Attack of the Tourne-asaurus Rex!

Firstly, I'd like to just go on record in saying that my apartment, when its clean, is absolutely beautiful in the morning light. They way the sun catches the ivy around the windows and casts these gorgeous shadows complimented with the warm orange glow that comes from a sunrise, so lovely...

and now on to some chaos! WOO!
Luckily, the chaos is all the exciting wonderful. Don't get me wrong, its exhausting but I go to bed with a smile on my face and wake up ready to start the day. Okay, okay, maybe the first few minutes of my morning are spent negotiating with my alarm clock for just a few more mins of shut eye, but after THAT and a bit of caffeine, I swear its all puppies and rainbows! Literally, I can see puppies and rainbows! Who needs expensive illegal drugs when you can get happy little hallucinations via just a little sleep deprivation?! Goooooooood stuff! I'm kidding....mostly. What fun is a blog if you can't mess with your mom, indirectly, about your health?
My current schedule is a little hectic, I get up and get to school by 6am Monday-Friday, get home by 10-10:30 then I head out for work by 11:30 and work until about midnight Tuesday- Saturday. Sometimes something takes up more hours than other times, sometimes they take up less, it shakes out to a long day either way. Like I said previously, despite the hours and craziness, I really am completely caught up in the joy of all of it. I love my job. I am learning so many new things. Somethings are big like recipes and techniques, just the other day, I learned how to make corn nuts, and somethings are really very subtle like how a kitchen like this one works as opposed to the other kitchens I've worked in or watching how the dynamic of different chefs shift depending on who is in charge and why. It's all fascinating to me. Better yet, I seem to be doing a good job based on the feedback they give me so bully for me!
As in any kitchen, my coworkers are a rowdy bunch of characters. I'm still trying to get a pulse on a majority of them, mostly because there are so many. Everyone is really great and I feel lucky to work with all of them. I've gone over and over in my head how to address my coworkers in this forum without invading personal rights and all that legal crap. The more I thought about it the more I realized that I didn't want to. Yes, I could give them false names or I could get all their permission to talk about them constantly on this forum, but I honestly don't want to. I don't want this to be a vehicle for airing my dirty laundry about work. I want this to be about the work itself not the petty squabbles of who said what that pissed off who and how that resulted in a domino effect during a rush..... no. Just no. There are plenty of reality shows for that crap.
Without further preamble, on to the work! Let's start with the more boring stuff and move toward the fun stuff, so....School! It's not that school isn't fun, it is more that school is about the very basics right now. I have a sanitation class at the moment and a Foundations I class. Sanitation takes place in a cut and dry classroom. Its an essential subject matter, and very important but also equally as boring. I just took my state examination to be sanitation certified this morning. Standardized testing always makes me giggle. The absurdity of some of it. The examination proctor must read word-for-word a script of instructions and if someone walks in late they can start over or go back they have to keep going and then pull the tardy person aside later and read the script word for word and blah blah blah. I get it, I really do. The absurd part is that the script starts with 'Good Morning'. So, when the proctor has to walk outside and repeat the script word for word, all over again do they have to read the 'good morning' part or is that implied? What if another person walks in even later than the first person so the proctor has to start all over for them too? If the proctor leaves it out just once will there be terrible dire consequences?! Will a lack of 'good morning' irrevocably damage a person's ability to take the test?! Is it a psychological thing or just a matter of good manners? What if you're taking the test at night?! See, absurd. Its like bureaucracy getting colorful or something, all it translates to is throwing a splash of slate grey on a wall adjacent to all the generic grey walls if you ask me. Though, I guess no one did so maybe I should just go back to giggling quietly at standardized tests when I have to take them.
My Foundations I class is a lot of fun, actually. That is the class that takes place in a giant kitchen. the course matter is the most basic of things. How to use a knife, cutting straight lines, tournes, and the cuissons. According to numerology, the number seven is supposedly perfect because it is a complete number. There are seven days a week, seven deadly sins, seven saving graces, and now we can add in seven cuissons to the theory. Just watch, now that I've told you this tidbit of information, you'll start seeing sevens EVERYWHERE! A cuisson is just a way to cooks something, so the seven cuissons are the seven classic cooking methods they are rotir (to roast), griller (to grill), poeler (to pan roast), sauter (to pan-fry, sauté), braiser (to braise), frire (to fry),  and pocher (to poach). What this translates to in class is a whole lot of tasty grub! The protein of choice via the school is chicken, but hey beggars and choosers, right? My teacher has been great about the gluten thing too, deliberately not dredging a meat in flour when the recipe called for it so I could eat it too and warning about when he had to. Les Cuissons also make for a far more exciting class than what it had been before, which was just basic cuts and learning how to use your knife for the first time while keeping all your fingers intact. Then, I got my new tourne knife! What is a tourne you may ask with the pitch in your voice going up slightly to indicate that it is, indeed, a question? THIS is a tourne! Not one of mine, I haven't really taken any pictures of those.

It is a 'turned' vegetable that is barrel shaped with seven (there is that damned/blessed number again!) sides and is evenly pointed at both ends. They can be a real pain in the butt. Personally, I haven't had that much trouble with them. My issue comes from the fact of my freakishly small hands. In order for me to get the kind of control I need to make nice tournes I have to choke up on the blade of my pairing knife thus putting most of my fingers at risk of getting sliced and also completely throwing off the balance of my knife. All in all, just plain annoying. I had been referred to a knife store nearby by some people at work and ended up picking one up for fairly cheap when I was there. Tourne knives look like THIS!

They have short curved blades which, when you're looking at them in pictures don't look that strange, then you see them up close and, to me, they look like raptor claws. This thought, unfortunately, sent my mind on the dangerous quest of thinking and all I could picture in my head was a bunch of dinosaurs siting in 'knitting' circle tourne-ing potatoes! I called them all Tourne-asaurus Rexs. I would really like to blame this terrible pun on sleep deprivation but it was all me. I'm honestly and naturally, just that weird. The visual still makes me giggle.
Work is very interesting. I have been exposed to new equipment, like induction stovetops and sausage stuffing machines as well as a plethora of new inventory and ways of cooking or treating all of it. Probably one of my favorite images from work was on my first day. I came out of the office and found a middle aged mexican man stuffing sausages with a meat grinder looking contraption, completely enthralled with his work and the radio behind him was playing "When You're Strange" by The Doors. Something about that scene was just perfect. I walked into the next room and Don McLean's "American Pie" was playing and I knew I was in the right place. There is so much work that goes into keeping a place like that running smoothly. There is so much upkeep. The majority of the things that I have learned how to make so far is based on a lot of things that were already made, canned, preserved, cleaned, or cooked. It really is mind blowing for me. My official job is a line cook. I work both cold side and hot appetizers which essentially means that I'm in charge of various salads and the charcuterie on cold side as well as some fried stuff for grill station when they should need it, and small hot plates when I'm on hot side. Over the past two weekends I have gotten to be a floater for both stations. Someone else runs either station and I help whoever needs it. I love it! Even back at my old job being a floater was one of my favorite things. I got to zoom around helping people and generally feel like a super hero. Good times.
Well I believe that is all for now!