mary eats

So, did you think I’d quit school? Run off to the big city to make my fortune and end up on the Food Network with my own show? No, silly, it was just spring break. 10 glorious days of waking up at 10 am, lounging around watching Food Network and Bravo’s Top Design to my heart’s content. (I was pulling for Goil)

The last couple weeks of first quarter went a little like this: zoom, blam, crash, pow, whomp, zallawazoo. Hard and fast. I scored a 93 on my knife test. It was nerve racking. I completely botched my batonnet (far too big, steak fries anyone?) and brunoise (screw brunoise, seriously. I’m over it), but managed 40 minutes. I scored a crackin’ 100% on my final, and even managed to pass the servsafe exam with a 92. Not too shabby. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t finish the quarter with a bit of an ego (Come on , a 4.0, how could you not think you’re the queen of the world- that and forcing kevin to greet me every morning saying “hey queen of the world”).

The change from first quarter and second quarter could not be more dramatic, physically and emotionally. This quarter my classmates and I are responsible for crafting up lunch service for the entire culinary and baking programs as well as the lunch buffet SCCC students and faculty frequent. It is quantity cookin’ baby. Yee haw.

Quantity cooking has it’s purpose, hospitals, weddings, my lunch Tuesday-Friday, but dang is it hectic. For one I am preoccupied with maintaining quality and integrity of the food I produce, on the other hand, I have a time deadline along with a heavy workload. As eaters/consumers we can’t help but be skeptical, a little suspicious even of large vats of food sitting out on the buffet line. And I find that same feeling creeping up on me when I am fixing up 75 servings of salad dressings. “How can this possibly taste good?” I’ll ask myself, assuming that larger = worse. Maybe that is why fine dining servings are so tiny. Tiny = better.

I think I have explained before a bit about my first quarter classroom, it was at the opposite end of the school, a quiet, serene, Zen rock garden of a lab compared with the steam whistles, oven hums, and range fan droning of the main kitchen where the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarter students go about their work. I feel a bit out of sorts, if my life experience and obsessive home cooking aided me last quarter, then my lack of kitchen experience has me doubting my performance now. Time management is a huge issue, as is learning when to finish a dish, even if it means not rearranging the shrimp to look like the NYC Rockettes doing the can-can. I hope this is only beginning of the quarter jitters.

My knife skills test is appromaxiately 12 hours away and I am freekin freaked out. The physical symptoms of stress have appeared, and I feel sick.

I have 30 minutes to complete the following cuts.

Batonnet 1 potato
Medium dice 1 potato
Brunoise 1 Carrot
Peel and segment one orange
Concassee one tomato
Fine chop parsley
Small dice one onion
Mince 1 shallot
Mince 6-8 cloves garlic

Because I am not at the CIA, if I cut myself, we call time out, am bandaged up, squirted with water, given a quick shoulder massage to stay loose, then sent back into the ring. I’ve heard rumors that some schools fail you if you cut yourself or go over the time limit.

I’ve been practicing, and am confident in my orange segmenting (that is down to 2 minutes), my batonneting (also two minutes, faster if I could peel that damn potato with out it popping out of my hands every 10 seconds). I have got concassee down pat, just needing to mind the cooking time (they only need a few seconds), my mincing skills are posh, but parsley is a time whore, at least 5 minutes. My biggest fear is the bourniose. Half of a carrot 1/8th by 1/8th by 1/8th. Not only is my sizing off, but I cannot square off a carrot to save a life. Somehow (I blame the knife!) I always end up a little slanted to the outside. My planks are sloppy, and I’d be lucky to get those little suckers into their proper dimensions.

I do curse these cuts, always muttering under my breath when I am to fine dice 10 pounds of celery, or brunoise 5 pounds mushrooms, but heaven strike me now If I don’t nit pick when where I’m eating doesn’t do it right.
“You are not a small dice,” I challenge the cubes of carrot in my stew.
“You call that a julienne, ha!” I sneer at a pair of criss-crossed peppers garnishing a side of rice.
“Chiffonade basil? Please, you’re nothing more than disregarded Christmas ribbon.” I yell at my pizza. This all happens in my head of course. Sometimes aloud if I’m at home, alone.

“Remember, if people are paying $40 for a plate of food, then they deserve perfect cuts,” has become my pep talk when I start to purposely cut an extra 1/32nd of an inch, or leave that seed in the concasse, just to rebel, just to put my stamp on it. But this quickly comes to an end as not only will my finish product be picked through for precision, but my rubbish as well, to ensure that I have not wasted too much. So say a little somethin’ somethin’ to the kitchen gods this week for me, I need it.

Oh, My, God, My computer is infested with ants. Yes, ants. Those six legged shinny black crawlies have made home in the underbelly of my computer, no doubt the post modern home for upper class ants sick of the sand.
“Daaaaaahling, I lust love these hard clean lines,”
“Yes dear, and these flecks of silver and brass, it must have cost a fortune!”
“Wait till the neighbors see it. They are going to die, just die!”

Is this the reason behind my lack of posting? No. I only discovered this last night (PS if you live in a basement or ground floor do not, do not leave your laptop on the floor overnight to charge.) No, the reason behind my lack of school posting is simple. Remember in High School or college, at the beginning of the year? Your nervousness and excitement, determination to be studious, to absorb all the wonderful knowledge? Yeah. Remember how long it seamed to get things going, how gingerly the instructor danced around subjects, and how you either transcribed his or her lectures or found your notebook blank at the end of class. Remember your aching, longing even, for the class to get up to speed? Then one day boom, its midterm time and suddenly all your assignments are due one day, several tests in a day, maybe even an oral report or two. “But,” you plead with your instructors, stomach in a knot, tears welling in your eyes. “This is so unfair, how can you expect me to finish all this work at one time!”
“Buuuhhahahahaha,” they laugh. “Welcome to college.” They reply, a hint of horn protruding out from under their hair.

Last week the bulk of our assignments for both our sanitation class and our theory class were due. For me this meant completing a 16 page HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) paper, my spice assignment, and a research paper (with bibliography) on Konbu. Not to mention a Midterm in both classes. Seeing that I have a husband who is kind enough (now) to make dinners and I don’t work (yet) I spaced my work out pretty evenly. Nonetheless, all these projects take hours, hours to produce, review, and polish. Try, just try, writing a research paper after years of magazine features, restaurant reviews, and blogging. Yikes. My oral report won fans for my employment of the comic (I figure if you give them visuals, they won’t really be paying attention to you).

Now that we have finished week eight, the separation of the class is evident. I am happy to report that over half the class is passionate and dedicated, people that I would be keen to work with on a project or in real working life. There are strong leaders and workhorses, people who can take criticism and instruction at the blink of an eye, with out making it personal, and then there is the other half. The half that stands and leans and grazes, the other half who could care less about the uniformity of their cuts, their technique, and for whom listening is an art form long forgotten.

Back in week three and four, when the two groups became apparent, I really wanted to reach out to these people, I so desired for the class to be strong, a unit to be reckoned with. My mother-in-law was surprised at my compassion. Advising me to look out for myself, upon hearing about my sharing of my hand crafted study aids (my co-teachers at Sanbon SLP can attest to my flashcard making skills). “But it is no good for me if the people I’m working with aren’t up to my speed or at my level. I just want everyone to succeed.” My leftist liberal heat bleed. I blame it on being a teacher. While I had my favorites (every teacher does) I so wanted my whole class to get it. Did you count how many times I used “my” in this paragraph? 9. I’m sure that is a writing voilation.

Now I find my competitive side has taken over, even admitting out loud that, “well it is nice to have people to make you look good.” I’m not proud of it, but that is the rat race, no?

Here is a sampling of what I turned in. K, one of my classmates sent me this video from you tube. My spice tasting was, how should I put it, more refined, thought out? But faces made as a result of the heat, the drying, the bitter, or allover nastiness of eating and smelling over 30 dried spices were pretty much on queue.

Cayenne Pepper
Apperance: ground Fibrous red bath powder
Aroma: Like the inside of a jalapeno with out the acidity. Like the seeds. Now my nose itches.
Taste: Warming peppery. I can’t believe I just licked some cayenne off my finger. My tongue is on fire.
Curry Powder
Apperance: Dark orange fibrous dirt flecked with dark browns, blacks, and whites
Aroma: Indian restaurants the world over.
Taste: Bitter, peppery, astringent
Ginger, ground
Apperance: Vanilla protein powder
Aroma: Warm spice aroma, refreshing, lemony, awakening
Taste: Peppery, burning

My HACCP is far too boring to read, so instead I will entertain you with this fun sanitation fact:

“Norovirus is very contagious and is often transferred to food when infected foodhandlers touch the food with fingers containing feces.” Every sanitation class the word feces is mentioned at least 5 times. Mmmmm. Feces.

Finally from my research paper:
A Dictionary of Japanese Food, notes that, “o-shaburi konbu is chewed, as a traditional alternative to gum” (83) . Watch out Trident.

And the comic: