Catching up

School officially started for me on January 19^th, obviously this blog started after that so I am going to play a little catch up so you can be involved in every moment and so I can try and remember all the small events that occurred during this life changing adventure.

My first class I will fully admit I was a nervous wreck.  I didn’t feel prepared, especially without my full uniform and knife set.  I had ordered everything at Orientation the prior Tuesday but there was no way they would be in before that following Saturday.  So that Saturday morning I drove to the Green Line station with my (husbands) backpack full of my textbooks (4 massive ones I might add) and a notebook and took the train in.   From the train station I hopped onto the schools provided shuttle (a service I didn’t know existed until orientation after I had already walked the ½ a mile UP hill) and got to the dining room/lecture hall where the head of the Adult Continuing Ed program was waiting for me with a large box containing a loaner uniform!!!

Here is my first photo in my first chef shirt….

I hope you enjoy the bathroom fixtures from where I got changed :)

 

The class is small, there are only 5 of us and even worse (for Chef) 4 of us are Pastry students, and women.  Chef is a graduate of Johnson and Wales with a solid Savory background.  Needless to say I think he may have gotten the short end of the stick with this group.   Class runs from 8am to 4pm (most days) with an hour break for Lunch. 

There are lots of notes, from both of our 3-hour lectures, 1-2 hours in the kitchen involving knife skills and product identification and then a lot of reading assigned afterwards for at home.   Our first week also included our first paper; we had to describe the experience of eating a single food.  I chose an avocado, mostly because it meant I got to bring one home which I don’t do often as Wally doesn’t eat them and it’s hard for me to eat a whole one alone.  But thankfully, Grayson appears to love them as much as I do so we will be bringing them home more and more. 

Week 2 involved a lot more product identification; our “food journals” are these pages of blank charts that Chef has made with groups of different foods.  We spent 3 hours alone on herbs and spices, so as you can tell it’s intensive.  But I love it; it’s fast paced, overwhelming at times.  But I really love it and I’m starting to find my groove.