Episode IV - A New Hope

Class began anew last week, American Regional Cuisine. My new hope is that some in my class will finally begin to take things a little seriously and knuckle down and work hard instead of just trying to coast through. I was not in class though as I was in Alabama working on assignment. I guess it was my yearly step out of retirement to help out a foundry. Hopefully this one doesn't announce that is is closing the doors like happened last time. I was happy to see that I still have some mad skillz left, noticing some small details that were lost upon people with far more knowledge and years of experience than I have.

My class shifts from Monday/Tuesday to Wednesday/Thursday. I just finished sharpening my knives so I am all set to go. I'd really like a new chef's knife, a longer one of course. Isn't that what we always wish for. Given money is tight, if this class goes well maybe I will celebrate completing it with a new knife. It will be tough to wait though.

Your Own...

...Personal...
...Jesus Eggplant...

Admit it, you LOVED that Depeche Mode song, but hate that you can never get it out of your head.

Here is my Listia de Gandia eggplant in the Topsy Turvy Planter. This really is a great way to grow eggplants. Stupid easy to grow this way. But, I was surprised it took about 4 1/2 months to get this small harvest.



And here are my beautiful little ones. Now I just have to decide what I am going to cook with them.

Go Big Read

I read this excellent article yesterday regarding Michael Pollans' book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto which happens to have been on my Amazon wish list for a long time. I first heard Pollan speak one night on Real Time With Bill Maher. I don't agree with every principal Pollan advocates but I do with many of them. I'm quite proud of my Alma Mater for starting the Big Read program. Unlike the critics, I don't see the school as endorsing or supporting Pollans's book or position. I see the school as distributing a book for people to read and draw their own conclusions. I see the school as steering educational debate. And isn't that supposed to be part of education?

Super Clean Up

On Thursday we had what is called Super Clean Up. The entire kitchen is cleaned from top to bottom, the ceiling, the walls, all of the equipment, inside and out. Super Clean Up is worth one letter grade. We had to be there by 9:00am but the sooner we started the sooner we could get out. Mouth was in there early. I waited until there were about six more people and then started with them. Mouth deserved a head start. There were people who didn't show up until 10:00. SloMo didn't show up until almost 11:00. Bastards. I really hope they get docked but we'll never know. Shockingly Ridges didn't even show.

There are basically two classes. There is a third class but it only has maybe four people in it. So we had plenty of people for cleaning. Chef set out five or six pages detailing what needed to be cleaned and how. People initialed what they wanted to clean. I took both mixers. After that I took the double pizza oven. Hottie #2 helped me on that. Then we both moved on to the broiler. That was pretty nasty with all the baked on greasy carbon buildup. After that was finished, I wasn't in the mood to join any other group and with all of the jobs basically divvied up I went into the dish washing area and cleaned the dishwasher itself and cleaned other people's stuff. That pissed me off a little. When Hottie and I were cleaning the broiler we cleaned our own parts, we didn't toss them to other people to clean and come back for them but it's a petty issue really.

We finished by 12:30. I was exhausted but that's it for this quarter. Next quarter begins October 7th I think so I get a little downtime.

Pop Final

Last week was the last week of the quarter. We were supposed to finally do our fish on Monday, review for our final and then take our final on Tuesday. Except the fish order had not come in. Chef lollygagged around until about 9:30 and said that we would review for our exam.

Flashbacks to my first class, people weren't paying that much attention. I was sitting with RK and Mayfield and they were furiously writing as if God was handing down another set of commandments. They don't have two working ears between them so they kept asking for everything to be repeated. We have a syllabus so I didn't bother writing anything down. RK didn't even know what a syllabus was even though he has one.

Chef finally got frustrated and annoyed and asked how many people had read any of the book. Maybe half the class raised their hands. We have reading assignments each week based on what we are cooking, according to the syllabus. Then Chef asked who had read everything. The only hand left in the air was mine. Lots of dirty looks. RK snapped at me, "you actually read the book, everything!" Well yeah. It's the same damn syllabus as my first class which is a prerequisite for this class, so everyone should have read this stuff before. And on top of that I had to read the chapters to know how to cook whatever we were cooking, though sometimes I read them after the fact. For example, when we made fresh pasta I had to read up on that first.

Chef was furious. Fine, you've got an hour to read everything and then we're taking the exam. Dammit. I had planned on Tuesday. I still had a lot of reviewing that I wanted to do before the exam. Everyone was in a state of shock. Mayfield starts whining bout how he never thought we would be tested on stuff in the book. "I thought the class was just about cooking, stuff we do in the kitchen." I just wanted to bang my head into the table. These people need to understand that this is a culinary program. You need to decide if you want to be able to cook at a professional LEVEL, not necessarily become a chef, but the end goal is to have that ability. So yeah, that does mean understanding what a coulis is or what beurre manie means and how to use it. How are you supposed to interact with other professionals if you don't? It will take a lot longer to find a specific fruit sauce if that's what you call it rather than searching for a raspberry coulis. If you just want to cook a better soup, take classes at Sur la Table or Viking or Williams-Sonoma.

Out of nowhere, RK looks at me and asks, "I don't mean to be mean, but how much do you weigh?" WTF! I looked at him dumbfounded and just said a lot. "Yeah, but how much?" WTF!!! Guess. He guessed, I said yes, and then he goes, "I never noticed how heavy you are until I saw how you really fill out that chair." I really have no words.

The test was not easy but it was very much like the final for my first quarter. It was a lot of writing. I can't believe how bad my handwriting has become but except for writing an odd check once every other month or so, I hardly ever write anything. I think I did very well on the whole test except for labeling the primal beef and pork cuts. I went back and looked and only got half of them correct. Oh well. The worst part of all of this was that you take the test, then present it to Chef who goes over it, then he sends you back to answer the questions you left blank or got wrong but you get to use the book the second time around. Grrrrrr. I really hope he gives some of these guys Ds or Fs to make a statement because otherwise there isn't much incentive to do well or try hard.

Baby Face didn't show up. I don't get it.

After the test, Chef asked if we wanted to do our fish on Wednesday or next quarter. The class was split, some just not wanting to come in on Wednesday, some eager to do it. I could have gone either way. It actually had to be explained how we could cook fish in American Regional Cooking. Um, you'd make a regional fish dish. Duh. The naysayers won out.

Though the final was Monday, the last day of class is actually Thursday when we clean up.