Ahead, D-1

Yesterday we started cooking for the wedding. People were still running around trying to buy equipment, many people didn't show up until very late. Which was probably a good thing; that left us, the main "Chef's" with a kitchen to ourselves, and equipment to play with.

Not only did we get chef hats, but we also got chef jackets. Isn't that awesome? We've been wearing them all the time. Which leads to interesting situations, as many people treat me like I was an employee. For example, today, for a family reunion, they used the locale and had someone deliver burritos. One guy from the party saw me running around with my hat and jacket, and came to congratulate me for the excellent burritos.

You are welcome!

Thanks to the two pressure cookers and the excellent food processors I had, I was able to finish making hummus for 200 people way ahead of schedule. That freed me to make flan. There were two problems: electric burner and a missing rack from one of the ovens. The first one made caramel making a painfully slow process.

Caramel is an exothermic reaction, when it starts caramelizing, it keeps on caramelizing and burns. Temperature control is critical, and a slow response electric oven isn't the best one. What a pain in the neck.

The missing rack from the oven meant that I could flan less in a batch than I thought I could. I ended up going to sleep in situ.

I should talk about the place a little bit. The locale is a gorgeous ranch, with miniature donkeys and goats. GoatMini.

There are many cool trees to sit under, and drink some rum. Also, the flowers (I guess) were giving me horrible allergies. While cooking, I ended up with a tshirt tied around my face in the Zapatista fashion to help with the allergies. It creeped out many people.

The house is a mansion with many rooms and bathrooms. Many of the rooms where occupied by the bride's family, and we, the chefs, stayed in one room. I got to crash in the couch at 3am, and then woke up at 6:30am to flan some more. At 7:00am I was still half asleep, which isn't the best condition to make caramel. I burnt the caramel, which triggered the fire alarm and woke up everyone, including the bride's grandmother.

Good morning; I'm Phobos; nice to meet you too.

I finished the 18 flans by noon, slightly ahead of schedule, and left to take care of some stupid TA meetings and so on. After much traffic, I was back in the ranch surprised to see that we were way ahead of schedule, and I ended up drinking more than working. Which was great, because I was super tired.

I'm home early. My feet hurt. My hands are all blistered, cut, burnt and without much sensitivity. I will try to rest well since tomorrow it will be a long day.

D Day.