It is widely believed that our memories are obscure before a certain point in our childhood in order to protect us from recalling the trauma of our birth. If only the same could apply to my entrance into the waking world this morning. The grand lever it was not.
I worked in the kitchen again last night. More great experience, but it makes for a long day - 9am start, 11pm finish. Two of those in a row require a good night’s kip. Tough luck - today I am on salad duty - a torturous experience that entails being at the gate at 7.30am to pick leaves and prepare dressing for lunch. Consequently, I was thrown unwillingly into consciousness at an ungodly 6.45am. With birth, I imagine it is the sudden change of scene that is so traumatic. The sense of complete alienation, of having been plucked from somewhere warm and secure and thrust into the terrifying uncertainty of unfamiliar surroundings. This morning, that sense of startled bewilderment was caused by the noise. In my confused state of semi-sleep, I couldn’t identify the noise. The alarm was familiar of course, but it was combined with something else. Something unsettling. With the alarm off I listened intently. A few seconds later it dawned on me. Rain. Proper rain. Real salad picking weather.
The guy who runs the farm greets me with the old “Good news, bad news”. Does the good ever outweigh the bad? “The good news is there are no leaves to pick. The bad news is, you could have had another hour in bed”. Of course it doesn't. Still, it's better than "we've amputated both your legs but the guy opposite's offered you £2.50 for your slippers", so I take a little comfort from that.
I have a busy morning planned for myself. I am listed to make sweet dill mayonnaise, a plate of smoked fish, pan-fried steak, pommes allumettes and béarnaise. I decide to make some complicated meringues and a batch of scones as well, just to spice things up a bit. And my sourdough needs baking. The extra hour is a blessing in a sense. I get some coffee down me and start prepping things up. I make the mayo first thing and get my whites and sugars ready for the hazelnut and cinnamon meringues. I make my scone dough while I melt the sugar and eggs together, and bake them in batches whilst the mixer does the hard work. When the scones are done (they don’t last very long as all the teachers eat them) and the meringues are in the early days of their 2-hour life in the oven, I put the sourdough in. I am entering the unknown now. It is ten days since I began my starter. I fed it for a week; refreshed it twice more, kneaded it, and knocked it back. Never before have I made anything that took so long. And now I relinquish control and hand the reins over to the oven.
My béarnaise scrambles on the first attempt. It is an exercise in heat control. The pan was too hot. If the pan is too cold, the butter doesn’t melt quickly enough and you get an oily sauce. I go again. This time everything is fine, but towards the end the sauce starts to look too buttery. I used our own organic eggs, and the yolks were pretty small. I should have stopped adding the butter about half an ounce out. I thicken it up with some mayonnaise, which works for about five minutes but isn't a sustainable solution. Feeding it to the hens is. I’ll have another go tomorrow. I console myself with the fact that without fresh tarragon to add at the end, it's not really béarnaise.
I turn the sourdoughs out of their tins after twenty-five minutes or so. They’re looking good. Five minutes later I take custody of them back from the oven. Holding them in your hand, you just know. They feel light. They have a great crust. You shouldn’t slice sourdough while it’s hot, so I resist the temptation and wait an hour or so to find out. But I already know. I love bread.
Rules for cooking steaks round here - leave them in a warming oven to rest after you cook them. And there's a chart of cooking times (that makes no reference to thickness). I’m pretty good at cooking steaks. I’ve had lots of practice. But this scuppers me, since the oven cooks them on; my medium rare is medium. I cook a few more as we near lunch. The oven has been turned down, so now they’re under done, as I was compensating based on the experience and undercooking them. Consistency. You kind of need it if you’re a grill man. That and a clock in your head.
After demo we have to wait around until 6pm for a wine lecture, well half of us do anyway, since it is not compulsory. Not that 'compulsory' stops a few people from sneaking out of demo every day. Yesterday, two of them were hiding in the cleaning cupboard. Ten grand of mummy and daddy’s hard earned and they hiding in a cupboard like toddlers. Staggering. Anyway, five minutes into the wine lecture and I’m wishing I’d joined them. This woman talks. And talks. And talks. It is agonising.
At 7pm there is a re-run of the pig butchery demo next door. It doesn’t take much to convince me to make the switch from one room to the other. It is good to see it again - things start to become familiar. This takes me up until 9pm though - and I’ve been in the school for thirteen and a half hours. Right now, I’m back in the conservatory at the hotel, sculling a couple of well earned beers. I’ve had about two hours to myself in the last three days, and there is an increasingly familiar, relentless hammering noise providing the soundtrack to my evening. Something tells me it will still be there come reveillez.
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