Cafe Savory

I am nearing the end of my most recent class. For three solid weeks (I say solid because I have been in the class EVERY DAY ((except two Mondays)) for three weeks), I have been trapped in the k-19 dungeon of Cafe Savory.

Let me preface this rant with this; I was SO excited to take this class. I love to cook, and I actually almost considered going to school for the culinary side of things, but decided to do baking because I'm already good at it. Kindof a cop-out, I know. Anyway.

The first few days of class were SLOW. We had barely anything to do, and we spent most of our time watching the chef do demos of cool things like brining, smoking, breaking down turkeys...really just a lot of neat stuff. I learned quite a bit in those few days.

Then things took a turn for the worst. The people who have never worked in/around kitchens started to emerge. You can pick them out by the pace at which they walk, the way they speak to the chef, and the level of confidence they maintain throughout the class. However, not having worked in/around a kitchen is not a requirement for our program. You just need to know how to bake a little bit before you step through the front doors, and you are not required to have attained that knowledge in a restaurant kitchen. I said to myself: "This will be interesting to see who can adapt to working in a crowded kitchen setting as opposed to a nice, cool, clean bakery." It, in fact, was not interesting. It became a completely frustrating situation almost immediately. What was extremely disappointing, however, was not the people who had never worked in kitchens. It was EVERYONE. 

All of our attitudes started to sour. We began each day of class waiting in the hallway and dreading having to listen to our chef be his ADD self and bounce from topic to topic, losing all of us in his wake of profound knowledge. I want to remark that Chef Skibitcky is one of the smartest men I have ever met. He not only knows how to cook, but he knows how to bake, and he knows the history behind every dish we prepared. That is an impressive feat, considering the volume of food we produced in this short 3-week period. As a Chef who is required to teach students who do not share his seemingly infinite knowledge, however, he is not the greatest. He seemed forever frustrated with us that we could not keep up with his pace and answer every question that he threw our way. His expectations were exceedingly high for a group of bakers who were simply supposed to be learning the basics of the culinary side of the kitchen. 

All of us are bakers, which means we either all suffer from some form of OCD, or are, at the very least, perfectionists. The fact that none of us seemed to be able to set up a demo to his EXACT specifications, or that we could never seem to follow his instructions explicitly really started to wear on the whole class. We started working a little bit sloppier; the kitchen was at least 3x messier than it ever would have been in Chef Walnock's class. 

Then something even more unexpected happened: we all started being genuinely MEAN to each other. I'm not talking about kitchen banter that, to the outside world, seems like a conversation between mortal enemies. I'm talking about snide comments, under-the-breath insults, Facebook rants, and things said right to each other's faces that I think we will all regret later. Today is our last day of production, tomorrow is the day we take our final, and I'm left wondering who will emerge with friends. I've experienced my own personal relationships strained by this class, and I can see it in all of my classmates' faces that they have felt the same thing. 

On a lighter note, we did churn out some amazing food.

Brined, roasted turkey.

The class plating up our first family meal.

The first family meal was Thanksgiving themed! We made everything except that tart in the back.

I believe these were carrot cake muffins with a cream cheese frosting.

Caprese salad.

Cheese and poblano quesadillas.

Kara's matzo ball soup.

Fried pickles.

Vegan Creamsicle Shakes.

Gnocchi with our tomato sauce and cheese.

Pierogies, Ruebens, Spring Rolls, Fried Pretzels, Fried Shrimp...delicious!

I still have a few days' worth of photos on my camera that I need to upload. I will try to upload them by tomorrow for you all to see.

Until I post again, wish me luck! I'm finishing this class, and moving on to...nothing. I've tested out of design, so I've got three weeks off of school. The only thing I have planned is to help Chef Walnock with her menu for American Bounty (one of the restaurants on campus). I'll be spending Thursday and Friday afternoons with her playing guinea pig, muse, grunt worker, or whatever else she could possibly need. I'm trying to think of creative ways to entertain myself, but money is always a restriction. If any of you have ideas, please send them to me!