Day two: Flashes of what's to come

Thankful today for my very rudimentary understanding of French pronunciation.  When you talk about the history of professional cooking, the french are prominent, being credited with most major cooking advances in the centuries before this one.  Makes me look smarter to say it sounding french.

Today we really met our classmates for the first time, and thankfully it looks like we have a bright and diverse team.  We have in our group a professional personal trainer, a personal chef, a property manager, a line cook trained in the Army, two dependent military spouses (that's me!), and a few folks with future business ambitions.  Overall I believe there is a very positive attitude, good work ethic, and real interest in cooking that will allow our class to stay interested and moving forward even when the work gets hard.

Those mandatory volunteer jobs we will have to do sound really interesting.  Dinners, banquets, public and private parties.  Working for different chefs and helping with a large variety of food can only help.  Plus we will get a chance to network and meet the people we will be working for/with in the future if we choose to continue in this industry.  Just to name drop, the class before us helped with the grand opening of Iron Chef Morimoto's Honolulu restaurant.  Of course these work opportunities are months in the future, after we learn to be of some help in those kitchens.

We will also be doing a number of field trips around the Island to learn the ancillary business that helps drive the food industry.  The Honolulu fish market and auction, a local large-scale bakery operation, the institutional foods side of the school districts and university, and a number of cooking demonstrations at some of the best local restaurants all sound very interesting and should make a welcome change from daily class work.

Things I learned today:

Caesar Salad has nothing to do with the romans. 

Hawaiian sweet bread is delicious.

In the 1800s chefs would close all the kitchen windows so the food didn't get cold.  They cooked with charcoal, and often died from lung-related illness.

You can add korean kim chee to a hamburger for a little "kick"...Chef says try it.  I might...someday.

I will try to keep the posts of this blog interesting, and so I may not be posting daily.  But check back often and certainly add your comments or questions whenever you'd like. 

Bon soir.