t stands for tears

Today when I start work, doing opening and stuff my chefs keep saying why my energy level so low.. I feel normal but quite happy cause I'll be spending the evening with my beloved xue sheng.. Haven't seen her for 2 years.. I was looking forward to meet her :)

So whole day work not very good. They say I don't remember the things they taught but actually.. I just haven't do yet.. But I didn't say anything to rebut.. Too tired and too rude to do that..

My tasks today was snatched by Mr A and another Mr B. I didn't get to do the things I never do before and was assigned to. My vegetables collected was taken away without my permission, when I went to hunt for those again, they are out of stock.. Now I have to postpone the things to tomorrow..

My other chefs told me to endure cause I'm just a trainee chef, and they will be leaving in 1 more week.. I just hope tomorrow will be a better day at work.. So now I'll just briefly list what I did at work..

1. opening: cook rice, defrost stuff, roast bacon, cook patties, collect ingredients, marinate fish but my chef said i only do 2 things.. -.-"

2. daily stuff, clean up, marinate more fish, slice tomatoes

3. make tomato sauce

4. prepare for chili con carne but ingredients got stolen so had to postpone

5. stewarding cause my jobs snatch by other "hardworking" people

Seriously, if you're busy when your stuff, don't snatch everything away. I also need to work! I was supposed to prepare lemons then snatch by other people like Mr B. I see eggs cooked already want to peel, Mr B although busy he still snatch. What to do? His rank is higher. But tomorrow onwards, if its mine, I won't let you do it. Like that how do I learn things?

That's work.

Cause they snatched everything away, I got nothing to do, was told to stay outside till its time to knock off. Colleagues are surprised at how different I look after I changed. I'M NOT FROM CHINA, THANK YOU. I'M PURELY MADE IN SINGAPORE! What the hell. Stop asking me this stupid question whether I'm from China anot. No offense but this is the same as saying I do certain things but I never did. I don't have anything against China or people from there, some people I knew are great, but I just wished at least recognise me as a Singaporean, I'm proud of being a Singaporean :(

Anyway, I went to meet yingying.. We were supposed to go timbre, but in the end we lost our way and the walk in time is over, so we went to another place instead. Raffles City, some chinese restaurant. Hong Kong food, very nice :) Actually we couldn't decide what to eat but in the end it turned out that we made the right choice by choosing the restaurant with more people and the food. I had the fried seafood noodles, very fragrant and tasty. She had baked chicken rice, cheesy and creamy :D She ordered milk tea but the tea taste too strong, not balanced. I had the mango breeze, its a ice blended quite nice and taste like mango?

Then we went to esplanade to take pictures.. At the lobby there's a band called B5 playing canon in D, in different version. They have trumpet, tuba, trombone, french horn. Relaxing music. Got some very interesting ones whereby we either look too yellow or too white. Haha. But its fun. Then we give up at the location cause its too dark. So we walk around the area instead.

After that we walked to clarke quay to take mrt.. Quite a long walk but we had a good chat.. Its good to meet up with friends once in a while, repair the lost friendship.. I hope to meet up with more people soon :) And do somethings together..

For people who don't know, or you think you know me, actually you don't. There's alot things that you don't know and maybe will never know about me. But its okay, sometimes its fun to be mysterious to a certain extent :x But yeah, actually I like sports :( But I got nobody to do with.. It is kinda boring to do it alone and some can't do alone.. Like badminton? And somethings are fun to do with others like ice skating? I'm not going professional so I don't practice by myself thus yeah.. But if its something that I don't know and really really really bad at it no matter how hard I try like bowling and snooker then its okay :)

I just wish everything will be fine soon. If, only.. This is something I can wake up from..

Day 20

We're doing the same thing as yesterday. Thank goodness I'm no longer the sous chef. I'll just briefing go through what happen today.. Or else it will be a very long post again.. Haha..

1. Remove chicken and rack, place mirepoix, arrange 5 chicken on a tray. Wrap.
2. Teach Hs how to remove fats from chickie, then prepare mise en place for tortilla. Sliced 5 onions.
3. Filled containers with water. Peeled 18 potatoes while wm peeled 12.
4. Sliced potatoes using madeline?
5. Cut mirepoix. 16 carrots and 30 onions in 30minutes. (Told you I've master the skill.. Haha. I'm extremely efficient.) Besides, no one bother to help..
6. Did tortilla on my own, again. Without any help from anybody. Except when I ask E about the oil.
7. Stewarding awhile. Unclog the sink.
8. Went to chiller and freezer more than 4 times.
9. Peel onions. A few..
10. No chance to taste food cause I'm too busy. Cause no one helped, as usual. Sad.
11. Make the ice bath. Take 4 giant mixing bowl full of ice. My hands freeze. After taking out from the bath, my hands pain for quite long. Cause I put my hands inside the sink for quite long.. There's something wrong with the rubber thingy..
12. Skim the stocks.
13. Wrap all tortilla and bring to chiller.
14. Cut mirepoix for garde manger..
15. Help chef collect containers and put back to original place.
16. Wash the cloths and hang.
17. Clean the stewarding machine..
18. Mop floor one time. A few floor tiles.. Dots.
19. Take the chilled stock and the stocks just drained into freezer.

That should be all for day 20.. Can't really remember what else I did.. I consulted chef about the life of being a chef cause I don't wanna regret anything.. The one thing that I know and find out is that the stress level is higher than now.. We'll be meeting all kinds of chefs, facing different personalities customers.. At production where there isn't really any time constraint, feeling stress is not a good sign.. I need to find someway to reduce stress.. Eat more ice cream! :P I asked her about executing certain recipes, she told me that I was doing a good job, and that really make my day a better one! I will try my best! To get my dream job :) I'm so glad that I made this my first choice ^^ Kitchen is where I belong~

Stress and injuries are expected in this industry.. For me, I've scald myself quite a few times.. Now my finger hurts and my wraist has a ugly scar.. :( Sigh. Its evidence of training.. Haha. End of day 20. 3 more days to be in the production team..

Day 15

Today is one of those days where I really wanna study.. Woke up feeling tired, cause i got a shock thats why I woke up.. Today's whole day is lecture.. About Asian cuisine.. The chef who lectured us was very entertaining.. Which is the most possible reason for me not falling asleep despite my tiredness.. In fact, I felt very energetic and was paying full attention throughout the whole lecture.. And the tutorial after school.. I'm such a hardworking student.. HAHA!

However, the class today was different from the past 3 weeks.. Many people are absent from school.. And the class is surprisingly noisy. Hello~ We're lucky enough to have a chef like him teaching us, if your don't want to pay attention, people like me wants to. Besides, those things that he said, will come out in test. Count me out if your intend to fail. -.-" This also shows me something.. I didn't concentrate enough to block out all the disruption. Sigh. But at least I copied now most of the things he said and on the slides, so I still gain :B

Anyway, back to the lecture. We learnt about Asian cuisine today.. China, the "mother cuisine", Vietnam & Thailand for seasoning and balancing taste, Japan for the konbu and umami, India for her spices. The way the lecture goes, its fun and yet educational.. We learnt the "stir fry dance" and watch the chef demo a stir fry dish.. It was delicious! UMAMI! Haha. The sauce is really addictive.. The chicken is very tender, so does the onions. I'm not sure how to describe the taste, but its great! Its hard to forget the taste, once you tried this, others is not so satisfying. Haha.

Then the lecture continues to Japan with its konbu (seaweed) and umami (deliciousness), we learnt how to prepare a dashi (Japanese stock) which is pretty simple.. It taste of konbu? Haha.. We also tried bonito flakes which is dried sliced tuna.. It is also one of the ingredient for making a dashi, the backbone of Japanese cuisine :)

After a short break and some lecture on Thailand and Vietnam cuisine, we tried to balance our fish sauce using sugar, lime juice, garlic and chili. Believe it, the process is not what you can imagine.. First, we dump all the garlic and chili into the fish sauce. Taste: Salty and spicy. Then we add 1/2 tsp of sugar. And we were told to taste. Sweetness? NO WAY! It tasted more salty but less spicy. It turned out that the more sugar we add, the more salty it become. How to balance? Then we add lime juice. Saltier, less spicy and a little sour. Still no sweetness.. We were told to adjust the taste using lime juice and sugar till we get the taste that we want.. (Which is very long later)

We went to visit India next. We've identify some spices and the chef prepared a standard Garam Masala for us to taste. It was spicy and hot. But not to the extend that you will breathe out fire.. Haha. After "visiting" the Asian countries, we'll be "going" to the western countries tomorrow.. And we'll also be learning about fabrication. Looks like there are more food to be eaten! YEAH~

Well, as today's lesson plan is only the lecture, we ended quite early.. 1 plus close to 2pm.. We thought of pushing the tutorial at 5pm forward but we couldn't reach our tutor.. So we went to the computer lab to play the game for basic entrepreneurship. The only challenge that I see is looking for a computer in the lab.

The game is not challenging enough, the story is quite meaningless. Wait, is there even a story? I think is just selling the product you chose.. You really just sit there and click buttons. And you can actually don't do anything at all just skip the whole day. You'll still earn money that way.. As long as you have enough supplies.. How fun can that be? We have to complete at least 30days.. I've reached day 56 in 1hr plus? Oh, I sell ice cream by the way.. Haha. Its expected from me :) Compare to all those time management games that I played, this don't really seems like a game to me.. They should improve on the game play.. And the graphics.. Its like you don't see anything besides numbers, a computer, calculator, fax machines, clock, ice cream, table, graphs and some shadows with words who is your customers. -.-" Luckily, I've already completed more than what is required. This means that I no longer have to touch that "game" again. YEAH~

You've come to the end of day 15. I'm going to complete my report for basic entre now.. :)

PS: People you have to submit your menu for commis chef challenge in 14days time. WAHAHAHA~ 9 different recipes, no repetition of ingredients!