Thanks to the administration
Fascinated by food and inspired by food writers, I arranged with the school to attend the culinary and baking & pastry programs. My one condition: To write honestly about the experience. They agreed. Their one condition: To not tell other students for fear of uncomfortable questions. I agreed.

Based on that agreement, I moved my family and my life to a brand new state to attend school. Although they later leaked my blog, balked at my writing about, for example, the anti-Semitism I encountered, and reneged on their promise leaving me, still, making tough decisions on how to respond, it was gutsy of this struggling school to initially agree.

And the chefs
I have never met so many childishly petulant adults. Or so many people incredibly passionate about food. Some of the chefs, such as Chef Nepal, are a perfect mix of patience and knowledge and infectious enthusiasm. Other chefs, such as Chef Sideburns, quietly imparted incredibly helpful snippets of knowledge. And even the famously pompous Chef Rushmore was, whenever caught off his self-made pedestal, quite knowledgeable. I learned something from everyone.

Fellow classmates
Certainly students such as Mama and Grinning Guy and Stern Girl were always helpful. Sweet Line Chef, with his years of restaurant experience, could be counted on for a good tip or two. And poor Vegan Gay Guy, who was relentlessly tormented by many of the students (and at least one chef), was always eager to lend a hand. In fact, everyone, even the famously slack-jawed Mr. Big, added something to be thankful for, even if it was just a moment of levity when it was needed most.

Wonderful readers
I always tell my husband he makes the bad times better and the good times great. You do, too. More than you know. Much more than you know.

Husband and geek and social media guru
And speaking of the husband … he built and manages the site, leaving me to do little more than write posts. He also squired me to, and sometimes from, school. Practiced knife skills with me. Quizzed me on everything from food sanitation to knife cuts in preparation for exams. Ate anything I brought home for him to sample. And was a touchstone of calm and a voice of reason. He is the most extraordinary person I know and I am beyond grateful.

And more
From my agent to my editors. How enriched I am to know you all. Clearly, I am lucky.

As for all the chefs and cooks and wait staff out there …
I admired you before and I admire you all the more now for your technique and knowledge and creativity. The best of you are the best of us.

… See you in the papers (and stay tuned because the fun doesn’t end and there are surprises in store)

But you do need to know what you are getting into.

What culinary school is really like
Culinary school is not a mecca of foodies. There is no careful consideration of ingredients, no lengthy discussions on flavor, no in-depth examination of innovative chefs or restaurants or food trends.

It is where people who were once cooks or chefs teach in a rush-rush environment (one chef like to spew the moronic If you go faster, it will go faster or variations thereof) where doing it fast takes priority over doing it right.

Your fellow students are mostly high school educated, more or less. They are people I never saw in the tiny student library cubicle where I borrowed cookbooks I’d flip through for inspiration in my third term class. People who, as Motorcycle Chef told me in the first term, thought The Olive Garden was fine dining. People who worked hard, spoke poorly, and relished … well, see my post What happens to me now?

If culinary school is so far from perfect, do you recommend skipping it and apprenticing in a restaurant?
The problem with an apprenticeship is you learn one way to do things; one cuisine to cook. And no one is making sure you learn the basics.

So under what circumstances do you recommend culinary school?
The ideal culinary program is one that is long enough to emphasize getting it right over getting it fast (well over one year long), with small class sizes and great chef instructors who are both knowledgeable about food and professional educators. A school that attracts students interested in food and that encourages exploration of flavors and techniques in an environment where experimentation and learning is the goal.

If you can find a school like this, and (and this is critical) you can pay your own tuition, then I highly recommend a good (emphasis on good) school, first, and a paid (yes, paid) externship afterward.

Why must you be able to pay your own tuition? Because, if you don’t, you will graduate with a $20k, $40k, $60k or more student loan which, on the $9/hour or so you will earn in a restaurant (that’s $18,000 a year out of which you must pay rent, food, car, medical, dental, etc.) will suffocate you financially for years.

What if I can’t do that?
Get The Culinary Institute of America textbook, The Professional Chef. Study the basics, especially equipment, techniques, knife skills, proteins, and mother sauces. Practice. You’ll know as much as any culinary school student minus the crippling student loan. And you’ll be in an enviable position to get a paid apprentice position where you can polish your techniques.

But how do I decide if I should even go into cooking?
Know what you are getting into. Cooking in a restaurant is nothing like cooking at home. As a restaurant cook you will spend far more time preparing food than actually cooking on the line. You will work family-killing hours in cramped, sweltering conditions; surrounded by people who, if culinary school is any indication, will judge you based not on skill or intelligence or creativity but, rather, on how much drugs, alcohol, and pain you can endure. Then, in ten or more years, when (if) you become a chef, you will spend more time doing food cost analysis and dealing with disgruntled dishwashers then you will creating new dishes for the owner to approve.

Anthony Bourdain, in Raw Medium, summed it up: “If I hadn’t enjoyed a freakish and unexpected success with Kitchen Confidential, I’d still be standing behind the stove of a good but never great restaurant at the age of fifty-three. I would be years behind in my taxes, still uninsured, with a mouthful of looming dental problems, a mountain of debt, and an ever more rapidly declining value as a cook.”

So what’s the good news? Cooking on the line is a special kind of adrenaline rush fun. If this outweighs the negatives, I will happily come to your restaurant, try your specialty, and enjoy your impressive technique and creativity. Then I will go back to my office and write my review, glad that I am not doing your job and grateful that you are doing yours.

And thanks for your patience.

How did this blog come to be?
I was fascinated by food books by authors such as Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman. But, while Bourdain does talk about his days at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), it is just a small part of Kitchen Confidential. And, while Ruhlman, in Soul of a Chef, does talk more about class time at, yet again, the CIA, he does not attend as a student. Meaning he is never tested on, for example, his knife skills, or have to struggle to stay awake in a dull lecture or even have to deal with the same pressures or concerns as someone who is there day in/day out.

I was interested in what happens to a student, every day. So that’s what I wrote about.

How was the blog written?
At first, I brought my laptop to school. That made it incredibly easy to transcribe student and instructor conversations and happenings. But, while it is commonplace to see students with laptops at college and university, I only saw one other laptop at culinary school (when I started, the school only had something like five computers for the entire student body, so this was not a technology-rich environment by any stretch). As technology is not the norm, I decided to leave my Mac at home.

In class, I took notes in Moleskine notebooks. In the kitchen, I jotted notes on the index cards we were required to have for recipes and, if necessary, on the backs and margins of any bits of paper I stuffed into my jacket.

I supplemented these with hastily written notes in the student lounge (and on one or two occasions, in the bathroom) and while waiting for and taking public transportation home.

Then, as soon as I got to my office, I would put those scraps of blood-, fat-, protein-stained papers into order, grab my Moleskine, and transcribe my notes into my computer while my day was fresh and clear in my mind, thanking all those years of journalism experience for helping me develop a speedy and accurate shorthand.

Why no pictures?
The second reason is I was incredibly busy cooking and learning and note-taking. But the first reason is so as not to alert the students to my blog.

When I got approval from the school to write about the experience, I asked the administration not to tell the instructors or the students because I didn’t want anyone behaving differently and I wanted to be free to write honestly. They agreed. But on my first day, they told me they had already told the instructors. All the instructors.

Now that the instructors knew, it was only a matter of time before the students would know and I hated working with the subterfuge, so I asked the school if I could tell my classmates. Despite the fact that they did not keep their word, they insisted I keep mine, saying they didn’t want to deal with a student body asking messy questions.

And, as I predicted, a chef instructor leaked my blog. A drastic change of behavior in one student alerted me. Skyrocketing local visitor blog numbers confirmed it. By graduation, most of the students knew.

I gave my word I would not tell and I never did. But I wish the school had let me. Then maybe I would have been able to take some pictures.

You seem to be disillusioned by culinary school; are you alone?
Despite Complaining Girl screaming, Mama crying, Alaskan Guy saying he had enough, and various other, similar, instances of discontent, I did think I was alone.

But, then, I started to get messages from other students in other culinary programs, expressing their discontent. And, of course, reading about lawsuits against some culinary schools such as this and this. So, no, I am not. Not by a long shot. Alas.

Are you glad you went?
I learned a lot. And I am a better cook for it.

Should I go to culinary school?
That’s a big question. Let me cover that in my next post.

Fast forward to today
Some time has passed between my last post (And the culinary school student goes on externship) and this post.

This post is being written today.

You see, although I wrote about culinary school, as promised, daily, because the posts went up twice a week, the blog is only now catching up to reality. My culinary program and wonderful externship ended some time ago. Since then, I have been working as, among other pursuits, a freelance food writer and restaurant critic.

Why I’m not working in a kitchen
I get the allure of cooking. It is similar to the allure of journalism. In both cases, there is that dazzling adrenaline rush. For cooks, from creating and being on the line. For journalists, from getting the story and writing. But, much as I enjoy cooking, I’d rather be a journalist. Frankly, I enjoy writing more. But even if I didn’t, if some of my fellow student cooks and instructors are representative of the people in kitchens, I don’t want to associate with them.

I understand where Gordon Ramsay came from
While most of the chefs and students ranged from the incredibly knowledgeable and patient (and funny) Chef Ewok to the uneducated but sweet-natured and hard-working Sweet Line Cook, there were also chefs who modeled behavior — ridiculing, name-calling, belittling, and so on — that other students, such as the slack-jawed 20-going-on-14 years old Mr. Big who bullied gentle Mama to tears and the anti-Semitic high school drop out Other Guy, eagerly adopted.

Behavior we would not accept from a seven-year-old on a playground let alone from a professional in a professional environment. Behavior no one should have to tolerate.

And I won’t.

Here I am
I love writing. And when I’m not eating at and reviewing restaurants, I am cooking at home. And I’m enjoying that.

And, once in a blue moon, I think it’s a shame I won’t cook on the line. Because the intensity of it, the speed of it, was great fun. And I’m sure there are kitchens out there with cooks who work as a team, whose idea of fun is based on delighting and not demeaning, whose raison d’être is to create amazing dishes. But I’ll never know.

The pen is mightier than the sword
A pen. Or, to be more accurate, a computer keyboard. Because today, I started my externship at the food section of a city newspaper.

With my journalism background, it is a perfect fit.

Most externs go to work in kitchens at restaurants or catering outfits or hospitals and the such. I wanted to work at the test kitchen of the largest newspaper in the state. The person at school who arranges externships wasn’t able to get it for me, so I decided to get it for myself. I called the newspaper and arranged for a meeting with the food editor (I had introduced myself to her when we first moved here — hey, new journalist in town, it was the thing to do — so we already knew each other). The internship program at the paper, as with intern programs at many newspapers across the country, was shut down. After our meeting, the editor made an exception for me.

You want something badly enough …

As soon as I set foot at the paper, I realized I wanted to work in the editorial side, not in the test kitchen. After all, I have years of experience writing for papers such as The Washington Post. So the editor let me instantly switch (some of the best people I have ever worked with — intelligent, interesting, thoughtful — are editors, and this one is top of the list).

So now I’m writing about food.

The 1970′s Newsroom
The newsroom looks like every newsroom you have ever seen in a 1970′s movie about newspapers. It is seedy, musty, and tacky. There is carpeting the color of dust, walls the shade of grime, and cubicles as far as the eye can see.

And every cubicle is a receptacle for stuff. Papers. Books. Food. Toys. And more papers (and more and more and more).

In other words, it is perfect.

The people are kind, gentle souls. Introspective. Intelligent. And willing to answer any questions I might have.

The editor, in particular, is wonderful. She asked me what I wanted to achieve and immediately put a plan into action.

The plan is for me to write. And to write as many different sorts of materials as possible.

Culinary school student with a pen
The first thing I wrote was some captions. Then a news story. And now I’m working on some columns.

The good news is, I’m having a wonderful time. The bad news is newspapers everywhere are in deep, deep trouble. This paper, alone, has already been through three waves of layoffs and they tell me a fourth is on the way.

Which means I can’t expect a staff job here or at any newspaper. Ditto magazines (sigh – remember the lovely Gourmet?). And you know online writing, fun as it is, doesn’t pay.

So what do I next?

It is a new day, indeed!

So what does a culinary school student do when school is over? Well, the first thing she does is take a holiday. And eat.

We had one meal so bad it was returned. One meal so good it was gobbled up down to the last crumb. And one, the one in the middle, that was just perfect.

And, yes, the learning continues. Let me tell you all about it.

The culinary student goes on holiday
The husband took a few days off work so we threw some toothbrushes and clean undies into a bag, threw the bag into the car, and set off.

It was a long drive. (Okay, any time you ask me to sit still for more than 45 minutes is long.) And we didn’t eat on the way even though we were hungry because we were going to the coast. And you know what they have at the coast, don’t you? Fish. Fresh fish. Very fresh fish.

It was why we were going.

Meal #1: You know I love oysters
We got there late afternoon; in that dead zone between lunch and dinner. So, while the dining room wasn’t entirely empty, it was nearly so. Which meant we got our pick of table.

We took one overlooking the ocean. Doh!

I had read a wonderful review of this place and had been dreaming of fried oysters since the last time we took a few days off. So, big surprise, I ordered the oysters. And, two minutes after they were placed on my table, I asked that they be removed, never to be seen again.

Sigh.

They were greasy. Not just a fried-and-there-is-a-bit-of-grease, greasy. But heavy with grease. As in, press the tines of you fork against the breading and watch the grease cream to the surface in a slick, shiny puddle. So I returned my $20 plate of fried oysters.

Boy, was I disappointed.

The husband got his usual choice: Fish and chips. The chips were battered. I’m not crazy about battered chips (a fellow student, Asian Guy, made them once at school). After all, it is just a carbohydrate coating a carbohydrate. Where’s the fun in that? Especially as fries, when done well, are already perfect.

Still, the husband had never had battered chips and loved them (the carb on carb thing totally worked for him).

But it was his fish that was the star of the meal.

Yes, they, too, were a bit greasy. But as they were nowhere near as greasy as my poor oysters, we were prepared to enjoy them. And enjoy them we did because they had been dipped in a lovely, light, crunchy beer batter and cooked only until they were light, tender, and flaky.

So, instead of ordering another meal (I just didn’t want to risk it), I had some of his fish and polished off the bread basket. Which, of course, wasn’t very satisfying. So we wandered down the street until we found a market where I bought a bottle of water and an apple.

The apple was delicious.

Meal #2: It’s corny, I know, but everything tastes good when you are in love
Because we had dined lightly, sharing my husbands’ late lunch and supplementing it with my apple, we were hungry for a light super, despite that fact that we had eaten our lunch so late in the day. This meal was everything our lunch was not.

For an appetizer, we split a bowl of chowder. It wasn’t terribly flavorful, but it was warm and hearty, which, considering it was sunset on a chilly beach, was exactly what we needed.

Then, snuggled together on the cold sand, we split a picnic dinner of brie, chevre, baguette, strawberries, kiwi, and an apple.

As we ate, the sun set, turning our world into, first, the red, gold, peach colors of fire, then, the blue, purple, gray colors of ice.

We didn’t talk much as we ate. We just watched and munched and enjoyed being together.

It was perfect.

Meal #3: Surprise inside!
The next day, after getting some old, lukewarm coffee from the hotel coffee bar (don’t they know how truly critical a decent cup of coffee is?), we checked out and continued on our journey. I was on the lookout for two restaurants that had received great reviews.

The first, we came across too early in our travels. We just weren’t hungry. So we kept right on going. Then, when we were hungry, we could not find the second one.

So we walked and walked and walked, holding hands and popping into used bookstores (our weakness) and watching the water and the boats nonchalantly strolling by. And getting hungrier and hungrier and hungrier.

By two o’clock. We found a place that looked nice. We had never heard of it, but what the heck. So we pop in.

We had fried calamari (after oysters, my next favorite seafood). And, to appease the husband fish and chips. Again!

The calamari was perfect: Light, crispy, meaty, and delicious, especially with a squirt of fresh lemon juice and a lingering dip in the homemade aioli.

Now, the husband’s chips were nicely done. Nothing special, but fine. But the fish, ah the fish. It had no grease at all. The batter was wonderfully light and crispy. And the fish itself was a tender halibut.

If it would not have been terribly gauche to lick the plate, we would have done so.

Instead, we had to contend ourselves with eating every last crumb.

So what did we learn, part I?
That you can’t count on reviews as gospel. Chef’s come; chef’s go, and sometimes, just sometimes, they are human.

And, sometimes, a meal is more than the sum of it’s parts. Yes, the picnic meal of brie and strawberries and other goodies was nice, but it was enjoying the sunset with the husband that really made it perfect.

And it pays to take a chance. You never know when you will find the perfect calamari. An item always worth the risk.

So what did we learn, part II?
In our third meal, my husband’s drink came with a half inch wide strip of lemon peel that was curled into a perfect spiral.

I scooped that perfectly curled lemon peel out of my husband’s drink with my fingers (he really is a patient man) and tried to figure out how they made it. No idea. So I grabbed the waiter. And here’s what he told me.

First, he cut off the pointy ends of a lemon. Then he sliced one side of the lemon open, from one end to the next, and scooped out the lemon part, leaving just a rectangle of peel behind.

Then he curled that rectangle as tightly was he could, secured it with a toothpick or two, and left it overnight.

The next day, he chiffonaide that peel into half inch strips that were perfect spirals.

Then he dropped one into my husband’s drink, only to have me scoop it out with my fingers and try to figure out how he did it.

Once a culinary student, always a culinary student.

Next up: My externship.

Today is my last day of school.

I’m going to tell you all about it. And, as a bit of a treat (if only to myself), I am going to include a few quotes that sum up the way I think of food.

The last quote is unbearably lovely. The first is undeniably rude.

I wanted to warn you about the first quote in case you are faint of heart.

“Bitch, you come in my house you eat my food the way I fucking make it”
~ LaFayette, True Blood

I spent this weekend clearing out my textbooks and notes. The vast majority of the paperwork we were given on the first day of class, the books that gave me that whopper bruise, were never used. Of the ones that were used, none were used in their entirety.

Ever wondered what books are deemed necessary for a culinary school student to carry, if not actually read? Here you go:

1. Our culinary textbook. In the first term, there was quite a lot of reading assigned from this book. Less in the second term. And nothing in the third term. It came with a CD. That never worked in my Mac. Ever.
2. The textbook workbook. Depending on the chef instructor, we had to complete some or all of the workbook pages that corresponded to the textbook chapter we were assigned to read. The instructor would then check to see that the workbook questions were completed. Not completed accurately, mind you, just completed. How did I know they never read a word I wrote in my workbook? Grandpa Chef habitually walked up and down the classroom aisles, taking a few seconds per student, to flip the pages of each workbook, then marking the book complete or incomplete based entirely on the amount and placement of ink on the page. And, I realized later on, some of the answers I gave to workbook questions assigned by Motorcycle Chef were incorrect. Heck, I could have just written “Your mother wears army boots” and she never would have noticed.
3. Food handlers workbook. The bulk of this was assigned and read, but I never bothered to complete all the workbook questions. Again, no one ever noticed. And I got 92 on the test and a food handlers card in my wallet.
4. A food service math book. Told to ignore it.
5. A hospitality cost control book. Told to ignore it.
6. A hospitality cost control workbook. Told to ignore it.
7. A book on matching ingredients and flavors. Never assigned; totally ignored. But it looks interesting so I have added it to my pile of books to be read.
8. Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking. A few passages were assigned as suggested reading. I plan to read the rest of it, too.

“A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety”
~ Aesop

Today, all the students from the third term – the night students and the two halves of the day student classes – met at 9:00 in the third term classroom. The Chefs had dumped all the leftover food on the prep tables and told us to make lunch out of it.

A lot of the students were not feeling particularly creative, myself included. But, still, we cooked.

Mama and I got together and made two salads with Israeli couscous. The first was a heartier salad with rendered bacon, rosemary, and blanched English peas. The second was a lighter, more Mediterranean-inspired salad with feta, mint, basil, lemon zest, minced red onions, and tomatoes. Both had a lemon vinaigrette.

Other people made everything from fried chicken and waffles to chicken sandwiches and tuna kebobs to the scary cafeteria-inspired mac ‘n cheese by Cucumber Girl (complete with limp tomato slices on top).

Then, buffet-style, everyone who wanted to, ate.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well”
~ Virginia Woolf

Then, the speeches from the Chefs: Work hard, pay attention to details, always say “Yes Chef,” etc.

Scholarships were also handed out. Stern Girl got a $250 scholarship for Most Improved (she is the student who sliced open her finger in the first term, requiring a trip to the hospital and five stitches), as did a student from the night class. President’s Choice went to 98 Pound Girl. And a female student from Hawaii got $250 as Student’s Choice.

A pastry student did a very clever, very funny rap she had written, ending the song with a cake that had “Fuck you, Bitch” written in elegant lettering on the top.

Then we collected the leftovers for Chef Rushmore, as always, to take home to feed his chickens and cleaned the kitchen.

“A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread
and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise now!”
~ The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

And so it ends.

Last week I remember thinking “Well, it looks like I’m getting out of school without any major injuries.” I never said it out loud for fear of jinxing myself. Not that I am superstitious, knock wood. Still, outside of a never-ending procession of hurry, hurry bruises, a wicked rash up and down my arms from the harsh detergents we used to scour the kitchen, and an assortment of unremarkable burns, scratches, and split nails, I managed to finish my schooling without inflicting any serious harm on myself or anyone else. Thank heavens.

I did, however, gain a good deal of knowledge. It is by no means thorough (we never did cook veal, for example), but I’m hoping I know enough so I can continue my education on my own.

I also gained some nice knife skills. Not the truly superb knife skills I wanted, but, then, none of the students did. The good news is I just bought a book on knife skills. I’m hoping it will teach me what school did not.

And there is no denying that I am a better cook than I was. Interestingly, I am a far less confident cook in public. Sure, I’m delighted to try new techniques and recipes at home where the occasional failure merely results in an opportunity to learn and improve. But, as time went on, I, and students like me, grew far less comfortable cooking at school because, there, failure inevitably resulted in ridicule from some of the chefs and slack-jawed students such as Mr. Big. Who needs that?

So here I am. As for what happens next, well you’ll never believe …

I was delighted to be cooking again.

The seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. is choking on food
Remember my concerns over “dispatching” (kitchen talk for “killing”) the live lobster? Well, today, the other half of my term (our term is split into two and we alternate semesters) dispatched (killed) their lobsters.

It didn’t bother Asian Guy one bit. Ditto Stern Girl.

Giggles did it, but was upset.

98 Pound Girl did it, but wasn’t happy about it. See, she told me she has a pet lobster named Steve (this is the same person who has a cat named Kitty; the same name as the cat owned by here sister). She spent last night telling him she would never do that to him. Then, this morning, she did it to his cousin.

The original Twinkies filling was banana; it was only replaced with a vanilla-flavored cream during World War II when there was a banana shortage
Of all the prep work I did, from mixing the potato salad to slicing the buns, the biggest and most predictable task was (once again) making the corn salad.

The recipe for it is a few posts back if you want to see it. I can’t bear to post it again because this is the third time in as many days I made it.

In the middle of making it, Other Guy who is at the other end of the room and could not see, let alone taste, what I was doing asked me if I put enough salt in the salad.

“What do you mean, did I put enough salt in the salad?”

“I’m just asking if you put enough salt in the salad.”

“Why on earth are you asking if I put enough salt into my salad? Do I ask if you put enough salt in your dressing?”

“I was just asking you.”

“Don’t. Not only is it of no earthly business of yours if I season my food properly but it is the third day in a row I’ve made this salad. The Chef likes it, the customers like it, I like it.”

“Well, I’m just asking.”

“Don’t.”

I got the highest score in the class on our last practical exam while he nearly failed. I can out season and out cook this little pissant. And do.

It take eighteen ounces of an average cola drink to equal the amount of caffeine in one cup of coffee
Then the Chef realizes, oh no, I’m supposed to be doing front of the house, so Make Up Girl, who was supposed to be Sous, gets to do grill and I have to be your waitress today, once again.

Sigh.

The candies most likely to cause tooth decay are, alas, fudge and dark chocolate
We were booked solid. Unusually solid. So merely saying we were busy just doesn’t cover it.

We were slammed.

And one bad thing did happen: The line was running out of food all over the place.

They ran out of one of our two appetizers. And one out of three of our salads. And two of five entrees. We were going to run out of one of two desserts, but the pastry Chef showed up at the last minute.

I don’t know why we ran out of so much. After all, people made reservations so we knew in advance were were going to be slammed.

But, still, there was me saying, “I’m sorry, no, we’re out of this and that and the other thing.”

When Cleveland restaurateur Hector Boiardi decided to bottle his famous spaghetti and meat sauce, he packaged it under the easier to pronounce phonetically spelled: “Boy-ar-dee”

Now, the guests have been universally nice, some extremely so. And well behaved. And a pleasure to meet and serve. But one thing many of them are not is educated about manners. And that is a bit of a detriment.

Take silverware, for instance. I’ve had people ask me which fork to use with what course (start at the outside an work your way in, toward your plate, with each course). I’ve had people who have no idea what to do with their silverware at the end of each course (leave it on your plate; we’ll collect it – I can’t tell you how many times I wrestled with people who wanted to keep their salad fork!).

But the biggest problem for me is reading the visual cues. Especially the visual cue regarding placement of the knife and fork.

See, most people did not know to place their knife and fork parallel and on the right side of the plate to signal they were done with their meal. When their plate was empty, regardless of where their utensils were, I could figure things out. But if food was left, I could never tell if they were lingering or if they were really done.

Peanut butter was invented by a St. Louis physician who wanted a food that was high in protein and easily digestible for his elderly patients
And so ends my restaurant training. And, as you know, we finished our lectures last semester. And there are no tests. So what’s next? Why the last day of school.

And what will I do in my last day of school? Even I don’t know.

Mostly toddlers.

The first fruit to ripen every spring is the strawberry
Got in early. Not that I wanted to, but the husband had an early meeting, so if I wanted a ride …

I did.

On the way in, we narrowly missed getting into an accident with a cab that abruptly stopped right in front of us, without any turn signals and in a place where there was no logical reason for stopping.

Then the logical reason suddenly appeared as the passenger flung open the door just as we were going around. The passenger? A fellow student (in an earlier term, so I don’t know him but there is no hiding the uniform). Second accident only narrowly avoided (don’t people look before they open the door?).

The student was eating something from McDonald’s. I know this because two seconds after he got out of the cab, he flung his now empty wrapper to the ground.

You have no idea how many lectures we have had on recycling.

Strawberries are the only fruit to have all their seeds on the outside
Prep was fine. Not only was I in early, but so was Make Up Girl who is becoming a decent Sous (but, unlike me, as Sous she was required to be in early), and Mama who got special permission from the Chef to come in early because, sweet as she is, she works so slowly.

I checked the dining room, putting out missing menu placemats and glasses, pushing in chairs and wiping counters, and doing all those little tasks the waitstaff does and the rest of us take for granted.

All this took less than twenty minutes.

Then I sliced lemons for drinks and made roasted garlic.

Wanna know how to make the garlic? It’s insanely easy and makes the garlic nutty and sweet and just wonderful.

Recipe for roasted garlic
Peel as many garlic cloves as you like (alternatively, simply cut the top of a bulb, maybe a third of an inch down or so, to expose the garlic cloves). Toss with a tablespoon or two of olive oil. Put in a pan (I used a pie tin) and pop into a hot oven until they are soft (it took me nearly half an hour at 350 f).

You can squeeze the garlic onto bread for a savory spread. Or do what I did: Mince it and add it to some butter to make garlic butter. (I also added kosher salt to taste and about a cup of minced, fresh parsley).

The average strawberry has 200 seeds
I then helped with prep, making another batch of the same corn salad I made yesterday.

When the Chef tasted it, he proclaimed it “Good!” and left without adding anything to it.

That is the highest praise.

I also made four pounds of garlic butter and sliced four loaves of bread for the restaurant bread plate. During the bread slicing, I accidentally nicked my finger. It wasn’t a problem along the lines of what Other Guy did (unlike him, I did not leave my finger tip on the cutting board and no one was interested in taking any pictures), but there was a drop of blood, so I put on a band aid so as not to contaminate any food. I also slipped on a finger cot (think of it as a tiny condom for a bandaged finger).

Then Chef Peacock crept up behind me and hissed, “Keep your eye on your knife!”

Strawberries are not technically berries; they are a member of the rose family
Service was busy, but, hey, waiting on tables is waiting on tables – not much of interest happens. So, instead, I’m going draw on my several minutes of experience to give you five tips on how to play nice with your server. (Okay. I am bound to miss several hundred tips. So feel free to comment with all the tips I, no doubt, will miss with my extensive experience!).

1. Control your kids. We had a lot of kids in the restaurant today and, you know, all were a delight. There was no running, and best of all, there was none of that prolonged squealing that instantly brings you one year closer to old age deafness. But I’ve been a guest at other restaurants where the same could not be said. And speaking of controlling your kids, sweet as these kids were, boy were they messy. It took me twice as long to clear this table as any other table because there was cake smeared here and food bits dropped there. I know it is tricky with kids. And, really, with kids this well behaved, I normally would not mind. But it did slow me down when I was in a real hurry (did I mention we were nearly packed?).
2. Don’t help. It’s lovely of you to stack your dishes to make life easier for me, but, alas, you don’t know my system and you’ve probably made more work than you have saved. Leave it. Let me manage your plates the way they need to be managed.
3. Don’t ask dumb questions or questions I don’t have time to answer. Ask me what is in the salad. Ask me what a kumquat is. Ask me what I recommend, if the fish is fresh, what comes with the entree, and I’ll answer you as best as I can, bearing in mind that I have never tasted fully half of the things we serve. But, please, don’t ask me a dumb question I can’t answer or have no time to answer. Today, for example, a very nice potential student asked me my opinion of the program. That’s a big question. But I was holding three entrees, four more were on the pass, and I had promised to bring table five a coffee, black, with two sugars.
4. Don’t leave scary or dangerous things behind. Scary: Used Kleenex. At least put it on your plate so I don’t have to touch it. Dangerous: Today, someone left me two pins (think the pins you use when sewing). I found them when I stabbed myself collecting their menu placemat. I don’t mind throwing them away for you, just let me know they are there.
5. Linger, yes, but not too long. The table that left me the two pins also lingered. Now, I don’t mind if you linger while I bring desserts to any table that has yet to be served their final course. And I don’t mind if you linger while I bus all the tables. And I don’t even mind if you linger while I remake all the tables for the next service even though it throws me off my rhythm to replace all the tablecloths, then all the menu placemats, then all the glasses, etc. rhythm. But I do mind when you have lingered an hour after service has ended, every table is set, and I am just standing on my weary, weary feet, waiting for you to go so I can change your tablecloth (pssst: the fact that I removed all your plates and glasses an hour ago, removed your water 40 minutes ago, and removed your coffee cups twenty minutes ago should have been your first, second, and third clues).

Finally, I want to give you a bonus tip: Tip your waitstaff appropriately. Remember, they get paid appallingly. And they do far more for you than you can possibly imagine. And if you need special treatment (you have three sweet, but messy, kids at one table) or extra services (you linger long after service has ended), then tip especially well.

The students don’t get to keep the tips at school so I have no idea how much people left. But in the real world, your server will appreciate your acknowledging they are going above and beyond to make you comfortable and happy.

In medieval times, people would serve strawberries at important functions as a symbol of peace and prosperity
My school offers three scholarships to the first, second, and third place winners to the winners of an appetizer contest. The contest was held recently. When I asked the Chef how the contest went, he said only one person entered. When I asked what he made, he said: “It doesn’t matter what he made. He could have put a piece of cheese on a Ritz cracker and he still would have won.”

That is where the tip money goes at my school.

I know of a sushi restaurant that serves food on a conveyor belt. Why, oh why, can’t they install one here instead of insisting that I, poor beleaguered culinary school student, act as a human conveyor belt for their amusement.

Ah well. Student labor, unpaid student labor, is always cheaper.

Besides, I’m getting an education here.

So, chew, chew, snap, what can I get ya today?
The day started with me doing the restaurant grunt work: Sniffing cream to see if it had gone bad, getting photocopies of the placemat menu, and so on. Not terribly interesting. But someone had to do it. And today, that someone was me. Your server.

See, I’ve been every job in the restaurant except server. So, now, it’s my turn.

Wanna know if I dumped a tray full of food on someone’s lap? Or wanna know if I somehow managed to draw a line of blue ink across my left breast?

Keep reading.

You want the brown or the white?
After I do what I can do in the front of the house (and the restaurant manager is not in, so I do my best to guess, bearing in mind that I have never waited tables and, in fact, have never even worked in a restaurant outside of these last few weeks working the line), I go to the back of the house to see if I can help.

I manage to snag two jobs I want to do. First, I grill watermelon slices for the pantry to use to make the watermelon salad and corn for the Sous to use for her fritters and for grill to use for a salad.

I really do love the grill.

Then, I give the watermelon to pantry and strip the corn of it’s kernels, giving some to the Sous and keeping the rest which I use to make the salad for the grill.

Wanna make the salad? Okay, here’s the recipe. It’s pretty simple and simply delicious.

Recipe for corn salad
8 ears of fresh corn
Generous handful of washed and dried (roll in a paper towel) whole parsley leaves
Generous handful of basil leaves (wash, dry, and roll) – rip the large leaves in half
1 pint of cherry or grape tomatoes, cleaned and dried and cut in half
2 limes, juiced
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Grill the corn. Then, holding each ear of corn on it’s end, cut the kernels from the cob by cutting downward. I find if I angle my knife ever so slightly toward the cob (as opposed to straight up and down), I waste the least amount of corn.

Mix your corn with your parsley, basil, and tomatoes (Why do I insist they are dry? So your vinaigrette will cling to them. What vinaigrette? I am so glad you asked … ).

In a separate bowl, combine your lime juice with your olive oil, sticking loosely to this ratio: 1 part lime juice to 2 parts oil. Whisk your juice and oil to create your emulsion (You’ll see it happen: The two liquids will become one and your vinaigrette, because that is what you are making here, will change color. It’s a neat process.)

Pour your vinaigrette over your corn salad and combine, using a rubber spatula (or whatever utensil you prefer, just as long as it doesn’t crush your delicate corn).

Taste. Add salt and pepper. Taste again. Keep adding salt and pepper until you can just about taste them; that should be the right amount. And, if your salad needs brightening (if it is good, but not spectacular), feel free to add another good squeeze of lime juice. I did. But it depends on the flavor of your vegetables.

Spend a good twenty minutes flipping through some juicy cookbook, then bring your salad out and be sure to let everyone know how it took so much time and how you are clearly far too exhausted from the effort to, say, do any dishes.

Hey, babe, no touching the merchandise
I enjoyed making the salad, but as I was doing so, Chef Rushmore, kept hovering at my elbow, looking for scraps to feed his chickens.

See, he keeps a bunch of chickens and he likes to feed them on scraps from the school. He told me it was his goal to have his land pay for his mortgage. So he feeds his chickens on school food scraps then sells their eggs back to the school.

I don’t know about the other students, but I didn’t have much for him. So he picked up a milk container someone threw into the garbage, sarcastically muttered “No worries, I’ll take this to the recycling bin for you, nobody need bother about it, I’ll be happy to take care of it,” and wandered out.

The first story I ever heard of Chef Rushmore was told to me by a fellow student, Asian Guy, who said the Chef asked him if he enjoyed raping the planet because he was using a paper cup supplied by the school to drink some water.

At the time, I thought the story was an exaggeration. I no longer do.

No substitutions
I also made a compound butter for service. The restaurant manager suggested I blanch the garlic and I wanted to try that, but Chef Peacock told me to saute it.

So I sauteed it.

And what a bland butter it was. Sigh.

You want fries with that?
The restaurant was fairly busy, with the busiest part of all being two six-tops (two tables of six people, each). Seated at the the tables were high school students who, according to the restaurant manager, were from a special school for troubled kids.

He told me they were going to be a handful. They were not. In fact, these were some of the nicest kids I have ever met.

They were enthusiastic about the food and had lots of questions. They tried things I suggested (One kid did not know what to get for dessert, so I told him to get the cheesecake – my favorite – and if he did not like it I would bring him a chocolate torte. After I served it to him, I disappeared for a minute to give him a chance to try it. Then, when I came back to ask if he liked it, he didn’t have to say a thing: His plate was all but licked clean.)

I think this was their first time in a nice restaurant. They mispronounced many of the words (they all gave torte two syllables so it was tort-eh). And ordered everything by the full name on the menu (instead of just saying “salmon” or “chicken”). And they handed me their plates when I was cleaning up, like they were in someone’s home.

I thought they were lovely.

And, no, I did not dump food on anyone. But I did learn how to carry three plates at a time. Although I don’t breathe when I do it.

But I did manage to draw a bright blue line right across my left breast with my blue marker. Right at the beginning of service, naturally, so the largest number of people could see it.

Sigh.

(But all is not lost: I am not required to wear the loathsome school hat while I am front of the house. Yes, the hat that is destroying my forehead. The hat whose visor half blinds me so I lose my peripheral vision. The hat many another student has complained about. The hat that has driven me nuts since day one. So good things.)

Regular or decaf?
And, in between taking care of the students, I also helped take care of the other tables, bringing water, for example, or clearing plates, as needed. I say “helped” because I was not the only one looking after the other guests.

See, when I was in the back of the house, I noticed (and previously mentioned) that the Chef’s step in anytime a student is behind on the orders or not executing a dish as they like it. Their focus is on producing wonderful dishes as opposed to allowing you to make (or, alas, learn from) your mistakes.

The same sentiment holds true for the front of the house.

One minute, I am by myself, doing all the grunt work from fetching ice to filling bottles of water. But, once the public shows up, the Chef’s show up, and the next thing you know, we are all catering to the needs of our guests.

Then, when the public leaves, they leave, and I am back to grunt work, busing tables and scraping plates (Chef Sideburns tends to help out with the clean up in the back, but Chef Peacock always disappears, sometimes chatting with another Chef, usually lounging at the bar, staring off into space).

No one, of course, likes to help with grunt work: It’s dirty and smelly and sometimes back-breaking. And it makes sense that their focus is on putting a good face to the public. But I do wish they would let us really work our stations, merely acting as advisers if we need it. I’d love the challenge and responsibility of truly running my own station as opposed to merely acting as an assistant to whichever Chef lost the rock paper scissors they do at the start of each service. I learned a tremendous amount in the restaurant, but the sort of thing I have learned is how to tell when a pork chop is ready (looking for the slick of juice on top; that’s a surefire indicator) as opposed to how to manage a station.

And it is the latter, not the former, that I was hoping I would learn at the restaurant. It is what I thought the restaurant was for.

Hey, hon, you want a refill?
Tomorrow, I am back as waitstaff. Now that I know how to all works, it should be easier.

In the meantime, anyone know how to remove pen stains?