Chef Waggoner & Chef Lange

Lab C.













My home for the next 6 weeks. Monday-Friday from 630am to 1130am. As you have seen over the last 6 weeks, I have been super pumped about this day.

Today was mostly formalities - kitchen etiquette, "clean-up after yourselves", "show up to class", etc. My new chef instructors, Chef Waggoner and Chef Lange, are super cool. They appear to be very knowledgeable (based on one day) and are quite entertaining. Tomorrow we will actually be cooking!!!! We're going to caramelize veal knuckles and mirepoix for veal stock that will simmer until the PM class strains it (~8hrs). We will, in turn, strain the PM class' stock the next day, that will have simmered all night and so on and so forth everyday so that we have fresh (and excellent) veal stock for class. We're also going to make a chicken stock throughout the course of class tomorrow. While that simmers (~3.5 hrs) we will run the gauntlet of knife cuts: medium dice, small dice, battonet, brunoise and julienne of carrots, chop and slice onions, mince shallots, tourné potatoes, fluting mushrooms, emonder and concasser tomato, paste garlic, and chiffonade herbs. AAAAHHHH!!!!!!!

Also, SUPERBONUS!!! Chef Waggoner was all, "I know this class is early and you guys are hungry. If you want to bring in a box of cereal and keep it here to eat, that's fine. We have coffee, help yourself to that. And this is a kitchen guys. We have eggs and stuff. Make an omelet if you want. We have polenta, AKA grits. As long as you're here early and clean up after yourself, go ahead." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Although it does make sense that we bought all this food with tuition, so we should be able to eat it.

Chef Waggoner is also planning to grind into our brains the importance of organic and local ingredients. Hippie. However, he did share some new info with us. Do you know how bananas are shipped? They are picked green, stuffed in a sack, the sack is filled with pesticide (a pesticide that is 1 chemical strain away from the nerve gas they used in WWII), and it is shipped to the U.S. Buy organic bananas. Tomatoes are also picked green, boxed up, shipped to a warehouse, blasted with a chemical that turns them red, and shipped to grocery stores. Buy organic tomatoes. No more diet sodas for this guy. According to Chef Waggoner, the FDA's #7 side effect of aspartame (the sweetener found in most diet sodas) is death. Death. Maybe this whole "hippie" thing IS all it's cracked up to be. I'll be eating organic and local as much as possible from here on out. Sure it'll cost more, but what's more important? Money, or being alive?