I am my own worst enemy...

The first semester of my chef course has come to an end, and although my marks are among the best in the class, there´s one aspect that I feel I really need to work on: that of conquering my nerves. Over-confidence is a trait I would prefer possessing, rather than being plagued by shyness and anxiety. The shyness has been my constant partner since a young age, but the anxiety has taken on new levels lately. Give me a written test and I´m perfectly fine as soon as I pick up a pen, but the cooking evaluations are a different story. Take this scenario:

It´s our last test for cooking class. I´ve studied and practised the recipes backwards and forwards. I couldn´t be more prepared. On the way to uni the nervousness starts. Butterflies in the tummy, normal. In the changing room one of my classmates comments on how pale I am. At this stage it´s 10 minutes before I have to enter the kitchen and the recipes in my memory are all melting into a one-pot-wonder. Self-doubt, sweaty palms, tight chest, difficulty breathing. I drop my bag of knives, almost walk into the door post. The last minute before entering I spend trying to calm my breathing. Once inside, the teacher asks me two theoretical questions. The temperature of a rare steak, and the process for making Duchess potatoes. I know the answers and I´m doing fine until the Spanish word for "egg-wash" deludes me. I can feel my face start to redden as I wrack my brain for the word. The teacher finally puts me out of my misery and gives me a hint. I stutter "dorado" and can breath again.

Next I´m given the instructions of what I´ll be preparing. I have an hour and a half to make a Menu for 1:

• Grilled fillet of corvinilla (fish)
• Hollandaise sauce
• "Exotic" rice (rice pilaf with tomato, poppy seeds and parsley)
• turned potatoes, boiled and then sauteed until golden (dorado, there´s that word again!)

Easy. In fact, I made almost the same dish 2 days before at home, minus the potatoes and with salmon. It was delicious if I do say so myself. Cristóbal agreed...

Se le quema el arroz

Anyway, after I turn the potatoes and put them on the boil I start with the rice. Things are going well, but I glance at the time and realise it is flying as usual. I try to work as fast as possible without panicking. First thing to do for the rice is fry some onion and then the rice grains. I leave the pot for a second (MISTAKE) and when I return some (not more than 8) of the grains have burnt slightly. Damn it! The perfectionist in me decides to throw it away and start over.(SETBACK) The teacher sees me and asks me what the hell I am doing. I explain that the rice has burnt a bit and that I´m going to do it again. She then tells me that it is not allowed to repeat anything during a test. WHAT?! (DISASTER) I am completely floored by this. How could it be that I never knew about such an important rule? If I had known that I would have continued with what I had!  I choke a bit on my misfortune, imagining how naked and unexotic (although some might argue that naked is exotic) my plate is going to look without the rice. Panic rises, I swallow it back because time is ticking. My potatoes are boiled, so I start on the hollandaise sauce. The classmate next to me  is busy whisking his and I notice that it curdles. Thank the stars mine turns out fine.

What hollandaise should look like

 So it´s on to sauteing the potatoes and grilling the fish. One of my potatoes breaks in half. (MISHAP) I return to my counter and my heart sinks to my rubber non-slip clad feet. My sauce looks like lumpy yellow glue! I realise I'd forgotten to put cling wrap over the surface and that it´s congealed completely. (CALAMITY) With my confidence on the floor I finish grilling the fish (at this point I hardly care if it´s cooked or not) and finally present my sad dish of fish and one and a half turned potatoes. Sans rice, sans sauce, sans an ounce of confidence left...

As the teacher said encouragingly, this was just a stumbling block, not a fall. But what perplexes me the most is that I know I can cook and have perfect results at home, but when it counts my nerves let me down and make me look like a fool. I don´t know if there´s a solution, but I´ve noticed that some indifferent classmates don´t suffer from nervousness. Maybe that´s my problem, maybe I just care too much?

Next semester I might try that blasé strategy. And if something does go wrong, I shall try not let it fase me to the extent that is creates a snowball effect and destroys everything in it wake. Cooking, after all, is a form of art, and as that poster in Mr. Wansink´s art class stated:  MAKE A MISTAKE WORK...

Sweet versus savoury

Fruit tart

Roast chicken with Duchess potatoes

In my first ever Pastry class, our teacher asked us whether we were more inclined towards baking or cooking. I was unsure about my answer, knowing that I definitely prefer savoury food, but as I didn´t know much about baking I wasn´t willing to dismiss the sweets and 
puddings just yet.
 Don´t get me wrong, I can guzzle chocolates and cupcakes with the best of those with a sweet (or rotten?) tooth, but if you put a juicy lamb chop and a fluffy wedge of lemon meringue pie in front of me, there´s no doubt my carnivorous instincts will grab the former. 

trying my hand at piping

Chilean classic "Brazo de Reina"
(Queen´s Arm) Grossly sweet,
filled and iced with manjar 
(dulce de leche/ caramel treat)

As the first semester of cooking school nears it end, I´ve come to the conclusion that my salty palate still reigns high, but that I´m actually enjoying the baking workshops more than the cooking.

Making pie crust

Beef steak with turned potatoes
and hollandaise sauce

This is due mainly to the fact that when it comes to baking basically ALL is new to me. Besides for her beloved homemade bread, my mom´s not big on baking (very non-German of her, actually), and my skills were limited to Christmas cookies and banana bread... unlike my classmates who´ve all made many a pie, pudding and pastry. It´s fun learning all the different techniques and types of crusts, doughs, creams, not to mention the decorating --which I´m presently surprised to discover I´m actually quite good at... But, when it comes to tasting these overly sugared desserts at the end of class, I find myself reminiscing about that beef fillet and potatoes we made the day before... How about you, sweet or salty?

Cultural concoction...

I consider myself extremely lucky to have grown up in a family where food and it's goodness has always been high up there on the importance scale. My mom surely cooks the most flavourful food I've ever tasted - and NO, I'm not just saying that because she's my mother...  The blending of German frankness (cheese, potatoes, bread, yogurt, butter) with South African farm freshness and unpretentious cooking methods (braai, potjie, spitbraai), infused with mom's propensity for all things wholesome and healthy = a recipe for divine.

Now this cultural melting pot is being spiced up even more, as I welcome the opportunity to sample and learn the recipes and flavours of Chile. But it doesn't end there. As my luck would have it, my in-laws spent the first 10 years of their marriage living in Lima, resulting in Luz Clemencia's kitchen being very heavily and heavenly infused with Peruvian dishes. A few weeks ago my parents-in-law planned our civil wedding at their beautiful home in the Chilean countryside. Taking advantage of the fact that all 6 Graf siblings would be there, we decided to keep the occasion as small and intimate as possible. After a short ceremony, the culinary treats started arriving and didn't stop until late that night...The unchallenged consensus around the lunch table at the well-travelled Grafs, was that Peruvian cuisine is by far the best all had tasted. As my husband's aunt put it : "You're wasting your time at chef school, you should be learning from your mother-in-law"... And I wholly agreed as we sampled salmon ceviche, chupe de camarones (prawn stew), olive and caramelised onions empanadas, juicy turkey, and delicious salads of produce fresh out the garden. 

I find it strangely comforting that cooking is an art that one can never fully master, that you could cook

Newly aquired family

something different for every meal of every day for the rest of your life but still not come near to experiencing all those flavours out there. For now, I'm happy to learn from those that have kept my and my husband's tummies happy and healthy over the years... 

"Más chileno que el mote con huesillos..."

Say what? Let me explain... This week in the pastry workshop we cooked various types of stewed/ mashed/ pureed fruit, among others the Chilean classic drink /dessert, Mote con huesillos.  Mote refers to grains of barley, parboiled and peeled.  Huesillos are dried peaches, here named after ossicles or little bones, although personally I think they resemble testicles. The huesillos (pronounced wesiyos) are soaked overnight in water, and then boiled in that same water, along with sugar and spices such as cinnamon, cardomom, cloves... 

The mote also gets boiled seperately in sugar. Once soft, a caramel (yup, more sugar!) gets added to the huesillos, creating a syrupy golden brown mixture. After cooling, the little testicles have to be depipped. Traditionally the mote con huesillos is served cold as a refreshing drink, the mote at the bottom of a tall glass, covered in the syrupy goodness of the huesillos.

In Chile you will find this in restaurants as a dessert, at markets or on busy city streets, sold from vending carts. It's classic, common, traditionally Chilean, and therefore exists the saying 

"more Chilean than mote con huesillos..."

Excuse my French...

Julienne...chiffonade.. brunoise... parmentier... ridiculously fancy names for ridiculously small cuts of veggies or fruit. I imagine every person who's studied culinary arts and got his money's worth had to undergo this tedious task of slicing and dicing things into perfect (and I mean PERFECT) shapes of exact equal size. This is what our first kitchen "workshop" consisted of, and we are told that this will not be the last time we'll be subjected to this French foolishness. I understand that having equally sized pieces ensures a balanced cooking process, but who wants to eat an al dente piece of potato the size of a baby's finger nail?

What I do find interesting is the history of where the names of these cuts come from. Antoine Parmentier, for example, is credited with introducing the potato to France. He came to know the tasty tuber while being held captive in Prussia during the 7 Year War. Later he defended it as a nutritional alternative and managed to get the laws lifted that prohibited its cultivation in France. Until then the potato had been considered inedible in the greater part of Europe. After the French Revolution the cultivation of potato hugely alleviated the famine that prevailed. And for all his effort Parmentier was awarded by naming a 1cm cube of potato after him...

I for one am more partial to robust, rustic chopping, something you can actually bite into! But still, I'm eager to learn and perfect all the French rules and margins, even if only to know better how to break them... oh rébellion!

Enough history and folly for one day.  Next week: mayonaisse :)

New beginnings...

In Chile, prison sentences are always given with an extra day, i.e. a convict would never be sentenced to 3 years, but always 3 years and A day... Don't ask me why, that's just how it is. That's why my very  new husband will joke: "We've been married for one month and a day..."  and so we have, although I don't like to think of our fresh marriage as a prison sentence. Well, not yet anyway...

Getting married ear-marked another change for us: that of moving from our humble adobe abode in the desert to Antofagasta, the not-so-lovely coastal city in the north of Chile. Believe it or not, this place is even drier than San Pedro, and because of the lack of rainfall the streets and buildings are bathed in desert dust, sticking to everything because of the high humidity. But Antofagasta is not all grime and garbage, and we are hard set on discovering it's hidden jewels. It definitely doesn't lack in natural grandure, if the people just weren't so set on ruining it!

Inacap Technical College

So step 1) get married....            check!
     step 2) move house...            check!
     step 3) study culinary arts....  about to start!


I've enrolled in a 2 year course of "Gastronomia Internacional" and will be starting this week! This blog aims to inform those of you that are bored and obliged to read this (if you are family or close friend, yes you are obliged) of the trials and tribulations of a chef in the making. That's if I don't chop my fingers off...