Yesterday morning I woke up feeling awful. My head ached, I felt drained and lifting my head off my pillow felt as if gravity had increased ten fold overnight just to irritate me. I argued with myself, willing my exhausted body to function. It was not going to happen. A week's worth of lack of sleep and stress of midterms and having our favorite chef back to induce anxiety attacks had taken its toll on me. I wasn't the only one. I text Michelle to let her know I wouldn't be in class, I needed...a mental health day. Her response? "Feel better, me too." Yesterday, and today a fifth of the class was absent. I took the day to relax and treat myself to dinner at Blue Ribbon down the street. It was all I needed and I woke up feeling better than normal. I was ready to take on today! Now, 9pm I sit in my room exhausted yet again. The chef was on another rampage today causing one girl to cry, telling her he didn't even know why she was in the program, she clearly didn't care enough. Another, he wrongly accused of cheating on a non-graded quiz. This poor girl, who works harder than most in class, arrives early, always helps out...Perhaps she is a bit anxious, and stresses too much, but thats hardly the worst quality to have in pastry. During the "quiz" students were asking wach other questions, some didn't take it at all, and others were on their phones. But, he noticed her, glance at her notes. She assumed, that since it wasn't graded, and since everyone else was talking, or ignoring the quiz, she may as well look up what she didn't know. At the wrong time apparently. The chef asked her to stay after class to get her to sign a sheet admitting she had cheated, tarnishing her reputation, going on her record for all (including employers) to see. He told her all her good work would mean nothing with this on her record, and that he was very disappointed in her actions. She flat out refused to sign, of course, how ridiculous indeed! Things like this have been happening all week, apparently our friend is up for review and is a bit stressed...clearly.
Despite the rediculousness of all of this, I generally remain unscathed by his antics, flying under the radar has proved a necessary survival mechanism that has served me well these past months. But something else drained me today. The chef assumes that our class is entirely incompetent, and is constantly surprised when we do well. When it comes to chocolate we overhear him talking about how he must go slow and go over every detail several times, otherwise we won't get it. We get it. We fall asleep after the fifth rendition of "this is how to stir a ganach." He even altered our truffle recipe today, making it simpler! I came to this school with the express purpose of learning the "hard" way of doing things, learning techniques the average home baker lacks. How am I to do this when our lessons are being "dumbed down." Turns out, our class isn't incompetent after all. The assistant chef took over (one of my favorite people in this school, Chef Kirr) and had everyone tempering like, well, not experts, but close in no time. We're lucky to have him. And wanting to "get my 40k worth"-as we say-took every opportunity to pick his brain about chocolate and ideas I had and what he thought of them-giving me suggestions on how to make my ideas realities. For instance-I now have a very good idea on how to make an artisanal and molded form of my "Old Fashioned Truffle"-referring to the bourbon based cocktail of course. I also learned that to be an artisanal truffle-it absolutely must be molded by hand-as opposed to say...a bon bon. Plus, I now have several tempering tricks up my sleeve. Thank goodness for him! I have great respect for this chef, and he's my favorite person ever since I had a twenty minute discussion with him on fernet, and how its absurd more people in the culinary industry don't know what it is. Too bad he's the lead night class instructor. I guess I just have to be happy that Chef Chris is returning Monday! So until then, I get to spend the weekend BBQing with friends and hitting up the once a month New Amsterdam Market!!! Oh, and working of course, helping Liddabit prep for the Market!
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