Bad about pictures

I am sorry that I've been really bad about taking pictures lately. Intermediate is tough and at the end of the class I'm so scattered that I forget about photos and just try to clean and get out and move on. It's going well, but it is definitely harder than basic was. It's more fun though. You never know what to expect. Like the workshops, for example. Our workshop last week was a shit show. They put us into groups of three, one strong, one ok, and one idiot and we had to make 2 soups, omelets, soft boiled egg florentine, zucchini gratin, celeriac mousseline (like mashed potatos, but celery root) a spinach quiche and pommes dauphine (which are, by the way, the most delicious way to eat potatos, but more on that later). So the idiot in my group says to me at the beginning "I don't know how to make any of this." Great start bud.

The idea behind the workshops is that they give us the list of ingredients just like they do for our regular classes, except we don't have a demo for them. We have to be able to look at the ingredients and figure out what to do with them to make the dish. We also can research it online if it's a classical dish, or at least figure out what the base of each thing is online or by talking to chefs. So I did my research, I figured out what the hell to do with pommes dauphine (it's mashed potatos mixed with choux pastry and deep fried in balls. Mmmmm potato puffs), I used my genius to make the gratin, and tried to assign the other things to the other two. The bisque we made was legendary. My gratin and pommes were good...the rest....the other soup was ok, but the eggs were a big effing mess. This idiot just could not get it together. And every time we handed the chef a gross egg dish we had to redo it. Finally I had to hip check the idiot out of the way of the salamader and just do it myself to be able to finish.

How did this kid and the other idiot in our class make it past basic? Why were they passed? Why did I fret so much and these fools just slipped on through? They can't do the basic things required of us, and the rest of us have to carry them. It's a shitty life lesson that I have learned 1000 times over in both school and work. I'm tired of it. It's an old, stupid lesson. But fine. I get it bla bla blee, bla bla blah (as the chefs say) we'll have to carry people in the kitchen at least until they get fired...but big sigh.

So we have another workshop this Tuesday, this time there's serious protein involved (rabbit, beef steaks, chicken) so it should be even more interesting. Stay tuned. (Sorry no workshop photos...it was just too messy and chaotic to be busting out the camera).