Day five: The jalapeño, the penis, and the culinary student

The theme of today is herbs and spices. To help us learn these, we made a one-herb omelet, one-herb mashed potatoes, a one-herb quesadilla, a one-herb glazed carrot dish, a multi-spice salsa, and chicken breasts with a multi-spice dry rub.
And, throughout it all, Other Guy, the third member of our team, kept disappearing.
Where was he [...]

A typical day in the life of a culinary school student

Six o’clock. Alarm blaring. The music is okay but the DJ is irritating. Still, the station is crystal clear. And I’d rather have a clear station I hate than a fuzzy one I love.
Besides, the race to get to the alarm (the husband, in his wisdom, placed the clock radio across the room) before the [...]

Day four: Where I get a taste of what it’s really like to be a restaurant cook

Today, my group, had it’s live fire breakfast simulation.
It was hectic and interesting. And I learned a lot.
But not all of it was what I wanted to learn.

Day three: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

This was one of those odd little days where you are not sure if the world is smiling at you or scowling.
Actually, I do know. The world was doing both.
And, oddly enough, it was doing both, one right after the other. As in smile, scowl, smile, scowl, smile …

Day two: The perfect hollandaise recipe

There are a handful of items in my learn-or-die-trying list.
Omelets, sure. And mayonnaise (which I understand is the cold version of hollandaise). A spectacular salad. Shellfish. And, of course, hollandaise.
Today, I hit my first must-learn item: Hollandaise. And this is how it went.

Day one: Welcome to term two and the wonderful world of eggs and hollandaise

Term one ended with me retrieving my notebook and getting my grade for the second half of the class.
See, we are required to hand in a nicely organized and presented notebook. So I got the best binder I could.
I didn’t mind so much that the chef spilled his coffee on it. Accidents happen. But I [...]

Psst, wanna see a culinary school final exam?

Here you go, my first term final exam. I hastily jotted the questions and answers when they were given to us the day before we took the test so it’s not 100% accurate, but it’s pretty close. (And I left out the culinary math … you don’t need the headache!)
If you want to take the [...]

Day none! What does a culinary student do on a day off?

Term one ended yesterday. It was a pretty amazing term despite being peppered with lashings of sarcasm and ending on a sour note. Still, I learned an insane amount and am still amazed at the depth of knowledge of all the chef’s and how consistently willing most of them are to help. And help quite [...]

Day forty: Term one ends not with a bang, but with a whimper

Today was the last day of my first term at culinary school. I’ve been lied to, insulted, yelled at twice, and ended up doing work I am not pleased with.
Actually, the insulting does not bother me so much. After all, I’ve been at culinary school for almost two months. I’m used to being insulted.
But, so [...]

Day thirty-nine: Ten things no one tells you about culinary school

I am rapidly nearing the end of my first term at school. And I know some things. I know the way food sounds when it hits a hot pan. I know how to make a roux. And I know how to do a roast tie.
And I know how culinary school works.
So I’ve made a list [...]

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