So, today was the second day of class... well, actual class in the kitchen. I've got a pretty cool instructor. He's mellow, and well spoken. There are probably 25 people in the class, but we're divided up into two groups, and we each have an instructor in the room. The instructors spend the first 1-1.5 hours going through lessons and demos of the day's dishes, and new terminology and techniques that will be used. It's intimidating, to say the least. We're all gathered around, looking at him fly through the lesson, and then we're on our own to recreate it. Yesterday, we just made chicken stock. No biggie. It's a little more involved than chicken stock I've made in the past, or seen Mama make, but still very manageable.

There are boxes in the back of the room that are full of chicken bones. They're purchased that way - it's not scraps from another class or anything.

• Each one of us will get out 5 lbs of chicken bones, and put them in a stock pot with 5 qts of COLD water, or about 2 inches over the bones.
  
• Then we cut up the mire poix (meer-pwah) (celery, onions, & carrots). It's 50% onions, 25% celery, and 25% carrots. All are chopped into a small dice.
  
• Before adding the mire poix, we skim off all the crap that has floated to the surface (that's the chef's term, not mine). Mire poix goes in.
  
• Then, we make a sachet to go into the water. This consists of: 2 bay leaves, some parsley stems, a few peppercorns, a sprig of thyme, and 2-3 cloves of crushed garlic. All this goes into a square of cheese cloth, and tied up with butcher's twine, then it's thrown in as well.
  
• The water should simmer, and never boil.
• And chicken stock should cook for 3-4 hours.
  

That's pretty much it. After that, we combined ALL the stock each one of us made into 2 huge pots, and actually let it simmer overnight. It will be put up in the fridge and used for future soups and sauces that we will make.

Not sure if anyone was actually interested in this process, but reliving it will basically help me study, and that's the way this blog will be sometimes :)