Day in the Life

Well today was the day I helped out at the school. Our Chefs for today were Chef Knight and Chef Deshay. As you might recall Chef Knight was my first instructor in PCA I. Chef Deshay teaches the class I’m in now but in the afternoons.

On the tasting menu for the potential newibes –

Black Olive Tapanade on toasted baguette
Green Olive Tapanade on fried polenta
Stuffed Dates wrapped in bacon
Peppermint Cream stuffed profiteroles

We had 3 students helping out, myself, Tiny and Olivia. Tiny is in APCA (4th term) and Olivia is in the same session I am in but in the afternoon class.

I was in charge of the black olive Tapanade, Tiny the green and Olivia did the stuff dates. Everything was pretty much made for them. They just had to assemble them. I think it would have been more fun if they had to make the Tapanade but since over 35 showed up that might have been tough. Not to mention the fact they haven’t had any of the safety lectures on how to use the equipment.

There was one issue in which the polenta just wouldn’t cooperate. Chef Knight asked me “Red to remember how to make Polenta?!” I told her of course and she said get on it and make me 2 batches fast! Ok…no pressure here…off I got to PCA II to make polenta. Oh thank heavens it came out perfectly! I would have hated to let the chef down.

The surreal part was as I was walking around checking in on the newbies to see how they were doing or if they had questions a couple of times I would hear “Chef can you look at this?” …”Chef is this right?”…and I kept walking on by until one of them touched my arm and goes “Chef?” I laughed and apologized for not answering sooner, but see those folks up there wearing the black? Those are the ‘Chefs’, I’m a student but I do appreciate the honorific. The cute part was when one woman asked me “So do they always have a sous chef to help prep and do the dishes?”, when I was taking her dirty dishes to the sink. I’m going to hell for this but looked at her and “Yes..yes they do.” I knew if I told her the horror stories of what we went thru she’d run screaming into the night never to be seen again except on those rare nights when the moon is full we’ll hear her cackling “wash em…wash em..”

After they all assembled their appetizers they took their platters to the main dining hall to enjoy them. This also affords the recruiters an opportunity to get them signed up and committed. Unfortunately for us it means it’s time to clean the kitchen. And that means just the 3 of us get to clean the lab that 30+ people just dirtied. Oh the joy! And true to form there’s always someone who doesn’t pull their weight and that was Olivia. Tiny ended up doing all the dishes, I wiped and scrubbed the lab and she was no where to be seen. At least this wasn’t a shock to me hahaha!

It was a fun day and it was enjoyable to talk with the potential new students. I know of one gentleman who is already signed up and due to start in January. They all had a lot of questions and that excited energy I remember so well before I started. I hope to see their faces in January.

On Monday in class we’re making our pizza dough, dinner rolls, the poolish starter for Ciabiatta bread and Rosemary Foccacia bread. What a good day that will be :)

Until Then!...