Well, I finally got my internship for baking. I start my first day at a vegan bakery tomorrow. Posts will follow shortly afterwards.
Hours-wise, I'm halfway done with my sushi externship. Honestly, this experience has become horrible. I can't ask for help because then I lose responsibilities and I can't make mistakes because then I get yelled at.
I'm trying my absolute best to do a good, respectable job so I can just get through this and move on to better places of employment. I feel quite frustrated and don't know how to improve the situation.
One thing I have done was helping to make the sushi vinegar. We make it in big batches and use as needed. We combine the rice wine vinegar with some seasonings before stirring in a lot of sugar, letting it sit, and stirring again. The end taste should be salty sugar. That I expected, but we also added some other strange things like a nori sheet and lemon wedges.
Another thing I tried about a week about was making sashimi for the first type, which is a raw fish (or whatever the topping is) atop a small portion of rice. It's much harder than it looks to do. It begins with having the fish laid out on your palm and placing the rolled rice onto it. It's shaped with your fingers while they're in somewhat of a claw position. You can then flip it into that hand so that it can be transferred back right side up. After that, it just must be shaped until it looks good. I'm still getting the hang of it.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
Post 2 - Sushi
I'm now slowly becoming more accustomed to working with sushi. Gradually I'm learning all of the normal procedures for how to do things around here and I'm making more kinds of rolls.
Although what we do varies day to day, my general routine is as follows:
1. Make mixture for spicy tuna rolls.
2. Make rolls for our regular catering order; I make 2 spicy tuna, 2 spicy tuna w/ avocado, 2 California, 1 Alaskan.
3. Go downstairs (kitchen is in basement) for more supplies
4. Prep more ingredients for sushi, including cucumbers, avocado, daikon radish (garnish), lettuce (garnish), parsley (garnish), shrimp, baked tuna, spicy crab meat mix, and some other things.
5. Separate fish (tuna) from connective tissue for more spicy tuna mix as well, which is fun but messy!
6. About now is the lunch rush so I usually do some rolls about now, depending on what people order.
7. After that we clean up, get any other supplies we need, finish prepping the cucumbers, and finally break.
8. Of course, if any orders come in we'll do them.
As well, periodically throughout the day we need to make more rice of course!
Today, something I did for the first time was make the rice all by myself. Usually Jack is with me but today I was able to do in on my own. It came out good! It is rather simple though. Just needed to get the rice, put it in a strainer in a mesh cloth, rinse it, and put it in our rice cooker with water and set it to cook. One thing to note is that unlike everyday long-grain rice, sushi/short-grain rice doesn't need double the amount of water. For 6 cups of rice, we use 6 1/4 C water. Also, sushi rice is INCREDIBLY sticky though. I didn't think to wet the cloth that we place over the rice to help keep the rice warm and the rice stuck to it like crazy.
Also, today at home I actually decided to make some California rolls! I just can't get enough, I suppose. It was a lot more difficult than it usually it at work unfortunately, but the rolls still came out pretty alright regardless.
Also, I finished up a cake I was working on tonight so I'll include that because...why not? It's el Pastel de Tres Velas~~ and it has real candles in the cake "candles" because I thought it'd be clever. It's my first real foray into turning the realm of cakes into fine art. It's just some cliche idea of the candles representing the stages of life.
But yeah, out for now. Got an interview tomorrow! Hope it goes well!
Although what we do varies day to day, my general routine is as follows:
1. Make mixture for spicy tuna rolls.
2. Make rolls for our regular catering order; I make 2 spicy tuna, 2 spicy tuna w/ avocado, 2 California, 1 Alaskan.
3. Go downstairs (kitchen is in basement) for more supplies
4. Prep more ingredients for sushi, including cucumbers, avocado, daikon radish (garnish), lettuce (garnish), parsley (garnish), shrimp, baked tuna, spicy crab meat mix, and some other things.
5. Separate fish (tuna) from connective tissue for more spicy tuna mix as well, which is fun but messy!
6. About now is the lunch rush so I usually do some rolls about now, depending on what people order.
7. After that we clean up, get any other supplies we need, finish prepping the cucumbers, and finally break.
8. Of course, if any orders come in we'll do them.
As well, periodically throughout the day we need to make more rice of course!
Today, something I did for the first time was make the rice all by myself. Usually Jack is with me but today I was able to do in on my own. It came out good! It is rather simple though. Just needed to get the rice, put it in a strainer in a mesh cloth, rinse it, and put it in our rice cooker with water and set it to cook. One thing to note is that unlike everyday long-grain rice, sushi/short-grain rice doesn't need double the amount of water. For 6 cups of rice, we use 6 1/4 C water. Also, sushi rice is INCREDIBLY sticky though. I didn't think to wet the cloth that we place over the rice to help keep the rice warm and the rice stuck to it like crazy.
Also, today at home I actually decided to make some California rolls! I just can't get enough, I suppose. It was a lot more difficult than it usually it at work unfortunately, but the rolls still came out pretty alright regardless.
Also, I finished up a cake I was working on tonight so I'll include that because...why not? It's el Pastel de Tres Velas~~ and it has real candles in the cake "candles" because I thought it'd be clever. It's my first real foray into turning the realm of cakes into fine art. It's just some cliche idea of the candles representing the stages of life.
But yeah, out for now. Got an interview tomorrow! Hope it goes well!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Post 1 - Sushi
I've completed my first, extremely short week at my sushi bar internship. Due to Memorial Day weekend, my hours have been reduced. Regardless, it's been a fun experience so far!
The actual bar where I work is very tiny. I work with my sushi chef mentor, Jack. My new coworkers are very kind and friendly despite the language barriers that exist and I'm happy to be able to have this experience.
Because I have almost no previous experience working with sushi, except for my brief stint with it in Garde Manger class, I can't do the more complex rolls yet. However, one of my goals for the externship is to work up to that point. Mostly I work on Spicy Tuna rolls, which are inside out rolls (rice on the outside) because they are very simple with only one filling (spicy tuna mix). Today I was offered the chance to do something called a Christmas roll as well as a regular Tuna roll because my dad came into buy them, so it'd be okay if they didn't look perfect. Which they didn't, heh. However, still proud of what I did do.
I'm glad to work alongside Jack because he watches me and reminds me of what I'm doing wrong and to watch my mise en place. When working with sushi, it's important to have all of your ingredients at the ready, always keep your knife perfectly clean and dry (and faced in a way so that you aren't accidentally cut).
Some other important things I get reminded of as I'm working goes beyond making the sushi. When plating them on trays or on plates it's important to remember to make it look good. When I work the style is to place the sushi diagonally usually, garnishing with lettuce and parsley, along with ginger and wasabi. I need to be conscious of making the garnishes angled vertically so that it's more aesthetically pleasing.
I've also made the sushi rice, which we tend to make in 6-8 C batches in a rice cooker. We make the sushi rice downstairs in the kitchen, which is essentially in the basement. It's also where all of the storage rooms are. After cooking, which takes 40-50 minutes, we place it into a big, wooden flat bowl and mix it with the premixed sushi vinegar-sugar mixture. It's hard to stir it around with the giant spoon, but I guess that's just part of the job! Muscles, here I come!
Now, here's a bunch of pictures taken by my dad:
The actual bar where I work is very tiny. I work with my sushi chef mentor, Jack. My new coworkers are very kind and friendly despite the language barriers that exist and I'm happy to be able to have this experience.
Because I have almost no previous experience working with sushi, except for my brief stint with it in Garde Manger class, I can't do the more complex rolls yet. However, one of my goals for the externship is to work up to that point. Mostly I work on Spicy Tuna rolls, which are inside out rolls (rice on the outside) because they are very simple with only one filling (spicy tuna mix). Today I was offered the chance to do something called a Christmas roll as well as a regular Tuna roll because my dad came into buy them, so it'd be okay if they didn't look perfect. Which they didn't, heh. However, still proud of what I did do.
I'm glad to work alongside Jack because he watches me and reminds me of what I'm doing wrong and to watch my mise en place. When working with sushi, it's important to have all of your ingredients at the ready, always keep your knife perfectly clean and dry (and faced in a way so that you aren't accidentally cut).
Some other important things I get reminded of as I'm working goes beyond making the sushi. When plating them on trays or on plates it's important to remember to make it look good. When I work the style is to place the sushi diagonally usually, garnishing with lettuce and parsley, along with ginger and wasabi. I need to be conscious of making the garnishes angled vertically so that it's more aesthetically pleasing.
I've also made the sushi rice, which we tend to make in 6-8 C batches in a rice cooker. We make the sushi rice downstairs in the kitchen, which is essentially in the basement. It's also where all of the storage rooms are. After cooking, which takes 40-50 minutes, we place it into a big, wooden flat bowl and mix it with the premixed sushi vinegar-sugar mixture. It's hard to stir it around with the giant spoon, but I guess that's just part of the job! Muscles, here I come!
Now, here's a bunch of pictures taken by my dad:
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| The Tuna Roll I Made |
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| The Christmas Roll I Made...half eaten |
 |
| I'm Smiling Cause I'm Happy! |
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| Rolling Some Rolls! |
 |
| Cutting the Christmas Roll |
 | ||
| and...Cutting the Tuna Roll Diagonally Somehow |
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