Culinary School

I'm sorry everyone! It seems as though I've lost my "he said". His interest tapered off towards the end of the road trip. I hope you don't mind, but I'd like to keep the blog going. Up until this week, school has been absolutely incredible. That's not to say it hasn't been difficult. Culinary Skills I, our first class, seemed virtually impossible until it was over. We had 15 days to learn how to make stocks, figure out our mother sauces (bechamel, veloute, tomato, hollandaise, & espagnole), identify about 50 spices & herbs, and perfect our knife cuts. Even saying it all sounds like a lot. It was an insane amount of information in such a small amount of time. Literally my schedule consisted of waking up at 5am, walking to school, going to class, getting home, studying, making dinner, studying more, and going to bed. There wasn't time for anything else.

But as I mentioned, it was absolutely incredible. A portion of the final exam was to identify 100 herbs, spices, and kitchen equipment. I studying for about 4 hours on just the herbs & spices alone. Look at dried basil, oregano, thyme, & parsley next to each other. Pretty similar, huh? Look at cayenne, chili powder, & paprika. Even closer. I really didn't think I could do it. So, to walk out of that portion of the exam with a 100% was like walking on air. An indescribable feeling.

Another portion of the test was to complete 9 knife cuts in 45 minutes. That's 5 minutes per cut. That's 5 minutes to make a carrot into 1/16"x1/16"x1/16" perfect squares. Before this class, I don't even think I knew what an 1/16 of an inch looked like. For some reason, I started cutting everything into 1/4" pieces. I don't know what was going on. Thank goodness I figured that out pretty quickly. I'm just really glad I'm not the guy that cut the onion in the wrong direction.

It is truly amazing to be doing something that makes me so happy. I still have no idea what I'm going to do with it at the end of the day. But I trust that will all fall into place. Right now, I just have to enjoy every moment and cook absolutely everything I can.