We had a substitute Chef instructor yesterday, and something he said struck me.

“To really thrive in this industry, you have to love to serve others.”

This peaked my interest not only because he was right, the best people in the service industry really know how to find that one thing that makes your experience memorable, genuinely.

But also because it’s such a juxtaposition to the personalities most chefs, or those attaining the title, have.  We are aggressive, polite, but aggressive in many ways.  You have to cut with confidence and force or you will surely cut yourself.  You have to be loud so others can hear you in a banging kitchen, which is a key factor in kitchen safety.  You have to know when to fish or cut bait- which takes the self assurance of knowing when shit’s good, and when it’s happy FUBAR time.  On the outside, this doesn’t seem to match the above statement.

I’d say 1/2 of the personalities in my class are loud aggressive, another 1/4 silent aggressive, and the last 1/4 I expect will be dropping out here shortly.

But the irony is, we give each other sandwiches when we’re hungry, there is never a complaint when it’s time to do dishes or make trash runs, everyone holds the door for everyone else, and we (except for those little flies whom will soon be dropping) all work as a cohesive, respectful, team.

Ah yes my pretties, there is psychology in running a kitchen.  Not unlike, running a squadron.    <GRIN>

What is there not psychology in?  Fucking Tournes.

So you’re like, ok..  first week glam fest lalala- what do you really do every day at a school like this?  I shall tell you.

We come in to a board like the one pictured, which will give us an outline of the day’s activities.  This helps as we know when our break will be (10 min), and what we’ll need.

Each class is 4 hours, my block starting at 10:30.  At the stroke of said hour we line up, and speak to the Chef one-by-one whilst he looks us over and checks us for attendance.  If he finds anything not to his liking, he’ll send you to fix it, and you will be marked tardy.  Three tardies = 1 absence.  Five absences, you fail.

And then we proceed with the day.  And today we proceeded with Tournes.

Or as I like to call them, the demon fucking stupid bitch cuts from hell.  G-rated, a cut the French surely made up just to screw with us.

It involves flipping the pairing knife towards you, then producing an end product that has exactly 7 sides, looks like a football, and wastes over half the potato.

And then our instructor is like, oh well if you want a challenge Tourne a carrot (we were also doing julienne today, so we had carrots).  So of course I’m like, damn straight gimme a carrot!!

Carrots are much firmer than potatoes.  Which means your hands, etc, are working much harder to accomplish said task without butchering yourself.

Which means you move directly from a dull, luscious been-choppin-things-a-while ache to holy shit I can’t feel my knuckles.

I have 4 carrots and 5 potatoes in my bag for homework.

And I’m gonna Tourne the shit out of those mofos while I can’t feel my knuckles 😉

(Of course my other hand would be under the potato while the knife was in motion..)