Day nine: “You have a really small penis”
Posted on | May 18, 2009
Behind me, and to the right, we have Sweet Line Cook. I know he is there, even without turning around, because at the end of every eighth sentence or so the chef utters, he echos the last word or phrase.
“You can use all sorts of items as an internal garnish: Meats and peppercorns and dried fruits.”
“Dried fruits.”
And, behind me and to the left, we have Other Guy. Again, I don’t have to turn around to know he is there. I know because, at least once every lecture, he makes a face about some ingredient or other and the Chef calls him a Nancy for doing so.
In the row behind me is Stern Girl and Giggles. Giggles is a heavyset twenty-something who teaches Sunday school, is incredibly sweet, and laughs all the time with a very nice laugh. I know they are there because I can hear the back-and-forth whispering. Giggles once told me she had never been kissed. I suspect the same is true for Stern Girl. I also suspect Stern Girl has a crush on Giggles.
And I know the other students are nearby. Such as Tall Guy who, at least four times an hour, slams into my chair legs with his shoebox feet. I shuffle my chair out of his way, he apologies, and twenty minutes later we will repeat.
But what I don’t hear today is the crunch, crunch, crunch of vigorously chewed ice. Complaining Girl is missing. And you’ll never guess why.
Start at the very beginning
Let’s back up. Back way up to last night.
I worked from the time I got home until midnight, getting organized and prepared for both my time in the kitchen and the test in the lecture room.
I was on my game. But the husband was away on business and, as usual when he’s not home, I slept badly. Very, very badly. As in alternating between fitful dozing and wide-eye awareness.
I hate when he is out of town.
“If ducks could give butter, that’s what foie gras is.”
~ Chef Rushmore
This morning, I got to school only twenty minutes before class, instead of my usual hour and a half. Which meant it was too late to do any of my usual studying or prep work which, in turn, meant I got me off to a slow start. And it didn’t help that we were greeted with a mirepoix challenge.
A mirepoix challenge is where each group has to cut an enormous amount of mirepoix in a limited amount of time. The group that does it fastest wins something. Today, the winner got to choose the sausage they wanted to make tomorrow.
I would rather have had one of the amazing cookies that She Chef makes for us every so often.
But we didn’t even earn that. Because, you see, we didn’t come in first. We didn’t come in second. Oh no! Today, we came in dead last.
I knew this was not going to be my day.
Where Complaining Girl comments on the genitalia size of a fellow classmate
Mirepoix challenge over, cooking beginning, and the next thing I knew, I was literally standing in the middle of a screaming match between Complaining Girl and, well, it seemed like at least half the other students.
I wasn’t part of it, so I had no idea what sparked it all. Just that it was loud and violent and full of insults.
At it’s height, the Chef asked Complaining Girl to come with him. She did, only to return several minutes later to gather her belongings and fire her missive about the pitifully small penis size of a fellow student before she stomped out.
No one seemed at all surprised. No one seemed particularly concerned. No one seemed the slightest bit upset.
In fact, everyone just went back to work with nary a comment about the event.
I asked the chef if she was returning. He said he did not believe so.
Testing time
We never did finish making what we were supposed to make (two terrines of forcemeat). So we put our ingredients into the reach-in, cleaned up, and trotted to the lecture room where Sweet Line Cook echoed words, Other Guy was called a Nancy, Stern Girl and Giggles whispered, and my chair was kicked several times.
And, not surprisingly, where I furiously battled sleep.
But there was to be no rest for the wicked because we had a test to take.
Now, I graduated university with honors. So I suspect I am correct when I say this is the worst I have ever done on a test.
Afterward, when the chef went over some of the questions in class, I answered them perfectly.
Answers that, alas, didn’t make it to paper.
I know I was exhausted from lack of sleep, but that’s such a pitiful excuse. Right now I am so annoyed with myself that I’m not even rejoicing in the fact that I no longer have to guard my spoons from Complaining Girl.
That’s tired, indeed.
(Oh, and, hey, if you want to win a free cookbook, do enter the Twitter contest I’ve got running this week … details are in the box on your right. Good luck!)
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3 Responses to “Day nine: “You have a really small penis””
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May 18th, 2009 @ 4:13 pm
I’m laughing because we spent the better part of an hour last class discussing the “no fighting, no swearing” rule. I’m expecting the drama to appear in our class about week 3 or 4 – LOL!
May 19th, 2009 @ 9:14 pm
Hang in there! Hope you get some sleep. Really enjoying reading your posts.
Lorrie
http://read-n-eat.com/
May 20th, 2009 @ 8:39 pm
We kind of expect you now to dig up all the good dirt and let us know what precisely went down, can’t leave us hanging here in a half-satiated state, now, can you?