My days spent in the Production Kitchen at Le Cordon Bleu

My days spent in the production kitchen of my school
Literally just minutes before typing up this blog post, I had a conversation with a good friend about how I haven't done much on my blog and that I should probably do something. He suggested that I blog about my time spent in the production kitchen. What is that and why I'm there you may ask, it is part of this work study program that I participated at my school. It’s pretty much like a working scholarship, I work in the production kitchen for 6 months and in turn they pay for 1 of my sessions in school. They also decided to change the program while I was the work study student, instead of having 2 students working at once (one mentor and one new guy) they changed it so that there will only be 1 student per 6 months. It was some shocking news to me, I already knew that I was in for lots of work and hardships but I guess they had to one up me and put me alone. It was quite nerve wrecking when I found out the news, I kept debating if I should continue on with the program or refuse to be in it. This one topic kept me awake for many hours just thinking and debating, but in the end I decided to take up the challenge.

My first few weeks in the production kitchen were pretty rough; I’d forget many things or do many others incorrectly. My biggest fault was that I was not organized enough, kept thinking that I could remember it all in my head and I’d be fine. In truth I wasn’t fine at all and Chef Christopher knew it, which is most likely the reason he loved to yell my name. Over a few days of yelling, more yelling, chef sat me down and explained that I should be using a notepad as well as the whiteboard. After that conversation I got into the habit of going over what had to be done for the next day and filling up the whiteboard, as well as filling up my notepad with the tasks that Chef would give me. (Full my notepad stayed, till I learned how to organize my volunteers better and get them to handle most of those tasks) Learning how to use the whiteboard and notepad was only half the battle to being organized down in production, learning how to keep the fridge and daily volunteers in order was the other half. Trying to teach new volunteers how production worked and trying to organize the other volunteers so that they were productive was quite the nightmare for me. Not only did I have someone asking me where this is or where what is, I’d have Jacqueline, Chef and other Chefs asking me where this or that was. Over the period of about a month or so I quickly developed the skills I needed for conquer these major obstacles. My skills may not have been the best but I’d developed enough that I could tackle them without over stressing myself. Proud of the fact that I’ve developed new skills and thought I would be completely ready for what production had to offer I was dead wrong. The fact is learning how to organize myself was just the beginning of it all, on top of trying to stay organized I had to make bread, check/receive inventory, making stock, etc. My first 3 months of making bread pretty much was a disaster, I could barely shape the bread in the shape of a baguette. Making stock was one of my favorite tasks to do in production, even though we had to make stock almost every other day. The aroma that came out of the pot when you made the perfect veal or chicken stock was just heavenly. Since I was the only work study student I had to speed up my learning process, what might take someone a week or two to learn I had to do it in a few days. Some of what I learned stuck on right away and some took a lot longer like baking bread. (Which I think took me about 3-4 months before I could do it without asking for help)

At this point in time you’re probably thinking wow what hardships I must have gone through, it was not all that bad. There may have been days where I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die, but there were also many where life was glorious. Being down there in the production kitchen has helped me become more organized, improved my leadership/communication skills, improved my kitchen skills and has strengthen me as a person all together. At the end of it all, I’m extremely happy that I decided to take on /complete this challenge and leave with new knowledge as well as more confidence in the kitchen.


I'd like to thanks all the Chefs and all other Cordon Bleu staff for taking care of me during those 6 months that I was the Work Study Student. I'd also like to thank all those students who came down to volunteer in the Production Kitchen, your help meant the world to me.(even if you thought you were a chicken running around with its head cut off, you were all more than useful) Last but not least I'd like to specially thank Chef Christopher, Chef Armando, Jacqueline, Helen and Gordon for always being there offering me advice and guidance for when I needed it most.

Exam Tomorrow!

Been a while since I wrote something on my blog and well time flew by and guess what tomorrow is my final exam! But before we get into that, a quick fly by of what's been going on with school and all those workshops we have. We've all been doing pretty decently in our workshops, even gotten complimented about us cooking vegetarian. Chef did ask why we couldn't be producing food like this when he gives us a nice cut of meat or fish.

There was however one day where everything pretty much screwed up, nothing was going my way it was as if I couldn't cook at all. The day just so happened to be our practice exam day, aka the whitebox exam. I had a plan, I had all the things needed, but when I walked into that kitchen that day it all went wrong. I was suppose to have 5-6 elements per plate and they were suppose to look pretty good. Then disaster, this reduced too much or that didn't cook all the way through and that was starting to burn. I was really really frustrated and I told myself just calm down breath a bit and get back into the game. I did do exactly that, yet nothing seemed to be improving too much. In the end I managed to serve something rather than nothing but I was quite late in serving and my plates were just bad. It was a pretty depressing day for me, I guess everyone has those days where they just can't seem to get anything right, I accept that but it was still a brutal day in the kitchen. Looking back at that day now, I feel like I lost some confidence when things started to mess up and started to give up. Thinking about it now I should have remained calm, and just move on and to never give up.

I'm not the kind of guy to just get up and quit, but that day was just horrible and I was reminded about not quitting under pressure again a week or so after. It was our last demo with the Chef and he decided to try something new with us. He gave us a list of ingredients and said okay your all going to be split into 4 groups. we were split up and then asked to come up with a four course meal with all the ingredients there, it didn't have to be super fancy as long as it could be done within an hour and half. Now here's the real kicker, after he picked one course from each of our groups, he then picked four students to come up and cook that menu. I was one of those four to be picked and lets just say I wasn't too happy about it. We went on doing this demo explaining what we were doing when the chef or everyone else asked. Preparing the dish wasn't super hard, but going into it unprepared with no notes and your peers asking random questions out the blue was quite frustrating. Things went alright, but near the end I messed up cooking my rice and felt really annoying/embarrassed at the same time. Having done that my confidence went out the window and cracked under that pressure, so I threw in my towel and burst out the door. Later on my chef found me and told me that even tho I messed up, I shouldn't have ran away. I should have just continued going on with what I was doing and complete the task given. The most important thing was that he told me I should never give up.

Roughly within a week I was reminded twice to never give up hope and to continue fighting till the very end. I like to live by a never give up never back down way of life and somewhere I lost it. I guess in a way it was a good thing those things happened right before my exam time and rediscovering my way.

Right now I'm a bit tense about my exam tomorrow morning, but I'm having good feelings about tomorrow. Gonna get my game face on and be ready to rock and roll, then be done with school. As rough as the weeks before my exam have been, I've not given up on myself and an confident that I will do good and pass. With all that being said I should go back and do one final overlook of what I'm doing tomorrow and get some sleep.




Menu that I will be preparing for the exam


App: Pickerel mousse, snow peas, carrot wrapped with asparagus, and a orange cream sauce

Main: Wild mushroom and Liver stuffed Duck Leg, roasted cherry tomatoes, braised white asparagus, parsnip puree, and a mushroom sauce

Week 2-4 of Superior

OH man its been a pretty good first few weeks in Superior Cuisine, first week was a blast and the second to 4th week is still going strong. The next few dishes that we had for practical were pretty interesting in their own sense. Honestly I should have blogged sooner when the thoughts and memories of the dishes were a lot fresher in my mind. Something however still remains quite fresh in my mind when Chef Benoit introduced to us agar agar. Agar agar is a type of gelatin developed through algae. What was most interesting was the fact that it could hold its temperature so you could serve food warm yet still remain as a jelly. The way that he had shown us was to combine something that was warm yet there was an element of cold at the same time. He lined the bottom on a plate with lobster bits mixed with tomato, then a layer of lobster stock mixed with agar agar and finally finished off with a nice cold layer of Vichyssoise. All of this had to be done quite quickly or else the lobster stock would set and cool down, which would defeat the purpose of serving something hot yet cold at the same time. Another memorable class was the one where we had to make a turkey roulade, instead of making the traditional one he showed us another method of rolling turkey meat with stuffing within it. He took two thin slices of turkey meat and laid them so that part of it was touching one another. Added the stuffing to the meat and then rolled into a ball and with the plastic wrap tightened it, tied and made sure no air would get inside. As for the cooking method he would take the turkey ball poach it and then give it a sautee so it would obtain color. Again I do apologize that I should have wrote my blog sooner when the memories of everything else was fresher.

Classes aside my memories still remember all the workshops that have past quite clearly still. Since the last time we have gone through work shops 202 to 204 each was quite interesting and fun. As usual I'd go through my normal routine of smacking my head against the desk for a few hours trying to come up with something to do for the workshop. After a while I'd come up for a few ideas, usually the protein first and then I'd go to the sauces and garnishes then decorations. What I have been finding lately is that after I come up with a few ideas, I need to have a discussions about it with a classmate or previous classmates. Generally after I have this discussion it helps me rethink the dish that I wanted to create and rethink the process of whats to be done and the plating. For workshop 202 we had to create two appetizers, I made Beet sticks with quenelle of roasted eggplant, roquette and a parsley chive vinegrette. The other dish I made Artichoke Fricassee, sauteed mushroom and asparagus with garlic snail. In this workshop things were going pretty decently, the major issues that this workshop had was that my tuille didn't get enough color and that my plating could have been stronger.

In workshop 203 the task was to produce an appetizer and a main course. For my appetizer I did a crepe layered with quail and mango pineapple chutney, as for the main dish leeks cooked in cream, carrot puree and sauteed cod with a mango pineapple beurre blanc. This workshop proved to be fun for me, the main issue in this workshop was again my plating. At this point I've noticed that my flavors and my techniques are all there its just that my plating still needs a lot of improvement.

Workshop 204 was really fun since the chef decided to put us into groups, this was also the HACCP(Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) workshop. HACCP is a system that instructs and creates awareness of food safety. Going by the workshop name we all had to work by the HACCP rules and standards, which means food can only be kept either at 4°C or cooler if not then at 60°C or higher. Anything between those temperatures is considered the danger zone, a zone which it ideal for bacteria to flourish. The group that I had was a pretty good group, we came up with ideas quickly and one member (Denise) even dared to take on the pigeon(which we were warned about how its cooked and how we were be massacred if it was cooked wrong, Denise however cooked it spot on). I did however learn that You should not server chutney as an amouse bouche. We didn't really have too much difficulty with this since we had a group of 4. One thing however after we all had finished plating, the chef gathered us with ours dishes and said from now he he expects nothing less than what we've shown him.

With what the chef had told us for Workshop 204, I hope that I can continue this trend of improvement and reach the level that I hope to achieve before the end of this session. I also hope that my plating will improve, I'm told it just takes time but I'm hoping it happens soon!


Beet sticks with quenelle of roasted eggplant, roquette and a parsley chive vinegrette
-Too bad I forgot to take a few pictures before presenting to the chef


Artichoke Fricassee, sauteed mushroom and asparagus with garlic snail
-Garnish type 1


Artichoke Fricassee, sauteed mushroom and asparagus with garlic snail
-Garnish type 2


Leeks cooked in cream, carrot puree and sauteed cod with a mango pineapple beurre blanc


Crepe layered with quail and mango pineapple chutney


Crazy Jelly dish the Chef made with Agar Agar


Sadly I do not have any pictures for Workshop 204 right now, but I am working on getting those pictures.

Week 1 of Superior

Alas I am starting to really update my blog HURRAY! So the first week of Superior has finished and we are now going onto the second week of classes. So far up to this point we've done two lessons + practicals and one workshop. The first lesson was pretty simple and we pretty much learned a few techniques on making garnishes for our plates in the future. We were shown how to make tempura, deep frying other vegetables and how to make savory tuilles. The practical was nothing too crazy for our first day back into the kitchen, especially mine since I have been in the production kitchen for the past 6 months. We were allowed to work in groups, so i grouped up with Nicholas and we did pretty good for the first class. The second day of class wasn't so bad either, we did a spiced Pollock with turned artichokes and a eggplant charlotte stuffed with brunoise of vegetables (peppers, zucchini and onions). The first day really helped set the mood to be back in the kitchen but the second day really started to get our engines going. Surprisingly it went by pretty well, the chef had nothing bad to say about my vegetables or fish. Only thing was that my plating was plain and simple, Chef Benoit said that its okay for now but he wants to see more complexity in the future. Then we had our first workshop day, for some reason I was brutally nervous and just could not get a good nights sleep before that day. First thing in the kitchen was Chef Benoit showing us how to cook up the calamari dish, after that we could go on and proceed to doing the workshop. As nervous as I was I went straight to get all my mise en place done and before I knew it I was working faster than what I had predicted. As the time ticked away I thought maybe I could have done some more and told myself that for the next workshop I will try something more complex. At around 6:15pm was when we were to all serve our main courses and clean up. The Chef decided to do a group evaluation instead of a solo one on one chat about each of our dishes. He picked a few out and explained why they didn't work and why not to do something like that. He also picked out a few that were on the right track and some elements that we could try and use for future workshops. After wards I asked the chef what he thought about my dish, he told me that the garnishes were alright but the meat should have been presented in a different manor. He showed me how unstable the meat would be to be stacked up like that. (refer to my veal picture under) Overall I feel that my first week back from not being in class for so long as been pretty good. Even with that I'm gonna work harder and try even harder so I can continue to do well.


Chef's Dishes from Demo 2





My Dishes from workshop 201

Got a Scholrship !

Hey everyone, so on March 20th 2010 I went to the Taiwanese Merchants Association of Toronto's Gala dinner to receive a scholarship. At first it was kinda weird to be there but after meeting the other receivers the night turned out to be pretty good. In terms of food it wasn't too impressive, chicken was a bit over so was the salmon, the mushroom soup I just don't have any words for it. Oh well at least the company was good! A few days after the gala I get this phone call from the a Chinese newspaper World Journal and it was the lady who was taking our pictures that night. She did a quick phone interview with me about how I came to be in Culinary school.

22歲的林書緯是家中唯一的男孩子，上有兩個姐姐，按照常理他會被嬌慣得不會做家務事。然而他卻放棄讀了一年的大學，去追求從小就有的夢想——成為一名優秀的廚師，並且還將廚藝一路發揮到了聯邦總理哈珀的家宴上。

3歲從台灣來加拿大的林書緯，從小就喜歡看爸爸媽媽煮飯，夢想將來自己在大輪船上、大飯店裡揮舞鍋鏟的快樂。他約12歲時開始在佛光山組織的活動中幫助擦桌子，再大一些，他就可以做些複雜的工作︰切菜、炸豆腐，忙得不亦樂乎。

高中畢業後，林書緯進入懷雅遜（Ryerson）大學信息技術專業學習，對信息技術完全沒興趣的林書緯讀得很不開心。一年後，當他宣布退學去學廚師的時候，遭到媽媽的反對，在他的堅持和舅舅幫忙勸說下，媽媽終於同意他去追求一直以來的夢。

林書緯於是進入渥太華餐飲藝術學院學習法國餐。每堂課上，先看老師演示四道菜，之後去廚房按照老師教的程序，親自動手做一道。剛開始的時候做出來的味道總是怪怪的，現在他自信地說，我做菜的方法和味道幾乎可以與老師一模一樣了。林書緯所參與的義務工作，幾乎都與食物有關，除了在佛堂幫廚外，還參與青年動力小組（Power Unit）每年夏天舉辦的多倫多夜市，策畫其中的美食大賽，並幫助其他年輕人制定開辦美食攤位的商業計畫；到庇護所為無家可歸者分發食物；另外還為小的慈善團體募捐等。

當林書緯毫不經意地說出去總理的家宴上幫廚時，讓記者大吃一驚︰他學習法國餐僅僅六個月啊！林書緯說，因為老師與總理的御用廚師很熟。哈珀總理有三名廚師，有時他在家中招待國會成員或者傳媒朋友時，會舉辦300人到400人的宴會。每當家廚忙不過來，就會到渥太華餐飲藝術學院搬救兵，林書緯於是自告奮勇。第一次去時十分緊張，渾身冒汗，連話都不敢多說，只是乖乖地坐在一邊，讓他幹什麼才敢動一動。去過三、四次後漸漸放鬆了，現在他與總理的廚師也成為了好朋友，總理在宴會後還與他們合影，並對他們的廚藝表示滿意。他說最遺憾的是，沒有趕上為美國總統歐巴馬獻藝。

談起將來的計畫，林書緯說，他還想學習西餐和義大利餐，然後到船上、飯店裡去工作，十幾年後開個自己的餐廳。


-Taken from World Journal epaper

世界新聞網-多倫多 <-- Orignal Epaper article


I know its in Chinese but I don't know how to translate it haha, I had someone read it to me.

Since I'm now going into Superior Cuisine, I will try to recap most of what happened during Intermediate in the next few days. I'll try to keep each post as small as possible or just do one long post about Intermediate Cuisine.

Hello anyone reading

Its been a while since I have actually updated my blog, I kinda went from blogging almost everyday to blogging once a week to I got so busy that I forgot. Things have calmed down some and when April comes I'll be blogging about my Superior Cuisine Session, till then I'll try to blog about what culinary stuff I'm up to.

At long last!

Gratin de fraises au sabayon 2, originally uploaded by FinasZ.

ALRIGHT! I think its time to be not lazy and finally sit down and actually update my blog; it’s been about a whole week since it saw an update. For one I am sorry for not updating as much as I usually do, been quite tired after school or busy with other things. Tonight however I am free and am dedicated to updating my blog up to par. Alright since the last actual time I updated my blog, a few lessons have gone by, I last stopped off at lesson 22 and now we’re on lesson 26 with one extra lesson about offals!

First up lesson 23, in the demonstration we learned Blanquette de cuisses de grenouilles, Coquilles saint-jacques provencales, Feuilletes d’escargots aux champignons des bois, praires farcies and moules marinieres. In the order that I listed them, this is what type of meat was used for each dish, frog legs, scallops, snail, clams and mussles. When I first heard that we were making frog legs and snails (escargots) I was shocked, since it would be my first time trying both. Sadly though I wasn’t brave enough to try both, I did however cook the frog legs! For the practical class it was pretty interesting, we had to cook two dishes which was a first for us. Not only did we have to cook two dishes but we also had to do it service style. The chef would make groups and then he would go to each group and call orders to us. The first round of orders were pretty straight forward and we only had about 15 minutes to cook both dishes. Of course we were given about an hour to prepare all of the ingredients; we just weren’t allowed to cook any of it. The first round of orders were easy, it was the second round that got a bit complicated. The chef wanted us to feel like what it would feel like in a real restaurant environment, so he would call out the dishes but with no gluten or no tomato. My group was a bit lucky and we didn’t get an order too crazily complicated. The frog legs and scallops I made were pretty good, the first two plates I presented the chef said the frog legs were a bit over salted and the scallops weren’t. Then when round two came by, I had both seasoned perfectly and cooked to the right perfection. I felt that because I had a chance to correct myself right away I was able to produce a better dish. That’s pretty much the same way I generally feel about the previous classes we had, after each and every practical I learn the dish better and feel that I could do a lot better if I got a second chance.

Next lesson 23 and a half, this lesson was just a demonstration class with no practical afterwards. The special thing about this lesson was that it was entirely on offals, yes you read right OFFALS. In case you don’t know what offals are, they are organs and extremities. There are many offals that are edible some are liver, heart, lungs, brains, sweetbread, tripes and prarie oysters. The ones that the chef cook that night were veal brain (I think I forget it if it was veal or lamb), veal kidney, veal liver and veal sweet bread. The smells that were coming up while the chef was cooking were quite interesting, especially when he was cooking the kidneys. In the end I only had enough courage to try the veal brains and sweetbread, which tasted like a really mushy fat. I can’t quite pinpoint the full taste or texture of it, but if anything the texture was like a really rough puree. While I ate both of them I had to force my brain to think about other things other than what I was about to eat.

Lesson 24, we only learned three recipes this time and they were aubergines imam bayildi (eggplant), osso-bucco piemontaise (braised veal knuckle) and gratin de fraises au sabayon (a sweet dessert made with strawberries). Out of the three recipes that we learned that day I had to make the osso-bucco piemontaise. The eggplant though I would really like to try sometime because it tasted quite good. During practical the osso-bucco wasn’t that hard to make, there was just a lot of things to do and we had to race against time since the chef gave us about an hour and half to finish it. For this practical I didn’t really panic much or forget many small details, when I plated to the chef it turned out pretty good. The veal knuckle was cooked well and the sauce tasted alright, except that there was a bit too much fat in the sauce. Other than that one error the chef didn’t have anything out much to complain about, he even said that my seasoning was good.

Onwards to lesson 25, this lesson was quite interesting because in this lesson the chef had to drag a few things on just so that he could do something other than standing there waiting for something to finish cooking. In this lesson we learned to make salade tiede de foies de volaille (this was a warm chicken liver salad), cotes de porc charcutiere (pork chops) and savarin aux fruits (drunken cake). Alright so today we had to make one of my favorite things to eat, pork chops. The catch here is that the pork chops come still attached as a rib and we have to debone and clean them before sautéing. Like the chef had told us before, once you debone and clean one rib all other ribs are pretty much the same. Well he was right, once we did that big beef rib all the other ribs that we had to do were pretty easy and very similar. We also had to make a mashed potato side dish, which wasn’t too crazily hard minus the fact that mine almost died. While I was keeping it was on the bain marie (hot water bath) the plastic wrap broke and some water somehow got in. I thought that the potatoes were ruined, panicked, borrowed my friend’s potato just so I could plate. When I went up to the chef I told him what had happened and showed him mine, but also told him the one on the plate wasn’t mine. He looked at it and tried it, and told me that there wasn’t anything wrong with it. I gave him a blank stare and he said that since only water had fallen into the potatoes, nothing was ruined. I couldn’t figure out why till he explained to me, he said that with water I could just strain the potatoes and then on low heat steam out the water. He also told me that it was a good thing it was only water, because if it was anything else my potatoes would have been ruined. Other than the potato scare, my sauce and my pork chop was cooked properly. I was quite surprised that I managed to cook the pork chop with some pink still in the middle when I was quite sure it was fully cooked (mind that these were LARGE pork chops).

Ah Lessons 26, finally I have caught up in blogging about school, in this lesson we learned how to make civet de lapin a la francaise (rabbit stew), soufflé au fromage (cheese soufflé) and bavarois rubane (a mousse with 3 different layers). The crazy part of today’s class was that we had to debone and cook a rabbit at the same time make our own pasta. First of all I was a bit freaked out that we had to cook rabbit, I thought that out of all the things in life rabbit would be the only thing I would never cook. Turns out I was wrong, although I did try some of the rabbit meat and it didn’t really have any crazy taste to it. It was like I was eating any other meat, maybe like if I were eating chicken. Today though was insane, some of the intermediate and superior students were telling us that a lot of people during their session didn’t finish on time. With that being said we were all panicking a bit, but at the end of the day we all pretty much finished by 2 and a half hours, except for me and two other people (we finished 2 minutes late). Deboning the rabbit wasn’t too hard after I did it once and got a feel of where I should cut and what not. The annoying part was to clean off the rib tips, your suppose to somehow rip the skin right off the ribs and then cut off the excess meat. The chef was being nice and told us that we only had to present one of the rib pieces cleaned. Making the pasta dough wasn’t too bad; it was rolling it out to be super thin that was a pain. In the end when I presented my dish to the chef, he told me over all everything was good minus the fact I was a bit late and that my pasta was a bit thick. Today was a pretty good day for me in practical, since today’s dish is supposed to be one of the hardest to complete on time.

With the days going by, I come to realize that time just keeps on flying by, when school first started it felt like 3 months was a long time away. Now that I took in a deep breath and slowed down the world a bit, I figured that 3 months is like a blink of an eye. With that in mind, my final exam is coming up soon! Hopefully I have learned well enough and am going to furiously study and prepare for it. With all my experiences and with my constant improving of my techniques, I feel that by the time exams are here I will be able to ace it. I also feel that as the days go on I feel more and more confident about my cooking skills as well as my task management skills.

Because of the over due update to my blog, there are too many pictures so it would be a lot faster if you just visited my flickr account and look at all the mouth watering pictures there
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