...which means I've officially passed the "leave with your money if you want to run now" point. The school gives everyone the opportunity to attend classes for a week to check it out, and I'm not going anywhere! I love it! :-D We watched a somewhat cheesy video today from the NRA (don't get too excited, mom and dad, it stands for the National Restaurant Association), but I do have to say it was kinda inspiring...so watch it from the link above if you like. :-)
We jumped right into more knife skills today, and had our first timed test of sorts. We did fine julienne (2" X 1/16" X 1/16"), which can be converted into fine brunoise (tiny little cubes that are 1/16" all the way around) both from carrots. Potatoes were cut into two sized cubes, or dice, medium (1/4") and large (1/2"), which are actually almost harder because if your knife goes sideways, or the cubes become more like rectangles which is much easier to see in bigger pieces, and you get points taken off for that. We also learned how to properly chop and chiffonade fresh herbs like Italian parsley, chop/mince/paste garlic cloves, dice onions without having them fall apart while you're chopping (always wanted to learn this!), and we blanched tomatoes, removed the skin and and seeds, and chopped them into squares. All of this had to be done in about 20 minutes, which is a ridiculously short amount of time when it's the first time you've done any of this.
Apparently I did well, because when I was judged by the Chef Instructor, he gave me props for all my cuts, especially my fine julienne and fine brunoise, yea! They actually did appear to be very square, and of course now I'll be inspecting all sorts of vegetables and garnishes when I go out to eat to see the quality of the knife cuts. :-) I scored a 9.5 out of 10, because I didn't do the chopped garlic, only the minced and paste, which is ironic, because the latter two start from the first one, so at some point I had it on the cutting board, I just forgot to set it aside before I kept going. Part of what we're graded on is "managing the board," which basically means you clean as you go, and never have more than one thing on the cutting board at a time. No little piles in the corner of this and that; compost, trim (food that can be used for other things, a.k.a. "free money") and final product go into side bowls and our presentation sheet. There are also rules about trim, which can't be mixed, and the potato has to be kept in water so that it doesn't oxidize, etc. etc. All the while you're trying to hold the knife properly (different for each cut), use the off-hand (a.k.a. the claw) properly as a guide without sticking your fingers or thumb out to get cut, and constantly cleaning your board so that your final product doesn't get messy or mixed up, like bits of parsely in the onion or tomatoes...all easy things individually, but difficult when you're under pressure to be perfect and fast. Oh, and you're expected to keep your whites clean too. A messy cook is somewhat frowned upon. As I was telling Chris and Brandon tonight, it's kind of a status thing to be able to keep your white cook's coat, white apron and white side towel completely clean from food stains while coming out with perfect product. So they grade you on that too of course.
I would have taken a picture of my grading sheet with my tiny little piles of food all cut up into perfect little squares and pieces, but I forgot I brought my camera, and didn't want to look like a dorky tourist either, especially when everyone was rushing around. The energy in the classroom was kind of frantic, especially when we were told we also had to completely clean the kitchen top to bottom as well, but altogether people were having fun too. I do believe a couple people suffered some cuts today, but no major blood was shed...just a few finger condoms used after bandages were applied. :-)
That was pretty much it for the Culinary section of the day, we moved on quickly to the Safety and Sanitation class, and had our first quiz, which I aced, yay for me. It really was not difficult at all, I was done in probably two minutes, but still, it was a nice ego boost, and a grand way to finish out my first week! We did watch another video from ServSafe, for our certification, this time all about contaminants. Yummy. :-P One of my new favorite acronyms was summed up by the guy sitting next to me, "FAT TOM ain't no joke!" Basically, it's a way to remember all the factors that make pathogens and contaminants worse, and what you have to watch in order to NOT make people sick and possibly die. Ok, no pressure.
So that's it, my first week down, and many more to go! I'm going to start thinking about my three flex assignments (papers to do outside of class), which are: my dreams (food career related, they actually felt the need to specify), my favorite cuisine/restaurant w/anecdotes and why, and a short example of a recent bad food event in the news (where people got food poisoning from a restaurant, etc.), what happened and how it could have been prevented. Are are due in about a week or so, so I'll have to get crack-a-lackin!
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