The First Cuts are the Hardest?

This is my first julienne which was then turned into a brunoise

Chopping Skills

Wednesday through Friday is Italian in the am and chopping skills after lunch. Although, the Italian classes get shorter and kitchen classes get longer. We are also studying some theory and learning the basics of food safety.

Italian Class

Strangely, my culinary journey opens with two 8-hour day of Italian and no cooking. We are divided into two classes those that speak some Italian and those who speak none. I am in the none class. Our teacher is very nice. She makes fun of me because my Italian comes out with a German accent. She thinks this is hilarious, I find it annoying. It sounds right in my head and when it comes out of my mouth even I can hear the German accent. The good thing is that Italian is so much easier than German. My mind had been blowing up the language class until it had reached “naked in front of the class” nightmare proportions. But after the first 8 hours, I figured I could handle it. The Italians don’t have any crazy word order, and only male and female articles, which for the most part are determined by the last letter of the verb. I love this language. I should have started with this, if I had something like this in the beginning I would be on my fifth language by now! I am really sure there is a larger question of personality being indicative of the language when I think about these two cultures, but this is a question I am going to have to ponder more fully post-Italian stay. For now, I am just looking forward to the kitchen portion of this experience and hope that I can keep the 8 hours of grammar I am learning in my head for the next few months.

My New Home – for 10 Weeks Anyway

Exhausted and cold the little family of Scott, Alexis and Atticus arrived at my mother’s house. She led us downstairs to what would be my “apartment” for the next ten weeks. It is adorable, she did a lovely job. We go down the basement steps through a bunch of storage and there is a small bathroom and a few yards away from that a bedroom that mom really made into a little efficiency. It has a kitchen area – two cabinets, a little fridge, a table for two, and a microwave. There is a bed, of course, and a nice big closet, a dresser and best of all heat! It is just wonderful. I love it. Mom has stocked the fridge with V8 for me and Diet Pepsi for Scott, Atticus has been left out of the welcome package but not to worry there is TONS of cheese, and attention and anything his little puppy brain can conjure as heaven upstairs. Mom beams with pride as Scott and I remark how much we love it and what a wonderful job she has done. She has even gone as far as putting flowers out for us. It is truly a little oasis – that is until I realize the dresser is kind of moldy smelling. Ariana had a dresser in her basement that I could trade out so the room became perfect. She had a TV for me to use, but I decided I could use a few months off and I put it away. My future will be all studying, cooking and reading – and puppy kisses! Atticus choose my pillow as his bed!

Time to Orient Myself to My New Life

Around 8 in the morning Scott and I packed my life into a car and drove from DC to NY – with Atticus . I had mandatory orientation at 2:30 at the French Culinary Institute and while it was drizzling in DC the further north we traveled the harder the rain became. Atticus hates the car. He refused to sit by himself and just when I thought he was being brave and going toward the back of the car to explore, he vomited on the blanket coving the suitcase. Between puking pup, a boyfriend who was conducting conference calls with Honduran workers (and refusing to let me drive) and my nerves the trip was harrowing. We arrived with 20 minutes to spare and looked for a parking space. The rain was coming down and I thought Atticus would be due for a walk. We found a space and I went into the restaurant to wait for the orientation class. While I was sitting at the bar I realized that I didn’t have my wallet so I couldn’t even order a drink – so totally typical for me. Two younger boys walked in, one with an easily discernable NJ accent. I started to get nervous, I knew I was older for the program, but these guys looked like they were just out of high school.

The orientation went fine, and I felt like we were hearing information we had already been over. Many of our chefs came in and introduced themselves. I recognized one of them from Top Chef masters – he didn’t win – but the others were mostly a blur of white hats and coats. I paid close attention to the Italian chefs since that would be running the program. The chef who started the program walks around with a bunch of rosemary in his pocket so he would be easy to remember. The orientation was supposed to end at 4:00 and Scott and I needed to hightail it out of the city so we could get to my mother’s to put the dog in my room and head to Ariana’s for her birthday dinner. At 4:30 the last person spoke and we were then directed to a reception. I knew Scott was waiting so I got my bag - filled with Italian books and my new chef clothes, including three jackets with my name embodied on them! - and I snuck out.

Poor Atticus knows he isn’t supposed to pee on the floor in the house, he takes this to mean all hard surfaces. He wouldn’t go to the bathroom on the sidewalk. The parking place we thought we were so lucky to find was for commercial vehicles - $2 in parking meter fees down the drain. Worse then the money was the fact that Scott had to drive around the block, in the rain, with a dog hanging off of one shoulder

Salzburg Here I Come ... sort of

My trip to Salzburg held such promise.  Scott upgraded my ticket and I was looking forward to a glass of wine and kicking my feet up while watching a movie and eating my cardboard-like food off of real china. Sadly, I had forgotten to make my proper offerings of first bought suitcase sacrifices to the gods of travel.   The consequences of this oversight became apparent as my new boss and I ran out of small talk just as we hit traffic – about 15 minutes into the trip.  The ensuing 45 minutes consisted of stilted sentences punctuated with lifetime-long pauses.  We were late, and awkwardly trundled two suitcases, my laptop, my camera, a giant cardboard tube and an enormous cardboard box chock filled with photocopies needed for our meeting.

We managed to make it onto the airport parking lot shuttle bus and found we had been blessed with a very helpful bus driver who clearly saw herself as an ambassador/tour guide of the Dulles Airport economy parking lot.  She regaled the passengers with a list of the most common complaints she hears along her route. Which included important observations that there are not enough blue lot busses, buses aren’t clearly marked, and speeding tickets are too high. The speeding tickets prompt follow-on information about Virginia fines, a disquisition on tired travelers trying to get home and tips.  This passenger could contain it no longer and started giggling. This is no ordinary giggle it is a contagion.  It reaches and infects the flight attendant on her way to training in Atlanta, moves from her to the teen sitting next to her, on to the youngish man who told us he used to live in Atlanta and soon a full-fledged epidemic hit the bus.  Rather than quarantining the passengers, the friendly bus driver pulls over, without unloading her cargo, to help a lost looking woman on the side of the street. The passengers looked at each other what could be done? This is a shuttle ride like none other. I just crossed my fingers that we are going to make it to the United terminal before the 45-minute cutoff. 

Cape Photos

Oma Eating her Lobster

Erin working on dinner.