Hell's Kitchen? This is My Kitchen, Biatch.

I have this new song that I sing when I get off work. It's called I hate my job. The lyrics are as follows:

I hate my job. (Repeat at least 24 times to whatever melody happens to take you at the moment.)

The truth is, I don't really hate my job. I get all sorts of free food when I'm not too busy or too hot to want to eat it. And I may often claim to hate my boss, but that isn't really it either. I think, and this may come as a shock to you all, that I might just hate being told what to do. I don't mind telling other people what to do, I just don't like it when loud people shout at me for doing exactly what I thought I was being told to do. I'm also not a huge fan of being treated like an imbecile. Granted, there are days that I feel borderline retarded but that has nothing to do with my ability. That's just the fact that I'm getting half the recommended dosage of sleep and my brain is often operating on the level of an octogenarian with Alzheimer's disease.

The fact is, I do have an ego. I know; I've tried for all this time to be humble and accept compliments with downcast eyes and a shrug of the shoulders. No more! I can cook, dammit. I'm good at it and I like it. And since I started this externship, I have somehow managed to forget that. (Likely, this is because I forgot how to cook as all I do at work is make toast, smear mayonnaise on it and press the two pieces together with whatever meat or vegetable product was ordered and send it on it's way to window. Sometimes I add fries or mixed greens.) I have, however, managed to coax oil and water to come together in many different forms that we in the biz call "vinaigrettes." I make a pretty badass chipotle caesar dressing.

Some of you are aware of this and some of you are not, but because of these reasons and oh-so-many others that I can't disclose because I don't like burning professional bridges (And also because I can blame my boss for my recently acquired alcohol problem, but I can't make him pay for it), I have decided to start my own cooking company. It's called The Golden Whisk and I will be whoring myself out culinarily in pretty much whatever capacity I can. I'm still ironing out details and working out the kinks, and I obviously have to finish this wonderful learning experience, but I hope to have things off the ground completely by September. I'm going to make a concerted effort to keep everyone updated on the progress but in the meantime, go ahead and email me at tiffany@thegoldenwhisk.com if you know anyone that needs a lesson or a cook. Thanks for reading, guys!

Getting Sauced

I would like to state, for the record, that henceforth, under no circumstances, will I eat the yellow version of any candy. I know I recently wrote, rather smugly, about the short list of foods I won't eat. Please add "yellow candy" to the list including dogs and monkeys. This includes the yellow section of candy corns, yellow gummy bears and yellow starbursts. And all other yellow candy, excluding pineapple flavored Mambas.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about school. My suspicions that I am porktose intolerant have been confirmed beyond any shadow of a doubt. There is a hint of hope that I might be allergic to antibiotics that are fed to pigs prior to them becoming pork. This is unlikely but leaves me an out in the event that I decide I can't live without pork chops any time soon. I'll just buy free range, organic, grass-fed, kosher pork. Which kind of defeats the purpose of pork chops, which is that they are supposed to be cheap.

And while we're on the subject of free-range organic food, I'd like to make a request. If you insist upon eating only organic and all natural food, don't be a smug asshole about it. And! Do your research. USDA regulations and guidelines pertaining to all-natural and organic food are not as stringent as you may think. A chicken needs only 2 square feet of living space to be considered free range. I don't know how that chicken is any happier than a chicken with the standard amount of space, but then again, I refuse to abide the concept that poultry has emotions. ALSO! Don't be a smug asshole about eating this kind of food and then proceed to discuss your devotion to Domino's pizza. It makes you look like a smug asshole hypocrite.

So, believe it or not, I am halfway through Phase One of the culinary arts program. HALFWAY! Everyone said that it would go by quickly, but I had no idea. It seems like just days ago, we were poaching meringue and now we're turning it into cookies! Yeah, we've come that far. I'll be honest, I will never understand the French culinary proclivity to combine egg whites and sugar but we have learned about 700 different things to do with it. It's not just for lemon pie anymore! Also, we've made about 60 different sauces because literally everything and I mean everything in French culinary school comes with its very own sauce. There are mother sauces, pan sauces, derivative sauces, desert sauces. If it is food, it has a sauce. This more or less means that I am in my own personal heaven considering my adoration of food augmentation.

And to be perfectly honest, though I will probably regret this statement or look back and laugh at myself for it, this is all pretty freaking easy. Everything except filleting a fish. That is a huge, messy, slightly smelly pain in the ass. Well, not as big of a pain in the ass as yellow candy, or being porktose intolerant, but a pain in the ass nonetheless.

Eat, Dammit.

I have a bone to pick clean with a lot of the world. A lot of the not-naturally skinny world. Eat, dammit. Its good for you. You have to do it for a lot of reasons, one of which is to live. And to thrive. As human beings, we must consume food in order to sustain the natural processes constantly happening in our bodies. Plus, food is really good.

I respect that a lot of magazines and some companies are trying to promote healthy self image, namely Glamour (read this article: http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/blogs/vitamin-g/2009/09/on-the-cl-are-you-ready-to-sta.html) and Dove. I especially like Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty which seems to be an authentic attempt to shut up the neurotic and obsessive fashion industry and give voice to actual human beings. It's nice. I'm not one hundred percent convinced that Glamour will stick to their word on this one, but I am hoping that they do and I intend to keep an eye on them.

These campaigns are a great idea and are definitely on the right track. But its not just about the food for them. As we are all well aware that eating is a decidedly obsessive passion of mine, I think its only fair to note that I am not exactly the picture of health. But that has little to do with the food I consume and more to do with the fact that I drink, smoke and remain as sedentary as possible when not forced into motion. I have an ongoing battle with momentum.

I'm not as small as I once was. This is due to a number of factors, namely a reduced reliance on amphetamines and diet coke and an increased awareness of well-made hollandaise sauce and blocks of bacon. But I'll tell you this much: I do not want to throw things at the mirror when I look into it anymore. I think some people are just prettier when they're bigger. As every action has an opposite and equal reaction, it must be noted that I often do want to throw things at displays in windows. I compulsively inform my boyfriend "Those aren't real people. They're made up people." to which he most frequently responds that it is inappropriate to hate people because they are skinny. I tend to disagree. And anyway, I only hate people that are skinny but aren't supposed to be. And I do not believe those people, namely Sienna Miller, who claim to eat entire pizzas with no ill effect. You're a liar. And I hate liars. I don't know if I hate Sienna Miller, because I have never met the lady, but I definitely hate her lies. They're dangerous lies.

I'm not knocking the naturally thin... Good for you, ladies. Just, you know, eat, dammit.

Lost and Found

If anyone happens to see my eyeglasses, please do let me know. I'm having difficulty seeing without them.

Thanks.

Cake Rape

I can't stay long. As many of you know, I have been hard at work on a paper about a spice that I genuinely despise. I've never liked anise and I certainly don't like it now but that's what's been keeping me. Blame it.

In the meantime, I thought you'd like to know I've been cake raped. This is a phrase coined by a classmate of mine who aptly noted that pastry was screwing us all out of time, valuable time, that could be used to make actual food. You see, in addition to creating three or four culinary masterpieces a day, we are also expected to produce one pastry item.

I hate baking. No, I mean that I really really baking. I dislike baking so much that I will often refrain from roasting meat because it also occurs in an oven and closely resembles the act of baking. Furthermore, I hate putting dough into pastry bags. I dislike putting pastry cream into pastry bags. I dislike piping both of these substances into other vessels and hoping that whomever should have the misfortune of eating them doesn't choke to death on the sawdust that I have produced.

You see, I make good food because I love to make it. Heck, I don't even mind throwing together a nice pate brisee every once in awhile and having a nice quiche for lunch. But for several minutes the other day, I seriously considered quitting school because of a cream puff. Actually, I didn't think about quitting but looking back on it now, I'm really surprised it didn't cross my mind considering how irate I was at the genoise dough. And don't get me started on my pastry cream. I don't have the time to list the ways I loathe that entire process.

The fact of the matter is, I don't mind making desert as long as it is infrequent, not an interference with my ability to serve food on time and specifically requested by someone I like because 1) they are dying and 2) they also have a birthday coming up. The trouble is, I love the pastry chef who teaches us. She's hilarious and Thai and says "Doing!" a lot. ("Doing," by the way, is an especially effective way of conveying a range of points and emotions. Anyway, I just don't have the heart to tell her that I hate what she teaches me. And maybe I'll learn to like it. I probably won't, but in the way captives are inclined toward Stockholm Syndrome, it is always possible I will at least get used to being cake raped.

Double Homicide

We're murderers. Every single last one of us. Well, maybe we aren't yet, but we most certainly will be. All it takes is one bad shipment of improperly frozen fish and KABOOM! You've killed one of your loyal customers. Or, you've killed 139 of them. In cold blood. Cold blood, I say! And, if you're not too busy killing innocent people, you've got to use any extra time to kill innocent germs. I don't know if I can go through with this.

Wednesday and Thursday of this week were devoted to what was described on our syllabus as "Sanitation." What they should have called it was "Germ Identification, Eradication and Ultimate Germ Warfare Failure Training." I have been waging a war on my hands and their suppleness ever since this training in the science of germ murder began. What they don't tell you on the bottles of antibacterial soap is that it kills practically no bacteria at all, in comparison to what you need to kill in order to stay alive. It is a fucking miracle that we're all still alive, wandering around covered in bacteria, viruses, parasites, you name it. If it's on your hands, it's probably trying to kill you and everyone you love.

And the worst part is, you can't even see it. It's all just there, procreating, wiggling around, being the shape of a cephalopod, gaining access to your internal organs every time you scratch your eye. Our bodies are engaged in constant battle every single day, all day. And that's just in the case of normal, every day murderous germs. This is to say nothing of the kinds of disease and infection you can receive from food that has been improperly handled.

As I discovered through this incredibly thorough ServSafe training, the back of the house is a breeding ground for the insipid pathogens. You're just one step away from permanent paralysis at any second. The wrong person sneezes... Surprise! You have Hepatitis A! Oh, you only cooked the pork to 154 degrees? NOW YOU'RE GOING TO DIE. Or worse, your customer will die, which is more likely in the case of the undercooked pork as in all likelihood, they will contract a parasite that will set up shop in the middle of their brain and excrete poisonous gasses and kill them in two hours. Or maybe it takes two months, I can't remember. Either way, brain surgery for a pork chop doesn't seem a fair trade.

Of course, I don't mean to startle you. There are ways to avoid the death that seems so likely to visit us at any moment. Really, all it takes is common sense. It seems the skin is the main vehicle for germs. So, you could have that removed. An alternative to that is cooking the food to the proper temperature. You also want to make sure that you receive shipments at the proper temperature, get them out of harm's way as soon as humanly possible, and you'll want to disinfect all poultry with Purell before serving it to guests. Also, washing your hands obsessively is a good step in the right direction, though you will want to take care not to wind up like me. I have calluses from the nail brush. But I'm also pretty sure my hands are clean.

The training took sixteen hours. But I am pretty sure that what I have learned will stay with me for sixteen years. If you should find yourself with extra time on your hands today, google "food borne illnesses." Or, actually, don't. Not if you want to ever want to eat out again.

Injury and Illness

I've been lucky. Generally, whenever I start a new job, or promising relationship or otherwise endeavor to make forward progress in my life, I become sick. And I'm not talking "sniffles, get some rest" kind of sick. I'm saying my body rebels against me in a way that only the very elderly or the constantly-ill infant can understand. Most of the time, this happens within the first two days of whatever new project I've started. It hasn't happened yet and for that, I am pleased.

Here's what I'm not pleased about: I'm totally exhausted. I fell asleep last night at 7:30 and only woke up to move from the bottom floor of my house to the top. I simply cannot imagine what it must be like for those unfortunates who find themselves forced to work through this gruelling coursework. If seven and half hours in class is not enough, we're averaging 700 pages of book readin' a night (That might be a slight exaggeration, but I'm too tired to get up to check my syllabus. Incidentally, I'm too tired to read what is assigned in my syllabus.), anywhere from one to five recipes for writin' a night, and I've been assigned the task of countin' every night.

Weights and measures. As a cook, there is really no excuse not to know them. As an aspiring chef, there is really no reason I should be allowed to cook without knowing them. Here's the trouble: Math, and all of its components (That is, memorization, reason and analytical thinking) escape me. It was practically a miracle that I passed my entrance exam. Now I've got to learn how many teaspoons are in a gallon. Not fair. Well, actually, it's perfectly fair but that has no bearing whatever on whether or not I complain about it.

Speaking of complaining, we're not really permitted to do that at school. "What's that? You just sliced off the top segment of one of your digits? You should be more careful. Put that finger on ice and commence with the bruniose!" Really, it would be more apt to describe Chef as a slave driver. And don't you dare let him find you standing. If you could be standing, you should be working. And working generally means something unpleasant such as slicing the fat off of chicken backs. Or scrubbing floors (literally!). Or, I don't know, there are any number of back breaking tasks that can be thrust upon you at any given moment if you appear in the least bit unoccupied.

Now, I kid. Chef is not only hilarious, he is fair. Plus, he's a wealth of knowledge. After reading and hearing about tyrannical, ego-encrusted chef instructors the world over, I kind of expected that I would encounter a giant French inflatable arm flailing tube man with wild red hair and irrational demands. Chef is more like a cross between Brian the Dog on Family Guy, except less angry and John Cusack, except less confused. That is to say he's smart and nice and not at all frightening. I just don't ever want to piss him off.

Which brings me to my next point. I am more motivated by fear of disappointing someone that I genuinely want to like me than I am of failure itself. This probably would have come in handy when I was a teenager but I either didn't want my parents and teachers to like me or I was different then. Not sure which. And anyway, it isn't so much that I want Chef to like me as I want Chef to like my food. And my knife skills. And the fact that I am wearing a clean, pressed uniform. I guess, what it all boils down to is that I don't want to get in trouble. Which is why I have to go now. I can't breathe and I'm not allowed to go to school when I am sick. I think I might be getting sick.