Meat and Seafood Fabrication Practical

Thursday we had our final and practical for meat fab. We had to truss a chicken, then cut it into quarter pieces, cut another into sixths, filet a flat fish and skin one filet, filet a round fish, and clean half a tenderloin. Oh yeah, and take a final. Making it more hectic, you have to bag, clean and sanitize between every different protein in order to avoid cross-contamination. whew!
I missed 7 points on the final, but earned 3 extra credit, so I really only missed 4 points. The first third was questions from previous quizzes, so I got all those. Then there was true/false, where you had to correct the false statements. Then fill-in-the-blank.
Grades on practical as follows:
truss 4/5
1/4 technical 23/25 portion 23/25
1/6 technical 24 portion 25
flat technical 23 portion 24
round technical 23 portion 22
tenderloin technical 23 portion 24
organization/sanitation 48/50

I got a 93% in the class! Currently on the road to honor roll, people - woohoo!

I actually really liked Chef B today - yesterday too, actually. He and I joked around and chatted. He teased me about how small I write, so he made a tiny box for me on my grade sheet to see if i could fit my name in - which i totally did. And I made him admire what a nice job i did skinning the filet, because, people, it was amazing - I left no flesh at all on the skin. I think if I had super-sharp knives, i would be near perfect at fish. The grading on technical for the round fish - well, I was right in the middle, but the people who scrambled at the end before the time was up got better grades than me even though they left more flesh on the bone. I think he wanted his break.

So final analysis on the class/Chef. When he told us our grades, I told him twice that I had learned a lot. I meant it - he's tough, but boy do I really feel like I understand how to handle meat (ha! dirty!). And in the end...yeah, he has an ego, yeah, he likes to boss people around, and, yeah, he doesn't have the best teaching skills. But, if you show him you tried first and want help correcting your mistake, he was very good at showing you how. Plus, he was actually really interesting to talk to when there was down time. Turns out, he was a psych major in college. And, he ended class by saying he was very impressed by how well we all work together, and that we should never lose sight of that. And that should we need anything in the future, no matter the class or where we are, he's available to us. Which I thought was really nice.

I didn't go out last night because i had to go back to work again today. Next up: intro to baking. Yay!