Summertime and the living is... different.

Lots of new stuff going on and of course no time to write about it since I'm exhausted and my eyes are so bloodshot they actually hurt.

I promise I will write tomorrow.  And it's in writing so I can't break it.  Hold me accountable.

Here's a picture.

A post quarter update... on my birthday... from the emergency room.

Yeah.

So anyways, last night was my last class for the quarter. Nothing official yet but I think I have straight A's again. Hopefully at least.  This quarter has been much more challenging than last. I think it has been a combination of working 20+ hours on the weekends, 20 hours during the week, mucho projects and papers and more challenging hands-on work.

Every week was multiple reports, hours of dish research and brainstorming. On the bright side I can tell you anything you would want to know about being a food journalist, cooking on salt blocks, how asthma has a link to fatty, greasy foods, and Jose Garces.

This quarter also brought its down sides: failing my first quiz (well D, but still), totally bombing on fish cookery and the reason why I'm updating from the ER. Here are my lessons learned.

Lesson 1
Don't try and save money by purchasing a study guide instead of the actual book.  The study guide happened by accident but I was trying to save money.  I swear on my dog that the listing on half.com said nothing about a study guide. $20some and a week later, my nutrition study guide arrived on my doorstep.  I opened it up and thought "I could work with this." There were no pictures but pretty much all of the basics I needed to know.  A summary, really.  So guess what my quiz was on.  A diagram of the digestive system.  Why I need to be able to tell the jejunum from the ileum I'm not sure and since my study guide had zero pictures and half of the quiz was listing, from top to bottom, the digestive system I think you know how that went. Let's just say the only think I got right was anus.

Diagram courtesy of vitallywell.com. 

Wish I saw this three months ago.

Lesson 2

If you have no idea how to cook something, pay attention and practice.  As much as I have tried and want to, I hate the taste of fish. Some of it is tolerable but mostly, no thank you, so I never make it.  We needed to shallow poach fluke and cook red snapper en papillote. Everything about this class was foreign to me.  I forgot to add butter to my parchment paper for the shallow poach and my fish broke in half. For the en papillote I didn't raise the fish off of the paper, so it burned to the bottom. I don't have a funny anecdote about this.  It just sucked.  So if you don't eat something or cook it on the regular, study it and practice.  Otherwise you'll probably still suck at it.  Like me.

Lesson 3

Exercise caution during random acts of kindness.  Last Thursday, a classmate was rushing to the elevator. Being the sweetheart that I am (please hold your laughter) I put my arm out to stop the door from closing. At the same time, he kicked his foot out and got me square in the finger. It didn't hurt until Monday, probably from overworking it during my weekend shifts at the restaurant and here we are today in my comfy bed at the hospital.  Anytime I bend it it gets stuck and I have to either physically move it back to normal or pop it out; both extremely painful. In ER pain scale terms, it's an 8. This time next week I will be en route to Costa Rica where I will need this finger for holding on to ropes while I rappel down waterfalls (cue sympathy.)  I also need it for steering my car without turning on the wipers, writing things, and combing my hair. So for now, on my birthday I will sit and wait.  I hope they give me my xray as a gift.

I will try an get more updates out since I have been slacking and will post a link to my flickr page for pictures after the trip. And for any robbers reading this; we have a house sitter so don't even try it.

It's been awhile.

Hi strangers!  I know I have been absent for a while.  Life has been crazy.  Lots of new things have happened and I really couldn't be happier right now.  School is going well.  I ended last quarter with a 4.0 and have all A's at the half-way point of this quarter.    May 2nd I did the biggest thing physically I have ever done... completed the Broad Street run.  All 10 miles in the heat and with my best friend by my side.  It was a great day and I was super proud of myself and her.

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows however.  Starting the day off, I had an incredibly nervous stomach so had to take many bathroom breaks.  I know, TMI.  I worried all morning: did I train enough?  Am I going to finish?  What if I get sick during the race?  What if I don't finish?  The starting time was getting closer and closer and it was time to push that all aside.  I was about to do something I had never thought possible. We approached the starting line and took off.  I told her it would be more fun if we finished together (that's what she said) and we would be able to motivate each other when things got tough. It was so nice to see the people along Broad Street cheering for us even though they had no idea who we were.  It was about 800 degrees so some of the fire hydrants were open along the course and, like a kid or a girl running 10 miles in sweltering heat, I ran through all of them.  We took walking breaks at the water stops and, in my case, up the hills.  All down hill... yeah right.   We passed Temple and it was nice to see some familiar territory.  Before I knew it we were at mile 5 and City Hall.  I'm not going to lie; this hurt.  After awhile, my body just kept going.  We knew our friends would be waiting for us at mile 8 so that definitely kept us looking forward.  After mile 8 it was two more miles to go.  We were passing the sports stadium and the Rocky theme was playing.  Girl Talk came on my ipod and kept playing "watch my feet, watch my feet."  Then I started singing it out loud.  We came up on bff's family and knew we were close to the finish.  That last .5 miles were so tough I think because we were so close.  The finish line got closer and closer and before I knew it we were crossing it.  It was an awesome feeling. My legs felt like jello and I had a lovely sunburn.  The outline of my ipod (as seen above) was burnt onto my arm and my hilarious friends asked me what gig I was wearing.  It took about two days to walk normally again and I spent plenty of time waddling around my office and house.

Now that it is over all I want to do is run more and more (which I plan on doing as soon as I hit publish.)  I really want to do the half marathon this coming November so that I have the time to train safely.  If I could do this, what can't I do?

first weekend at the new job

In list form because I'm too tired to form actual paragraphs:
- while walking to work two random strangers said "hi chef"... to me
- learned a lot in the last few days, especially some Spanish words
- stabbed myself with my pairing knife. Little blood.

- one of the sous chefs loves that's what she said jokes.  Instant friends.

- feet are tired
- knees are hurting
- hair is stinky like kitchen
- so exhausted
- so happy.

I was telling someone today that I never saw my life going in this direction but I am so glad that it did.

21 days

First to start off, this post is unfortunately not about zombies.  Sorry.

It's about how many days until probably the toughest day of my life.  The Broad Street Run. 10 miles of grueling conditions, rough terrain and obstacles.  Okay, I'm lying.  It's a straight, slight downhill course and everyone says it is pretty easy but still, 10 miles.  I ran six miles today; my farthest distance ever.  I'm not going to say it was awesome and felt great.  It was awful and it sucked and next weekend I'll be out there again trying to go even farther.  I've never really been the "push it 'til I puke" person but today that almost changed.  Around mile four, which usually isn't that much of a challenge (weird saying that), I started going hazy an needed to sit for a few minutes.  Then the nausea.  Then the fast, uncomfortable search for a bathroom.  Once I was able to run again my legs, back and stomach started cramping. One more mile to go and I finished by jog/limp/walking.  Six miles took one hour and 23 minutes.  I'll take it.

It's tough finding the time to get my training in and will be tougher now that my weekends will be spent at the restaurant.  My first official shift will be this upcoming Saturday so I'll be trying to get my long runs in during the week.  I know the rule is to never increase your distance more than a tenth but I don't have a choice and so I've been doing a run/walk method, the majority of it running.  Should all go well, I'm looking to finish in around two hours but registered for two and a half hours.

So school.

First week of quarter two is over and so far so good.  I like all of my teachers and feel that I will learn a lot this quarter.  In our first class for Skills 2, we had to draw our plating, base it around a flavor profile and have it ready in a five minute fire time window.  It was so much more intense than my Skills 1 final that it's a pretty good mix of super intimidating and exciting.  Intro to Food Service seems like it will be a change of pace and it will be a good way to find out about all the different types of jobs I can get and how to get them.  I'm excited for my Nutrition class since it is something I am into normally anyways.

I'll be walking away from my job of three years this week.  The job that ended up pushing me into culinary school via partial unemployment.  As happy as I am to move on to bigger and better things, it's sad in a way.

Lots of good.

Sorry I have been MIA for a bit.  Between finals and what I am about to write about, life's been a bit hectic.  Thank you to anyone who is still out there reading this.

So spring break is coming to an end which, for me, was never really a break to being with.  I had my trail at Tinto which went very well.  As soon as I got into the kitchen I was put to work brunoise cutting red peppers, small dicing potatoes, making mirepoix stock kits and julienning about 40 onions.  I think the final task may have been a test to see if I would finish with a smile on my face and I am happy to say that I did.  I don't mind the grunt work.  I know that I have absolutely no kitchen experience besides my four months in culinary school.  I know that you have to do the grunt work to gain respect.  I know there is much more of it to come and hours on end with little or no pay before I make it to the top.  But, I love it.  So I will.  9 p.m. rolled around and the chef that I had spoken to came down and asked me what I thought and when I would be able to come back.  I was excited.  If I were terrible they probably would have just thanked me for coming in and sent me on my way.

A few days later I'd be back to prove myself again.  This time it would be a bit more hands on.  I got to work cutting french baguettes which I so wanted to eat.  (I later did.  mmm dinner.)  After that I observed the chefs I would be trailing as the dinner service began.  I learned how to make many of the dishes and a few of the things I made went out for service.  Since the two restaurants, Tinto and Village Whiskey, share a kitchen, I mainly worked on the Village Whiskey dishes: pickled tomatoes, artichokes, carrots and beats, deviled eggs and Cobb salads.  The most exciting and challenging part was trying, emphasis on trying, to shuck oysters and clams. I felt victorious as my first shell popped open and defeating as the next four did not. Practice makes perfect and that's what I did whenever an order came up. A few dinner rushes came and I tried to jump in whenever possible.  The night flew by and before I knew it I was wrapping everything up in preparation to go home.  I was hoping that someone would come over and invite me back.  Nothing.  So I started cleaning.  While scrubbing down the meat slicer the head chef came over and asked if I wanted to talk.  Being the awkward, unknowing kitchen helper that I am I asked if I should finish with the slicer.  He said someone else could finish the job and we went to the office and sat down.

"So, what did you think."
"I loved it.  I had lots of fun."

Then he hit me with it: they wanted to bring me aboard as an employee.  If only I could have seen my face.  Trying to contain my overwhelming joy I focused as much on what he was saying as possible.  As I walked out of the restaurant I did little victory dances whenever no one would be able to see.  I got in my car and screamed.  This is official (in both senses of the word.)  My first kitchen job at an amazing restaurant headed up by an amazing team and an Iron Chef.   If you stop by Village Whiskey on a Saturday night and order the pickled tomatoes, imagine me putting them in the mason jar with a big, silly grin on my face.  They'll taste even better.

amazing.

Tonight was awesome.  I was invited back for a second trail!  I'll post more another time.  Right now, I'm pooped.