I’ve officially completed my first week of culinary school. It’s about what I expected in some ways, and not at all what I imagined in others.
I expected:
* there would be a lot to learn right away
* I would see a pretty mixed crowd of ages, levels of experience and knowledge
* homework, right away
* pretty high expectations, right from the start.
I didn’t expect:
* to so thoroughly and genuinely be OK with not being really good at everything right away
* how proud I feel every time I put on that chef’s coat
* to already be part of a team, and to have been unofficially elected the “leader” of it.
For the next year and a half, my homework involves cramming my head full of lots of vocabulary, cooking method process steps, and measurement conversions; going through pounds of potatoes and carrots trying to perfect (or get as close to it as possible) several different knife cuts; and cooking, lots of cooking. When I look through the syllabus for my lab classes, I’m actually pretty excited to find several things I’ve never made before, as well as things I have, but have always wanted to do better.
My two instructors for this quarter are pretty great, from what I can tell so far. They’re married— I have the wife for my lecture class and the husband for my lab. That’s actually pretty cool because they seem to be working together to make sure that everything we cover in theory in the lectures are covered really well in practice in the kitchen. They each know what the other is teaching, and it makes all three nights flow really well. Of course, I have no real basis for comparison because these are my first classes, but I feel like I’m in really good hands with these two chefs. I feel even more confident about my decision to go to culinary school after this week. I’m going to be a much better, more focused, and more organized cook, and that’s going to make me a much better teacher.
Speaking of cooking, we’ll get back to it next week. I’m working on a couple of recipes for Tuesday and Thursday, so keep your eyes peeled.