Characters of all sorts

Another week of culinary school has begun, and it is much of the same. Learning to cut things into weird shapes and impossibly small sizes. Even something as easy as dicing a tomato has to be complicated by boiling, ice shocking, peeling, deseeding and DRYING the tomato before you start cutting (called a concasse, because "diced tomato" just ain't good enough) . We are getting used to tourned vegetables in our dinners around here as I try to use the product of my practicing. This is alternated with mixed vegetable latkes and lots of mashed potatoes to use the scraps. For those who don't know, a tourned vegetable is a seven sided football cut. (Why seven and not six or eight? Well, it was thought of by the French and as I am sure I have mentioned before, it is probably just to fuck with your head.)

Culinary school is a bit of a trip for me. I am, more often than not, the person in the room with the strongest opinions about food. Not so much at culinary school. Listening to some of the Chef's talk about food is both amazing and highly amusing. Listening to some of my 18-22 year old classmates talk about just about anything is both amazing and amusing.

My first class is taught by a foriegn (french? I am sure he told us and I was too tired to remember on the first day.) teacher who is sometimes hard to understand but runs his class like a boot camp. The first week was a little lax, but now we are beginning to see the irritation when someone does not remember to put on a part of their uniform, or comes in late. The cuts must be perfect and everything must remain SPOTLESS while you are working. No dirtying up your cutting board by leaving scraps on it lest you be called a "Porky Pig".

My second class is safety and sanitation. Which, while being important, is a bit boring to both attend and (I would guess) to teach. So the Chef instructor (who reminds me of Pavarotti) ends up repeating himself a lot. But, he is a wealth of comments that I find hysterical some times......

- When asked if veal is mistreated his response was "well it's not a pet you know."

- When discussing meats, "Well SOME people believe that sodium nitrate is carcinogenic"

Then there are my fellow students. I haven't had a chance to talk to them much, beyond evesdropping on a lot of conversations that start with the phrases, "Well, we were at the bar..." and "Man, I was so trashed". But there are some stand outs. There is the 39 year old who has spent the last 6 years on a crabbing boat and is mysteriously silent about the time before that. He totally reminds me of the character Drew on the new Scrubs season, so I keep wondering if he was in jail too. Or the 22 year old with a 6 year old son in his hometown who just moved here with his boyfriend who has a blond mohawk and reminds me of Billy Idol. He cracked me up yesterday by getting all bent out of shape that he was rude to someone on public transportation and they had the NERVE to be rude back! There are the three 20 year olds who all know each other and spent yesterday talking about hooking up with their various boyfriends/girlfriends in the back rooms of their jobs. One of the students was a lawyer in Venezuela and decided to leave to come to culinary school. I haven't had a chance to talk to her, but I bet she will be interesting. In fact, this school could just be amusing as hell because the people are all just a little bit crazy.

Drinking the water

“Yes, Chef. No, Chef. Thank you Chef, may I have another.” This week I started the Le Cordon Bleu culinary school if you didn’t know it already. What you probably don’t know, because I certainly didn’t before Monday, is how closely it seems to resemble joining the armed forces, or maybe a cult.

As they handed out our (butt ugly, except for the jackets) uniforms there was much talk about the reputation associated with them and the need to maintain discipline while you are wearing them and not bring shame on the institution. All uniforms must be impeccably clean and white. (Quite a feat with all white gear) All uniforms must be hemmed and pressed at all times. Your neckerchief must be tied in a proper Windsor knot and GOD HELP YOU if you show up to class without a part of your gear. In class the only answer is “Yes, Chef.” Unless of course the answer is “No, Chef.” Any deviation from this pattern is not appreciated.

There seems to be less verbal abuse so far than I would expect from the military, but I understand it comes when you get into the higher cooking courses. After all WE are paying THEM for this opportunity not the other way around, so it simply wouldn’t be economically advisable for them to scare us away in the first week. I image it works a little like domestic violence, they have to make us think that we want them and need them badly enough to tolerate any bad behavior before it begins.

I am sure that there are very practical reasons for both the uniforms and the conduct requirements, not the least of all being to show respect. (Which I whole-heartedly support) But mostly I think it is probably because it is a French founded school and the French just love to fuck with people.

So far there has been a lot of lecture and a little cutting. Pretty boring fare really. How to succeed. (Show up.) How to show respect and handle yourself in the kitchens. (Yes Chef!) How to cut carrots into itty bitty teeny tiny squares that I can’t for the life of me figure out what they could be used for.

So, if you are looking for some julienned vegetables (or the aforementioned teeny tiny squares called a fine brunoise) I am your girl. At least until we move on to boiling chicken carcasses. (Otherwise known making stock.)