Culinary Arts

First impressions of Progress Campus were that it was BIG! Compared to Borders College, Progress Campus is triple the size and this is not the only campus at Centennial College. I was particularly happy to have a look at the hospitality section of the campus and I was not disappointed. There were at least 10 classrooms just for hospitality alone! One for only bakery classes, one for drink tasting, a couple for general cooking It was amazing to see so many students in each class too! They also have a kitchen and restaurant open for the public much like Borders College, I will be excited for when I get to go in and try it! I learned that everything that is made in each class is then taken to the shop to be sold to the public.

Gemma also took part in a deserts making class. 

Chef Mina guided me through to my classroom where she introduced me to Chef Arel. Chef Arel was so welcoming and lovely he introduced me to a girl named Angela and she was to be my partner for the class helping me around, helping me find things and introducing me to everybody. She was really lovely, and she really made me feel welcome and included. 

We were making pork chops, so the first job of the day for me was to place the pork chops into a brine that had already been made up. Once I had completed that the next thing on the agenda was to tenderize some other pork so we could make pork Milanese I helped to do that and then I quickly created a pane station to get to work on bread crumbing the pork ready for shallow frying. Once all the frying had been completed, Angela and I went over to start the stock for the wonton soup that we were also making, we also had to wrap the wonton meat in the wonton wrappers there was quite a few to get through so it took a little bit of time to complete. I have learned that it is a very specific way of wrapping them and you cannot over fill them, otherwise they will just spill out the sides. Once everything was cooked our job was to assemble everything into takeaway boxes, it was fascinating watching the plastic wrap get melted onto the top of the boxes! It was also cool to see that everybody had a role to play at this stage of the process. Once everything was assembled and wrapped it was then loaded onto a big gastro storage and rolled along towards the café. It was now in their hands and all we had left to do was clean down. 

I was in with a new chef this morning his name was Chef Ed. He was great and welcoming like all other professors so far. Unlike the other professors I have had Ed wanted me to be up front and centre with him teaching showing the students what to do and leading them. It was very nerve racking but as soon as I started it was easy and actually very fun and quite fulfilling. After we had done our demo Chef Ed showed me where he takes all the dirty dishes and I was fascinated it was an automatic dishwasher you just have to load them onto a tray and then it’s a conveyor belt that does the rest of the work for you. I may need to invest in one for my house. 

We were walking past all the classrooms and he asked me if I had any baking classes I informed him that I hadn't so he took me along and introduced me to the baking professor, I was very appreciative of this as I was able to stay in that classroom and have a look at how they do everything. I was especially interested in the oven it looked like something you would see out of a factory, it was huge! With revolving shelves, it was probably about the same size as the still room in Borders College! 

When I finally made my way back to my original class, Ed was speaking to another chef called Chef Austin, he was also a baking professor, and he was just about to do a workshop on pizza with high school students Chef Ed asked me if I wanted to go along to help him out a little. I jumped at the chance as pizza is one of my favourite things to make at home as the possibilities are endless and you can be as creative as you want to be. I followed him and it turns out it was a stone pizza oven which was located outside. I was very excited as it was such a nice day outside. I soon realised that that was not a good thing as I had my chef whites on and standing in front of the pizza oven. I was a puddle by the end. It was great to see how enthusiastic the high school students were and it was great to be a part of the start of their culinary journey. 

 

Written by Gemma Davidson.