When the smile and nod fails....

So first I have to tell you that my recipe blog is up and running finally. I'm adding recipes to it every day!

http://theculinarycompanionrecipes.blogspot.com/

You should totally check it out. Now on to our regularly scheduled program.

So when I started this I didn't fully comprehend how much time everything else was going to take. Culinary School is not just cooking that's for sure and I haven't had time to sleep let alone keep up with this like I wanted to. So this i think is going to become my daily venting form for things that upset me that I can't talk about in my official journals for school. Which leads me to my post for today.

I was wondering when I would find that person that would make it extremely hard to do the whole fake smile and nod that I've gotten good at over the years. And guess what! I've found him! You know that one jack ass that thinks he is god's gift to the world and the sun shines out his ass? yep. same douche that's in my class.

Maybe I need to explain something first. We work in teams of three to four people at my school and while I've been extremely lucky to have gotten a really good team this quarter it's very apparent that not everyone has the best group to work with. There is a team at the table next to us that I feel down right sorry for. Two of the three that are on the table are okay. Yeah one of them (the one that stands right behind me) likes to ask me a million questions, some of which he probably could answer himself if he thought things through, but he's not a bad guy. The third guy is a completely different story. I don't know how he doesn't get that no one in the class likes him, we've not made it a big secret or something, but he remains a clueless dick head.

You see he's one of those people that likes to put things off on other people. It's important that your team is a machine. You all need to work together, not against each other, and when something goes wrong the person who was in charge needs to take responsibility. If you want to play the leader you have that added stress. Don't go blaming everything on the others in your group. Seriously it's always someone's fault! Really?

Lesson to be learned here. Don't be that dick head. If you don't know what you're doing don't pretend that you do. And if you do, don't try to play the blame game and pin it on someone else.

Till next time culinarians!
xo
katie

What time does that say?

"Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not" - Harriet Van Horne

Anyone who knows me personally could tell you. I am not an early morning person. I'm more of a 10 AM person. So imagine my reaction when I received my schedule to see that I had a class that started at 5 AM. That's right. 5 AM. And of course it's my fundamentals class, where we are just starting to use knives. Yeah. I was thrilled. (That was sarcasm by the way). However now after having a week to adjust I have to say I'm okay with the situation however it's made me realize that my restaurant, if I ever get it running, will probably only be open for lunch and dinner. 5 AM is the norm for when chefs start preparing for the breakfast crowd. It's even worse for bakers who's mornings can start as early as 2 or 3 in the morning.

It's funny how even a class time can make you think about what you want to do come graduation time and I've only been going to school for a few weeks. Maybe it's just because I finally figuring out what it is that I want to do with the rest of my life that everything seems to be pointing me in a certain direction. Maybe this is what it's like to find a passion and nurture it instead of smother it.

Mise en Place

French for "putting in place". In culinary terms this refers to the preparation and assembly of all necessary ingredients and equipment. 

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So this is the first entry of the Cooking Companion blog! Welcome if you're reading this. I thought I should take this post to explain what the blog is about. To get everything in it's place if you will... :-) 

First, introductions. My name is Kathryn but I go by Katie, call me Kathryn and I think I'm in trouble, and I'm a first year culinary student at the Art Institute. I chose to go to culinary school because, well, I love to cook. I always have. I started cooking with my grandmother when I was about five years old. She had this little TV mounted up in the corner of her kitchen and we used to pretend it was a camera and play "cooking show". It's one of the best memories I have from my childhood. I tried to go the "conventional" college route. I studied at our state college for two years until I realized how unhappy I was and decided to make a change. I took a quarter off to do a bit of soul searching and by the beginning of June I was enrolled to attend AI. I chose the Art Institute because it's nationally accredited and has some of the best professors in the business.So that does it for the personal introductions.

So what is this blog for. Well basically I want to be able to document my journey thorough school, but I want to also try and help other people that are going through the same things or are just curious about it. Not everyone can go to culinary school, but everyone can learn. I'm going to be sharing tips and recipes here occasionally. Also I'll try to answer questions that you have. I might not have the answer right away because I'm still learning but I sure will try to help you out.

I hope you'll join me on this adventure.