Day 3: chop! chop!

Today we continued on with our slicing and dicing. Leek slices, rutabaga brunoise, tomato concassé, chopped parsley and segmented lemons. We chop all morning, then sit down all together for a half hour lunch, and then get up, rinse the dishes, and start chopping again! It's non-stop all day!

(And I thought cutting veg into 6mm x 6mm cubes was hard - today we did 2mm x 2mm!)

Chef I stopped by to give us a pep-talk and introduce himself. He talked about remembering where we are this week, not knowing what the hell is going on, moving about like people in shoes 4 sizes too big. He promised that by the end of the second week it'll be different. I hope so.

He also talked about how he's a chef who has moved into farming, and will ask us to go out in spring and help out on the farm. I am really into doing that, I loved his enthusiasm about growing produce - something I came to appreciate in Turkey. I was reassured by him because most people in the class are focused on working in or opening up restaurants. I'd much rather produce cookbooks or magazines, his pep-talk reminded me that there are more possibilities at the end of this than just restaurant work.

Stayed after school to get a little more practice in with my knife cuts. Getting better, but I'm still paranoid about getting my fingers close to the blade. It's slowly coming though!