The first two days of culinary school have been great. My instructors for session 1 are Chef Pascal and Chef Lisa. Both are very knowledgeable and have good senses’ of humor. My class is made up of mostly people in their early 20’s – early 30’s. A lot of them are career changers like myself.
Our first day was going over the kitchen equipment and cutting. Cutting carrots and turnips: Emincer, Ciseler, Tronconner, Parer, Tranches, Jardiniere, Julinne, Macedoine, Brunoise, and Paysanne. Now if anyone can assist me in pronouncing any of the afore mentioned cuts I would appreciate it. After taillage for most of the day we cooked some of our cut vegetables: “vegetables a l’anglaise” which means boil the shit out of them and “vegetables a l’etuvee” which is simmer with seasoning and butter.
Day two was all about safe food handling and preparation. I won’t go into any details about this lesion as it would probably turn you off any number of foods and discourage you from eating anything you haven’t prepared yourself. Between the bacteria and parasites naturally occurring in our foods and the disgusting things that cooks can potentially pass on to food it’s a surprise mankind survived this long. Thankfully if prepared properly, we can enjoy nearly anything on earth…. With the exception of street vendor soft pretzels, you don’t want to know why, but just stay away from them.
If week 1 is any indication, this is going to be a great experience.
Toddy let me just say how so very proud I am of you for going after your dream even at the ripe ol' age of thirtysomethingoverthehill! Kudos to Julie for releasing you into the wide world to do so! I am envious as you are pursuing a career that I would love to! Your first blog-stalment has me hooked - I will follow you with pride and interest!
ReplyDeleteHave fun and keep your fingers away from the sharp edges of the knife!
Muah!
Chels
Damn....I love those pretzels!
ReplyDeleteSounds like you are having a great time....So is Chef Lisa good eye candy? :-)
Miss you lots...Lisa
So what are you doing for the 4th? Cooking up some freedom toast? Miss ya buddy!
ReplyDeletenick j
Sounds like you need a language lesson in order to pronounce those words. Now I"m going to have to look those up to see what those cuts look like.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, I have enough issues eating out that I don't think anything you (or them) can possibly tell me will make my already queasy stomach any worse. Wonder though, does it make you more picky about where you eat (or do you just order another beer or two to help kill the germs/bacteria).
Glad that you're having a good time thus far.