Newsflash: I fail at blogging.

I admit it, I am a procrastinator and I fail at blogging on a regular basis. I would like to begin this blog by blaming the snow. For those of you who were also born and raised in Vancouver, you know what I mean. I've been having a personal snow day since December 13th, the date of the first snowfall. Since then, I have pretty much stayed inside my house. Good sense has told me that if I venture outside, I may perish.  I have been outside since the rain has come back.

(special note: For all you transplanted Vancouverites. . .yes, YES, I know it's colder where you are from, but I don't care, I'm pretty sure our snow is grosser than yours. . . and I promise not to curse the rain for at least one month or at least until it has eaten the snow container around my car.)

Only two major school related events have happened since my last blog. I shall begin with the second event:

On December 17th, I managed to burn myself real good with a flaming hot sauterne. I was being a super smartypants and I put the frying pan on a cool baking sheet and started to carry it to the dishpit. Halfway there, I managed to forget about the effects of gravity on a non-level surface. I tilted the baking sheet to get around a classmate and the sauterne slid into the meaty part below my right thumb and gave me a pretty decent branding. I didn't get a blister, so I assumed it wasn't that bad; however, four days later, all the skin started to crack and peel off. It was pretty gross. Actually it's still pretty gross. 

Here are some pictures I took. The burn is way smaller than it was and I have a lot more new skin than I did.

I had to wear some really cool moist, burn bandages.  They felt great, but after a few days (you can wear them for up to five days), they got super gross and juicy underneath.  Plus, I was allergic to the adhesive and the latex in the dressing so I developed eczema all around the burn and some nights, I wanted to tear my whole hand off because it was soooo itchy.  On the upside, I got to wear these groovy gloves everytime I took a shower or cooked anything.

So now, let's move on to the second great event of December:

First a little description of my school program.  My year is separated into twelve four-week blocks.  Each block focuses on a different aspect of cooking or food production with the exception of Block 9.  Block 9 is "front of house" which is also known as plain old waiting on tables.  To accommodate this block, VCC has built a fine dining restaurant called JJ's on the second floor of the school, next to the cafeteria.  Now for those of you who have actually been waiters, you know that this is actually a tough job.  Everybody wants a good waiter and everybody has an idea about how they would like to be served.  So I think (actually I know) that for some of the students at VCC this is probably one of the most difficult blocks.  Now, let me tell you how I know this.

On December 15th, nine of us from the class decided to have a beautiful and relaxing lunch at JJ's fine dining.  Our waiter that afternoon was a young man named, Benz.  If you missed that,  I'll repeat:  His name is Benz . . . B-E-N-Z.  Now, on to the incident.  A couple of my classmates decided it would be great to have a glass of wine before we headed off to cook dinner in the cafeteria.  It was all very civilized.  We sat around the big table making idle chatter, waiting to put in our dinner order.  Just then, I noticed that a look of concern had cast a dark shadow on the faces of my friends sitting across from me.  Before I could consider all of the possible things that could disturb them, I felt a BONK on the head, heard the breaking of glass, and then felt the unmistakable, cool sensation of a drink being spilled down my back.  Then it really hit me, the rich spicy notes, the heady bouquet. . . ahhh yes, it was a glass of red wine.  And I might add that it was a very generous six ounce pour of house red that was soaking into my brand new cashmere blend sweater and inevitably heading south down the back of my trousers where it gently trickled into my knickers.

Now I bet you are wondering what I did?  Well first, I looked at my peers, whowere all looking at me also wondering what I would do.  My very helpful, no-nonsense classmate Vivian began to immediately sponge me off with a festive green napkin (yes a green napkin will release dye that will further backstain a spilled on garment).  The Maitre D' rushed over to our table with plenty of apologies while a number of things ran through my mind:

1.  I wished that my pals Ariel and Katherine were there, because after some initial sympathy, I think they would have thought it was really funny.  After the shock had worn off, they would have laughed and then ordered more wine and probably have harangued the waiter until he cried or wet himself.

                  

2.  Then I  thought "How ironic that the wine spilled on me, because I was told by my rheumatologist that I wasn't allowed to drink anymore."

   

3.  And then I thought "Oh well, it could be worse. . . it could be Darfur or Afghanistan."

                  

4.  Finally, I was sure glad I wore wool because you can just wring it out and it feels pretty dry.

I think I said the third thing out loud (I know it sounds trite, but it's true)  That's when I noticed that the table seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief.  I didn't make a fuss, because it really could have been worse.  I did go to the bathroom and take off my tank-top and wring out my sweater.  In the end I had to throw the tank top out and the sweater made my locker smell like booze for the rest of the day.  I was a bit surprised that I didn't get my meal comped, but what do you do?

As a postscript, that night, while we were working the dinner line, 12 lockers got broken into upstairs and students had their wallets, permanent resident cards, mobile phones, and passports stolen.  So by the end of the night, I was pretty glad that a red wine-baptism was the worst thing that happened to me that day.  

Oh, one more thing, my brother and his fiancee went for lunch on Friday of the same week.  Guess who their waiter was.  That's right. . . BENZ.  They said they were a little bit scared when they ordered wine.  I think they might have even ordered the white to play it safe.

Andrea! Look what you missed!

An Open Letter to my Classmate Andrea,

the Unrepentant Chocoholic

Well Helloooo Andrea,

Look what you missed.  During the Kosher dinner event we had to plate 400 chocolate desserts.  If you look at the beginning of this blog you will see a picture of one.  They were delicious.  I know this because at the end of the night there were hundreds of thousands of desserts left and the pastry chef said I could eat as many as I wanted . . . and I did.  

Brie, Kameron, and Me in the first stages of Chocolate Ecstasy

I thought of you as I gorged myself on each delightful chocolate bombe.  Please note that the picture above only shows a mere fraction of the desserts that were available for consumption.  You may also note that Brie has a bad case of red-eye in the photo.  That was caused by the dearth of chocolate goodness that was put before her.  I actually saw her eyes turn red.  She was like an insatiable chocolate vampire.  And Kam . . . Kam couldn't stop smiling.  He was like a baby with a bottle full of chocolate milk.  If you don't believe me, look at the picture again.  After we ate enough dessert to make ourselves sick for days, we wrestled in the remaining desserts to make sure that none were wasted.  The tuiles hurt a bit (tuiles hurt), but it was worth it.  We pretty much drowned in gluttony and we were paid to do it.

Sorry you missed out.  We thought of bringing you a dessert, but that was after the wrestling, and they were all smashed by the time we had the thought.

Maybe next time.

Wish you were there,

Sarah

Everything is Kosher

I just had my first Kosher serving experience!  It was great.  The kosher-ness was almost, mostly lost on me.  If there wasn't a Rabbi present, I might not have noticed.  We didn't serve any meat and dairy together and there was obviously no pork.  Also, none of us cooks were allowed to bring our own knives.  Everything at the gig was supplied by Nava catering which specializes in serving kosher food in a kosher manner.

The event was thrown by Hillel:  the largest Jewish campus organization in the world.  The dinner was a fundraiser for the campus.  I didn't get to see a lot of the event because I was with the service folks behind a big black curtain.  However, there was a giant screen in front of us, so I did get to see parts of the speeches and some of the powerpoint (backwards of course).

There were about 12 VCC students helping plate the appetizers, salad, main course, and dessert.  Kam, Diana, Brie, Zach, and I represented our block.  Even though the head chef, Harvey Salmon, was blustering and rushing, there were more than enough hands to get the job done.  At times, we were often left standing around trying to find something to do.  When it came time to plate dinner, everyone formed four assembly lines and then we proceeded to plate 400 plates and they all had to look exactly the same.  The dinner had seven components:  wild and brown rice pilaf, a green pea puree, gai choy, tiny baby carrots, sesame crusted sablefish, pea sprout garnish, and a lemony emulsion.  It sort of felt like I was working in an Eastern bloc communist catering outfit:  Harvey Salmon would come around and yell something, the Rabbi would occasionally peer over our shoulders, then Keiko-san (the sous chef) would holler at us to make the plates nicer, then there would be a stop in the line as the communication broke down between the food runner, the platers, and the servers.  Suddenly things would rev up again and it was go, go, go.  And then it was done and we were left standing around again.  And of course like in any good Communist system, we were being paid to loiter.  Then came dessert.  The final course was a chocolate bombe with an orange pistachio tuile, raspberry coulis, blueberries, and a gold-leafed gooseberry.  It looked beautiful and tasted sweet but delicious.  Right, I forgot to mention that when all the plating was done, and just before clean-up, all of us got to have a little taste of everything.  The dinner was okay, just like wedding food is okay, but the dessert was really yummy.  I think I ate my weight in tuiles, which is no easy feat considering they are paper thin and made mostly of egg-whites.

It's hard out there for a . . .

SEND HELP SOON!

Boy oh boy. I have to admit, I forgot what a social/emotional minefield school is. Tradeschool is so unlike university. I'm finding it to be more like an academic limbo: somewhere between highschool and college. The geography of the culinary trades class is far more diverse than anything I experienced at Capilano College, UBC, or SFU. Some of my peers are in the last throws of puberty and sitting on a precipice between teenage angst and adult responsibility. It feels as though others have always scorned academia and even though they are in a college, they seem to rage against the authority of the institution. And then there are the students who approach their learning with spirit of healthy competitiveness and camaraderie. Sometimes, I feel like I am in a liferaft with a few other sane people. And our chefs -- they're on the big ship (the one that can save us) BUT, because they only see us for one month before they pass us along, they aren't able to effectively evaluate and eliminate the classroom dysfunction. Soooo, no life-buoy for us.

This situation is exacerbated by the fact that the goals of each individual, are hardly homogeneous. Of the sixteen people in our class (we started with 20), I know that at least a third of us have no interest in ever working in a production kitchen. The other two thirds may be focused on the food industry as a goal, but whether they will actually make it to the top is doubtful. I think a lot of students have their eye set on that brass ring of one day becoming an executive chef, a restaurant owner, or even a celebrity TV chef. And, I think that a number of my classmates feel that this will somehow be handed to them without the necessary slogging through dishpits and sweating it out in a windowless kitchen while working the line for minimum wage.

So much of what I've seen in the kitchen classroom reminds me of what I used to see in the highschool classroom. There is petulance, bullying, violent behaviour, dishonesty and cattiness. All of this has led me to reflect on my own teaching practice. So often, I've sat around with my colleagues over pitchers of ale asking the same tired teacher question: "I'm putting good material out there. I'm giving them a show. It's like a circus. So, why does it feel like nobody is learning?" Well now I know why. It's hard to learn while the sharks are circling. It's hard to learn when people are stealing your equipment or putting all of their effort into looking busy instead of being busy. It's hard to learn when you look at your neighbour who is burning something for the tenth time and then you realize that by not burning something you're automatically doing better. I think I know why my students couldn't always learn. Sometimes I wasn't teaching effectively, but it wasn't always me. I think it's easy to blame the teacher but the social environment seems to have so much more influence. I am finding it increasingly difficult to hear my instructor through the fog of bad behaviour that is enveloping our block.

I know that I have to lift myself up. Other classmates are also bothered by the behaviour they've seen. A handful of us have discussed this over a pint (or two), but it has all left me wondering where the tipping point is. I guess it all comes back to an internal locus of control. Now that I realize I've let my sense of work ethic and commitment slip, it's up to me to push myself. I am my own competitor. Even though it is hard, I need to focus on being the best human I can be in that class. As a teacher, that's all I've ever asked of my students: that they be the best human they can be; that they not get caught up in the little things that don't matter; that they open their minds to the beauty and possibilities of academia. Even the very best student can be better. So now it is my turn to practice what I preach. It's hard. It makes me remember my teen years.

I loved highschool. I liked every part of it (even the bad stuff), but I don't want to do it again. I guess, what I'm saying is I know how to help myself, now I just have to do it.