Friday, July 25, 2008

Extra Day

Today was a free-for-all because we have an extra day - normally this course is 14 days, but ours was 15 just because of how the holidays fall in the future. Here's a photo of both cohorts. Look for the tiny Korean with the tall hat in the front - That's Chef K - so cute! And that's me in my awesome outfit three to the right. I don't think it would be possible to pick me out if I didn't tell you that. [updated, 7-31-08: I had to take down the photo because my new teacher reiterated the school's policy that we cannot have photos of our teachers - not that I'm profiting from this website, but should I decide to sell my story as an expose on the corporation and make millions of dollars...]
This is all the food we made:


As you can see, it covered everything - fried chicken, most kinds of potato, pizza, steak, guacamole, fajitas, pasta, I don't even know what else. Except definitely none of it was healthy, and besides the guac, nothing green or close to healthy.
Sadly, the rice my team made didn't make it - it just didn't cook properly. Something about how the acid from the tomatoes means more water was needed, but he didn't tell us that until after... Oh well, so much was thrown out anyway, it didn't really matter that our's didn't make it. Except for being disappointing that it didn't work - and my seasoning was really good. Another time. That would have been a healthy dish.
Irish, Tennessee and I all agree we ended up in the better cohort - I'm sure the other people are fine, but they just seem...a little boring? And some of them - whoa, in the dish room, there were a couple to whom I had to bite my tongue because I felt they were a little rude and know-it-all. Thank you, I do know how to soak a pan - if you had been here a couple minutes ago, you would have seen me dump it already, hence why I am now scrubbing it. As if I have never touched a burned dish before. Go "help" someone else. Ha. Don't cross me, people!
Finals tomorrow in Sanitation and Culinary Skills I. In Sanitation, the test doesn't count toward the grade, just state licensing, which I don't really care if I get. CS I, it's written and a practical for pasta and eggs. I may be in trouble for the written - this time we have to write out the definitions instead of just the word. Guess I'm spending my day studying tomorrow.
Lessons learned:
Pay attention to lecture when Chef explains how acids impact cooking starch. Turns out it matters.
Culinary school is real work, people! It's not just how you can perform on the dishes, there are papers and homework and quizzes and tests... um, when am I going to do that when I'm working?

3 comments:

Steph said...

Do you seriously throw out all that food after you're done??? I would hope it could be donated or something.

T said...

This is yet another thing I feel they lied to us about - they told us all food is donated, but nope, trust me, everything is just dumped. That might have to do with regulations about what kind of food can be donated, but then why lie about it? And we trash soooo much every day. Technically, we're told we're not even allowed to take home our own leftovers, but I just bring my own tupperware and take it home if I like what I made. It's a major shame. I also asked why they don't do composting, since that would seem so easy, and then do a rooftop garden and think how much money they could save/lessons they could teach... but they don't seem to care. Apparently, as far as the school is concerned, waste is not a big deal... It's probably one of the biggest things that bothers me about the culinary world.

Steph said...

Wow, that's such a shame. So many people going hungry, so much waste. Sounds like there's a movement to be had...