Westlake Culinary Institue Graduation Banquet

Hello, dear readers!!  I'm baaack!!  Ok, so I know I was suppose to be more active with my blog, but SO much has been going on these past couple of weeks!!  I'm finally having a chance to catch up and breath!  I was feeling really guilty about having just one post for September, but realized I did a double header...that counts as two, right?  I know, I know, I promise to be more on track!  However, I know you will forgive me once you learn the horrors I went through these past couple of weeks!  So, September was our last full month living in Oxnard.  Yes, sadly, the hub and I moved out of our lovely rental (it was beautiful!).  However, we moved back to beautiful San Diego (I'm stalking my baking buddy...remember Mai?) Just kidding.  I was actually born and raised in San Diego, so I am very happy to be back!  Anyways, I digress, back in September, I had Cyndi's wedding to do and Aidan's birthday to cater...on top of packing (which, I, of course, did the last weekend of September...).  Not only did I have packing to look forward to, I also had my culinary school banquet to help out with!  I'm not sure I ever mentioned it,  but for the last six months, I've been attending a professional culinary course at Westlake Culinary Institue.  The time had come for our graduation banquet, and of course, it was scheduled for October 2...two days after I am officially out of my rental.  So, on top of packing and moving and cooking, I had to worry about where I would live for that weekend too!  See, dear readers, don't you feel for me already??

All in all, everything worked out fine...of course it does, right?  I ended up loading and moving that Wednesday morning of the last week of September, got to San Diego in the dead of night; unloaded Thursday morning/afternoon, and caught the last train out to Oxnard Thursday afternoon.  Of course, I almost missed my train, since I forgot my kitchen shoes when we were about five minutes out of the house and had to go back and get it (it was in one of the million boxes in my garage!)...but I made it with one minute to spare!  My lucky day indeed.  See, aren't you just tired reading what I went through?!  The rest of the week was dedicated to preparing for our banquet!  Now, mind you, we had courses in cooking, not putting together a banquet!  This required us to print tickets and sell them; decorate our tables, get the speaker system up and working, on top of preparing six hordourve appetizers and a five course meal!  All this, working in a professional, working kitchen!  Our banquet was held in The Hyatt at Westlake Village.  It was a beautiful, convenient location.  The kitchens at The Hyatt was fabulous!  It was gigantic!!  I had helped out with the front of the house on the day of.  It was a good thing our Hyatt correspondance was gracious enough to lend these beautiful wicker straw vases for us to use!  My flash of brilliance, using these different shaped vases to help anchor our entrance tables.  But of course, everyone had a hand in making the rooms pleasing to the eye!  The front of house committee really worked hard and in the end, it paid off because the rooms were stunning!

Aren't these centerpieces fabulous?  Allison, one of our front of house elected managers, recycled these from her front yard!  We then proceeded to tie leaves all over them to give it a more fall look.  We were also intrigued with the idea of small blossoms on our bare twigs, so blossoms were added too!  I had sent a few pictures that intrigued me and the front of house managers kind of threw them all together and this was what came out of it!  I love the look of bare branches.  It really gives a room a kind of elegance without having too much.  So, I am very happy with the decision to go with branches! All I can say is, thank goodness we only had fourteen tables to outfit!  Can you imagine making forty of these??

And on top of all this work, we had to cook too!!  We had planned on serving six different kinds of passed hordourves: Goat cheese tartletts with fig jam, Brie and pecan bouchees, bacon wrapped shrimps with jalapeno orange sauce, crab and endive salad, salmon canapes, and venison on a polenta crisp.  Yes, a lot of food!!  We had more than enough to go around; we overcooked, so everyone in the back had a chance to sample all the goodies! 

These are the yummy brie and pecan bouchees!  There is also caramelized onions on the bottom of the cheese...all this yummy goodness sitting atop a buttery goodness of puff pastry, handmade by yours truly!  I made four batches of puff pastry from scratch..I can now say I'm a pro at making puff pastry!

My beautiful cousins came out to cheer me on!  Thank you so much for the time you took out of your busy lives to help celebrate with me!  I'm glad to hear from them that the food was very much up to their standards and that it was well worth the $100!!

Of course, we had more than just the six hordourves!  We also had a line up of five courses of dinner and free-flowing wine all night long!  Not to mention, all of our breads were hand-made with love...and for those of you who ever made one loaf of bread before, you will know the dedication and time it took to make enough bread to feed 140 guests!  Our first course was two butternut squash soups, poured side by side.  Our second course was a spring mixed salad with blackberries, blue cheese and pecans, drizzled with home-made blackberry vinaigarette dressing.  The third course was our mushroom stuffed ravioli with seared scallops and shrimp, dressed with an heirloom tomato cream sauce.  We then had and intermezzo of fresh tangerine sorbet, sprinkled with edible flowers. 

Our main entree was a plate of two beefs:  braised short ribs with au jus sauce and a cut of filet mignon with bernaise sauce, both served with roasted root vegetables and scalloped potatoes.

And finally, our dessert was a trio: hazelnut torte, raspberry ice cream with raspberry sauce, and poached pear atop puff pastry with caramel sauce and toasted almonds (unfortunately, my camera-woman Christina, received a melty ice cream)...but I swear, they looked very good on their way out of the kitchen!  I am happy to say that dessert was a hit!  My family raved about the desserts.  In fact, one even suggested I re-create this dinner and charge half the price! I am certainly thinking about it!

Ahh, our very own Chef Tim.  Here he is giving a little, sweet speech about every one of us.  I believed he mentioned something about champagne cupcakes when it came to my turn.  And yes, all these wonderful people were part of my guinea pig family!  Although now that I think back on it, I should have made more, since I had such a fine array of palates!!

Mamma Mia!!  I shall sorely miss her!  I tried to get her to adopt me, but I had too much baggage (the hubby...and the dog...)

And then there's Ms Eyvonne.  She and her husband Gene actually adopted me for the weekend!  I will be eternally grateful for their hospitality!  I had a grand time with her that whole weekend.  She was one of our executive chefs and really did a great job manning the group!  It helps to have such great leadership...in the end, it really made our work much easier and much smoother!

And lastly, here's my family!  I'm super happy that they came out and celebrated with me!  I hope they enjoyed the great food, the fabulous people and the wonderful atmosphere!  (They already told me they did!)  I just want to say "Thank You" to my wonderful family, especially since they all had quite a distance to drive, on top of paying that $100!  I hope everything was to their liking and standards, but most importantly, I hope they had fun and enjoyed themselves! 

And to those of you who couldn't make it, hopefully this post will make it feel as if you were there too!  And who knows, perhaps Linda's Kitchen will be open for one night of recreating this menu!  I'll let ya know!

Salut!