places hoping to get some work. The hospitality industry is unlike my previous career. I’ve had to walk into restaurants and personally hand in my resume and chat with the chef, hoping to make a good impression. Something will come soon but I just have to keep trying. 

The unpacking is progressing slowly. We are offloading some furniture and throwing out documents from about 20 years ago. I finally put my ol’ faithful favourite mountain bike together and need to get it serviced and go for a spin soon. I’d love to ride to school as the bus takes too bloody long and I need to start riding again. We have put a car on hold for Deb and hoping to see it in the next few days – it’s in Wollongong (about 2 hours away). Deb’s been having lunches with friends and getting back into her running group. I’ve started running also and Cricket has been coming with both us most of the time. I’m sure both dogs miss Rock Creek Park – I know I do. No progress on the flying as I’m waiting to get a job first so I can have some money to pay for the lessons. 

Now onto that cooking secret….well it’s quite embarrassing and I have never lived it down. Quite a few years ago I asked a friend for a lemon tart recipe. This friend was a former chef. I took the ingredient list to the supermarket and got everything but one….lemon zest. Well I walked up and down the cooking aisle 5 times, looking up, down, everywhere. I then walked a few more aisles guessing where ‘lemon zest’ might be. Now, I came very close to asking an assistant where the lemon zest was but by some stroke of luck, I didn’t and thank god now that I didn’t. I went home and emailed my friend….what is lemon zest, where do I buy it? Well, she reacted as you probably are right now. Laughing out very loudly. Well, I felt pretty bloody dumb when she told me. Why didn’t they just say grated lemon rind?? I’d never heard of zest. Anyway, that story of cooking shame has stayed with me for years and every time I see it in a recipe, I cringe inside. So there you have it, can a chef have anything more embarrassing than that……looking for lemon zest in the shopping aisles !!

And here’s another funny for you…a friend put this on facebook and it took me a few minutes but I finally got it and laughed my head off. Until next time, stay warm or cool depending on where you are in the world.

 

First Day of School

Guess who’s started chef school? Yep, I’ve hit the ground running. We haven’t finished unpacking and I’ve already headed off to school to fulfill the ‘tongs’ part of this blog’s name. This has been my first week, 2 days of theory which made for very long days, no naps and no daytime entertainment TV. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to sit still in a classroom for 8 hours. The class is about 37 students and we’re a mix of us doing cooking and others who will branch away and do patisserie – good friends to know and I have volunteered myself to test any samples they make. As always, my life is full of laughs and my first day at school was memorable. I was up around 6am to get the bus so it was a bit of an early shock start. I stuffed up the bus routine despite studying the timetables for hours on Sunday. You can picture me running about the bus terminal checking times and bus numbers. Things are a wee bit different since I left. And then, I went to buy something from the café and only realised after scrounging in my backpack, that I had left my wallet at home. Great, bit embarrassing. A nice guy offered me some money but I was ok, bit of old pride there I think but I did I have my lunch, just wanted something else naughty. And then the NEXT day, I came home and was looking for my paw paw ointment for my lips (paw paw ointment is like Vaseline for my non Aussie readers). It was on the bathroom sink. Hmmm, only then did I realise that this was the hair gel I put through my hair yesterday morning!!! Far out, I wondered why my hair was not the best yesterday, Vaseline is not meant to be hair gel. It’s a similar tub to one of my hair products and clearly at 6am yesterday I had no idea what I was doing. Yeah, so it was an interesting day.

After 2 days of theory and some food hygiene/safety quizzes, we had our first day in the kitchen as Day 3. The day was exciting for everyone, putting on their check pants and white jackets for the first time. The white skull caps are a bit unattractive, a bit like those hats that come in xmas bon bons. The kitchen was where we sorted out the rookies from the wanna-be Masterchefs. You could feel the buzz around the kitchen as everyone compared clothes, knives, tools and shoes. The day was another long one, lots of introduction to the kitchen layout and equipment and a thorough lesson in hand washing. Our food outcome for the first day was a lemon herb dressing roast chicken and salad. It was easy to see those who had kitchen experience and those who have never even been in the kitchen at home. About half way through the lesson, there was a queue at the first aid cabinet for knife cuts and a couple of hands under cold water following some light burns from picking up frypans with hot handles – they missed the memo on using your teatowel to pick up hot items. I survived these tests but managed to knock over my little tub of dressing. Thus my salad had about 1 teaspoon of dressing in it making it a little bland of flavor. I worked next to a young guy who clearly has industry experience – he made me feel like I was on an episode of Masterchef and I was going to be leaving next when I looked at his plate and mine. His presentation was fabulous. Will keep my eye on him. I came home exhausted with a headache and had a nap for an hour. Definitely need to pick up my work-fitness game for Week 2. 

Well the dogs came home safely and it was a wonderful happy tails reunion. It was a very different welcome than what they gave me in DC so we were pleased. They knew they were home and enjoyed sniffing and exploring their old place. Cricket had only lived here for 7 months before going to DC so it’s not as homely to him as Macey, who’s been here forever. Cricket still looks for squirrels and I feel sad that they are not running free in the massive Rock Creek Park where we lived. But it’s all about the smells and they seem to be overdosing on the new smells here. Funny thing with Cricket….whenever one of us comes home in the car, he runs to the left hand side of the car to see the driver. He’s used the US cars that are left hand drive. It’s very cute to see and he’s such a smart boy.

We are slowing unpacking our boxes and settling in. It feels like a such a chore. We’ve unpacked enough to function but we’re taking our time with the rest of the stuff. It’s a good time to cull some things and we are a bit worried about the stuff still to come home from DC. Where did all the stuff fit 3 years ago? I hope to unpack my bike this weekend – the others are yet to come over from DC. 

 

The dishwasher doesn’t work and the washing machine decided to die by leaking grease into the drum. Sadly, it did this when I was washing my new white chef jacket !!  So Deb has had a few dates with tradies this week to get things fixed and delivered. I’ve eaten a truck load of sausages – I love sausages. The coffee is great and I haven’t had a sossy roll yet so that will be task 1 for the weekend. It’s hard to not to ignore that we are both feeling a bit of culture shock. I was not sure this would happen but it has in a few ways. The traffic is certainly very very quiet compared to DC. It literally feels like a public holiday on the roads. I feel very weird getting around, things feel different, the people are different and I feel like bit of a stranger. Driving is ok, only a few adjustments to the proper side of the road. I’m sure things will feel like normal soon enough.

Well that’s a quick wrap on the first week of school. And I have an assignment to do :o

 

 

Welcome Home

My final post on the 50 Shades of DC blog saw us leaving Washington DC right before that polar freeze event happened. Our flight left around 2.30pm and the snow was getting ready to start. We both just wanted to get on the plane and leave, worried the snow storm would delay our travel. But we got away on time, flew through Dallas and back to Sydney. As an Australian knows only too well, it was a long trip home. The general flight time LAX-SYD is around 14 hours but from Dallas it’s about 17 hours. Unfortuately it was a rough flight from Dallas to Sydney. It was constant turbulence and quite rough at times. I don’t like turbulence and at around the 8 hour mark it was taking a toll on people. The guy next to us ran down the aisle with a sick bag and I had my bag next to me as the nausea was hitting me too. It was constant rocking and rolling and I’ve never had such a long rough flight. I was so glad to get on the ground. We missed our connection in Sydney which I anticipated. But we only had a half hour wait to get the next flight.

 

Arriving home, I was surprised to find 2 of my dear friends (also known as chooks) waiting at the airport to welcome us home. It was hilarious – they were hiding to surprise me but didn’t realize I went behind them to get a trolley while Deb went to the carousel. When I walked past them, I realized who they were and gave them the nice suprise. It was a great laugh. As I went to the baggage carousel I saw a Batman sign. Yes, I’m a big batman fan and this was their special welcome. Thanks S&A, you were brave to come and hug us after 30+ hours of travel and give us a Aussie survival pack with Weetbix, lamingtons, chips and chocolate. These girls know the way to our heart. 

We arrived home mid-morning and couldn’t get into our accommodation until the afternoon. We headed to the popular café strip for a nice breakfast including real bacon and of course, good COFFEE !! We got a new phone for Deb, had a look at the house and were thrilled with the paintwork which had just been done. We also did some bank work where we were both starting to yawn and fade after the long journey and finally, we picked up our car. My friend Aussie Bob had secured this car for me a few weeks ago and this was a real bonus. This will be my car, a little run-about. Deb will get the 'family' car later. It saved us hunting for a car now and paying money for a rental car. It’s an old car, 2004 but it’s a Subaru Forester and quite low in mileage for car her age. I’ve decided to call her Ruth, after the icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg. RBG is a US supreme court justice who is still going strong at 85. She broke the gender discrimination laws in the US back in the 60s and there is currently a movie about her called On The Basis of Sex. RBG is sensible, strong, decent and is an icon in the US. So I felt it fitting to call my new car Ruth because it’s old, strong and gets the job done.

Our second day was very busy. I went to TAFE to finalise my enrollment and get some information. I now have a student card so it’s cheaper buses and movie tickets for me. I have to start looking for a restaurant job somewhere and have also applied for a part time job – I’ll wait to see if I get it before telling you all about it. Right now, any money is good money so I’m happy to do anything. 

The dogs are currently in Melbourne in quarantine. They are half way through the 10 day period and doing well from all reports. They come home next Friday so it’s still a long wait ahead. The jet lag is hitting us. It’s worse going to the US but it’s still an adjustment coming this direction. Our first night’s sleep lasted until 3am, the second night until 5am and today we made it to about 7am so we’re improving. We both still get sleepy in the later afternoon because this is bedtime back in DC and our body clock is very confused. We’ve come home to bad bushfires in Tasmania and major flooding in Townsville which is my hometown. My family live there and are fortunately not under water (yet).  A lot of homes are already under water and the dam capacity is at 200% and climbing. There is a slow moving monsoonal trough and the constant heavy rain for days has created havoc across the region. I’m in contact with my family daily and am very anxious for them. 

We’ve been swamped with offers of help and dinners from friends and it’s been fantastic to see familiar faces again. We are also feeling a bit of culture shock, particularly with the traffic. It feels like a public holiday as the traffic is so quiet. 3 years ago it felt like chaos but after 3 years in DC, this is nothing !! We are stumbling at checkouts because we use swipe paywave and pins for our credit cards which is very fast, unlike signing the paper slip in the US which is time consuming. And of course, no tipping. Sorry to my US friends but Aussies struggle with the whole tip routine and it’s a breeze to come home and not worry about having a maths test to pay a bill. And of course we are driving cautiously to ensure we stay on the correct side of the ride. We come unstuck at intersections or entrances as we tend to veer right and quickly have to adjust. I keep looking for the gear stick with my right hand so that will take time to stop.

Anyway, enough for now. We have a big week ahead. Our house gets new carpet tomorrow and our stuff comes out of storage so that’s when the fun begins. I hope it's survived 3 years of being packed away.  The stuff form DC will take up to 3 months by sea so hopefully I’ve left a good settling in kit here for us to live ok. 

It’s great to be home but we are also feeling the sadness of not seeing familiar faces in DC. We miss you all and hope you are staying safe and warm in the freezing weather.

Oh and we are now off to Bunnings (big Aust hardware store chain) to get a sausage sandwich !!!  And here it is.