Day five: The jalapeño, the penis, and the culinary student
Posted on | April 30, 2009
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 going and why?
“To really learn herbs and spices, you need to spend at least a month cooking with them. We only have two days. You’ll have to do the rest on your own dime.”
~ Chef Rushmore
The plan was to make a variety of different dishes, two with spices and the rest with one herb each. This way, we would get a nice sense of herbs and spices.
For the omelet, I got some tarragon. Of all the herbs we worked with, this one was my favorite. Now, I had never cooked with tarragon before, but I highly recommend it: It was lovely and fragrant and smelled just like a French countryside should.
I selected another herb I had never used before for the mashed potatoes: Savory. I liked this almost as much as the tarragon. It had a light, clean, springtime aroma that was just wonderful.
And, for the quesadilla, I selected rosemary. Now, I am totally embarrassed to say this, but I had no idea what a quesadilla was. And there were no recipes (the chef just figured everyone would be more familiar with Mexican food than I was) so I reached for the freshest herb I could find.
Now, before you collapse into helpless guffaws of amusement and disbelieve over my woeful lack of knowledge (much as my kind and gentle fellow students did) do know that I was familiar with tacos and it’s immediate cousin, the burrito. But the quesadilla and I had never crossed paths.
Which explains how we ended up with rosemary for the quesadilla.
And, as for the spices, we had Chinese five spice powder for the carrots (they had me at licorice root) and Jamaican Jerk rub for the chicken (the only time my husband and I ever had Jerk chicken was at a restaurant called The Big Jerk in Toronto and it was so good we still talk about it, so I had to try making my own).
“A good chili pepper burns twice. Once on the way in … ”
~ Chef Rushmore
In typical culinary school style, making everything was pretty hectic, but, luckily, fairly easy. Stern Girl mixed the Jerk rub and put it on the chicken. It turned out great. She also made the quesadilla but put so much rosemary that, alas, it was deemed more medicinal than edible.
I mixed the omelet with the tarragon (great success) and the potatoes (the cream and butter and savory were perfect, but there was so little salt that the Chef said that if you liked good potatoes you should, sigh, stay away from mine). I also helped with the carrots which turned out nicely.
The only thing the Other Guy worked on was the salsa. Which, after all the jalapeño peppers he put in there, was a bit, well, overpowering.
Not that he had time to fix it. What with his disappearing every two minutes.
“Hey, where is our other team member?”
“Huh? I dunno. Went to the bathroom or something.”
“Is he okay?”
“I dunno. Ask him.”
Other Guy saunters back into the kitchen.
“Hey, where do you keep disappearing to?”
“The bathroom.”
“Are you okay?”
“You know the jalapeños? For the salsa? That I was cutting up?”
“Yeah?”
“You are supposed to be okay if you wash your hands before you go to the bathroom.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not.”
Turns out that when he went to the bathroom the first time, he transferred some of the jalapeño oils to a particularly sensitive part of the male anatomy. And was in some discomfort.
After, what, six or eight trips to the bathroom, he finally went to Chef Rushmore for advice. The chef gave him a tub of yogurt.
Other Guy disappeared for another five minutes with his yogurt. When he returned, the tub was empty and he was able to breathe. But then the head chef sauntered into the kitchen.
“Hey, how you doing?”
“Huh? Me? He told you didn’t he?” said Other Guy, angling his head toward Chef Rushmore.
“Yeah, yeah he did,” said Head Chef, giggling just a little.
“Everyone knows now, don’t they?”
Head Chef just smiled.
And the funny thing is the postscript to this whole story took place about twenty minutes earlier, just as Other Guy was about to chop his first jalapeño.
Me: “You should wear gloves when you do that, you know, or you can burn yourself.”
Other Guy: “Naaw. I don’t need gloves. Jalapeños never bother me.”
Comments
5 Responses to “Day five: The jalapeño, the penis, and the culinary student”
Leave a Reply
May 2nd, 2009 @ 11:20 am
Ooooh, that’s funny. I will definately not let my husband chop jalepenos after reading that.
Also, since you are paying to go to culinary school, aren’t the two days you are spending on herbs & spices also on your own dime? Just sayin’.
May 3rd, 2009 @ 4:17 pm
This is a great story. Thanks for it.
May 8th, 2009 @ 9:47 am
Too funny!!
May 10th, 2009 @ 7:56 pm
PRICELESS! I look forward to following your culinary school exploits. Go you!
Lorrie
http://read-n-eat.com/
September 28th, 2009 @ 11:12 pm
I’ve been looking a long time for a blog like this one, and now my questions needed answering for so long have been dealt with here at (Day five: The jalapeño, the penis, and the culinary student
. great! Kind regards, Betty Ann Carter.