But don’t worry.

It’s not what you think.

Apples are 25% air which is why you can bob for them
When I got into the kitchen this morning, the first thing I did was pull all my ingredients from the reach in. I opened every container and evaluated what was good, what was bad, what needed to be replaced, what I did not have enough of.

I put together a shopping list for Other Guy who was acting as Sous Chef. As Sous, it was his job to gather needed product.

Then I got to work.

I shelled English peas and blanched and shocked them. I peeled, diced, and roasted butternut squash. I thinly sliced two red onions. I made a ricotta gnocchi with chiffonade basil, mint, and parsley. (Actually, the Chef asked for basil, cilantro, and parsley, but when I balked at mixing basil and cilantro he said I could use mint, instead.) And so on.

Then, an hour and a half after I entered the kitchen, it was time to go on the line.

Cabbage is more than 90% water
As I have mentioned before, this is a small class. So small, that our Chef asked the head Chef for permission to not use one of our group as waitstaff. Permission was denied. So, if you subtract one student to the front of the house and another student to the dish pit, and a third student to the Sous Chef position, then you are left with only three cooks.

I was one of those three. My station: Saute. Which is the burners and the oven.

Because we are such a small group, we are always getting yelled at for not getting our clean up done in time. Typically, we are out of there by 3:00. But, according to the schedule, we were supposed to be out of there by 2:30.

Make-Up Girl said this was not fair. She said the class before ours had 13 students and we only had 6 and that is why they managed to be out on time.

The Chef said we just had to move faster, always faster.

Honey is the only food that does not spoil
And we were moving faster. But, as I so well know, faster does not mean better. In fact, sometimes it means worse, opening the door to all sorts of problems. Such as injuries. As I know so well.

Only, today, the injury was not mine. Today, the injury belonged to the only one of us with well over a decade of restaurant experience: Sweet Line Cook.

He sliced open two fingers with a mandoline. And he bled for a full half hour before we went onto the kitchen for service and continued to bleed for heaven knows how much longer as we all left him behind.

The Chef’s told him he was done for the day. Bringing our number to an even smaller five.

Later, after service, I banged into Sweet Line Cook. He showed me a finger swathed to four times it’s normal size. He told me the janitor had bandaged it.

He told me the janitor was the only one around.

There are over 7,000 varieties of apples
Of course, running, running, running can create other problems. Such as forgetting an ingredient on the line.

If you are going to forget an ingredient, this is the one to forget; it was supremely easy to fix. But when I realized I forgot the ingredient, the Chef hissed in my ear with all the venom he could muster: “That is what home cooks do.”

At culinary school, home cooks are considered with nearly as much contempt as vegetarians. So I have just been royally insulted.

(The other Chef told me if I did that in a professional kitchen the Chef would crawl inside me and explode me from the inside out.)

The forgotten ingredient: Arugula. How it was forgotten: I mistook an extra, closed, container of green peas for arugula. How foolish is that: It sounds absurd (how, after all, can one mistake peas for arugula?), but bear in mind that I had a table full of containers, all closed, all full of ingredients, and I was checking them fast, fast, yes Chef I’m moving fast.

Why was this the best ingredient to forget: Many of my other ingredients needed prep. My carrots, for example, had to be blanched; my butternut squash roasted. But the arugula? It was thrown, raw, into the pan on the line and wilted, then and there.

So the fix was merely grabbing a bag of arugula from the reach in.

And you know the whole school-is-supposed-to-be-a-safe-place-to-make-mistakes-because-you-are-learning thing? Not here.

Peanuts are not nuts; they are legumes
During service, I got slammed, as usual, due to the popularity of the fish dish, which was one of mine.

Now, I was more familiar with the dishes as this was my third day doing them. Or, I would have been if the Chef had not changed the fish recipe this morning. In all fairness, he did give me a demonstration of the new fish dish at the start of service. But I was so busy helping the Sous Chef make appetizers, as I was supposed to, that I only saw every third step or so.

But I should have seen this coming because, when I came in this morning, I found out that the earlier class had halibut – the halibut I had portioned out yesterday for service today – as their black box item (this is where the students are given a carefully selected protein which they use as the cneterpiece of a plate full of food).

Well, that’s one way to use up unwanted proteins.

“Orange” does not rhyme with any other word
We have two Chef’s: Chef Peacock and Chef Sideburns. On top of that, we have a student Sous Chef. The remaining students (four) report to all three.

So, as my husband says, “Hilarity will ensue.”

Picture, if you will, the back kitchen as one of those arcade games, where you release a ball and it bangs from item to item, lights flashing, bells whistling, buzzers shrieking, until it finally drops to the bottom and disappears out of sight.

Out of sight, that is, until the next ball is launched, once again, into this wonderful world of rebound and recoil.

Now, picture me as that ball.

Today, everything one of the three told me to do contradicted what the other two said.

Let me give you an example.

When I came in, I knew I needed to make my gnocchi right away so the dish could sit before being cooked. See, it needs to sit so the gnocchi dough can stiffen up a bit to help the gnocchi retain their shape.

So I ask the Sous for my gnocchi ingredients. But, before he can get it, Chef Peacock gets the Sous to do something else. So I work on something else while I wait. Then the Sous finally gets a moment and gets it for me, but before I can use it, he asks me to take care of something else. So I go do that. Then Chef Peacock yells at me for not making the gnocchi early enough so it had time to sit. Then I tell him the Sous told me to do something else. Then he tells me I should have checked with him. Then Chef Sideburns gives me grief for not making the gnocchi earlier. Then, well, you get the idea.

All day was like this.

Eggplants are fruits; berries, to be precise
Bah! I feel like I’ve just been complaining and complaining. Really, I’m learning a lot. But I’m tired and hungry (food, food everywhere and not a bite to eat – we don’t get to eat any of the food we cook; I have no idea what my gnocchi or fish dishes taste like!) and fussing.

Okay. So let’s move on.

Starting Monday, we switch jobs. I had asked Chef Sideburns if I could be Sous Chef next and he agreed, but Chef Peacock made me dishwasher and desserts. Damn. I knew Chef Peacock wielded the power. I should have known to ask him. I’ll know for next time.

I’m perfectly happy doing desserts, but there is a problem with me doing dishes.

You see, ever since I entered the third term, I have been battling a reaction to the cleaning solution on my hands and arms.

I have been using this cleaning solution ever since I entered school. And it didn’t bother me in the first or second terms. But in this term, the Chef likes us to use a very, very concentrated cleaning solution. In fact, he likes us to pour it straight from the jug into a bucket and only add a splash or two of water.

And this very strong solution is jsut too harsh for me, leaving me with a red, itchy, irritating rash that has spread across the lower half of my arms and my hands.

I’ve taken off my wedding band and have been trying to go without my watch (nearly impossible, however, as I need it to time things) and have been keeping my arms and hands as clean and dry as I can. And it has been helping.

But, in the next class, and in the classes after that while I am on dishes, I am going to spend the entire time up to my elbows in a variety of solutions, including this one.

So it’s going to be a while, yet, before I can put my wedding band back on.

But no worries. I’m keeping the husband. He’s worth more than the ring.

Well, really, can you ever have enough? No, I don’t think so.

1.    No single purpose gadgets allowed. If it’s taking up space in your kitchen, it needs to be able to do more than just one thing. A Microplane is the best lemon zester, garlic mincer, and Parmesan grater around.

2.    I use vinegar and baking soda on ALL of my caked-on food messes. It lifts the stains/food right off my pans every time…

3.    Season as you go.

4.    Prep all ingredients before hand, so that you can keep pace.  Unless you are sure that you can do the prep will the recipe is going.  I tend to chop slower than most, so I need extra time with no stress.

5.    More like a life tip? If you don’t already– learn to enjoy cooking for one.

6.    Don’t be afraid to improvise with flavor combinations. Add in whatever you have laying around or leftover in the fridge. Everything benefits from more vegetables!

7.    keep it clean…clean as you go!

8.    Start any cooking event with a sink full of soapy water so that you can put pans, etc. in there for a quick soap or long-lasting soak. For me and my tiny kitchen, this is a great help.

9.    I dice onion, peppers, garlic, etc. ahead of time and freeze so that I can toss into soups and sauces and save a step. I also freeze fresh herbs in ice cube pans with water. Nothing like the flavor of fresh basil in the winter!

10.    Cut the water you use in pie dough with half vodka.  For real!  You see, water + flour makes gluten, which is what makes pie doughs tough, which is why everyone freaks out about how much water to add.  BUT, alcohol *doesn’t* make gluten.  So you can use half vodka (which won’t make it taste boozy, although more might), and the rest water, and you can actually use a sane amount of liquid to produce a manageable pie crust, with no freaking out about too much liquid.  Sweet!  (Got this from Cook’s Illustrated, where else?)

These cooking tips were from readers. If you would like to add to our cooking tip extravaganza, please, please do.

And, hey, thanks!

In one hand, I clutched a bag sticky with moisture. In the other, a book (predictably) swollen with perspiration. I used my forearm to wipe my brow as I ran, ran, ran toward those unassigned seats, glancing fore and aft; fore at the plane and aft at my well-brought-up mother stumbling toward a rickety semblance of civilization.

“Ma? Hey Ma!”

(She hated it when I called her “Ma.”)

“What?” she panted.

“You know, now, just now, I finally understand the itch and pain of diaper rash!”

My mother pretended she did not hear me. My mother is English. In her world, many, many things do not exist simply because she ignores them. Diaper rash in an adult is one of those things.

She ignored me, we ran, and I sweated and laughed and laughed and sweated at the silliness of it all.

Being in the kitchen today made me think of this.

A honeybee must visit two million flowers to make just one pound of honey
I woke up bright and early (awake at 5:00 a.m., good heavens) and had a leisurely morning of it, sipping a blueberry smoothie and playing with the kitten and catching up on the news.

All I needed were mules with feathers (for my male readers, think frou frou slippers that typically come with poodles and bon bons!).

I moseyed into school around 8:30. The night pastry class had left some chocolate goodies which the students before me had pretty much decimated. They were no temptation. Besides, I was feeling all virtuous having started my day with a very healthy smoothie. I wasn’t going to ruin it now!

By 9:30, the Chef let us into the kitchen. Now, I knew what ingredients I needed, so I set right to work.

I sliced red onions and roasted butternut squash. I blanched baby carrots, cut a halibut into steaks, and gathered arugula.

And, when I finished prep for my station, I helped another station with their prep, squeezing six pounds of blanched fava beans out of their skins and trying not to shoot them across the kitchen (those puppies can travel!). Then I cleaned the back kitchen and joined those of us that were cooking on the line.

Honey has more calories than sugar: One tablespoon of honey is 64 calories while one tablespoon of granulated sugar is 46 calories
Today, the restaurant was less busy than yesterday. But, purely by luck, today almost everyone ordered fish.

The fish was halibut. The halibut was cooked at the saute station. I was working the saute station. I was slammed.

And I was cooking “Five orders fish, right away” and “Three fish, one well done” and “Six fish, no pancetta in one of the vegetables” like there was no tomorrow.

At one point, the Chef stepped in to help (or because he thought I was too slow). Damn it, it was my station. So I took my pans back. I am not going to learn how to manage if he does the managing.

And, as I am whipping, I am not aware of how hot it is. I am not aware of the heat from the burners right in front of me. I am not aware of the heat from the deep fryer right next to me. I am not aware of the heat from the grill to my right. I am not even aware of the heat from the oven to my left.

Which is all that much hotter given what I was wearing: Stiff, leather Chef’s clogs, padded socks that get high marks for comfort but not so high for breathability, Chef’s pants which are pure polyester, a cotton t-shirt and a long-sleeve Chef’s jacket – more polyester – buttoned to my throat. And, insult of insults, a hat, also a non-breathing synthetic fabric, that not only impedes my peripheral vision as it has done so every day of my school life, but that holds enough heat for me to finish service. You know. If we should suddenly lose our gas feed or something.

Actually, I did notice the heat from the oven for a minute when one of the few bits of me allowed to be exposed to the air – the fleshy part at the base of my thumb – grazed the rack of a 450 degree oven. That I noticed. And marked rather loudly with a rather rude word. But I didn’t notice it for long. Because I was getting slammed.

It takes 50,000 bees one year to make 500 pounds of honey
And, as quickly as it started, it ended with a final, lonely, “One halibut,” “One halibut, Chef!”

I put away my ingredients and noted, for the Sous Chef, what I needed for tomorrow (the Sous will get it for me). I wiped my station. I scoured prep tables. I swept. I put away dishes and hung spoons and polished and rolled silverware.

And, through it all, I, like everyone else scarfed down an extra chicken sandwich from the pile of ten or twenty sandwiches which had been prepared by the grill station but which almost no one had ordered.

It was great. I have yet to try any of the food I make.

And we ended the day, collapsed at the bar and talking about what went right, what went wrong, and what we had to do tomorrow. And it was there, sitting between Gawky Guy and Make-Up Girl as we teased Other Guy about his lopsided silverware rolls, that we all realized how hot we were.

Everyone started talking about what they wanted to drink: Freshly squeezed orange juice, a beer, a single shot of vodka straight from the freezer, a soda.

And I drifted far, far away to a time years and years ago when I was running across the tarmac with my mother in an attempt to secure seats on a plane to Cairo in a heat I would not feel again for decades.

And I remembered, I didn’t have anything to drink then, either.

This is a good batch of really practical kitchen tips you can use right now. I know. I did!

1.    Clean as you go.

2.    Relax. Don’t be afraid of food. Its just food. Jump in and HAVE FUN. Experiment. Trust your instincts. Who cares if something goes wrong. It’s a learning experience. You’ll know differently next time. There’s always pb&j in the pantry

3.    Being in the field of food safety now, I feel that I need to say that my best kitchen tip is validating hamburger doneness with a thermometer (especially an electronic/digital thermometer that stays in the patty while cooking). Another tip is the use of multiple cutting boards (one for vegetables and one for raw meats, for example).

4.    Experiment! try substituting here and there. as long as whatever you make is thoroughly cooked, it won’t kill you.

5.    always collect new spices, new or familiar.

6.    Buy lemons and limes on sale by the 10’s or 20’s, cut in half, juice and put the juice into ice cube trays.  Pop out and place into a freezer bag.  Each cube is approximately 1 oz of juice.  Then freeze the rinds because most recipes that call for juice also call for zest.  The rinds are much easier to zest when they are frozen.  Plus, you don’t have a bunch of moldy lemons or limes in your frig.

7.    Always grease the pans!

8.    Give yourself more time than you think you need!

9.    I have a master shopping list on my computer and I just check off items as I realize I’m out. I have one for food shopping, and one for non-food shopping (cleaning products, wax paper, etc.)

10.    I always have a Tupperware container of streussel topping stored in the freezer. If I need a quick dessert, I just sprinkle some onto some frozen or fresh fruit and bake.

Got any tips you are using these days? Then drop me a comment with ‘em. We can all use all the help we can get.

Thanks!

And hungry as I am, what I really crave is something to drink. Something cold. Icy cold. That clinks.

I am back from school and my first day cooking in the school restaurant for a paying public. Here are all the things I worried about: Dropping food, burning food, serving overcooked food, serving the wrong food, and serving (and this is a big one) raw food.

Lemme get something to drink and I’ll tell you all about it.

Lettuce is a member of the sunflower family
Okay. I’m sitting here with a mango lassi in my hands. I just popped two Advil to try to combat the mild, but damnably persistent migraine I have had since last night. I washed my hands, then held my wrists under icy, running water. This is an old trick to help you cool down. And I am feeling a lot cooler. But, then I shed my pants five minutes ago and turned on the air conditioning immediately after. So you might want to take that advice with a grain of salt.

I could do with something to eat (I cooked all day and never got around to eating), but I think I’ll wait and make the husband take me out to dinner. It’s time for someone else to do the cooking. So about my day …

I slept like a rock; I wasn’t really nervous at all. Although I did get to school early in the hopes that I could get a head start on the prep. But, no, the Chef forbade me from entering the kitchen until the earlier class was out. Bother. Mama was front of the house today, so I helped her get the restaurant organized until I was allowed into the kitchen.

Might as well be productive.

An ear of corn never has an odd number of rows
When we were allowed into the kitchen, the other half of our class – the students who had been working the kitchen last semester – told us everything they had prepared and what was left to do. Then they left and we were allowed, finally, to get to work.

Other Guy, who was Sous Chef, was responsible for setting up the line. You should have seen my station: It was as perfectly positioned and fully stocked as if I had done it for myself. Which meant I only had to worry about prepping food.

So I got to it.

Now, everyone said the earlier class had pretty much done everything and that we would have nothing to do. Well, that may have been true for some of the stations, but it wasn’t true for mine. Yes, plenty was done (and done well, for which I was grateful) but there was plenty that was not done.

I used every minute of my hour and a half to get it done.

Eggs age more in one day at room temperature than in one week in the refrigerator
There are three people on the line: The grill cook (Make-Up Girl), the pantry station (Gawky Guy), the saute cook (me). And, of course, there is the Sous (Other Guy).

Make-Up Girl is incredibly nervous. I’m a bit excited, but not really nervous. Just anxious to do a good job. The guys? Well, you know guys. Even if they ae nervous, they won’t let you know.

The Chef demonstrated each of the stations. I had so much prep to do, I missed the demo’s for salad and Sous (sous did the appetizers), and only caught the tail end of the grill station demo. But, of course, I saw the saute demo.

I cooked three things: The fish dish, the vegetable dish, and a second vegetable dish that was served with the fish.

The fish dish worked like this: Get the fish started on the burner, then, when the presentation side was pretty, turn it over and finish it in the oven.

The vegetable dish that went with the fish was cooked when the fish was in the oven. Once it was finished, then the fish was pulled out of the oven, slathered with compound butter, and popped back. Then, as the butter was melting, the vegetables were plated. The fish was then pulled out of the oven once again and plated with the vegetables.

As for the vegetable entree, it was wave after wave of vegetables cooked on a burner and finished with their own compound butter.

It was also my job to help the Sous with the appetizers. These were easy; they were either fritters that only needed a quick fry or soup that was simply poured into a bowl.

Egg yolks are one of the few foods that naturally contain Vitamin D (although it is added to other foods, such as milk)
So how was it?

Fun!

Sometimes busy, sometimes boring. At my busiest, I had seven fish and two vegetable entrees going at the same time. But often it was only two or three dishes at once.

And sometimes, it was no dishes.

At one point, our Chef took over my station for a few minutes, leaving me with nothing to do. When I asked him if I had done anything wrong, he said he thought I needed a hand. But I think he just could not stop himself; he was loving it.

And here is the annoying part: It took us longer to prep and clean than it did to cook. By far. In fact, I’d guess we spent loosely four hours doing prep and clean up and only two hours cooking. And that’s a generous estimate when it comes to the cooking part.

I’d rather it was the other way around: Four hours cooking and two hours in prep and clean up. Cooking is where the fun is!

Blueberries are the second most popular berry in the United States
I know what you are wondering: What about my fears?

Well, I didn’t drop any food, didn’t burn any food, never served any overcooked food, never served the wrong food, and never served any raw food.

But there is still tomorrow!

Well, if you’ve been reading me all along, you know I have been sharing the tips with you in batches of ten. I’ve been caught up in school and those tips got pushed to the end of my to-do list, but they’re back!

So, without further ado, I give you: Cooking tips!
1.    Always use fresh spices and herbs.

2.   Butter  and EVOO makes everything BETTER!

3.    Tongs.  They are my favorite thing in the kitchen now!

4.    If you’re just starting off in the kitchen, start with dishes that you’re familiar with and have had before. That way you know what it’s supposed to taste like, look like, smell like AND you’re not buying completely alien ingredients. Once you get some confidence in the kitchen, then try challenges from cookbooks and magazines and the internet, and don’t beat yourself up over your failures. They’re learning experiences. Oh, and season everything more than you think you should, especially if you’re new to cooking!

5.    Learn food styling and create dinner party meals out of everyday dishes

6.    Take care of your stuff and it’ll take care of you. Cast Iron is the cheapest to buy but the very best thing to have around.

7.    A good knife is worth it.

8.    keep your knives sharper than they need to be.

9.    Split, remove seeds and bake pumpkin in the shell to remove flesh for pies, just scoop it out.

10.    Be creative. I like to look at recipes and combine a couple different ideas to make my own recipe or creation. If you think two ideas will work together, try it!

Did we miss an important cooking tip? G’wan and add it in the comments, below. You know you want to (and, heck, we want you to!).

Cheers (and thanks!).

Unlike previous semesters, which were split between classroom time and kitchen time, this semester is spent entirely in the school restaurant.

We will be cooks and waiters and dishwashers. And if we screw it up, our paying patrons will be hungry or annoyed.

Can we talk pressure?

The average ear of corn has 800 kernels in 16 rows
Last semester was slow, almost leisurely. In the kitchen, most of our time was broken into four-day segments where we spent four days creating one plate’s worth of food. We got no feedback on the taste of our food with the Chef rarely trying anything, a little feedback on plating predominately along the lines of “nice” or “too much meat,” and some new techniques such as how to cook rabbit and (heaven help me) dispatch and cook lobster, mixed in with a repeat of some old techniques, such as sausage-making.

I would have loved it if we had taken advantage of the slow pace of this class to really explore flavors; learning how to mix and match flavors, learning why some combinations work and some do not, and learning how to use different flavors to elevate a dish to new heights. I was thinking we would because we were given a culinary artistry book when we started school, but we never used the book. So I guess I will have to use it on my own to learn about flavors. In fact, this would be a great home project for me once my schedule calms down.

And as for the lectures, I learned an incredible amount in a very short time from Chef Pigtails, from menu engineering to restaurant marketing. But, while it was interesting, it was only relevant for those students that want to own their own restaurant. I do not. And nor do some of the other students, such as Mama.

So I’m really looking forward to this semester when we will be in the kitchen. I have a hungry mind and I am itching to learn.

In the United States, one pound of potato chips costs two hundred times more than one pound of potatoes
With one student graduating early, three students moving to night class, and one student kicked out of school, our class has shrunk to a very small group of only six students:

1. The very tall, aptly-named Gawky Guy who drives a motorcycle and has worked in restaurants for years
2. Other Guy who is the world’s biggest pain in the ass when egged on by Mr. Big but who, today, and with the permanent absence of Mr. Big who moved to the night class, is actually being quite sweet
3. Make-Up Girl whose normal tone of voice is shouting but who is enthusiastic and nice
4. The deeply religious Mama, who works incredibly slowly but who is always ready to help
5. Sweet Line Cook who has years of restaurant experience and lovely manners
6. And me

That’s it. Every day, one of us will be dishwasher and one will be waitstaff. Leaving four people to prepare a four-course meal for a restaurant with 50 seats. If we are filled to capacity, that’s 200 dishes.

Plus any extra meals any of the Chef’s want to eat.

Now, those of you reading this blog who are in the restaurant business will laugh at how easy all this would be for you. Me? I’m not in the restaurant industry. And I’m terrified. So I did the only thing to do in this situation. I volunteer for the scariest job of all.

Almonds are members of the peach family
I have long since learned that if I am really scared of something, the best way to deal with it is to just dive in and do it.

For example, remember my fear of being waitstaff? I volunteered for it months ago and not only did I actually have a good time, but I am no longer afraid of it. So, when my turn comes up to be waitstaff again, I’ll look forward to it.

This time, the position that terrifies me the most is saute. I mean I’ll be handling multiple dishes, simultaneously. Fast-cooking dishes. Complicated dishes. So when the Chef asked if anyone had any positions they wanted to do I said, “Yes! Oh yes Chef. I want to do saute.”

“Okay. You got it.”

I start tomorrow.

Cucumbers are 96% water
The rest of the morning was spent in orientation. We didn’t need a tour of the back kitchen; we’ve been having class in it for the last semester. But we did get a tour of the line. The saute station is all the way at the end, crammed between a wall to the left and the grill person to the right with the pantry person behind.

I’m actually not good in confined spaces, so we’ll see how well I do with this.

Then the Chef’s gave us a syllabus (yes!) and a packet of recipes which they reviewed with us.

The Chef’s we have are Chef Peacock, from last semester, and another Chef who, with his Elvis Presley sideburns, I will call Chef Sideburns.

As they talked, they made all sorts of changes.

“No, no tangerines now, so use oranges.”

“Add red onions to that, thinly sliced.”

“Forget the chicken stock and use milk.”

Nearly everything is measured in hotel pans and restaurant pans. And I struggled with this in the first term, never had to use this in the second term, and now have to sort this out in the third term.

Damn.

Non-dairy creamer is flammable
After the Chef’s were done, they left and the restaurant manager gave us a tour of the bus station and bar and told us what was expected of us as waitstaff. It will not be an easy job with only one person doing all the service and clean-up for up to 200 dishes. Still, any problems they make can be easily fixed with a smile and a “Okay, so who ordered the chicken?” and “Can I get you more coffee?”

Then we, like the Chef’s, were done early for the day. Now I am going to go and write my recipes on index cards and learn my dishes.

Then, maybe later, I’ll panic. Just a little.

Wish me luck!

This was a prelude to our killing a lobster in the next class.

The next class is today.

5, 4 . . .
Before we were allowed anywhere near any lobsters, we had to do our mise en place. See, the plan was, we would each dispatch a lobster, make a stock from it, and make a lobster risotto with the stock and the lobster meat.

And, to get started on our mise, we needed our recipes. More than half of the students didn’t have the recipes the Chef had given us the day before, so the Chef, totally pissed, told them not to bother to come into the kitchen until they found them.

Myself included, there were only four students in the kitchen. Four students doing our mise.

Now, we were doing everything individually (no group stock, for example) so we all needed, say, a tablespoon of brandy and two cups of wine and half a small dice carrot and so on. I started measuring out ingredients for Mama and myself, then realized it was very little extra work to just go ahead and measure out for the other two students. So I did. But then I realized that while I was busily measuring out for everyone else, no one was busily dicing any mirepoix for me.

Screw that.

So I went back to only measuring out ingredients for Mama and myself, then we divvied up the mirepoix: She had already done carrots for both of us, so I did the celery and she did the onions.

This class has never come together as a team, and that is a real shame.

But we did come together as a group because, by now, the other students had found their recipes and had joined us in the kitchen. As they were preparing their mise, we sweated our mirepoix, got our stock started, cleaned our stations, and got our lobsters.

It was time to dispatch them.

. . . 3, 2 . . .
Last class, I was, well, a bit shocked when I saw the Chef dispatch his lobster. I knew it was part of our agenda. And I had seen people throw lobsters into boiling water. But I had never seen anyone put the tip of a sharp, sharp chef’s knife to the head of a struggling lobster, push down, then pull the knife forward to split the head into two. It was disturbing.

But it wasn’t as disturbing as seeing it try to escape, legs scrambling for purchase, eyes frantically searching right and left and right, tail stretching and contracting and stretching.

And, bad as that was, the worst part is that it continued long after the poor thing had been dismembered.

Still, as I watched the Chef, I had managed to keep my cool, saying nothing, and reacting only on the inside. And I had calmed down by the time we left the kitchen and went into the classroom. And I had almost forgot about it by the time I had come home, writing my blog, catching up on email, doing three loads of laundry, emptying the dishwasher, and making the bed I had been too rushed to make that morning.

Then my husband and I went out for dinner. And I told him everything about my day except for the lobster. And he told me about his day. And we left the restaurant, crossed the street, and I dragged him into a back alley to tell him about the lobster.

And I promptly burst into tears and he had to hold me and hold me as I told him about her (for it was a female) and how she tried so hard to escape and how it was horrifying to see and how everyone had to do that in the next class which meant I had to do that and I didn’t know if I could do that or even wanted to do that.

And my husband, who is a kind and patient person, just held me as I, finally, cried it all out of my system. Then we went for a nice, long walk through some back streets so I could calm down and he told me I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to.

I know. But, then, here I am, with a live lobster on my cutting board and the decision time is now.

. . . 1
If my math is correct, this is my 100th day at school. For the last 99 days, I have cut up, cooked, and eaten my way through land, sea, and air. This is why I am at culinary school. It would be hypocritical for me, after all that, to not kill that lobster.

So I, carefully, put the tip of my chef’s knife in exactly the right spot, inhaled sharply, then as quickly and gently as I could, I pushed down with all my might. Then, leaving the tip of my knife on the board, I swung the handle forward, cutting the head into two.

Then I exhaled.

And I twisted the still-moving tail off the body and dropped it into a bowl. And I pulled the still-twitching legs off the torso and dropped them, one by one, into the bowl. And I wrenched the claws off the body. These I cracked before I added them to the other body parts. And, finally, I split the body, cleaned it out, and added the shells to my overflowing bowl.

Then I poured these into my stock pot to make the lobster stock I would use to make my risotto.

Once the stock was made, I made a risotto using every drop of this incredibly flavorful liquid. And, when the risotto was nearly done, I stirred in the cooked meat from the body and claws of my lobster.

Then I plated my risotto. And it was the sweetest, most succulent risotto I had ever tasted.

The end of the semester
And so ended kitchen production at culinary school, fittingly, by killing and cooking my own lunch

Afterward, we had our last classroom instruction. This consisted solely of a beer-tasting. It was fascinating stuff. But it was also brief, Chef Pigtails letting us go so early I was home before class usually ends.

And an interesting thing happened on the ride home. These two, older woman, clearly out for a good time, struck up a conversation with me.

“Hey, what’s that bag?”

“This? This is my knife kit.”

“Yeah, look, she must be a real Chef; she’s got a knife kit and everything. Hey, you’re a real Chef, aren’t you?”

“Naaaw. Not yet. I’m still at culinary school.”

“So what’d'ya need to be a real Chef?”

“Well, for starters, I have to at least be working in a real restaurant!”

“So when you gonna go start working in a restaurant?”

“Me? Tomorrow.”

And I saw a lot of that rack. Because she decided that a skin-tight, gray, four-sizes-too-small designer track suit was de rigueur for baking. An outfit she completed, most predictably, with a truly impressive wad of putty-colored gum. And I saw almost as much of that gum as I did of her twin peaks.

But lest you think that her bosom and gum were the only bizarre things in the room, you have to remember her daughter was there, too.

A daughter who got her dressing cues and gum-chewing manners from her mother.

And why were this mother / daughter team and a host of other characters at culinary school with me bright and early on a Saturday morning? Why to bake. Of course.

What kind of bread do elves eat?
~ Shortbread!

I have an nice arrangement with She Chef: I can take her classes as long as I help with the clean-up. So, today, I attended her bread baking class.

There were four breads on the agenda: Braided butter bread, focaccia, baguette, and cheese rolls.

Now, I had tried the baguette recipe during pastry week in culinary school, so I wasn’t interested in doing that again. And the Chef had made my team cheese rolls to use for our sliders in the second term lunch live fire. And I wasn’t interested in those. But I wanted to learn how to braid bread and I never met a focaccia I didn’t like, so that was my focus.

First, as usual, the Chef demonstrated the breads. Then, she told us we had to work in teams of two.

Which meant I had to find someone to work with.

Why did the cookie go to the doctor?
~ Because it felt crummy!

Here were my options.

On my right there was a sweet-looking, plump, short Chinese lady who, it turned out, wore a wool hat through the entire class. In the kitchen. Where the ovens were blazing. The whole time.

It was a wonder she didn’t pass out from the heat.

Next to her, there was a grim-looking older man who wore steel-rimmed glasses, a denim shirt, and took the whole job of baking seriously, very seriously, damn you.

She instantly latched onto him, giggling and flirting, flirting and giggling.

When classes ended, he got out of there so fast, there were tread marks on the floor.

On my left was an older couple. She had enormous yellow teeth and thick pink gums and, despite these impediments, an absolutely infectious smile. He wore a Chef’s jacket that was clearly two sizes too small (he told me he had a wardrobe full of them) and was very intent on baking.

Baking to him included lots and lots of flour. Everywhere.

They were both very chatty and very interested in telling anyone who was not moving fast enough about their past cooking experiences. Their stories were a bit, well, lengthy, but they were so enthusiastic that you were left mildly befuddled and with a gently sense of euphoria.

They were a lovely couple.

Of course, there was the mafia-style mother and daughter team and their matching sets of breasts and gum. Predictably, they wanted to work together. But, not so predictably, at one point I caught the mother cleaning some flour she spilled on the floor (consumers are typically insanely messy cooks who clean nothing, at any point, regardless of how dirty it is). I was impressed.

(Interestingly, the daughter, who is enrolled to start culinary school in a month, was not bothering to help her mother at all. Heaven help her once Motorcycle Chef gets hold of her!)

Finally, there was a young woman, fresh out of high school, who, also, was enrolled to start culinary school in a month. So, by default, she was my partner.

The only problem was, I was not in a partner mood.

What did the baker do when his shop got caught on fire?
~ He got his buns outta there!

As I was not feeling like partnering, and as I was only interested in making two out of the four breads, I turned to my partner and said, “Hey, how about I make the bread while you make the baguette?”

“Okay,” she said.

That was one of her longer sentences.

So I made the dough, then put it to one side to rise.

“Hey, while my bread dough is rising, how about I make the focaccia while you make the cheese rolls?”

“Okay,” she said.

So I made my focaccia dough and put it, too, to rise.

Then I cleaned up the kitchen as much as I could and, once my bread dough had risen, split it into two (to make two loaves) and split each of those into three sections (so they could be braided), then rolled out and braided my dough.

Some people had troubles with it. But I found it silly easy. I mean, girl here. Girl who had long hair when she was young. Girl who had long hair and braids.

Braiding is like riding a bike; you never forget how.

Next, a light egg wash, and a sprinkle with poppy seeds on one and sesame seeds on the other, and into the oven.

As the bread was baking, I topped my focaccia with olive oil, rock salt, and minced rosemary. And it, too went into the oven.

When I brought my bread and focaccia home, my husband said both the focaccia and the braided breads were professional-quality, but he loved the focaccia best and I should listen to him because he is Italian and he knows about this stuff so there.

It was good. But the braided bread was tastier. And it was pretty, too.

Why does a chicken coop have two doors?
~ Because if it had four doors, it would be a chicken sedan!

I helped my partner make her cheese rolls, helped other students get equipment (we were, after all, working in my kitchen, so I knew where things were), helped keep things as clean as possible while the students were working, and when everyone had gone, helped the Chef and her pastry student helper clean the kitchen.

Student helper: “You know that woman with her daughter? When I saw her, I totally thought of the Soprano’s.”

Me: “Oh my Gawd, me too!”

She Chef: “No! I did, too. She was just like one of the New Jersey wives.”

Me: “Yeah, but she helped clean up. I saw her cleaning the floor with a piece of paper towel.”

Student helper: “Yeah, me too. That was great!”

She Chef: “But did you notice her rack?

Student helper: “Oh yeah!”

Me: “You couldn’t, not!”

When my husband and I saw the banner,I turned to him and said: “Not for the poor lobsters. For them, it is lobster murderfest.”

Welcome to lobster murderfest at culinary school.

Why did the tomato blush?
~ Because it saw the salad dressing!

As of this morning, there are only two days left in this semester. Then, I enter my last semester.

In this semester, we spent about an hour and a half in production and three hours in the classroom. In my next semester, we will spend the entire time working in the school restaurant. So these two days are the last days of kitchen lesson and classroom lectures.

And we can already feel that this semester is coming to an end. Because today, we had our very last mirepoix challenge, ever.

This is the third term mirepoix challenge: Medium dice two carrots, two onions, and four stalks of celery in eight minutes. If you can’t do it in eight minutes, do it again until you can, for as many times as it takes.

What a way to start the day!

So I set up my cutting board, got out my peeler and chef’s knife, grabbed my vegetables, and waited, knife in hand, hand poised over the celery.

Yeah, I was a little keyed. After all, I didn’t know, for sure, if I could do it.

“And, start!”

Unlike the other students who start with the onion because it is easiest, I start with the celery. Instead, I save the onion for last. See, my thinking is, if the onion fumes irritate my eyes, I won’t be forced to cut my carrots and celery half blind.

Besides, if I have to race at the end, the onions are the easiest vegetable to speed cut.

I chop the ends off all four stalks, turn them around, line them up, and chop the other ends off.

Then I cut them in half.

And I slice down each half so I am left with celery sticks that are the same width.

Take a bundle of celery sticks, line them up, and slice, slice, slice until they are diced. Ditto a second bundle, then a third. Scoop into a container.

Clean board and knife.

Chef does not count down the time, so I have no idea how I am doing. Hurry, hurry.

Grab the carrots and peel them. Chop off the ends. Cut them in half.

Shave off a thin piece from one of the four carrot halves to give me a flat surface. Discard. Roll the carrot onto the flat surface and cut into planks. Repeat with the other three halves. Stack the planks and cut into sticks, much like I did with the celery. Line up the sticks and dice. Keep doing this until all the carrots are done.

Scoop into a container, clean knife and board, and grab onions.

Glance up. Two people are done. Can’t tell how far along the other students are. Haven’t even started onions yet. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Cut off the root ends and cut the onions in half. Peel the halves. Score the halves. Slice, slice, slice and the onion dice goes into a third container.

Clean board, clean knife.

Okay. Now I can look up.

Some people are done; other people are still cutting. I’m somewhere in the middle. Glanced at Chef. He is still looking at his stopwatch. That means I did it.

Yes!

What did the baby corn say to the mommy corn?
~ Where’s the popcorn?

Once everyone finished (and everyone did finish under eight minutes, although Mama only just made it under the wire and Make-up Girl was going so fast she gave herself a nasty nick on one finger), we were given our task for the day: Make two risottos.

Not another damn risotto. I made eight million in the first and second terms. In fact, I was famous for them. Because when anyone needed a risotto, they always seemed to get me to make it.

So I made another risotto. And the Chef tasted it and proclaimed it “Pretty good.” And, like everyone else, I had to make a second one.

I really wasn’t learning anything new here.

But I made a second one, along with everyone else.

Then when everyone was done making their risottos, we all cleaned up.

And that’s when the Chef dragged out a lobster. A live lobster.

How do you fix a cracked pumpkin?
~With a pumpkin patch!

She, for the lobster was a she, was pretty active for a creature that was kept in a stainless steel bowl covered by a few sheets of damp newspaper.

Her legs were moving, her tentacles were moving, her eyes were moving, and when the Chef picked her up, her tail was not just moving but was actually thrashing with a fury I had only ever seen in a chained dog lunging at a chattering squirrel happily collecting nuts just a link or two out of reach.

The Chef put her on the table and identified her various parts. Then he explained how to dispatch the lobster and mimed, twice, what he was going to do.

Then he leaned over, kissed the lobster (yes, kissed it), then put the tip of his chef’s blade on the back of her neck, and pushed, hard. She spasmed. He clung to her body. She tried to curl her tail. He forced his knife forward and cut her head in two. Her legs twitched. Then he ripped off her tail, ripped off her legs, split open her body, removed her innards, and, finally showed us her heart.

It was still beating.

We’ve been fabricating, cooking, and devouring meat on an almost daily basis for months and months now. It would be hypocritical for me to cry. Besides, I did not want to be the stereotypical weak girl, giving into her emotions.

But it was difficult.

And lest you not understand what this was like for me, let me tell you two things you might not know about me. First, I am the world’s largest animal suck. I’ve had pets practically non-stop since I was a baby. I believe animals have hearts and minds and souls. And I suspect most animals are nicer than most people.

And, second, before I started culinary school I was an almost vegetarian. I rarely cooked or ate meat at home and tried to steer our diets to healthy, non-animal choices (a bit of an uphill battle with my Italian husband!). So, yes, I knew culinary school would mean abandoning this type of life, at least, for the duration, but that does not make it easy.

But I’ve been game about all this. I’ve eaten frogs legs and foie gras and even my arch nemesis, pork. And I’ve ripped beards off mussels and thrown live clams into steaming liquids and I’ve even filleted fish, cut chickens into parts, and even sliced strips of silver skin off pork.

But all of that pales in comparison to having to stick the point of my knife in a creature’s head and watch it die and know that I killed it.

A task we have to do in the next class.

So the question is, can I murder a lobster. Or, even, should I?

What would you do?