Local News or Un-waxed Factoids

My friend, Nathan, travels a lot. (And that's putting it mildly!) But wherever he is, he is always very diligent about keeping his friends and family up to date about his experiences with his "Local News" emails. In response to his most recent email from Japan, I wrote back with my own Local News. It doesn't have nearly the cultural value that Nathan's world travel does, but he has inspired me to share this particular experience in slightly different writing style than I usually use.

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My current show, (and my last one for the next year or so,) The Three Musketeers, opened last Saturday. It was a great success with a sold-out house! I really wish you could see this one... Lots of sword fights and fun one-liners.

In addition to the evening that included a 3-hour show and a gala party that went until 2am, the first 5 hours of my day was spent in a kitchen at CCA baking 2 flourless orange-chocolate cakes for a scholarship competition.

In the 3 weeks leading up to the competition, I practiced every day and experimented with different sauces, creams, and added flavors to enhance the chocolate experience. I even imposed upon my cast of 22 hungry actors the overwhelming duty of being my taste testers as I practiced my execution of the recipe. To the chagrin of some, I brought cake in nearly every day until the day of the competition. "Allison! You're gonna make us all FAT musketeers!" Subjecting the waistline-conscious ones to so much chocolate cake felt like a cruel and unusual punishment... ::evil grin::

The 10 finalists (only 7 of which showed up, instantly bettering my odds) had been selected based on their 75-150 word essay addressing the theme: Why I want to be a chef. The participants all received a knife, a chef coat and $125 worth of text book money. The top three winners will also receive scholarship money in amounts of $2,500; $2,000; and $1,500.

As we arrived, the admin lady, Haley, asked us, "Did you bring any of your own tools?" Um, no. Seeing as how it's a cooking school, I kinda figured there would be tools available for us to use. I look across the room at the one guy who had brought his own knives. "Oh, yeah. Some of the admission representatives forgot to tell their students to bring tools to the competition... But I'm sure we can scare up a few things for you guys to use." Ok, no problem. I didn't need anything fancy, just a whisk, a couple of spoons and a knife. "You may have to share." The tone in her voice sounded like it could have implied that the concept of sharing might have been foreign to us.

"Come on, Zack, this way!" A man in a chef's coat approaches from down the hall. He pauses and looks back as a toddler meanders towards him. Zack is wearing a chef's hat as tall as he is. The halls echo and my eardrums split as he shrieks excitedly. He gets to go to work with Daddy today.

The contestants go into the kitchen, leaving our cheerleaders out in the hall to watch us through the fishbowl window. To my surprise, Zack comes in with us. Now granted I've never actually been in an industrial kitchen before, but I never thought it would be a place someone would want to bring a 2-year old for bring-your-child-to-work day. Zack shrieks as the chefs close in around him with toys and other things to keep him occupied while the contestants work. They form a protective human barrier around him in one the corner of the kitchen. He will not be underfoot.

We are handed sealed plastic packages containing our chef coats. I am swimming in my coat, it's so big! I roll up the sleeves and pray that the rest doesn't get in the way. We receive our knives and are instructed to pick a work station. There is only one whisk, so I partner up at a table with another chocolate cake maker who also needed the whisk. We are given 20 minutes or so to learn our way around the kitchen and collect the tools and ingredients we need to create our dishes.

The timer starts. The official time allotted is 2 hours and 15 minutes, but the judges are all hoping that we can finish in 1 hour and 30 minutes. Good! I had practiced with an hour and a half! As long as I get the cake into the oven within the first 15 minutes, I knew I could make my cakes, plate, and present them in that amount of time.

As I'm zesting an orange, I decide that I need a little dash of silliness, so I peel off the fruit sticker and slap it on my forehead. The orange flavor in the batter is not quite strong enough, so I zest another orange, putting a second sticker on my head for an extra boost of silly.

The cake batter goes into the ramekins. Aluminum foil goes on top of the ramekins. The ramekins go into a water bath. The water bath goes into the oven. 350 degrees and we're ready to go! Only 20 minutes in, not too bad. The oven snaps shut with a force that I didn't expect, but makes sense in an industrial kitchen.

Time to start the whipped cream. After an unfair amount of puttering with an extremely old and barely functional mixer, they bring me a new one. I get the cream going and notice black flecks falling into the otherwise immaculate sea of white. Dammit! Gear grease from the mixer! I dump out the contaminated cream and start over, this time thoroughly wiping down the underside of the mixer before starting it up again.

Somewhere along the line, I decide that it's not fair that the cake gets all the flavor while whipped cream just sits there on top so plainly. Commenting to a passing chef that I'm feeling experimental in spite of what should probably be my better judgement, I ask for ground clove and add some to the whipped cream. It tastes like Christmas! This will go great with the orange in the cake.

After 50 minutes, it's time to check the cake. It should be done, give or take a few minutes. We're 1 hour and 10 minutes in. I take the water bath out of the oven and lift off the aluminum foil to find that my cakes are... still raw?! I check the oven. It's on. I check the temperature. 350 degrees. Maybe this oven runs cooler than the one at home. I crank up the heat to 375, replace the foil and put the water bath with its cakes back in the oven. I leave it alone for another 15 minutes. Still not setting. 1 hour and 25 minutes in. I have 50 minutes left for the cake to cook, cool, and be plated.

A chef walks by with a time check. "How's it going?"
"My cakes aren't setting and they've already been in there for 70 minutes..." He tells me to try ditching the tinfoil. It's a convection oven. Convection ovens cook by blowing hot air around inside the oven instead of using a direct heat source like the gas burner or heating coil in a conventional oven. Convection ovens are much more powerful, but the cook more evenly. So the methods I had been using to keep the cake from burning at home in my conventional oven (the water bath and foil) were not as necessary in this convection oven. A few minutes later, the cakes had cooked enough that I was no longer at risk of serving the judging panel raw eggs.

Time to cool them. The cakes went into their ice bath and into the walk-in refrigerator. Fifteen minutes left, the cakes are still warm. There's only so much you can do to speed the cooling process, but I can't take them out of the ramekins unless they are set. I decide to take a chance with melty cake rather than present nothing at all. Sure enough, the cake had needed more time to set. Out of the ramekin came a nice big glob of cake goo... but at least it was cooked.

I tried to mush it back into shape as best I could, but the Chocolate Pudding Cake was more like pudding than cake. I dusted the plate with cocoa powder and spooned the cloved whipped cream on top of the cake. A twist of orange nearly as big as the cake sat beside it on the plate.
Five minutes left. I bring both plates to the presentation table. At this point, I don't care whether I placed or not. I am relieved to finish the challenge without the cake being raw. It's time to go outside and breathe... And wait for the judges to deliberate.

I sit with my folks for a few minutes, watching the chefs as they taste each dessert with an objectively critical palate. So many single-use, plastic tasting spoons will be used today... I cry for the landfill they create. The judges are standing between us and the plates, so we can't see whose dish is being tasted. I am completely drained by this point and have no desire to watch our dishes get picked apart. I decide to walk around for a bit and shake off the weight of the last 2 hours and 15 minutes. As I walk away, I notice one chef coughing into the crook of her arm. I am nervous for whoever made the dish she had just tasted... I hope it only went down the wrong pipe.

I return from my walk to see everyone in exactly the same places as I had left them, staring like zombies through the fishbowl window waiting hear the outcome of their efforts.

We are all invited into the kitchen (cheerleaders, too) to hear the results. Now since this is a school and not the Pillsbury National Bake Off, we each received very helpful constructive criticism for our dishes. My turn-- They liked the texture! Too bad they knew that it had not turned out the way I had intended. They recommend using a stencil when dusting with cocoa powder so it looks a little more polished. The orange twist was very "80's Denny's." (Apparently if you're going to garnish with a piece of orange, do something that looks a little more difficult.) The flavor was heavy handed on the orange (darn that second orange!) and the clove (which had tasted fine to me...) "When you get too much of a warm spice, it can leave the back of your throat dry." I'm glad I had walked away when I did so that I didn't noticed that it was MY dish that had sent the chef into a coughing fit!!!

I came to the competition trying to visualize 1st place.
I left the kitchen not expecting to place at all.
I ended up placing 3rd.

When we're back in the car heading home, my folks mentioned that Haley would come out of the kitchen periodically and tell them what was going on. During one of these sessions, she told the cheerleaders that part of our grade is based on how well we respond to stressful situations, so they do things to stress us...

Thanks, Zack et all.

As bitter as I have been towards my career in theatre these past few months, I will be forever grateful for the universal lessons in teamwork, improvisation, and positive attitude that this background had provided for me.

And that's my local news.