Days 2 and 3 in School

Day 2  – I need to get a strict education 

We met by Bragard store, a store I passed by few times, to be fitted to our new uniforms.

The jacket and pants looks fine but we also got a very stupid looking hat and a huge apron, it’s one size (large) so it’s extra big on me. The jackets were embroidered with our names, it was very exciting. I also decided to buy two more aprons and jackets so I won’t have to do laundry and ironing every other night (but only massive wash every weekend).

Went back to school for lunch time and to meet our lockers, we had to change to our uniforms for the next class.

 

Since this part until the end of the day I was suffering because I had migraine that didn’t go away and we were just standing all day listening to more explanations. It sounds the easy part but just standing is pretty hard with a headache.

We learned about hygiene and cleaning. Then we went to the storage to take our ingredients for the next day, one of us will have to do this himself few times a week, asking the order in French of course. This person will be the “chef of the week” and he’ll have to come earlier and arrange everything and then distribute chores to everyone.

We got our malette (knifes kit) but actually didn’t use any of it that day, just carried that huge thing around the several staircases of the building. One hand with this 10kg kit, the other with the fat book (yes it has to be with us at all times), then running around school. Yes, I’m happy I didn’t take the 6^th floor apartment without elevator.

Some more talking about “mise en place” (how to organize your station) and labeling food. We all had to turn on the gas and the ovens. I’m not talking about your usual gas at home; it’s more like a huge flame in the middle of every side of the kitchen, surrounded by metal plates that heat like a hot plate. This is how everyone gets his place in the stove. It was about 5 hours of explanations and my head was exploding so I just tried to absorb whatever I could and make it through the day.

At the end of the day we were divided to Anglo A and Anglo B. I was in group B  with Chef Stephan initially when they took our pictures to the student’s card, but the final call for me was group A with Chef Sebastian. He’s the tougher one (but very nice don’t worry!) so I guess after seeing me for one day they decided I should get a stricter education. On that note I rushed back home, as Anglo A are starting at 8AM the next day, and I was a mess. At home I also had to do my homework of course, read and understand tomorrow’s recipe. There was only one recipe but the book is in French of course, so while trying to recover from the day I spent more than an hour translating the whole recipe. I guess it’ll get easier with the terms. There were things written I don’t even recognize in Hebrew or English like “chervil” which is close to parsley but different.

Day 2- sweating 1X1 squares.

This morning I woke up at 6AM, drank double coffee and grabbed a TA breakfast. Got back to yesterday’s uniform and straight to the kitchen. The race begun at 7:50 and finished at 13:10. Basically we just made soup, that’s all. But the pressure was high, I’m used to being fast in the kitchen but the speed was faster then I expected. After arranging the place to work, each had to prep his vegetables.

There was a small demo of the chef before and then we had time to do ourselves. I could barley take pictures because before anyone has finished, another demo started and the chef kept yelling “On y va!” (Let’s go!) “On y va! On y va!”.

After cleanings and peeling we started slicing. The basic size of most vegetables was supposed to be 1X1cm square, 2-3mm in width. That’s pretty small, had to be accurate, and took a long time! Even the cabbage had to be squared.

I actually felt pretty comfortable while slicing, so it went fine, but the stoves about then reached the maximum heat and the sun entered through the always closed windows so I was burning from front and back. The heat was the hardest thing to deal with today, the layers of fabrics… I felt some perfect squares of sweat dropping underneath my clothes and when I trembled my vegetable squares came out uneven. Looking at everyone else’s faces I saw I wasn’t the only one sweating like hell. Facing the stove was even hotter, felt like I was frying my own face, and the pots hard to handle, heavy and hot, but I managed.

I thought I made it through the slicing without a cut but then incidentally got one, tiny one, I almost didn’t feel it and wanted to just keep working but then I found a potato square swimming in blood sauce, so I had to cover it. Chef was very kind to bandage me twice (got another one while cleaning a knife) and all the others who got cuts. Now I see why he said that the bandage kit will be full just for today, it got lighter and emptier as the day continued, but nothing serious happened.

 My stove stopped working in the middle of work and only noticed it after too long and I almost forgot to put my peas in the soup before I served it to the chef for a taste. But I remembered in the last minute and re-plated it. Chef tasted all of our soups and toasts one after another and remarked. He told me that my soup has to be steaming when I serve it, it wasn’t hot enough. I guess that’s fair. After that we started cleaning and went to lunch.

I thought I would be starving until lunch because I passed on my TA breakfast, but none of us came out hungry from the kitchen. I tasted some fried calamari with spinach and salad.

 

The afternoon class had started at 14:00 and we had to grab our malettes from the lockers. When we went down to the lockers I discovered I don’t have my keys anywhere on me. I had to ask the security department to break my lock to get my things out. It was sad because it was a 10 euro new lock and my disk-on-key was with the keys as well.

The class with Chef Sebastian was all about our malettes, what’s everything for and what’s its French name that we now have to memorize. When we came back to the locker room the girl next to me found my keys inside her locker, how obvious, still had to go buy a new one. That was the end of the day 3.

My thoughts are that it’s a bit like the army in the way that we have uniforms and rules like no jewelry, makeup, we have to obey the chef and keep times. It also reminds me of the lab in the way that we have to study the recipe before the class, and be precise with slicing and measuring and so on, using equipment and keeping sanitation. But it’s not as strict as the army, there are no punishments (just the risk of your own learning process), and there’s nothing un-logic that has to be done just for the sake of wasting time. No one sticks his fingers in the windows railways to see if there’s any dust in there and there are others in the school that has to do the big dishwashing, garbage and so on, not all falls on us. It’s also not exactly like in the lab because we don’t measure things so precise (at least not for the soup) and no results will be compromised due to a slice poorly made. There’s also place for self judgment, tasting and fixing while working, and you receive results as fast as few hours.

I came home pretty energetic and ate some soup with plastic fork. I can’t tell the potatoes from the turnips in my soup.

 

By the way, I have to send you back to the last post, because I added the pictures. Sorry for taking so long with the pics, I didn’t have internet connection.