Phase II

Holiday break is officialy over and a small part of me is thankful. I can literally count the number of times I left my apartment on one hand - with fingers to spare.

Not a total loss, I did cleanout my hallway closet after two years of complaining about it. 

I also made headway with three books:

 ”The Making of a Chef” by Michael Ruhlman – To possibly shed some light on why my obession with food has gone beyond my waistline, pushed me MUCH further into debt and will possibly end my social life.

“Ms. Behavior’s Guide to Gay & Lesbian Etiquette” by Meryl Cohn – To help navigate me through the jungle of gay dating and relationships, though according to the previous book, will ultimately suffer due to my long and non-traditional work hours. Apparently, if I didn’t have a mate to begin with, this career path will not help matters – sure, dating a chef sounds hot on paper but will leftovers from a fine dining establishment compensate for my total neglect?

 ”Cinnamon Kiss” by Walter Mosley – “Devil and In A Blue Dress” was one of my favorite books and movies. I think Walter Mosley is brilliant.

In addition to feeling smart, it allowed me to spend more time on the couch. Not to worry, I also devoted plenty of time to television despite the writers strike. Seriously, somebody do something about that!

Today was the first day of culinary phase II. Class starts an hour later than pahse I so we get to sleep in an extra hour, which is great… well as great as 6:00 a.m. can be. It was great to see my classmates again – it seems that we all made it. Rumor is that three students from the previous class were dismissed.

I can see a big difference in the vibe of this phase already. Our new chef is not unfriendly but I don’t him yucking it up with us from time to time or making the occasional dirty joke when a student carries an abnormally large carrot.

This phase is serious business. The idea is that we’ve learned the techniques – now we are going to give much more consideration to presentation, organization and quality service.

Plates now have to be kept warm and we need to put greater care into plating. We now have to treat the people we are cooking for like actual customers – writing orders on tickets, that will later be called, critqued and sent for delivery.

Today’s menu was relatively easy:

Pistou Soup

Seared Duck Breast

Sauteed Potatoes (a cru)

Broccoli Florets

Palmiers (sugar cookies made from puff pastry)

I don’t know if we were all nervous or just plain out of it from the holiday but service was less than stellar. It took my team almost an hour just to cut the vegetables (damn bunoise!) for the soup. Thankfully the chef cut us some slack since it was day 1 but it is just a matter of time before points will be deducted for what he considers careless execution.

I also got my recipe notebook back today, that we had to turn in just before the holiday and got a “99″. One of my classmates called me a “bitch” (jokingly… I think…) after seeing my grade.

Yeah.. that’s right…

Enough bragging. Time for bed.