The quiz scheduled for this morning has been put off til tomorrow due to some staffing issues. Well, another day to work on my knife cuts.

Sauces. Today is our introduction to sauces.

We are scheduled to produce Hollandaise, Espagnole and Classic Tomato Sauce. The first two are classical "mother sauces". The third, Classic Tomato, is somewhat disputed. Classically it wasn't one of the five base sauces, but is now generally considered one of the "mother sauces".

Prep is a bit of a cluster today. There are many ingredients needed and not enough space to get them efficiently, at least the way we are doing it. Consequently, following the lecture and demo, the class is unable to even attempt the Hollandaise. We do, however, finish the other two. Tomorrow, I'm on the steward team and will see if there is anything that can be done to speed the distribution of the mise en place.

What wonderful aromas. I particularly like the smells that result when you add tomato puree to roasted mirepoix. There is a rich, warm aroma that seems to be filling all by itself. Of course, it doesn't last long as you soon have to deglaze with red wine, which has its own wonderful aromas as well. The rich browness of Espagnole is so very tempting. Unfortunately, ours is headed to the students in Course 2.

We do, however, keep our Classic Tomato Sauce, which is also very inviting. We will be turning it into a Bolognese on Wednesday, so we have that to look forward to.

I look forward to Course 3 (Garde Manger). Why? Because they sent our class a very nice couple of terrines today. I certainly will not mind learning how to make those.

The day went quite quickly. I hardly noticed that the five hours of class had passed without a break. This is a good sign, I think.