Smoked it!

The quarter has come to a close. Thank God. It really seemed like a long 10 weeks. It however, ended on a seriously good upnote. I smoked it!! Smoked it like a Cuban cigar, baby. It started with my proteins final. The practical went very well. We had to truss and clean a pork tenderloin. Then, fillet a fish, fabricate a chicken, and french out a rack of pork chops. I did well. I made all my yield percentages, kept a clean workstation, finished on time, and did a mighty fine job if I do say so myself. The very pierced TA was in charge of grading us. He was also in charge of grading us on our appearance. Ironic, coming from a man with giant rubber tires (minus the hubcaps) in his ears and several barbells in his face. His jacket looked like it had tea stains on it and there was a hole in his pants. A hole big enough to put a fist through. Really? You thought I should press a "T" into the back of my jacket? I think you should go back home, take a look in the mirror and start your day over. Now, if you gave me a good grade--more power to you. Pierce away. Oh, did I mention I got a 96% on my written test? Brag, brag, brag...

Breads was another matter completely. I usually consider a 65% a pretty good showing on her tests. I was nervous and studied pretty hard. I usually make up for my poor written grades by my practical exams and dazzling personality. Well, it was a backward week. I got a 100% on the written test. Yes, a 100%. It was a 5 page long essay test on the qualities and properties of breadmaking. I even remembered the names of the bacteria that give bread its flavor. I was astounded.

Our bread practical was a bit trickier. We submitted two bread recipes and then she messed with them. We were supposed to be able to predict what those changes would do to the breads and their flavor. I really thought I had a handle on it. In a way, I guess I did. I knew what went wrong when it did. And boy did it. The multigrain loaves were so sour and weird that they were inedible. She wrinkled her nose and started giggling. The brioche loaves were good though. They could have been better. I cut down the eggs when I should have added another. They weren't the worst loaves though. My friends came out grey--they looked like they were right out of a sooty fireplace. Grey is not an appetizing color for food. Ever. She said she's had it with this culinary business.

I did save myself with my bread dough plaques. They were mighty cute. I've included a photo--

Until next quarter--

Meat

This has been a weird semester. The two classes I'm taking are so different from each other--in both subject matter, class make-up, and hormone levels. Proteins last week was all about sausage. We were given a lecture last week and again this week about sexual harassment in the workplace. It did little to curb the mouths of the boys. I admit, inappropriate comments were on the tip of my tongue several times but I'm supposed to be a grown-up. When you are dealing with yards and yards of casings and fitting it over a long tube it gets difficult. The sausage shoots through this tube and fills the casing. The boys couldn't take it any longer. It started with snickering and then came the meat jokes. It was quiet but they were there. There are only 4 girls in this class so it becomes hard for these boys to keep it together. I think it's a whole mob mentality thing.

I will say that my little group made really great sausage. We were on veal and added cloves, nutmeg, sage, and a little fresh-squeezed orange. It may sound weird but it was really good. Now I don't eat sausage. Well, let me correct. I don't eat sausage in casings. I can't deal with that pop it makes when you break through. Not to mention the horror of what most sausages are made from. I can live a very happy fulfilled life without the sausage product. But Tuesday I took a risk. Not a big one--I had made the sausage and it wasn't in a casing but say what you will, I ate the stuff.

Our class of boys has begun to gel. It is loud and obnoxious and I wouldn't want to teach it. Frankie has begun singing again so she must be out of her funk. The "Frenchman" who stands in front of me is a soft spoken lovely man. He is called the Frenchman because he stands hunched over and looks like he should wear a beret. He may even wear a kerchief. I can't tell. But I think he might. The know-it-all is still telling us how we should do it but I've learned to tune him out. Our TA is a saber wielding, heavily pierced man who really likes to process meat. Really likes to. A lot. My table partners have been great. The woman next to me is a former military person and is as precise as you can imagine. The other table mate has been in the business for 25 years. I've learned a lot from both of them. Our final is tomorrow. It will be the same test as the midterm. Only faster. I'm not worried. I never get anything different than a B from this teacher.

Enough for today. My bread written final is Thursday. I will be lucky to pass. Bad idea to take a class from a doctorate in chemistry. I'll let you know how it goes.

Full Moon

I swear to God there was a full moon this weekend. More crazy shit happened that made no sense--so much so that I don't even know where to begin. So I won't. I will not bore you with tales of teenagers and tweeners. This is why I went to school right? To have a little bit of sanity all to myself? The kind you don't take home with you at night. The kind that doesn't wake you up in the night knowing full well you've failed at parenting. Every other day during the week I get to sneak away to my own private crazytown. A crazytown that makes me feel pretty normal and my problems pretty petty. I get to escape into a kitchen and work really hard for seven hours. I am an equal. I am not responsible for anyone but myself. I am free.

I listen to my fellow students lives and problems. Many of them have it hard. One student told me he had to save up to buy real vanilla extract. I realized how lucky I am. These people are just beginning their lives. They are getting married, boyfriends going to Afganistan, caring for young children. I have very little to complain about. It puts me in my place very quickly.

This week I made brioche. It is heaven that you make with yeast and eggs and flour. It is heaven that you eat with a smile that creeps over your lips and you aren't even aware of it. It is the stuff cinnamon rolls are made of--that don't come from a can. (Come on, we all do it.) I lined a pan with this wonderful dough and poured a sweetened custard on top so that it baked up like cheesecake. It was glorious. It takes, however, a long time to rise. It is so full of goodness that it takes forever for the little yeasties to make it billowy. I can't wait until tomorrow when we get to taste the fruits of our labours. One braided masterpiece was filled with almond paste and cinnamon. Oh, is that the angels singing?

Protein class just keeps getting more and more out of control. I think this is what happens when you combine a roomful of men and raw meat. The meat jokes just keep on coming. Put a whole baby lamb on a table and just watch the fun begin as the youngters play with the head. Isn't this just super funny that he is watching us cut him up? Yeah, if I was 16. And male. And retarded. Tell us, know-it-all science student how its muscle fibers work. Regal us, irritating boy with stories of how you do that at home. Please, talk over our instructor. I'm just here waiting breathlessly for your next witty comments. We processed lamb leg for what seemed like hours. Make sure your butcher does that for you. Not a do-it-yourself project. Then we took apart a whole rolled beef shoulder. Again, make friends with the butcher. It takes a long time. But one student works at Pizza Hut and brought us dinner again this week. But now we are all standing around talking and not working. For the love of God people, let's just get this done and get out of here! I want to go home to my family!! Wait, did I say that? Out loud?

Edna

Forgive me dear readers, for I have been out of town. I am sure you wait patiently each week for my exciting new post, but alas, I had to run away for the weekend. But before I left I had the joy of attending my bread baking midterm. Or, in other words, The Thursday Massacre. Oh, I had such high hopes. I had gotten an 11 out of 20 on my quiz. Actually a fairly decent grade for one of these quizzes. My extra credit answer saved my grade from being a 50% to a much higher 55%. I was baking bread with confidence. I was working my baker's math with precision. Baker's math is a complicated seeming way of figuring out how much of everything you need to get a one pound loaf or ten loaves or whatever the baker needs according to the baker's percentage. Simply put, the flour always equals 100%. So, you got it, the formula may be a total of 312% or 249%. Confused? Yeah, me too. But not so much any more. I aced my baker's math test. I was confident. Flying high.

We were told to produce 6, 12 ounce baguettes. I whipped out my pencil. I did some quick calculations. I am a superstar. Looking around the room I'm feeling even more confident. It seemed everyone was working with 5 pounds of flour. It sure seemed like a lot though. I mean a lot. When it was fermenting it grew to even more. It was really getting big. I was sure I could feed most of Whole Foods with the amount of dough I'd made. I'm thinking at this point my math was off. Way off. But so was everyone else's! Surely the test must be flawed! Which in this chef's class is kind of like saying my computer must be broken. It couldn't possibly be operator error. It is ALWAYS operator error. I forged on anyway thinking that more was usually better but I was wrong. She just shook her head as she always does with me.

I formed my cute baguettes, I thought magnificently. She thought otherwise. I thought my bread was tasty. She thought it was tasteless. I thought my raisin bread was really well done. She said it was supposed to have really big holes. It was a massacre. I was not alone. There was blood on the walls after she got through with us. I am, though, a good slasher. I make nice slits in my bread. Everyone needs a little something to hang on to, I guess.

Do you know the movie "The Incredibles"? Disney, superheroes, red suits? Great movie. One of my favorites, I have to admit. Edna, the character who makes the super suits, dahling--is my teacher. She is a living, breathing, carbon copy of Edna. She is fantastic to watch. Especially now that I've put two and two together and gotten Edna. I couldn't figure out for the life of me who she reminded me of. I am not alone--someone from another class sculpted her out of marzipan. She is fabulous dahling!

Gary

It was pointed out to me that I haven't written for a couple of weeks. I don't know what I've been doing that was more important than informing my faithful readers as to my doings. I'm sure you all wait breathlessly each week for my new post. I think that perhaps there are fewer weirdos and crazies in this semester's classes. Or worse, I'm just becoming used to the nuttiness. Or worse than that, I'm becoming one of them! (gasp!!) My midterm in protein fabrication was Tuesday. We had to do a group project about a different protein. It was silly. I love technology but this seemed like just busy work. We had to make a power point presention about this protein. Then we had to break down said protein in front of the group. This took forever. Then each class member had to ask a question. Painful. Then we got down to business. We broke down a chicken, cleaned up a pork tenderloin, and filleted a flat fish. I rocked the chicken (70% yield, thank you very much), kinda sucked a little bit with the pork, and almost threw up while filleting the fish. It smelled so nasty that I had to breathe through my mouth. I'm sure that made my breath bad and for sure chapped my lips. I could hardly concentrate on what I was doing because of the smell. I got through it though. I can never figure out how this chef grades us so I can't tell you how I did.

I really like my breads class. Gary, our boy student, has been a source of constant humor. He is married (!), a construction worker by day, and seriously ADHD. He is about my age, very tall, dark skin, and majorly flighty. He killed his baby bread starter the first week. I'm not sure how but it was a smelly soupy mess. We put a pinch of malt in it the first day. We were told to take one cup of the total mess out, throw the rest away, and to that add a cup of water and a cup of flour. Do this twice a day and voila! You get a bacteria ridden, sweet smelling mess. Okay, not right away. It smelled like vomit and smelly feet. It was horrifying. It grew out of its container and tried to take over my kitchen. However, after a few days it smelled like good beer. Always a pleasing smell. Now Gary didn't exactly do any of this. I don't know what he thought he was supposed to do but he ended up putting carnation instant breakfast or something in his because he said it contained malt. He never dumped out the excess. He added water and flour and the carnation instant malt. I was put in charge of teaching Gary how to take his starter and start over. We did a walk through of what to do at home. He saw someone outside our class and ran off. We started again. Then his phone rang. Started again, disappeared again. This time I got serious. I said that he was acting like a toddler and so I was going to talk to him like one. He laughed so hard I thought he was going to need psychiatric help. We got the job done though.

Every single class Gary screws something up. He puts his fermented dough on the ovens. "No Gary", chef says. He adds fruit and extras. "No Gary", chef says. He soaked raisins and oats in warm water for some strange reason. "No Gary", chef says. He laughs at himself for being such a loon. But every bread he has made has been my favorite. Hands down. I don't know how they turn out so well. It's a mystery. Chef just shakes her head. We all gobble his bread.

Gary asked me the other day why I wasn't in class on Tuesday. He told me he asked everyone in the class where I was. He said he looks forward to having me in class so that he can listen to my voice. I don't take class with him on Tuesday. He laughed and said that explained why everyone was looking at him like he was nuts. I told him I didn't think it would be the last time. Oh, Gary...

Grown-Ups

When i was 22 and fresh out of college with my psychology, art history, french degree I was thinking I was pretty hot shit. I guess we all do when we are young and don't realize we are stupid. I had written papers on soaring cathedrals and the ability of art to change thinking and hence, the world. Pretty heady stuff, i assure you. And I could do it in french. And also predict how that would make you feel. Take that! How things change...This week I wrote a paper about pork. Yes, pork. Now, I did talk about the social ramifications of the barbeque in the antebellum South. But still, pork. I look back at myself at 22 and I'm a little embarrassed for me. I feel that way about some of the youngsters in my protein class. There are two men who for some reason feel they need to bang on their chests during every class. They need to let you know how they do (insert task) and why it is better than the way you've been doing forever. These two men wanted to let our chef instructor know how they do things now. Not in her day. Which I might add was not that long ago fellas. We need to site studies, for god's sake, about red meat preferences for the kid who said he likes his well done. Who cares how he likes his! Are you eating it? I was mopping at the end of class and one of these whippersnapper kids came and took the mop away from me. I thought it was to be polite to the old lady. Oh, no. I was doing it wrong, he told me. If I turn it this way it will work better, he said. I said, "mop's all yours, kiddo". I apologize to all those I showed off to. I apologize for every Newsweek article I sited with glee. No, I didn't become the french speaking, psychoanalyzing art historian that I had planned on. But I think I'm much less annoying than I would have been. I am starting to appreciate being an out of work, mom-student that I said I wouldn't become. I like sleeping in and watching The View. I didn't change the world with my brilliance. I think I'm the better for it. I know my family is. And I've learned to keep my mouth shut sometimes. Not everyone wants to hear what I have to say all the time. I know, it's hard to believe. I wonder what will be the topic tomorrow that the boys will compete over to be the smartest and bestest at doing. I hope they can dazzle the old farts in the class about, say, chicken skin.

My bread class is mostly women so we don't have these beat your chest competitions. We are all dressed the same so we can't judge each other's outfits. Our heads are covered so we can't gawk at each other's hair. So we get along. We bake. We eat. We converse. There are no competitions. And on a lighter note, Gary told me I had a voice that could be on radio. "Girl," he said, "I could listen to you talk all day." He is my new best friend.

Feed Me Seymour

I know, I know. I said I was done with the bakeshop. I couldn't help it. What's not to like about bread? Other than the excessive chemistry and math, what could go wrong? My chef instructor already knows I'm not super talented in the baking department and she still seems to like me. She gave me a B last quarter even with all the crazy pastries I produced. I think bread could be a good thing for me. I like to work with my hands. I loved beating on the puffed pastry and danish doughs. I sense success.

This class is full of the same 4 girls from my proteins class. The lovely girl that was my partner last quarter is by my side again this class. We are a group of all women. Except for the one very tall, slightly effeminate man. I don't know if we should even count him, to be honest. There is as much estrogen in this class as there is surging testoterone in the other. I may even be able to reverse the inevitable menopause that is surely creeping up.

We made baguettes today. Yummy, fresh, yeasty baguettes. Gary (the boy) made honey butter to go with. I can feel myself getting fatter. We also made a starter for some sourdough bread we will be making in three weeks. It is like a little science project that we get to take home. It consists of two kinds of flour, water, and malt. It will grow and ferment. It will become alive! I took it home and I need to feed it every day. Twice a day for 9 days, I will need to feed this thing more flour and more water. It will grow and bubble from the yeast it gets from the air. And it grows bacteria. Yes, all you germaphobes, bacteria. It is what gives bread its flavor. Who knew? I named mine Edgar. I really like the book Edgar Sawtelle and felt a good way to honor Edgar was to name my starter baby after him. But on second thought I should have named it Seymour. Then I could shout "feed me Seymour" at will. Loudly. Maybe I should visit the bread started baby office and have its name changed.