Death and Character, after an enduring and mentally
challenging first few weeks these two words are what stand out the most when I
think of Platt College and the Culinary Arts program. Death because it is a
sheer miracle, luck, and or my mother’s internal instinct to initiate
immunities in me that would allow me to live after all that I have learned in
Food Safety and sanitation. Many examples, of closely avoided death traps
lurched into mind as Chef Rob described the varied ways one could cross
contaminate and fatally end your career as a chef. Not to mention your own life
or that of a child and elderly people. Naturally, that first week I was in
constant communication with my mother warning her of the impending doom of botulism
and the horrors of Shigellosis. I hope she learned her lesson;
as well I did and no longer left the chicken out on the counter to defrost. Now, I know how naïve I truly was before
entering the kitchens of the great Culinary School.
I freely call it
great because where else would such great fear be instilled in a person to the
point that it had you studying nightly into the wee hours to make sure that you
achieved that elusive ServSafe Certification . It was that one, sole piece of
paper that told your future employers that you were worthy to step into their
kitchens full of knowledge of sanitation and safety. However, your foot in the
door is probably as far as you would go without further instruction of basic
cuisine that could invigorate memories for your future clients or if fortunate
enough, could bring back memories of your grandmother’s kitchen with all the
aromas and mouthwatering flavors that would be captured in a single taste of
chicken soup, done the correct way that is.
As the journey is
started you think you know who you are as a person but, soon you learn that perhaps
you don’t know anything about yourself after all. Many opportunities are
presented as soon as you start training in the kitchen. Some are quite easy if
you have done it before such as mop, sweep, and wash a dish simple thing,
right? Yet, this is exactly where your character begins to rear its head.
Sure you can wash
your own dish or your own pot, but are you willing to help your class and wash
10-25 pots and dishes. Or better yet, are you willing to sit there and scrub
the burnt sauce that another classmate just tossed at the back of the sink as
they hurried on to the next task at hand. Is mopping a whole kitchen at the end
of an exhausting day worth demonstrating that you are that one student who is willing to go to the next level to
prove that you are worthy of a recommendation from your instructors?
All these thoughts
flow through your mind as you listen to Chef Rob reiterate the care you should
take in improving your character, while you are here at school. This is the
time to make mistakes and learn from them. Whether it is burning the béchamel,
or plating the perfect catfish dinner or the menial task of sweeping a dirty
kitchen. This is the time to learn to
stop and help a classmate whom is struggling a bit with keeping the flame low
so as to not burn the fried chicken or grabbing that mop bucket while others
move idly around not realizing that if you don’t get out by three you’ll have
to pay that late fee at the day care. It is these two concepts Death and
Character that are plastered into my mind as I go to bed each night and awake
every morning. How can I improve my character, and what will I look out for in
the kitchen to avoid death. Let’s see what the rest of these next couple of
months will bring and what words will become my bedtime stories, until then Bon
Apetit!
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