President's Club

Every fall semester, BYU-I does something called "President's Club". The school puts on a huge dinner for all the sponsors and donors of the school. Everyone there walked around to the sound of the string quartet with their drinks and hor'deurves chatting, looking at displays and talking to President Clark. After the hor'deurves, they have a dinner in the West Ballroom of filet mignon and swordfish. It's one of the very few upscale things here in Rexburg. The culinary department is in charge of the hor'deurve part. We had 5-6 tables with two 6 foot flower arrangements, a chocolate fondue fountain, a bread display, savory and sweet hor'deurves, drinks and an ice carving. It is all student run and really stressful, but fun. I am the sous chef for the rotation I am on, which is Garde Manger. As the sous chef, I am in charge of all the students on my rotation. Garde Manger makes all the appetizer and salads. It's also known as the "cold kitchen". The Garde Manger (or the "guard of the food") does all the creative side of cooking. I LOVE it! It's right up my alley. Most of the other students hate it. It scares them because it's very meticulous work and demanding, but I think it's fabulous. It's my favorite class and rotation. Anyway, when I got to President's Club they sent me to do the bread display. The bakery students had made decorative breads but most of them hadn't turned out. The girl in charge of the decorations, Hailey, was in a "creative bind", if you will. When I showed up at the East Ballroom she looked like she was going to cry. She hadn't started the bread and vegetable display so I took over. I think it looked really nice. I used the bread basket, baguettes, squash, corn, peaches, kale, grapes, etc. and made a display. We got a ton of compliments on it so I'm think it turned out really well. Other than that, the hor'deurves were a chipotle shrimp won ton with red pepper and chive, grilled pineapple and avacado salsa on a crostini (my recipe), crab stuffed mushroom caps and asparagus rolled in ham and a celery cream cheese. The sweet hor'deurves were mini raspberry molten chocolate cakes, blueberry tarts, raspberry meringues and miniature cheesecakes with berries or mandarin oranges. It was pretty good. The ice sculpture turned out great too! They made it look like a 3 tiered wedding cake with berries on it. I was pleased with how well it all looked.