Culinary School Year #2

Hey everyone, I'm back in Denver and in my sophomore set of labs! I started on Tuesday, September 4th with Advanced Dining. Each of these labs I will be taking this trimester is 9 days long. In advanced dining, it is really all about team service.

We do French service, which consists of a brigade system of team service. There are 4 positions:

Chef de Rang: The head of the team, sells the menu to guests, performs tableside service, keeps other people in line with what they need to do.

Commis de Rang: Performs beverage service, marks utensils on table before each course is served, helps serve courses

Commis de Suite: Prints order tickets, fires all courses to be made in the kitchen, serves courses

Commis Debarrasseur: Serves water and bread, keeps tables tidy, clears all courses

Two of the days I was the Chef de Rang. I led the group and had to speak my oh so fluent french to explain the menu to everyone! I'd say I was a pro, but I think my guests would say differently :P Anywho, being the Chef meant we couldn't go into the back to bring dirty dishes or to get bread to serve, so I had to tell others to do it for me..which was pretty cool! The first day I was Chef I had to gracefully cut apart a whole chicken to serve to my guests tableside. It's a little more difficult than doing it in the kitchen or the back where you could use gloves and hold the chicken with your hands. We were only allowed a knife and fork.

The next tableside I did was Cherries Jubilee. After mimicking Paula Deen with adding a lot of butter and sugar to the pan to form a caramel, I added Brandy and lit it on fire! It was funny because right before I lit it, someone in my group was right in front of me and my Chef ran over and pulled him out of the way super fast! After I lit up the alcohol, the cherries, cherry liquor and lemon juice were added. Then it was all poured over ice cream! It was fun to make and my guests seemed to really enjoy it! (I did not take this picture, but thats how it looked!)

Another big part of this class was wine tasting. We had forms to fill out that included how the wine looked, smelled, tasted, and food pairings for the wine! We have to sip the wine, and then spit it out in a cup. When I tasted, I wasn't a fan of the dry wines. Many people enjoyed them, but I actually preferred what most people didn't like....the sweet white wines. I'm not going to go through a lot of wines, but I REALLY liked German white wines. They were sweet but not overwhelming at all. Some of them we tasted from Germany included Mosel, Kabinet, and Spatlese. We tried a lot of French and Italian wines as well, but there were only a select few I really enjoyed.

For our menu, we had to learn what was in each dish and how to pronounce each French name  for pretty much every day of service! It was a challenge, but we all got through it!

A big point in this class that I learned was teamwork. That's the most important aspect of French service. Communication with your teammates included orders getting placed, courses getting fired, guests getting served, water and other beverages always being filled, and so much more. It is all about timing and communicating with your team to give every one of your guests the best experience.