I apologize for my last blog. I was in the middle of writing and my computer froze. I had time to blog but my computer wouldn't let me. I wished I could remember that day and try to capture it but it is too late now.
Well, we start our new classes tomorrow, Thursday. This school doesn't fool around. They would not even give us Thursday and Friday off and start our new class on Monday. Today, was clean the kitchen day. You have to clean the walls, every pan, stoves, sinks, stations, you name it and it gets cleaned and sanitized. The new fundamentals class will start in our old lab tomorrow.
This past Monday was ServSafe finals and our Practical, you know, the one where you have to cook several dishes in a short period of time. I finished mine, but barely. Tuesday, we had our written final on our fundamentals class. It was great, yesterday, because as soon as we finished our written test, we were free to go. It felt great having the day off.
I am happy to say that our teacher is moving up with us and is going to teach the intermediate class. We start deboning chickens tomorrow. I think we are going to stuff some chicken and braise and roast. I am bringing plenty of plastic containers. I expect to bring home some chicken goodies tomorrow.
I have some great news ... I don't have to make hollandaise sauce anymore. I had to make it again for my practical on Monday. That was my last one. YES! I will never order Hollandaise sauce again in my life. My eggs benedict will have to be minus the hollandaise sauce. Yuck. If you knew how much butter was in that sauce, you wouldn't order it either.
I was so stressed during my practical Monday that I almost walked out and got in my car and just drove away. This little Joanie was on my shoulder saying, "YOU ARE NOT CUT OUT FOR THIS CLASS, YOU NEED TO JUST WALK OUT RIGHT NOW AND GET IN YOUR CAR AND DON'T LOOK BACK. THINK OF ALL THE MONEY YOU WILL BE SAVING." I said, "NO, I am finishing this test, even if I flunk it. Little did I know that one of my classmates confided in me after it was over, that he came close to walking out in the middle of the exam. This guy, always seems so calm and cool. I guess I wasn't the only one entertaining those thoughts. We had so much to get done in such a short amount of time. Of course, our chef wasn't grading us. They always have a different chef grading our Practical. Our chef doesn't care if we don't go exactly by the recipe. Especially, if there are extra steps in the recipe that you can skip or combine. This chef, however, wanted us to follow the recipe to the letter. It was a good thing I asked him before I started changing up the steps in my stew recipe. He took off points with my other classmates who didn't strictly go by the recipe. I was so happy for Monday to end. I actually made a high B on my test. The chef says my biggest problem is my frustration level. At one point , when the chef came in and yelled that we had less than thirty minutes left, I slammed a pot down on my cutting board. I let my frustration get the better of me. He told me I just need to stay calm and I will stay on track and do better. I know this but it is easier said than done. I also have a bad habit of telling on myself. Every time I showed my dish to the chef, I would tell him what was wrong with it before he could taste it. He kept saying. Stop telling on yourself. I just wanted him to know that I knew how to make the dish but this or that happened. I was sauteeing a chicken breast. You have to make a pan chasseur sauce(wine, mushrooms, stock) to go with it. There was only three minutes on the clock. It wasn't enough time to reduce the liquid into a sauce consistency so I poured the liquidy sauce over my chicken breast and just presented it to him before the time was up. I told him my sauce wasn't the right consistency, didn't have enough time. If you finish all the dishes, you will get some points. If you don't finish a dish, then you get a zero for that grade. He just kept telling me, stop telling on yourself. I have got to learn to keep my mouth shut.
During the practical, I was blanching some pearl onions for my stew when my usual partner, asked me if she could put her pearl onions in my pot of boiling water. I said yes, not thinking that it would be a problem. That would be just one less pot for us to wash at the end of the day. She and I knew how many onions we each had. When the onions were ready to come out, I told her they were ready and to come and get them. The chef was standing beside me and heard me. He said that it was not acceptable for me to be helping her. We do it in our class all the time, so I didn't think anything of it. He explained that it is considered cheating and not to do it again. We could have both got in trouble but he let it slide this time. It won't happen again. I will think twice before I help out anyone else.
I am happy to have survived the Fundamentals class. It is going to get harder and harder but I am going to take one day at a time. We will be busy cooking tomorrow and learning all sorts of new things about chicken, beef, pork, lamb etc ...
I have some reading to do tonight to prepare for tomorrows class. Gotta go, I'm a student .... tee hee.
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