Week 1: Getting Started.

As you may have heard-slash I've been shouting from every form of social media I use- I started culinary school this week. It seems simultaneously unreal and also like I've been doing it forever. I never thought I would ever say this, but this three day weekend has seemed a bit long and I kind of can't wait to get back into my uniform and back into the kitchen. So I guess you could say I'm liking it so far. :)

Wednesday was orientation (photo on left). Walking into that room, with the piles of uniforms and books on the counters was both daunting and awesome. I couldn't wait to get my hands on those books and get into my uniforms, but the crowd of unfamiliar faces sitting across from the goods weren't quite as inviting. The chefs and other faculty gave us a welcome, a few tips, rules and guidelines, loaded us up with our gear and sent us on our way. It was short and sweet. In one hours time, I went from regular person to culinary student. To put it dramatically. :) And, I was assigned my first homework. Which I raced home to do. Tools and equipment was the chapter assigned and I dove into my shiny new textbook with glee.

Thursday, after waiting nervously all day, I changed into my uniform and drove over (a wee bit early) to find a parking spot and get ready for my first class. I tried to wait until I was only slightly nerdishly-early to go in, but when I arrived in the place I thought I was supposed to be, there was no one around. I waited about ten minutes, until only a few minutes before class was supposed to start and began to panic a little. Finally, I started to wander about the halls and a friendly chef pointed me in the right direction. I spent the next three hours learning the in's and outs of our T1 (Term 1) kitchen and the tools and equipment I'll be using for the next two months (length of T1). After our three hours of kitchen time was up, we headed into the classroom to go over schedules, syllabuses and homework assignments. And the crowning glory of my first day was receiving my knife kit, aprons and towels. But mostly, the knives. At the end of the night, while I packed up my bags and walked to my car to make the drive home, I couldn't have wiped the smile off my face if I tried.

Friday, my day off from work, went quickly by due to a morning dentist appointment. When I got to school I remembered the chef had said we would have a quiz on some of the tools and equipment we went over the day before, so I looked over  a classmates shoulder as she crammed from her book a little. When he let us in the kitchen, there were 40 items set out on the prep tables and numbered for us to identify. I had a little rush of panic, "what if I don't remember anything!" and felt a flashback to a college Biology lab quiz when I truly did not know anything, but it quickly passed as the first item on the list was something I recognized. I ended up getting a 35/40 and really only got one item entirely wrong, the rest of the points missing were because I forgot to include the sizes. After the quiz, our chef pulled out his collection of knives that he has acquired since his years at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). (SIDENOTE: He may have mentioned that he attended the CIA with an old buddy he affectionately referred to as "Tony." Yeah that one.) We went over the different kinds of knives, then how to perform a batonnet cut on a potato.

Before I knew it, we were released to go and perform the cut on our own potatoes with our own knife sets. All of a sudden, I was chopping away, holding my tiny potato pieces up to the guide sheet and praying the chef wouldn't come by and throw them all in the trash. When it was my turn to face the music, the chef stopped, picked up my batonnets, held them up in a little bouquet and said, "These are lovely. Have you done a lot of cutting?" I managed to squeak out, "Just for fun," before my blush set in and I turned back to my potato, immensely relieved. Between the quiz, and the praise of my few perfect little batonnets I had a pretty great first day. We finished up in the classroom going over the recipes for this coming week, and I drove home again, with an insatiable grin.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty blessed. This schedule is going to be nuts, school is going to be challenging and I already miss seeing my husband, but the joy I've felt every day this week when I woke up has been worth it for sure. Until next week! :)