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...