Grill use wasn't nearly the bottleneck I thought it would be. Indeed, this day seemed fairly easy with regard to production.
We had to make Wild Mushroom Risotto, but Chef Perez said we didn't have the time to make a mushroom stock. I looked at the preps necessary and decided that there was plenty of time. In any case, I could simply abort it, should the time constraints be changed (which they sometimes are).
We also had to make a rice pilaf, which is started on the stovetop, but finished in the oven. I got that going first thing, knowing that I could work on my other preps as soon as it was in the oven. For both the stock and risotto, the mushrooms have to be sauteed to within an inch of their lives in order to develop the most flavor. This is a time consuming process, so getting my stock going was the next priority. After that, I was able to turn my attention to prepping the vegetables for Marinated Grilled Vegetables.
Cutting the vegetables was a fairly quick process, as grilled vegetables need to be fairly large cuts in order to stand up to the heat of grilling. Next, the vegetables got salted to draw out some of their liquid ... the time this took could be used to prep the marinade which was balsamic based with dijon mustard to serve as emulsifier. Good stuff.
By the time the marinade was finished, I'd already presented my pilaf ("Like Uncle Ben's", said Chef Perez, which is a good thing), and my mushroom stock was simmering happily. While I waited for my turn at the grill, I prepped my baby artichokes for braising. Artichoke prep is sort of an involved process, but practice speeds things up.
My mushroom stock and grilling were finished about the same time, which was good, since you really can't do much with the risotto until the stock is ready. After presenting my tiered vegetarian antipasti plate, I spent the rest of my production on the mushroom risotto and clean up. When I presented the risotto, Chef Perez knew that I had made the stock anyway from the color and flavor. So, it was worth it.
Overall, the class had no problem with the day and we finished half an hour early.
I think this was just to sucker us in.
Ernest Miller pursues research and writing on cyberlaw, intellectual property, and First Amendment issues. Mr. Miller attended the U.S. Naval Academy before attending Yale Law School, where he was president and co-founder of the Law and Technology Society, and founded the technology law and policy news site LawMeme. He is a fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
Ernest Miller's blog postings can also be found @
