Week 12: A Simple Prep Day VS A Stressful Event Day

Nov 21, 2017
5 min read

Day 1: Our prep day for Pasta Palooza seemed so simple as I looked over my group’s schedule for the class period so I didn’t feel too panicked about what we had to accomplish. Considering a numerous amount of the stress I would feel for this section of the class was going to be on the actual event day I wanted to take my time to not stress out too much on our prep day. Our prep day needed to be as exact and thorough as we made it seem in our preparation plan.

We started off meeting at our table and going over some of the last-minute things we needed to discuss before our event day as we waited for Chef to call our table over to gather our ingredients. The items we needed to prepare were our pineapple – pomegranate infused syrup, our alfredo sauce base & our pasta dough. Simple on paper, simple in time.

My task for the day was preparing our drink for our event – which originally was a grapefruit-pomegranate syrup but as Chef mentioned that pineapple juice was the only item he could swing we needed to react quickly and work with what we got. At first, I was worried that pineapple wouldn’t go with our original idea for a healthy drink. But I acted quickly, researching the health benefits of the fruit and seeing that it added even more to the original idea than we had thought. Considering the history of fettuccine alfredo, we thought creating a drink that could provide relief from indigestion and even provide antioxidants would bring something even more precise and healthier to the table – luckily for us the pineapple worked just as well!

The steps for creating the syrup were as follows:

-Combine 4 cups of pineapple juice, 4 cups of pomegranate juice, 4 cups of sugar & star anise pods into a saucepan over medium heat

-Boil ingredients for 1 minute, stirring constantly to dissolve the sugars

-Remove the saucepan from heat and let sit for 30 minutes

-Strain/discard the solids

-Let the syrup cool completely – favorably in an ice bath

I was able to finish my task with plenty of time left in the class so I could begin helping my group gather all the materials we needed for our event day. I gathered tuber ware for all the ingredients we needed such as our syrup, our alfredo base, parmesan cheese & the heavy cream! I then helped saran wrap the dough for our pasta and the parsley that we needed for our garnish. Surprisingly enough, my group had planned out our prep tasks so well we were ready to place our tray away for event day and begin cleaning up!

My AHA moment, Chef walked by our table towards the end of our prep time and noted that he could tell my group had prepared a very specific and precise preparation plan to follow for the time we had. This made me feel so proud of the work I put into the plan. After not being as prepared as I could be for the last two events I made it a priority to be specific in creating our schedule for this event. I’m glad my work was noticed.

Here are some pictures of our original preparation plan (that included the grapefruit infused drink), the revised pineapple-pomegranate infused syrup cooling down, our finished sheet tray filled with all our ingredients, our wrapped and beautifully kneaded pasta dough & our funny looking wrapped parsley for our garnish!

Day 2: For the love of pasta, this event day was incredibly stressful! I had a detailed plan of everything my group needed to do, what to bring, what to get when in the kitchen and things were still overwhelming.

To begin, my group member Ryan and I were able to come in early to begin rolling and cutting our pasta. At first, we had a good routine down and were rolling and sectioning at a great pace. But once it was time to begin cutting our pasta into our desired fettuccine shapes all the dough had stuck together and we were forced to knead and roll all over again – which I did not plan for in my prep plan schedule.

My partner, Ryan had a good handle on starting over so I went over to our station to begin setting up for our event. The theme that we thought was most versatile for us to work with as a cooking school in Italy with one of the best chefs around. Our decorations all come out beautifully and really looked like a classic Italian kitchen – if only we were in Italy for real! The time was running low and our event was getting ready to begin. As my group went over our checklist, we saw that our noodles were cut and ready for service, our sauce was thickening and our drink was ready to be handed out.

We thought that taking our assigned part in the “rating system” requirement and intertwining it into our theme would make our guests understand why it was so important. The layout had me introducing our concept to the guests, handing them our drink and then explaining how if they were to use the website Relais & Châteaux they could find our chef (Ryan) and see what he cooks and why he is passionate about his job which was the perfect transition into meeting our chef and getting their dish made for them.

All in all, our pasta turned out delicious and even received a fantastic review from Chef Mark – which made the whole event even more worth it. Although, I was incredibly stressed at the beginning of the event due to needing start over and being rushed to get the whole table set up practically on my own – everything turned out beautifully and in the end wasn’t as bad as I thought it would have been.

My AHA moment, as I thought about how everything from this event day after class I realized that my biggest AHA moment wasn’t anything said from anybody else but rather from my own perspective. Things become incredibly and overwhelmingly stressful even when you think they should be a breeze and no matter how prepared you think are, sometimes things don’t follow according to plan. But it does not matter what happens to you, it matters what you do after things happen to you. So, I took a deep breath and started over knowing in the back of my head that everything would be fine in the end…which it was.

Here are some pictures of our pasta while it was being laid out preparing to be cut, our final layout of our decorations, our rating system display and our finished dish of fettuccine alfredo- which was delicious!

Integration from Another Class into This Class or My Future Career

In my ACC 255 class we have been assigned a new individual/group project that has proven to be difficult if one does not prepare for it in advance of our assigned work days. For example, we have a section due this upcoming Monday and since I’ve planned ahead I’ve allowed myself plenty of time to look over the material and ask questions if needed even if the material doesn’t completely make sense to me. This reminded me a lot about HA 243 and about how important Chef makes it that we are extra prepared and give us plenty of time beforehand to prepare for everything that we need to.