Tanta Robina

You probably got that I am overwhelmed, right?

Last Monday I was finally feeling a little more in control, then Tuesday was the day of that nasty cut and things almost fell apart. The finger is healing – way too slowly if you ask me – but healing nonetheless. It's been hard to keep up in class with the Mickey-Mouse finger and Friday I even nicked another finger on the other hand so I was sporting two finger condoms for everyone's amusement. On top of that, I was assigned sous-chef duties at the last moment and lost precious time to retrieve our chicken and brown veal stocks from cold storage at the beginning of class.

After the finger injury, I wasn't able to keep up with all the dishes required during the production part of class, but I did my very best to complete as many as possible. Each class starts with an overview, then knife cuts, the chef's demos and last production, which is where we students cook various dishes.

I gotta tell you, I *am* learning a lot, but boy, oh boy… I am f---- dead, I tell ya. I get up at 6:30am and go to bed at midnight and have no life. This weekend was just as full as the last one and still I am not done for tomorrow.

Mondays start with a written test – hey, I scored 98% last week, woohoohooo!!! – then a knife skill test (no bragging rights here) and then the practical, which consists of cooking whatever our chef tells us without looking up the recipe.

Another thing we have to do is keep a notebook that sucks up an unbelievable amount of time. So far, I haven't been able to transcribe my notes and work on the notebook during the week, so I take care of that on the weekend. For tomorrow's test I have to know as much as possible about roux, mother sauces, some soups and pasta dishes, then there will be product ID and conversion questions. And I have to memorize about ten recipes, one or more of which will be our practical. Oh, and did I mention that I had to make up for two knife skill assignments I missed during the week? My carrots Paysanne are passable, but the potato tournés are pitiful and I am not even sure I should turn them in tomorrow. But, as we say in Italy, what the fuck.

Somebody tell me why I am doing this to myself, please, cuz right now I can't remember. I must be out of my mind. The nice thing about being out most of the day and busy all the time I am home is that now Kelvin (who had become Ben's cat) is so very nice to me. I think he misses me.

Another nice thing is that I finally got myself a good bag that should save me some fatigue and frustration and tonight I am stuffing it with all the things I had been shuffling around in plastic bags.

I think I am going to call it a day and take my first evening off in two weeks. I'll go over my test material and try to memorize those recipes tomorrow morning.

P.S. I am afraid those audio files for the Italian lessons will have to wait until I get some of my life back.