Essential Skills 1 - Hollandaise, Bechamel

I did a much better job at scaling down my recipes today. I wish I could say the same for my performance making hollandaise sauce. Chef even demonstrated it twice for us, along with the Béchamel and Tomato sauces, before letting us loose, and I still blew it.
My partner, Laurie, and I put our tomato sauce together no problem. Then we each did a Béchamel that went quite smoothly (literally) then prepared ourselves to start the dreaded hollandaise. Chef had us do it one at a time so we could take turns dropping in the butter for each other.

I went first. Everything seemed to be going ok. I reduced my vinegar with a little water and peppercorns then strained it into my yolks. I began whisking like crazy as I placed it over my double boiler. My eggs started to set immediately. I was bummed. Of course chef came to the rescue and quickly strained it, added a bit more liquid, then thickened them without a hitch. On well, that's why I'm paying the big bucks!

The exact same thing happened to Laurie. In fact there were all sorts of disasters going on. Sauces were separating right and left. They say the third time is a charm and it was. (Though my arm nearly dropped off from exhaustion-I'll have to add bicep curls to my daily regimen.)
Tomorrow we'll be practicing Béarnaise sauce, so the hollandaise nightmare is not over yet. Practice makes perfect.

Goodnight.