Monday, Aug. 27th - Basic Knife Skills

Today was the beginning of Basic Knife Skills that every classic Chef should know.

The basics: Battonnet, Julienne, Medium Dice, Small Dice, Brunoise, Chiffonade and Mince. Over and over and over, ad nauseum. I even attempted to do a Tourner cut, and didn't do too bad for a first timer. We have to memorize the exact dimensions and practice uniformity.

Then we got our first real taste of cleaning the kitchen too. Running the commercial dishwasher and mopping.

Wednesday we will be reviewing for our first exam. Monday is a holiday. And then the exam will be on the following Wednesday. Plenty of time to read and memorize.

More on that later.

Tonight is the first fall meeting of the local chapter of the American Culinary Federation. It's being held at a new bakery in town whose owner graduated from the program I'm in two years ago. I'm excited, as it's a great way to network (and I need a job!!!).

I have a spice chart with samples and a report due on Sept. 19th - MUST start on it!!! And get caught up on reading for my Sanitation class. It's ALWAYS something! But I'm loving it. I don't feel like it's work at all. It just makes me want to come home and cook fabulous dishes and practice.

Wasn't there a Chinese proverb that said "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life"? (or something along those lines). Makes perfect sense to me now.