Yay! We've now got all our books (six of them, plus two DVDs) and...drumroll please...our knife and tool kits! It comes in a fancy three compartment carrying case, and is heavy as a ton of bricks at least. Couldn't wait to get them home and check everything out, I'm adding pics so y'all can see the goods. :-) The kit's worth more than almost twice what I paid for my little POS VW Cabriolet I had in Napa that leaked like a sieve, so I'll have to keep close track of it. Part of that will be "mise en place" a French term for "everything in it's place," which they have informed us is pretty much our new religion. That goes for our tools, our uniforms, our job positions, cleaning supplies...pretty much anything. Apparently it bleeds over a lot into the rest of your life, which is great because I could really use a little more organization in my life. ;-) No, seriously. It's all about time is money and knowning where things are at is more efficient. Time management is key in the restaurant industry (y'all can stop laughing now) and it will be a struggle for me (ok, enough laughing already!), but it can be done (no really, I can do it, and you need to stop laughing)!
In any case, I'm going to keep this somewhat short since it's late, and I still have homework to do (read two first chapters of our two starter books). Mostly today we heard instructions on: how to wash our hands properly, how we'll be washing/sanitizing dishes, cleaning the kitchen, where everything is and where it goes (mise en place, mise en place...say it with me now). We'll be doing roll call and occaisionally have an inspection of our uniforms and personal hygiene, military style. Today, they actually walked through as a "practice run" and the Chef Instructor told people things like "I'd suggest that you wash your hair" (yes, the guy needed that suggestion) and "You're gonna need a hairnet or else tuck those braids into your hat" and "Black socks only, please." I'm not gonna pretend that it wasn't a little weird to get stared at for my personal hygiene and how I got dressed this morning, and I secretly wondered as I was waiting for my inspection if I'd missed something important that was apparent to everyone in the room but me. You know, something like I wore a black bra under my white t-shirt and cook's jacket that everyone can see when they keep going over "profesionalism" again and again. I am relieved to tell you Chef had nothing to suggest, but I did make a mental note to never, EVER give him a reason to suggest something. Apparently I will have to clip my nails super short, because they said if you can hear them tapping on the stainless steel tables, they're too long. So much for being girly. I guess that goes along with the super-butch lug soled non-slip steel toed lace up shoes I have to wear. Putting on the jacket with the Le Cordon Bleu emblem makes up for it all though (even the ugly polyester pants), because that feels pretty special.
Speaking of which, we got a bit of a history lesson on the school, and the name, etc. which was pretty interesting. Namely that both LCB (Le Cordon Bleu) and CIA (Culinary Art Institute) were both started as essentially worker retraining programs for military personnel after wartime. It suddenly makes more sense why this is such a male dominated profession. There were only 11 women in a 31 person class today, and I wonder if any will drop out before the week is out. I'm thinking all that time at Microsoft with a "heavy male influence" did me some good in that department. :-) One of the Chefs is incredibly talkative and funny, but also a little old school (very much a mid-west boy who's seen a lil' bit of the world, but not exactly worldly), and still leaves a little to be desired in the politically correct arena. No worries though, he's a pussycat and I've experienced oh-so-much-worse in the past over the years. He's very easy going and obviously good to have some verbal sparing with, if he were to ever get out of hand.
I'm starting to get to know at least the names of a few of my classmates, many of whom undoubtedly have some interesting stories on how they ended up here. People are coming from all over to do this, driving up from Olympia and down from Lynwood/Everett, so I feel fortunate I only have a 15 minute plus drive. Ok, thinking of that short drive that's a very short time away now, I'm signing off!
p.s. Attention Google blogger people, your formatting options for adding pictures really sucks! If anyone has any ideas how actual placement within the blog post works, I'm all ears! Right now, it just seems like it's "Right, left or center" and everything gets automatically put at the top of the post, with no other options or possibility to move it around. Has anyone ever done usability testing on these things?? Ok, geek moment over. :-P
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