Week 10: MEP for Vegetables and Fresh Herbs | Cooking Vegetables

The first day this week consisted of expanding on our knowledge of cutting vegetables. We learned how to dice and Julienne carrots and onions (The best part of this day was that the food we prepared went to the local soup kitchen).

Our tools of the trade. Also, never EVER use a peeler on a cutting board. Cutting board = cutting. Peeler = NOT CUTTING.

Learning how to mince garlic correctly! It was interesting to see how you can pound it gently and cut the tip off to easily get the outside skin out of the way!

I need to remember to have the root of the onion facing away from my body, otherwise I end up cutting it completely wrong. Oops. It was a great learning day, however. We also learned that it is not the smartest idea to have two knives lying out on a board at the same time, or two people chopping on the same board. These are common safety practices. Play safe, kids.

The second day was focused on experimenting with acids and bases when using vegetables. Rather than simply cutting them and working with water or chicken broth, we used various acidic and basic liquids to see what happened to the veggies. I was astonished that the pH property of liquid could affect how the vegetable reacted so drastically.

This week, we really focused in on the idea of taking your time to achieve greatness in the kitchen, similar to what we learned with our event days in the past. Although it is a fast paced atmosphere, it is always better to take it slow than make a huge mistake and cost a restaurant (or Chef) money!

Proper knife-sharpening method. Chef taught us to get the right angle and then go down slowly, always away from yourself, or other people! People don't like to be cut or poked with knives.

Week 9: Steaming and Submersion Cooking | Braising and Stewing

Monday this week was our prep-day for the Meat Madness event! Luckily, this day went WAY smoother than the previous one. For this busy day, we had every step laid out and ready for  the coleslaw, ribs, sauce, and beverage!  We spent the majority of the time creating the sauce, as well and getting completely prepared for creating the slaw on the event day.

Miss. River's BBQ sauce! We mixed and cooked this the day before event day. This saves us time and energy on the busy day.

Before all of this, however, we also learned how to make sausage. It's about as unpleasant as you would expect.

**Creating the sausage. Not for the faint at heart. He pounds the meat through the grinder to make the meat soft for inside the intestine/stomach.

Although it was satisfying to see the intestine lining fill up, I am not sure that my calling is in sausage making.

Chef's face kills me here. He loves this. He made sure to do this at a slow pace so that he did not overfill the intestine, however he wanted it even all around.

The meat for sausage-ing.

Day Two this week was Meat Madness... and it was just that. Madness. I do believe that this day was far more successful than the last event for a few reasons. First of all, we were more prepared with our dishes and decorations.

Our Restaurant's sign/name! The name was created since our restaurant is on the Mississippi River, and we had ribs. Classic.

This group actually won the title for best looking table! Their decorations were cute, and completely fit their theme. We can all learn something from fiestas.

We had everything ready to serve hot and cold, as well as the table set up ahead of time and looking attractive to the public.

Still very proud of our table (: We had the St. Louis arch in lights over the table, which many guests enjoyed!

We could have been even more conscientious of the flavor of our water, however, and the heat of the ribs toward the beginning and end.


This week, we learned the importance of time management and planning, as chef told us at the very beginning of the course. Although it is easy to let things get too crazy and just try and go with the flow, it is always important to be COMPLETELY over-prepared for any events or days that may come your way.