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?
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
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!
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!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
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...
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...
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