Meanwhile back in the Kitchen . . .

Since I haven't blogged consistently for the last 20 odd days. I am going to give you a speed update of the top twenty things that have happened in the class. First we must travel back in time to Block 3 (you may remember this as my Month of Bacon)

20. We made beautiful desserts. Brie covertly took these photos on her phone.19. Chef Ritchie announced that our class, collectively, had the worst attendance he had ever seen in 10 years at VCC. Those of us who were present, and on time, looked at each other, shrugged, and said "Yes Chef!" in a somewhat feeble manner. The students who were absent, took no notice and carried on with their abysmal attendance.

18. Our block switched from drinking at the dirty Cambie Pub to drinking at the far more charming and comfortable Railway Club. The Railway has Guinness. Hooray for Guinness. We only ever have "just one" each.

17. Zach has still failed to learn how to tie his chef's tie and Diana has been tying it for him on a daily basis for four months now. He feels no shame over this. However, I believe Diana is starting to feel some shame. At least a little bit. If Diana decides not to show up for school, Zach may have to stay home too, due to the tie issue. Thereby aggravating the attendance issue.


(Note how happy Zach looks in this photo and how proud Diana is of her handiwork.)


16. The breakfast kitchen nearly exploded when Chef Ritchie tried to deep fry mashed potato cakes in our fryer that had sat dormant for nearly three weeks. Somehow some water must have been spilled in the fryer. So when it was finally turned on, it made a terrific noise, and began to shake as though it was a mighty greasy beast awakening from the depths of some kitchen hell, waiting to explode and coat the whole class in a layer of hot, filthy, unsaturated fat. Chef Ritchie said he even scared himself. And he is a mighty Scotsman, who does not scare easily. So, you can imagine the terror the rest of us felt.

15. Tyson poured another classmate's bavarian cream down the sink due to the fact that it resembled dishwater and it was being "chilled" in a "bain marie" of dishwater and dirty dishes. Said classmate wept. Tyson felt little to no remorse.

14. I learned that bad gelatin can smell and taste very piggy. . . but not in a good bacon-y way.

13. Finally we moved on to Block 4: Stocks, Soups, Sauces, and Cold Kitchen 2 taught by the lovely and fast-talking Chef Irwin. It sounds great, but this is when the real madness began.

12. I was put in a new, almost super-fantastic group with Shameless Seamus, James, Baby Kam, and another classmate who I will simply refer to as Anger Soup. (When I googled "anger soup" this picture came up.)

11. Our group started in the soup rotation of the class. I got to make a number of delicious concoctions: Coney Island Clam Chowder, Herbed Tomato Rice Soup, Chicken Vegetable, Mulligatawny, and Hungarian Goulash. My favourite, by far was the goulash soup and the seafood chowder that Seamus made.

10. James won an entrance scholarship. Most of us were really proud of him. One or two classmates were filled with jealous, impotent rage that was violently taken out on the upstairs boys' bathroom at VCC. (If you've seen Punch Drunk Love, it was the same as the scene where Adam Sandler goes postal on the bathroom)

9. David had his pants stolen again. How David?!!! HOW?!

8. Seamus and Tyson got to volunteer at the Gold Plates Competition. This was a competition between a number of the haute, local restaurants to create uber fabulous and confoundingly delicious food that also looked beautiful. Ty and Shame-O got to work with Tojo who placed second overall. This event helped revive Tyson's belief/love in/for the wonder of food. And I think it probably made both of them better cooks. (For more about Golden Plates, click here)

7. Absenteeism increased, especially on Fridays. There must be something about Friday because one very young, female classmate seems to always fall ill between 9:30 and 10 am. Usually this illness comes on very quickly after she receives a text message in class. I think it might be her phone making her sick. I heard cellular phones can do that.

6. As part of our Block 4 curriculum, we were given a take home assignment on food costing. The questions were crazy and went something like this.

If you are working at 35% food cost, how much does 100 litres of bernaise cost. Consider that the parsley has travelled from New Zealand on the Concord for $5 per mile. The egg yolks were from hand fed bantam hens and the person making the sauce is angry and working very slowly for 25 union dollars an hour. Given this information, what is the menu price for 100 grams of said sauce. Please work to no more than 10 decimal points. You will be given a 1/10000 of a cent margin of error . . . good luck.

I managed to get 100% on the assignment, but about six of us had to work as a collective to make sure we understood the questions.

5. Anger Soup missed a whole week of school thus leaving the rest of us in the lurch when we hit salads.

4. Zach slipped on Tyson's spaghetti noodles and hurt his back. Now he has an excuse for not being able to tie his tie. He is in poor health and suffering from a back ow-ee.

3. I scored my first 100% on the Soup and Stocks Test. Yay me!

2. I started to get tendinitis in both of my shoulders. I feel like a baby tyrannosaurus rex.

1. On November 24th, we move to Block 5: Nighttime Cafeteria Service. This should be a very exciting month. We will also be entering term 2 of our year. Kris and Chris have both decided to leave the program for very valid personal reasons. This will create a big shift in our group as they are two of the older members of the class. Some classmates may not be invited to continue on due to poor marks and attendance. Big changes are in the air. We will be put in new groups and the expectation for our speed and quality of work is about to increase dramatically.

And that is a fairly complete, somewhat biased update of my last month in the kitchen!