Wendings of a Gypsy Soul
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Alyssa" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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10:41 pm
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What I Did on My Summer Vacation: An Extern Experience Abroad
As college students across the country were eagerly cleaning out their dorm rooms in anticipation of a summer of freedom, I was crossing the Atlantic Ocean for England. My destination was London, but I was not, as many students entering on a BUNAC work visa are, there to engage in a glorified pub crawl or take in the many sights. Instead, this trip to the Big Smoke would be about work, in a way that previous trips had not been so much about education. I had landed an externship at Paternoster Chop House, a restaurant located in the financial heart of the City, under the imposing shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral. In this iconic location, Chef Peter Weeden has created a menu around traditional British food, highlighting very British ingredients. Although, I had more than a cursory knowledge of those strangely named British dishes (spotted dick, hasty pudding, toad in a hole, dean’s cream, etc.) from my accumulated time spent living abroad, it definitely was not the idea of British cuisine that drew me across the Pond. In fact, it was the restaurant’s ardent dedication to seasonality and locality that piqued my interest, although when I arrived in June, I had no idea just how much of a role locality and seasonality would play in the intervening months. Instead, I arrived at site like most fresh new externs, not quite sure what to expect but hoping for a lot.
In our industry, when we talk about seasonality or locality, that something called terroir, we’re generally keying into a current trend. The foodie-thing-of-the-moment is to micro-identify sources, to prominently display to others where we get our eggs, our milk, our meat, our broccoli rabe. It’s not uncommon to walk into many restaurants today and see local ingredients featured on the menu. I’m not saying this is a bad thing. Quite the opposite, I’m pleased to know that people are paying attention to these sort of details even if only because it is a trend and a quick way to increase profit. Unfortunately, it is often only a trend and local items are featured on the same menu that celebrates our ability in this country to get anything we want whenever we want. For many restaurants, a seasonal menu is one that changes four times a year, maybe a few more. This might reflect our construction of “season”, but often negates the complexities of nature.
Walking into the Chop House the first day was overwhelming. I found myself at a site, working with a Chef who believes that a seasonal menu is one that changes daily. In fact, our menu changed each service, reflecting items that were best right then. Our purchase orders were heavily influenced by growers, foragers, fishermen and farmers—people who were in constant contact with the land, the sea and the sky. We stopped ordering tomatoes in mid-September, not because the season had changed, but because the tomatoes stopped tasting sweet and full. We continued getting strawberries until the middle of October because there was a strangely late fruiting in Kent, the result of a strangely mild summer. This incredible dedication to making sure everything tasted the way Mother Nature actually intended it to taste meant that, as chefs, we couldn’t do too much in terms of planning. We created mise en place lists the night before and often walked in to a supply scenario completely different than what we had planned. We created menu items by opening the fridges and seeing what was available, what looked good and what might go well together on the day. It was an incredible exercise in creativity and taste.
At the Chop House we didn’t use garlic. That was a hard one to swallow in my first few days there. The reasoning behind that decision is simple. Garlic is not commercially grown in England and would have to be imported. Peter takes locality very seriously. You should have heard him the day we received French butter by mistake. Our fish came from small day boats, mostly off the Cornish coast. Peter has spent a lot of time cultivating relationships with these fishermen and it wasn’t unusual for them to call us to let us know about anything interesting they had caught that day. We almost always took it, although occasionally with some conditions. Like the conger eel had to be dead before delivery. Fresh took on a whole new meaning at the Chop House. Our fish generally arrived just the other side of death, still in rigor, within twenty-four hours of being caught. Sometimes, like a very feisty Turbot, they were much less dead and much more jumping out of the prep sink. We also worked very closely with a company called Forager who, in reality, are two guys who spend their days scouring the Kentish countryside for all manners of wild food. We regularly received, when they were in season, odd deliveries of marsh samphire, sea spurrey, laver, stinging nettles, dittander, dandelion and the largest puffball mushrooms I have ever seen. Peter loved to call attention to the incredible bounty of the British Isles, finding potential food in local parks, his brother-in-law’s back garden and growing between cracks in the sidewalk.
Walking into our walk-in was always adventure, you could never be fully sure of what you might find behind that heavy door. However, it became almost normal to find an entire cow. We did all of our own butchery in-house and our beef was delivered as huge primal cuts. The incredible Galloway or Longhorn beef arrived from Ben Weatherall’s farm aged and tasting of happy cows that lived happy, full lives on the Scottish moors. You couldn’t enter the walk-in without banging into a Berkshire or Middle White pig or a Blackface lamb, hanging and ready for butchering. With the focus on mechanization and efficient processes, butchery is a dying craft. But in the young kitchen of the Chop House, armed with only a simple hand-saw and sharp knives, Peter Weeden and his chefs are working diligently with an accomplished English butcher to preserve the traditional ways.
Paternoster Chop House is a unique restaurant, but not uncommon in type. There are a number of small, independent restaurants in the United States and abroad that have made it their mission to re-embrace local, seasonal foods across their menus. What sets the Chop House apart is that it is neither small nor independent. Originally conceived by Sir Terence Conran as part of the larger Conran Holdings, which in 2006 were bought out by D and D London, the Chop House is one of a myriad of operations in the UK, continental Europe, New York and Tokyo. As part of a larger restaurant group, the Chop House is answerable to a board of directors who might or might not be impressed by the dedication to terroir, but are impressed by the bottom line. The Chop House just celebrated its third birthday and that, in itself, is a large accomplishment in an industry where the majority of new restaurants fail in their first two years. An even greater accomplishment, however, is that each year’s profit has significantly increased- a testament to the overall success and viability of this concept. From my window on sauce, I could watch the gaggles of tourists on their Grand Tour of London, stopping for a moment or two to ogle Christopher Wren’s incredible dome before moving on to the next stop in a long litany of sites. Working, on average, sixty hours a week, I didn’t have time to visit the places they would most likely see, but I never felt as if I was missing out. Instead, as an extern at the Paternoster Chop House, I was experiencing a world of food most people would never have the opportunity to taste, let alone work with on a daily basis. In the end, experience for experience, I’d trade the gilded halls of Westminster Abbey for a little bit of marsh samphire or a handful of dittander. But I wouldn’t trade my extern experience for the world.
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11:41 pm
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September
September is a month of anniversaries. The type of anniversaries that beg for solemn reflection on one’s past, one’s present and one’s future.
On 23 September 2004, I sat on an Air France flight from Charles de Gaulle to N’djamena and looked out my window, unnerved by the lack of runway lights as we descended. We stepped off that plane, into the hot Sahelian night and were greeted by warm bottles of water and a flurry of confusing activity. I don’t remember much from our first drive to the SIL compound, but I do remember the all-encompassing darkness broken only by occasional small fires that cast looming shadows on walls. The darkness takes you by surprise if only because you think you know what darkness is, what darkness means. You don’t. You can’t. Not really. September was the month I learned about darkness. It was the month it all began. SIL, the grande marche, waiting in line for e-mail at the bureau, Darda, couscous, Majiri, home stay, Ramadan, Robin-dam, singing “Sweet Home Alabama” on the banks of the Chari river, the boat ride that wouldn’t end, Ahmat Daoud, Moumine, hippos at night, Wabo-Wabo, mosquitoes, heat rash, giardia…the list is endless. At the Holiday Inn in Philadelphia, we met as strangers. Tentative, unsure. About each other. About Chad. About what we were agreeing to do for the next two years. But something about the circumstances of Darda, of what we were doing, brought us together. September gave me a new definition of family. I have often said that family doesn’t have to be defined by bloodlines. The connection of family goes deeper than that, strikes at the very souls of people, and bonds them to each other. It’s not a superficial bond, something based on likes/dislikes or random circumstances. It comes about when, and only when, people have been through hell together, when they’ve trudged the mile or so in the mud together, been violently ill together, been through triumph and tragedy together.
Tragedy.
Matthew Costa was a short, curly-haired Puckish imp of a person. The type that no matter how bad of a mood you were in, you couldn’t help but laugh out loud as he danced and karate-chopped his way around the lounge. He was so serious in his unseriousness. And so unserious in his seriousness. He lived vibrantly. He perfected the art of bar shopping, of sneaking whiskey packets into expensive Nasarra restaurants, of integrating into a community without losing his sense of self. Matt completed his two years in Chad and then extended for a third year in Mali. Mali of all places. But after Chad, anywhere is up. And on September 3, 2007, just days, really, from his official close-of-service date, he was gone. He and some friends built a sailboat and had tried to sail it up the Niger River where it hit a power line. And those eyes that once twinkled with a certain mischievousness were closed forever.
I remember the news. Over e-mail. And I remember that moment of feeling so incredibly alone. Of being overwhelmed by grief that I couldn’t share because no one around me understood that I didn’t just lose a friend. I lost a brother. I remember the incredible need at that moment to find myself in the company of those who knew. Who understood. In Chad, one mourns silently. At a funeral, you sit quietly. You don’t need to speak to the grief-stricken. They understand that words are superfluous. That it’s your physical presence that is important. And so I flew half-way across the country to be there, to sit with and hold onto my family.
This September, I am again alone. Feeling disconnected from that past. It’s hard to be so separate from people who were once so very integral to your daily existence. So if I seem a little off-key, a little disjointed, it’s because there are pieces of my soul scattered around this month. I’ll be okay. But September is a month of anniversaries. Anniversaries that require reflection. And I’m reflecting.
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01:35 pm
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Just another day at the Chop House...sort of...
I woke up Thursday to greyish skies and a feeling that it was going to be a slightly odd day. On Wednesday night, we were completely out of garnishes. Completely. So I knew Thursday was going be a mad rush to prep out everything (and I DO mean EVERYTHING). When I got to work, I took one look at the amount of picking I had to do (Purslaine, Sea Beet, Sea Spurrey) and I knew, I just KNEW we were going to be so deep in the weeds. And then the council health inspector showed up. Of course, everything was fine. Chef runs a tight ship. So tight he announced to her when she arrived, "Well, we had a mouse. But don't worry about that. Someone caught it this morning." You can only do that if you KNOW you have nothing to hide. And we don't. The kitchen of Paternoster Chop House is scrubbed clean every night, the food is so fresh it's incredible and the safety standards are high, high, high. But having her in the kitchen took time. At 1145am with 126 on the book, I was more than a little freaked out. We had no mash. At noon, when the first tickets came through, we had no veg and also no veg chef and I wasn't anywhere near being set up how I wanted to be when the orders started to fly. Then at 1205pm, the fire alarm went off. When the alarm goes off, the gas automatically shuts off as well. So I grabbed the gas can and as soon as the alarm stopped, I started to re-light. I had only just opened the oven and started to remove the pilot cover when the alarm sounds again. We weren't sure what to do. Was this a test? An actual fire? One of the sous-chefs came upstairs and told us we needed to evacuate. We pulled everything off of the stoves and out of the ovens and then proceeded to the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral. Imagine the sight of people in striped blue aprons, whites and checks followed by waitstaff who look like (as one noted with aplomb) like penguins headed toward one of the biggest tourist attractions in the City. I'm sure some intersting photos of us will turn up in Japan, Scandinavia, Italy and India. We were soon joined by office workers as it turned out that the whole of Warwick Court was evacuated. We sat there for a hour with no idea of what was happening. Eventually, we were allowed to return to the restaurant. Nothing was hot, the grills were cold and the ovens were off and there were hungry bankers clamoring for food. What could have been a landmark day, one where we did 220-some covers turned into a day where we might have done ninety (and that's being generous). I think Pizza Express might have had a banner day on Thursday. As for us, it was a strange day at the Chop House.
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02:47 pm
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Friday night, August Bank Holiday
Friday was a strange evening at the Paternoster Chop House. It was deathly quiet, the normal sounds of London’s pin-striped bankers tipping back expensive cocktails and chatting each other up in Temple Bar were eerily absent in light of the August Bank Holiday weekend. Service was slow, even slower than the standard Friday night which is, admittedly, exceedingly slow with the exception of the bar menu, an eclectic combination of mostly fried things, but even our fryer stayed relatively untouched. It’s just an odd feeling to be fully set up for service and to look out from the open kitchen and see a mostly empty restaurant with waiters milling around looking for something to do. It’s that forlorn sense of purposelessness that strikes seaside summer destinations in mid-winter, boarded up, void of life and desperately waiting for the snow to melt, the temperatures to soar and the laughter to return.
Somewhere near the middle of that incredibly dead service, one of the sous-chefs called across the kitchen to me, “Alyssa, some of your friends are here.” My friends? It could’ve been anyone (except, perhaps, for my actual friends) and my mind, as I crossed the kitchen, was warily running through a list of potentials. It turned out to be an American couple who had dined with us earlier and inquired about the plant origins of the caper berry. As to how they came back to the kitchen and how my name/nationality got dragged into the whole story, I’m a little foggy on the details but I found myself face-to-face with two people I wouldn’t know from Adam resuming my role as an ambassador for the Culinary Institute of America. As an institution, the Culinary receives a quarter of a million visitors each year which is one of the many reasons for our incredibly conservative rules that encompass dress code, postering and general student life. As a student, you’re expected to maintain a high level of hospitality which can be difficult to do as your trying to carry an impssibly heavy tray of meat through the hallways crowded with slow-moving, awe-struck and, yes, more than occasionally geriatric tourists who don’t really understand the urgency with which you need to get by them NOW. As a student, you become used to living in a fishbowl, having people peer in the classroom windows at you while you go about the daily minutiae of kitchen life. It’s not unusual to be stopped and asked questions by little old ladies as you weave your way to or from class and from your first day at the Culinary, you have stock answers to the most frequently asked questions drilled into you. It’s a mind-set you adopt on campus. But I haven’t been on campus for nine-weeks. But quite suddenly I was faced with not being a lowly extern there to pick parsley and perslaine, but a representative of the Culinary Institute of America, a tour guide, a spokesperson. It was odd, standing there in my whites, funny skull cap and ugly, ugly shoes, to resume my old role of Public Relations Manager, touting the “party line” and explaining the befuddling idiosyncrasies of my program at the best institute for culinary education in the world (at least according to Julia Child). It took me a beat or two to recover that other person. The one who can do more than slice radishes and cucumbers. The one who is seen as knowledgeable and fully able. The one who is considered a “high-impact leader”. It was fun, if even only for five minutes, to slip into that old persona before I was called back again to my present reality as a common extern in a slow kitchen on the August Bank Holiday Friday.
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12:38 am
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My Practical
Today, I passed my 2nd term practical exam. This is a momentous occasion, especially when you consider how very, very nervous I was about this whole ordeal. For those of you for whom this all quite foreign, let me set the scene. At the Culinary, you go to school for basically two semesters before you leave on extern (basically an apprenticeship in a real, working restaurant). Before you may leave, however, you must past a cooking practical exam and an oral exam (as well as a writing and costing practical, but that's neither here nor there...there was never any doubt that I would pass those). These exams test your knowledge of basic cooking fundamentals, food safety and product identification. The oral exam may include questions from any study from Food Safety up to Garde Manger...the study guide for the oral exam itself is 150 questions or thereabouts. For the practical, you know ahead of time what menus will be tested. You have to make two portions of a soup, a protein, a starch and two vegetables. You have 2 1/2 hours to complete the meal and present it. You can draw roasted chicken, sauteed chicken, shallow poached trout, deep poached salmon, grilled mahi mahi or beef stew. Ideally, you will have made each of these at least twice at this school, although sometimes more.
Really, the menus are not that complicated. It's just a lot and there's a lot riding on this exam. So I was nervous. Very nervous.
You take the practical in groups with staggered start and presentation times. I was the last one in my group to go. As I waited outside for my 340 start time to arrive, Chef Clark (the incredible! Fish Kitchen chef), came around the corner. He noticed how nervous I was and proceeded to give me a truly fantastic pep talk. Exactly what I needed at that exact moment. It was so very fitting that the first chef I had here at the CIA and the first chef to leave a truly indelible impression on me was the same chef who would give me the needed help right before I took the test that would allow me to leave the CIA (on extern). It was one of those hand-of-God type moments. Many people dislike Chef Clark because he is quite brusque and a little rough around the edges, but I really do love him.
Because I was the last, I did not get to pull my menu out of the proverbial hat. I took what was left after my oral exam. Sauteed Chicken breast, Sauce Fine Herbes, Fresh Pasta, Braised Cabbage, Sauteed Zucchini and Lentil Soup. I took several minutes to clear my head and then hit the ground running. Well, strolling: I learned early here that Aesop's lesson about the tortoise and the hare applies to cooking as well as anything else. Slow and steady DOES win the race. And so, like a marathon runner, I paced myself. And then, in the last 20 minutes, kicked it into a slightly higher gear to cross the finish line. And cross it I did. When Chef Coyac filled out the grading rubric and I realized that the numbers were high (not so high, but) enough to pass, the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders and my knotted stomach untangled and everything was suddenly much, much brighter.
Now I can focus on the things that really matter. Like getting my ticket to London. And having fun with food. And breathing. And sunshine. Because I passed my practical. And that's a pretty good feeling, y'all.
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07:57 am
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Externship
Well, after months of endless searching and REFUSING to settle for something ho-hum, I just landed a DREAM of an externship. I will be going to Paternoster Chop House located in fabulous London for my required eighteen-weeks!
Paternoster Chop House is located in Paternoster Square under the watchful gaze of St. Paul's Cathedral built by the ignanimous Christopher Wren. Focusing on traditional British cuisine, Chef Peter Weeden is dedicated to the idea of Slow Foods and sustainable agriculture. Everything ingredient they use tells a story about small British farms and boats, locally sourced foodstuffs and the strong relationship between food, culture and the environment. Not only will I be next to my most favorite piece of architecture in this entire world on daily basis, I'll be working in a place that epitomizes many of my core values for what food is, what food can be and what food should be. Heaven.
AND I get to go back to the city that has forever held my heart and imagination. Am thrilled beyond words! And it's soon! June 25th start date! Huzzah and Hurray!
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01:57 am
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Of The Standards of Taste (with apologies to David Hume)…
Sometimes, at this school, it seems like we spend a lot of time listening to rants about terroire, locally grown foods, organics and sustainability. Whether it’s grass-fed beef tastings or lectures on school lunches, we encounter a wealth of information that has a tendency to get lost in the overall scheme of food…costing it, making it, serving it. And as we cycle through one kitchen into another in this fast-paced system of three-week blocks, it can be tempting to let all of the extraneous information slide in one ear and out the other. And in this age of super-giant grocery stores filled with every conceivable item from every conceivable corner of this earth, it can be tempting to ask, “Why does local matter?” Maybe to you, it doesn’t. But maybe it should. I grew up with a deeply founded distaste for milk. I don’t drink the stuff, I don’t really even like to put it on cereal. Milk and I are not friends. So tell me then, why do I love this ambrosial liquid from Ronnybrook Farm and Dairy in Ancramdale, New York that I am currently sipping? It could be the aesthetically pleasing glass bottle that calls to mind a simpler, more wholesome time when your milk arrived each morning on your doorstep. Or maybe it’s Ronald Osofsky’s poignant plea on the bottle’s back, asking each of us to support his family farm. These are important characteristics, mind. They make you notice the bottle in the dairy case, surrounded by so many other very basic variations on the same theme: milk. But the point here is not aesthetics or emotions, it is taste. This milk tastes gently of sweet cream and clean clover and has this incredible mouthfeel that overwhelms you for a second with surprise. In comparison, Stop ‘N’ Shop’s variation on this theme is empty. It lies flat in the mouth, and echoes of cardboard and chemicals. Even the smell is bland. The taste experience is so underwhelming and I am reminded once again of why I so intensely dislike milk. Milk is just one example of this incredible difference in taste. I come from a long line of farmers cum gardeners. For most of my life, summer has been filled with bushels upon bushels of garden-fresh tomatoes that taste, in my mind, like pure sunshine encased in the most beautiful red skin. I hate buying tomatoes in the supermarket; even though the bright red color is there, the taste is always much more akin to water than anything else and I’m always disappointed. Under the glaring Sahelian sun, in the poorest country on the African continent, I was introduced to the taste of truly free-range, grass-fed livestock. I remember the first roasted chicken I devoured in the crossroads town of Bongor in Southern Chad. It was unlike anything I’d ever tasted before. It tasted a little gamey, without being overwhelming. It tasted vibrant, alive. It tasted. Chicken in America, even the corn-fed, free-range product, is so bland. Meat in general is bland. It lacks spirit here. Time and time again, my senses were reawakened in that deserted desert of a place. Lettuce, cucumbers, onions, pork, beef. Everything I probably shouldn’t have eaten because of the parasites, but everything I did eat because of the flavor. It took a poverty-stricken, third-world country to re-teach me how to taste and taste I did. There is something to be said for the technology that allows us to buy a pineapple in the middle of a deep Massachusetts winter. That same technology has allowed us to send men to the moon and bypass the unpredictability of nature: droughts, floods and blights. But that shipped and handled pineapple can never compare to the sun-drenched richness of taste of one you pull from the field in Hawaii yourself. It’s in a wholly different ballpark.
Should local matter? If you care about taste, then absolutely. But in the reality of this work and, indeed, this life, we know it’s not always about getting the best ingredients, sometimes it has to be about cost. Ronnybrook’s delicious milk is, in fact, twice as expensive as Stop ‘N’ Shop’s version. Picking a pineapple in Hawaii is out of range for many in this country. Even picking a Hudson Valley grown apple over one grown in Washington State can put a dent in one’s wallet. So what’s a person to do? First, support local agriculture. The more money small farms have to work with, the easier it will be for them to lower costs. Give up the tall mochafrappucino that costs more per gallon than gasoline does right now and use that money to buy wholesome foodstuffs from people who care. Second, learn about the politics of farm subsidies that keep local apples more expensive than out-of-state ones and demand that the status quo change. If many voices unite around the same message, that message becomes hard to ignore. If the industrial-complex that has consumed agriculture does not change, our children may never have any idea of what pure sunshine picked from a vine tastes like. The food on the plates we serve will be vibrantly colored and look beautiful, but taste like nothing, or worse, taste like chemicals. We, at the Culinary Institute of America, are the stewards of taste. We have a moral obligation to ensure the sanctity of the food-taste experience. One of the most important ways we can fulfill this obligation is by supporting local agriculture, caring about terroire and asking questions about sustainability. Food should taste. Local should matter.
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07:24 pm
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A Prayer For Overcoming Indifference
by Naomi Levy
I watch the news, God. I observe it all from a comfortable distance. I see people suffering, and I don't lift a finger to help them. I condemn injustice but I do nothing to fight against it. I am pained by the faces of starving children, but I am not moved enough to try to save them. I step over homeless people on the street, I walk past outstretched hands, I avert my eyes, I close my heart.
Forgive me, God, for remaining aloof while others are in need of my assistance.
Wake me up, God; ignite my passion, fill me with outrage. Remind me that I am responsible for Your world. Don't allow me to stand idly by. Inspire me to act. Teach me to believe that I can repair some corner of this world.
When I despair, fill me with hope. When I doubt my strength, fill me with faith. When I am weary, renew my spirit. When I lose direction, show me the way back to meaning, back to compassion, back to You. Amen.
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12:38 am
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Q
So here I am writing again at the end of yet another block. This one puts me six weeks out from my projected externship start date. How does time get away from one like that?
I finished Cuisines of Asia. During this fourteen day period, I learned to roll sushi, stir-fry with the best of them and identify a number of ingredients I was partially aware of before I started the class, but with whom I am now on a first name basis...the nahm prik pao and I get along very well (spicy shirmpy paste...yummy!). It was a very challening class for many reason, not least because Chef Pardus is very, very demanding. I learned oodles of things and had a lot of fun with the food which is entirely the point, no?
On Monday, I begin Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner Cookery. It's a twelve day block which we begin with breakfast. Day 1 class start time? That's right 130am. AM! ante-meridian. True story. I'm currently trying to figure how I'm going to adjust my sleep pattern to match my class schedule for the first four days. Ugh. It's one of those rites of passage kind of things though. Everyone who goes through the culinary program here has to do it. It's a bonding experience. Like amoebic dysentary was in Chad or Dis-O was at MHC.
So I'm knee-deep in the externship search. I've decided to pursue some slighty odd possibilities. Like Singapore. And stuff. I'm not entirely sure. Not that I'm stumbling blindy in the dark reaching for anything. You know me...I'm not a just anything kind of person...but I'm opening up to perhaps a less beaten path. Of course, when you're goal is to take over the world, any path'll work just fine, yes?
Spring has (sort of) sprung here in New York. There's a beautiful Snowy White Blossom tree just outside my res hall. Think Anne of Green Gables Snow Queen. Lovely. And tulips and the trees are budding and the afternoons are gloriously sunny and warm and comfortable. I live across from a pond that has a waterfall and at night, when it's not too cold, I like to fall asleep listening to that sound. Falling water is one of my favorite sounds (and one of my favorite pieces of architecture too- thank you FLW). I hate cold. And the grey of winter. But sometimes (just sometimes) I feel like Spring makes up for it three-fold.
Jose Andres was on campus on Thursday. He came to deliver the commencement speech today. One of the best parts about this school is the many exceptional industry leaders we attract who want to talk to the students. I love when the Chefs come, flailing their passion for food and drink around the theatre. It's a phenomenal experience to be allowed to truly delve into the mind of someone who is so incredibly a genius in their field. It's a great privilege. Andres held up a glass of water and proclaimed that in its simplicity, it's very grand. He said that often, when he got stuck on something, he'd go back to the humble glass of water to find out who he was and where he was going. He talked about food as experience. He asked the questions: what is it to eat light? To eat noise? How can we capture the first three seconds of eating that are pure pleasure? What's next? He was incredible. Food as communication. Experience. It was like the first time I read Charles Ludlam and I was captured imemdiately by his theatre of the ridiculous. A way of challenging norms, reinventing ideas but deeply, deeply committed to tradtion and the refinement of it. It is an incredible thing to stand in the shadow of a genius. Yesterday, I did.
So life continues, as it tends to do. And deep down, I am sublimely content.
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11:58 pm
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Why I love Chris Dodd
(and almost wish he had more than a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination):
Dodd Introduces Bill Empowering Peace Corps Volunteers; Encompasses RPCV Suggestions
Creates in-country web sites, mechanism for volunteer input, encourages older volunteers
March 1, 2007
Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), a former Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic, today introduced legislation which would encourage more input from current and returned volunteers, bring the Peace Corps into the digital age with regard to email and websites for volunteers in-country and eliminates certain barriers which may discourage older individuals from becoming Peace Corps volunteers. Sen. Dodd served in the Peace Corps from 1966-1968, and was stationed in the rural Dominican Republic village of Moncion, near the Haitian border.
“The Peace Corps – a program which celebrates its 46th anniversary today – is a success in no small part due to the caliber of its volunteers and their commitment to spreading good will and helping those less fortunate than themselves across the world,” Dodd said. “When I joined the Peace Corps in the 1960s, it was because President Kennedy challenged a generation of young Americans to do something for reasons other than themselves. That challenge is still largely in-tact. But we need to ensure that new volunteers, those men and women of all ages who will continue the Peace Corps legacy, feel included and connected to each other and the program as a whole.”
The Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act also establishes additional funding mechanisms to help volunteers fund their projects, authorizes the active recruitment of the 185,000 returned Peace Corps volunteers for additional tours and requires a report on costs associated with extending post-service health coverage from one month to six months.
“There has never been a moment in our history when the Peace Corps’ objectives were more urgent than they are now. Through their service to and understanding of other cultures, Peace Corps volunteers can help change the misperceptions that others hold about our country, which have contributed to some of the highest-ever rates of anti-American sentiment,” Dodd said. “Now, more than ever, we must remember why this program is so important: because the Peace Corps and its volunteers not only help those in need – they also help build bridges of mutual understanding and trust, which in turn strengthen America’s national security and national interests.”
Congressman Sam Farr (D-CA), a former Peace Corps volunteer in Columbia, will introduce companion legislation in the House.
“As returned Peace Corps Volunteers, Senator Dodd and I have experienced first-hand the benefits of Peace Corps' work. Now, more than ever, we need experienced volunteers out in the field, serving as citizen diplomats and building grassroots programs,” Farr said. “This bill is an excellent step forward to strengthen Peace Corps for many years to come, and I look forward to introducing the companion bill in the House.”
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11:31 pm
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Skills III in the morning.
Tomorrow, we start production. Can I get an omigod-i'm-not-sure-i'm-ready-for-this-kind-of-responsibility-and-i'm-afriad-i'm-going-to-fail-miserably.
Bing. Epiphany. Seriously, just now.
Of course, there's always a change I'm going to fail. Crash. Burn. Hit the ground so hard that it leaves nasty, nasty rug burns all over my face. But if we didn't attempt things simply because of the possibility we might fail, where would we be? Good question.
Always the possibility. But also, always the opportunity to succeed.
Can I PLEASE stop being a basket case now?
If one wishes to conquer the world, one must first step outside one's door.
One cannot rawk the kitchen with one's mad ninja meat skillz, if one does not first make roast chicken in Skills III on Day 1.
Life is full of Day 1s.
Take a deep breath, Alyssa. Let Go. Let God. And Just Be. One. With. The. Oven.
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09:39 am
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And in a flash...it's over!
It is absolutely incredible to believe...no, to KNOW, that I have completed Skills I. Good grief. Could three weeks go ANY faster? I mean, really? It's one of those strange passages of time though where the days seem to streth on forever. Each day is so filled with so many different things that the almost 8-hour stretch of time actually could well be several days, or a week, or sometimes even a year. But the overall time period just zooms by without regard to what actual reality should feel like. The point is, however, that in what seemed like a snap of the fingers, a blink of aneye, I finished Skills I and am now poised, on Monday, to enter the world of Skills II.
Of course, Skills II won't be all that different from Skills I. Same kitchen. Same chef. Same people. But less only sauce and much more a little of everything. Les plats complets, you know. I am excited to begin working with proteins. To fiddle about with starches. To play with the veg. I mean, Hollandaise is exciting and all, but I didn't come here for that. Or at least, just that. I came here to learn the rhythm and flow of food from nothing to plate. And that's where we're moving. Huzzah much?
In other news, I am now, what one could consider, involved on campus. I'm the new Public Relations Manager for the Student Government Association and I'm a core member of the Chefs Sustaining Agriculture. With the former I get a shiny gavel pin to wear on my chef coat and with the latter I get mad hippie cred to supplement my already extensive mad hippie cred. Truly, I DO believe quite strongly in sustainable agriculture, regionality, seasonality and all that jazz. I'd believe even more strongly in it if we could figure out a way to make sure the average American family could actually afford to use local, sustainable product, but you can refer to an earlier post I wrote (regarding a TRUE family-values platform) for more of that diatribe in waiting. Being involved is cool and we all know how I like belonging. And it all fits with my plans to take over the world.
The Great White North continues to be the Great Cold-But-No-Real-Sign-of-White North. Apparently just some miles to the North of us here in NY, people are trying to dig themselves out of something absurd like six feet of snow, while here in the Valley we're sitting pretty without any prospect of snow on the horizon. Weird winter? You bet. Am I'm complaining all that much? Obviously, no...I don't think I've ever hid my absolute dislike for the white stuff BUT it does beg the question: is this strange weather an indicator of a much larger, more perversive and perhaps more dangerous picture? Or is it merely a blip in the old almanac? Time, perhaps, will tell, but by then will it be too late? So many questions, too many secrets, not enough straight answers.
Peace Corps week is coming up. I got some new lovely stickers, bookmarks and a prettier, updated map from DC yesterday in the mail. If anyone would like a lovely bookmark with interesting facts about Peace Corps service, let me know.
Besides that, there's not much in terms of news to share. Skills I down, 3 more weeks and then we start actual production. Scary? A little. Exciting? I'm jumping out of my skin!
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10:45 am
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What a platform of family values OUGHT to contain:
1. Heated fight for a living minimum wage. How can a family function as a family if the parents (whatever form that may take) are working two, three or more jobs to just make ends meet.
2. Universal Healthcare.
3. Plans to expand WIC to emphasize a nutrionally solid program.
4. Less emphasis on high-stakes testing, greater emphasis on getting low-performing schools the necessary help they need (whether that be in the form of monies, goods or hiring strategies).
5. A prison system focused upon rehabilition instead of punition.
6. Equal rights for all in all facets of life with the understanding the one's innumerable natural rights are not granted by any body, paper or doctrine, but instead are to be protected by those same.
And other things I'm still considering.
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02:16 pm
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Fluidity of the moment...and other metaphors...
Today I had my knife tray down to 35 minutes. Can I get a huzzah?! On Wednesday, I was over 1 hour by a little bit. Yesterday, I hit 46 minutes. And today? A marked improvement. Still not where I want to be, but definitely headed in the right direction.
We made Onion Soup today. That deserves another huzzah! And a yum! I'm pleased with my progress. It's not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. And it's wicked fun. Today, my group got everything done way early, so he decided to go ahead and teach us how to tournee potatoes (ie make 1/2 a potato resemble a 7-sided football). That's a complicated little task there, but if you think about it like sculpture, it becomes a little bit easier. And my first one was a fairly decent attempt, obviously faaaar from perfect but you know, on balance, not too shabby really. This IS my thing, friends.
I am mad tired tho'. Being on the ball, playing my game and forcing myself to get to the front of the pack takes so much energy. A short time-out in the form of a weekend will be most appreciated by yours truly. Altho' it's not a total break. I have a whole bag of potatoes and a number of onions to work on to get my knife tray time down. Windsprints in prepration for the race that is looming on the horizon. It's about getting so used to the way my hand moves that the motion becomes ingrained, instinctive, inherent. And then my mind can wander on and focus on other tasks and thoughts. So practice, practice, practice.
It was a good day. Finding the fluidity of the moment and running with it. Moving in sync with the flow of time. Being carried by the current to the next and the next and the next.
Metaphorically speaking. Of course.
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11:45 pm
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On Rudeness
Today, as I was trolling the parking lot for a spot, I happened upon a car leaving on of the "top 40" spots. Huzzah and Hurray! I thought to myself as I turned on my blinker and waited for that car to leave. Just as he pulled out, a Jeep came zooming around and deftly tucked itself into the place I had claimed as my own. The group of kids in that Jeep were laughing in my direction. I stoically moved on, although not without a few choice words mumbled under my breath. Then, as I was headinf back to the other lot, I was nearly rammed by a car whose driver was refusing to obey the stop signs. I had reached the intersection first and was about to turn when this car approached its stop sign and then kept on going as if the thing simply didn't exist. While the latter is more about the law and following it, I think it could easily be argued that overall, the point of it all is the rampant rudeness about campus. The sheer lack of concern for the welfare and needs of others overwhelms me. The huge stacks of clothes that pile up in the laundry room, the dishes, paper and other waste that gets left in hallways and the blatant disregard for the dress code. All of this is indicative of a lack of respect for one's peers. Even in the kitchen. In the kitchen! of all places. We're being trained for the SERVICE industry. Before we can take on customers, we must first learn to serve each other. The question on everyone's mind should be, "How can I make someone else's life a little easier today?" "What can I do to make a difference?" To shine at service requires the honed skill of someone who practices the principles of service on a personal, daily level. The rudeness needs to stop.
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09:42 am
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The End of one block...
Meat ID and Fab is done and done. I would like to mention that I did pretty much rock the final which is always a helpful boost to my feelings about ANY class. It was intense and wicked fun, though and I highly recommend it, and Chef Schneller, to anyone with even an inkling of interest in meat.
After an exhausting night of studying, the exhausting sausage day and final, I then went to work for an exhausting (but fun!) night with Overlook's girlies. Last night, we went to the AME Zion Church in Poughkeepsie to help out with the Voices of Promise fundraiser Spaghetti Dinner. It was a blast and a half, let me tell you. But I came home absolutely dog tired and ready for bed.
This weekend is a three-day weekend for us here at the Culinary. For some reason, known only to God, Tim Ryan and perhaps the administration, we get the first Monday of each block off. That's a nice feeling, yo. I'm well due for a little relaxating. It's been crazy and hectic and I need a little room to breathe. I still stand by the statement that my group is quite faboo as a whole, but omigosh! there are a couple of real snags in the total flow. I almost lost my mind yesterday with the craziness. A break is greatly needed from it all because on Tuesday, we start Skills I and I have to be totaly on point and back in the game full-force.
But not today. Today is for me.
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06:14 pm
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True Stories From the Culinary Underbelly (of pork?)
In my life, the slime of Atlantic Salmon has been replaced by the blood of cattle, swine and lamb. That could be a metaphor for life. Maybe. But it was a long day and I'm not feeling particularly pensive, so I'll leave that philosophical undertaking for another time. The meat room is a whole other world, starkly different from the incredible chill of Fish. In the warmer confines of animal butchery, not only have our noses and fingers thawed, but so have the personalities. Located deep in the bowels (offals?) of the Culinary Institute of America, Group 140 is having a little fun as we denude tenderloins and slice cutlets. And Chef Schneller banters with us and cracks the off joke or two.
I love meat class. Yesterday, an entire pig came in. 210 lbs. of bacon-y goodness (sold for a mere $1.45 per pound). As I coveted the creamy fat of the pork belly, I realized how few people have ever set sight upon an entire hog. Back in the days of Chad, in the bigger cities like Kelo, we could head over to the Christian side of town and see a number of big ol' couchons ready to delight our gustatory sensations. You could just point to the pig carcass and ask for anything that caught your eye. The "butcher", with his trusty dull knife, would then cut you up some pork, wrap it in paper, if you were lucky and stick it in some leydas...if he had some lying around. You knew the goat you were ordering was fresh because it's head was still lying on the ground. And throwing away the fat? Are you kidding? You were crazy if you DIDN'T eat that good stuff, grilled over a hot fire. I'm proving quite good at the whole breaking down meat thing. I can't say I've ever boned out a shank, loin or rib rack. But I can't say I've never done that either. I can't really tell you what I've cut fat away from, peeled silver skin off of or deboned because at the crazy meat markets the cuts never really made much sense to begin with. I've had a lot of practice. And if you can learn to do anything with dull knives and Chinese import scissors, with sharp knives you can do anything. It's like learning to drive in Dallas. Once you do that, you can drive anywhere.
Meat is good, friends. Meat is good.
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07:00 pm
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Fish
7 days of fish...done and done, tout le monde. I mean, I know seven days is nothing, but it really DID fly by. I can now filet, skin and pinbone trout and salmon well enough. I don't completely suck and bass either. And I'm pretty okay with the flat fish. That may not sound impressive to you, my friends, but let me tell you, it is. ESPECIALLY when you consider how terribly I BUTCHERED (and I don't mean that in its proper way) that rainbow trout the first time. With a little help from some of my awesome group members and a whole lotta 'splanation from Chef Clark, I can make a decent attempt and that's progress. And we all know that progress is the ultimate value, especially here.
I can't even begin to discuss how much I learned from Chef Clark in seven days. It is phenomenal to learn from someone who not only is one of the best in her/his field, but also intensely and wildly passionate about their subject. Chef obviously knows what he is doing anf you know he loves what he is doing. But the best professors are also those ones who are also passionate about life. Chef is not just a wicked poissonier, he is a volunteer EMT and judge and probably a million other things. He's Seen the world. With a capital "s". It was a privilege and an honor to be one of his students.
I also am constantly bemused, bewildered and occasionally awestruck by the resources available to students at this school. Today, we did not just learn about caviar, we TASTED it. Belgua, Osetra and Sevruga. Iranian and Russian. And Salmon Roe. We had lobster, shrimp and crab. I've tasted Dover Sole and Turbot. Pacific and Atlantic Oysters. It's pretty phenomenal. Someone worked out that JUST the caviar tasting plate today cost $48 a plate. And there are 17 students in my group. You do that math. Wicked? You bet. It's an incredible education of the palate and an opening up of the mind to foods that stray from our general culinary enculturation. It's a privileged education.
Overall, my group is working extremely well together. I had been immensely worried about that...group dynamics can be a dicey area and always causes me a little concern. But, alas, it's pretty smooth and we have some truly stellar personalities in the mix making fabrication a joy. As someone said to me today, "This school is pretty fun." And that's because our group makes it that way.
Tomorrow, we move on to meats. I will finally learn to properly take apart a chicken. That's one of my life goals.
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10:25 am
[Link] | Yesterday evening, the Culinary Institute of America put on its semi-regular "Bada-Bingo". Have you ever seen a bunch of college-age student queue up two hours early for a bingo game? It was incredible. And LOADS of fun. 6 games. Some awesome prizes. I didn't win anything, but had sooooo much fun it doesn't matter. They had egg nog, hot chocolate, Stewart's sodas and lots of chocolate and cookies! A grand old time.
Today the nose goes back to the ol' grindstone. Work, work, work. But I'm almost through!
PS- my holiday cards are going out SUPER late this year. I apologize. But I think they may reach people sometime during the twelve days of Christmas.
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10:51 am
[Link] | The world should be suspect of any event that David Duke chooses to attend, no? And yet, there he was, making international news at Iran's anti-Holocaust conference. The presence of David Duke seems to weaken the validity of the conference. I also sincerely wish that if people are going to argue against the creation of Israel, they did so in a way that didn't attempt to reinvent history to exclude the Holocaust. There are a number of legitimate arguments that do not require a dreamland version of Hitler's Germany and can therefore actually be debated. Couching one's arguments in terms of a fictionalized history only serves to further prove that one is, in fact, extremely racist/bigoted/pick your word of choice here.
Darfur continues to fall apart. Excellet article here.
And contre les evils of factory farming, check out The Meatrix.
As for school, things are going well. I'm about to enter my last week of B-Block. Last week, we did our Julia Child presentation for gastronomy. My group worked extremely well together and we ended up with a 30/30. That score exempts us from the final. Woohoo. I had a Math and Product Knowledge test on Friday and a Food Safety test on Thursday. This week, we've got our Math and Product Knowledge finals on Wednesday and our Food Safety final on Thursday (the final is the ServSafe exam). And then we're done. Thankfully, I got out of writing. The CIA approved a number of transfer credits.
I got a job at the Poughkeepsie Children's Home working at one of the group homes. It's a little trying, but definitely interesting and I'm enjoying it. The house mother there is phenomenal and I think I can learn a lot from her.
So I'm pushing through. After we come back from break, we move into the Fish Kitchen for 7 days and then Meat for 7 days. And then everything starts, full force.
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