I don't want to have to break up with Butter.

Last week in Basic Culinary Skills, we made the three roux-thickened mother sauces. These would be Bechamel, a milk based sauce, Veloute, a stock based sauce, and Espagnole, a brown sauce. There are two more mother sauces, Hollandaise and Tomato, and are called Mother Sauces because from these five relatively simple sauces, you can make a gazillion other sauces. What to make Fettuccine Alfredo, mac'n'cheese, or Pasta Primavera? You're starting with Bechamel. Gravy? Chicken Pot Pie? That would be Veloute, pronounced as vell-oo-tay by the way. You get the picture. They are pretty easy to make, generally speaking. The quality you get out of the sauce really depends on the quality of ingredients you put in them.

oh look! white sauce in a pot!

Not very exciting, I tells ya. I forgot to take pictures of the other two.

And here's my plate of practice veggies for the week:


My tourneed potatoes look better because I sprung for the fancy-schmancy bird beak paring knife. It helps a lot. I really want to practice this knife cut as much as possible. We have tryouts for teams each semester for competitions. I just found out about this semester's try outs, but alas, they are at the same time as my baking lab. Next semester, I hope!

Speaking of baking lab, I present you cinnamony goodness.


quality control, you see.

Brioche, a super buttery, eggy French bread. I won't tell you how much butter went into this.


Speaking of butter...I cut my finger this week. In baking lab. On butter. I hang my head in shame. It wouldn't stop bleeding. It took three bandaids at tourniquet strength to make it stop. Butter. I cut my finger while cutting butter. So embarrassing.