Phew! Thank the lord today I was able to sit down and rest my feet pretty much all day. We sat through this servesafe “sanitation” lecture on how to properly work in a kitchen. All the information was self explanatory like do not wipe your nose and then mash ground beef with your infested hands (umm, ew!) or do not wear your hair all messy and down because no one likes their french onion soup with a side of keratin treated locks. We had Chef Bauer today instructing us who is a lot more laid back and made all of us laugh. For instance, he said “ I don’t know why I am teaching you about hygiene because I’m French and we don’t have a lot of credibility in that area” (ie: French women do NOT save their arm pits- talk about bad B.O.) He smelled good though and made everyone feel super comfortable- I was obviously cracking jokes the entire time.
I’m sure no one is too surprised, but I made more friends today- meaning actually became friends asking serious questions like how old they were. So, this one kid Carlos- I call him “Carlito”- is from the Domician Republic. He was a lawyer and has two masters and now is in culinary school. I practice Spanish with him just because I can. Anyways, I asked him how old he was- he told me I would never guess. So, I started at 28. He said higher. I said 32. He said higher. I said 32 1/2 – and so on until I got to 37! When I tell you Carlos does not look a day over 25 let alone going to be 40 in 3 years I almost passed out! I’ll have whatever that “man” is drinking because apparently it is coming from the fountain of youth for g-d’s sake. (Sorry I don’t have a picture- but will somehow try to sneak and get on for you tomorrow- not that you care at ALL).
Everyday for lunch the students in level 4 (each month you move up a level- hence the reason why I am in level 1= first month) prepare lunch for the whole culinary institute. Yesterdays lunch I hate to say was not that fabulous which scared me, but today’s lunch was finger licking good. Not only were my feet on cloud nine from being elevated all day, but the lunch consisted of chimichurri steak, a salad with some greek sour cream-ish sauce, and rice with cilantro and black beans. I went to town on that plate! Felt like I was in the game hungry hungry hippos! (Shoutout to mom- your fav animal).
After lunch we got to practice more knife skills! Although my knife skills aren’t where they exactly need to be just yet- I did make an improvement from yesterday! NO CUTS! And my ciseler of shallots was on point! Take that Chef Butler! I may not be on that Bennihanna Knife cutting skills yet- but you wait and see. It’s only day two.
We had more of a presentation after the knife cutting skills on sanitation and watched the most bizarre movie on it. The video no joke was SO racist. It shows all these white employees doing something against health code violation and they just get told no to do it again, but when the big black chef did something wrong- he got fired! Also, they were showing what the appropriate nails are (short, no polish)- of course the only hand that was against the violation was the black lady’s with acrylics. I wonder if the civil rights movement got a hold of that, but probably took preoccupied with Zimmerman. Also, talk about discriminating. Chef Butler has a thing against my curly hair! The chef made me wear a hair net today because my lion’s mane would not fit under the small chef cap. I felt like every stereotypical fat lunch lady making Sloppy Joes in the school cafeteria. Probably should change my name to Rhonda Marie (sounds like a lunch lady and sorry if anyone’s family member is named Rhonda Marie- it’s a beautiful name). “
After class, some of my new friends and I raided the bread cabinet. Every night the bread chef’s leave out the breads they made each day- I don’t know why I opened Pandora’s box… I’m going to turn into Pillsbury doughboy.
Day three should be fun tomorrow- we are learning how to make vegetable ragout and a beet/goat cheese/ apple salad with Vinaigrette.
NYC KISSES,
Eliana