The Culinary Tales Week 36: Something’s Gotta Give

October 13, 2014

At last, the final week of International class was upon us, and I met it with alternating bouts of relief and fear. Glad to be one step closer to the end yet worried that I would fail and have to repeat the class.

 

There were dozens of recipes thrown at us during this term; I learned to make probably less than a third of them. As it turned out, I pulled a finals menu of Hot and Sour soup, Cottage Pie (Shepherd’s pie) and Sesame salmon with soba noodles in plum wine broth; I had only made the soup previously. I had to study up on the other two dishes but when it comes to cooking, experience is the best teacher.

 

I thought I did okay but I scored my lowest finals grade ever. Even my knife cuts were not up to par with my previous work. I wasn’t as focused as previous terms, what with the roommate issues and having to move in a few days. Something had to give.

 

 

After finals, we had an “Iron Chef” competition in which we we broke into teams and were given a secret ingredient (egg) to compose 3-4 courses. It would have been much more fun, except two of the dippiest slackers in class were in my group and it would take a minor miracle to win. The two other members rocked, but when you start out with a two-handicap, you can’t expect victory.

 

I made a play on an “egg roll” where I made a bacon pizza omelette and rolled it up (hence the egg ROLL.) I wasn’t happy with the execution because I wanted the egg to be fluffier; it didn’t help that slacker #1 spilled a gallon of water all over my stuff.

 

One of the judges was our chef-instructor for bistro, next up in the curriculum. A tall, intimidating man with an air of quiet authority (we were warned that he was wildly experienced and one of the toughest chefs in  school to please), it would behoove us to try to impress him. He actually liked my dish, so that was encouraging. And he loved my teammate’s rice-beef-egg bowl, but we were totally out of the running because the slackers’ dishes were dismal, as expected.

 

In the end, I had an A- for the class. But Chef Evil proceeded to tell me I had to work on my attitude problem (“What attitude problem?” asked Advertising Buddy.) And that I really had to work on my speed, although my cooking itself was “nice.” I was also advised not to overthink things; this was not the first time I heard this and certainly wasn’t the last.

 

The bit about the attitude problem really got to me because in more than ten years of slaving away in the corporate world, the words “team-player”, “positive” and “can-do attitude” were standard feedback in my performance reviews. Despite my hatred for Chef Evil, I was never disrespectful, always addressing her as “Chef” and doing what I was told. Advertising Buddy and I consistently put in more than our fair share of cleaning, more than the rest of the class, and on multiple occasions told my classmates that she wasn’t that bad when they complained about her. So where this attitude problem came from has perplexed me to this day.

 

“I warned you she was a bitch,” Lightning Fury said pointedly.

 

All I could do was shrug it off. At least, this nightmare of a class was over. It felt a little like walking away physically unscathed from a car accident. Sure you’re fine on the outside, but emotional trauma leaves scars on your psyche. I’d rather be covered in knife cuts and oven bruises… because at least those heal in time.

 

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