is that a BRT pork loin or are you just happy to see me

Here is St. Andrews Cafe and the back of Roth Hall on the right in the fog at 6:30 am

Today I woke up around 4:30am to get in some last minute review on all the information we learned in meat classes this week, which was quite expansive. I felt like it was theme dinner week all over again, having had 3 cups of coffee by 7am just to keep me awake for the day. It was a foggy morning in the Hudson Valley, which later turned into a bright and sunny one. It was our last day in meat, and other than our final, we made some sausage. And again, it stressed me out that I have more skills and no restaurant to apply them in yet! I guess a final exam at the culinary is a bit different than what you're probably used to, so here was how the identification part went. Chef Schneller puts out 20 cuts of meat from the over 40 or so we have learned; we identify the cut and species, as well as the best cooking method. Here are a few examples:

square cut lamb chuck/shoulder, for braising

109d beef export rib, or bone-in ribeye, thats where ribeye steaks are cut from, grilled 
pork boston butt (and my cute knives) used for pulled pork, bbq, sausage

veal shank for osso bucco, braised

Then we went on to make breakfast sausage for graduation in a few weeks. We made links from around 20 pounds of it, and just left the rest in bulk vacuumed packages. Heres a demo on sausage making, its quite easy and the combinations could be endless. You'll have to watch the video below to get a view of the finished product.

Here are the boys separating fat/lean ratio. Its usually 30% fat to 70% lean meat:

Here it is before being grinded:

And the lamb casings we stuffed them into for links:

We fabricated the pork one or two days ago, then today we separated fat to lean ratio, added spices, ground the meat, then linked it. Heres the video of the grinder. I just think it's cool to watch since its so big:

And here is the stuffing process:

We had a few minutes of break in between fabrication and our written exam, so a few of us went up to farq to grab a snack, mine was some nutella-y, mousse-y goodness:

And on my way home I saw the bakers enjoying a nice sunny lunch outside so I used it as a photo-op. Ryan was supposed to give me a bakerface but the sun prevented it. It's okay though, his face is always in the entranced bakerface mode when I see it.

Off to fish fabrication tomorrow...