The Vegetarian Killa’ : Culinary School Adventures

When the headless chicken and I first locked eyes, I thought that there was no way I was going to survive the culinary program. It was only the second week in the kitchen.  I knew when I signed up for the program what I was getting myself into. I figured I would be able to handle the dead meat. When the moment actually arrived, I was squeamish and disgusted.  The blood dripped off the poor chicken’s dead body. I was so shook up for a second that I couldn’t tell where the legs were and where the wings were. Random thoughts raced through my mind like, “How would I feel if someone did this to me?” Weird, I know.

My Kill Board

The funny thing is that I have tried chicken before. Dan even cooks it from time to time at home. We buy the breast or the thigh meat at the big grocery stores where all meat looks the same. Red or white.  You can barely tell what it was before it was cut up into small pieces.  You don’t know what kind of a life the animal lived, what it thought right before it died, and where it came from.  The industrial complex has made life easier and simpler and at the same time removed us from knowing where our food comes from and how it was grown, and processed. Hopefully, I will be more informed as I move along the course. One of the interesting things about Boulder is that it is at the forefront of organic and farm to table movement in the country. There are a lot of restaurants here that source all their produce and meat from the local farms. Some restaurants even have their own farms where they ensure the animals are treated humanely and can run around freely instead of being jammed together in a holding pen. The culinary program has a farm to table component as well which means I will be working on a farm for 3 weeks at the end of my program!  I am really excited about it as I will finally learn to grow and harvest veggies the right way after only able to grow three bell peppers, two tomatoes and some herbs the entire summer on our little patio in NJ! 

Anyways, back to the headless chicken.  

Afraid of touching the chicken remains with my bare hands, I put on the gloves and started working on removing the wings first. My hands were shaking and my heart was racing. The guy next to me smiled and said, “Shru, it’s ok. It is already dead.” I looked around, took a deep breath then…popped the legs out of their sockets and then, slowly after 10 laborious minutes, I took the breasts off the keel bone. It was done and I was exhausted. I felt like I was dissecting it for hours when it was only 20 minutes.  I was happy I survived my first dismemberment!

Practising at home: Dead chicken and I are buddies now

“Come to Mama”

Final product

Since the first chicken experience and five weeks into the program, I have cut up 3 more chickens, fillet’d two whole fish, cured a big piece of salmon (gravlax), cleaned and cut up beef tenderloin, pork butt, shucked oysters, cleaned mussels and shrimp. I have also cleaned sweetbreads (veal thymus gland). And the good news is that I haven’t passed out yet.  I might save that for when I cook snails and frog legs 😉

Showing off my sweetbreads cleaning skills

Don’t these sweetbreads look appetizing…yummy..NOT!

My experiment with beef: Swiss Steak

The poor lamb

and the piggy

Chef demonstrating filleting Salmon

My Sole Meuinere

My mussels with the fish veloute were a HIT! I know, hard to believe!

shrimpies

Raw Oyster Tasting Party!