Day 13

Sunday...I would love to sleep in, but I haven't done that since I got here so I am used to it. Our schedule has to be flexible because we have events that are appointment based. The original plan was to do the Parma/Tuscany trip on Saturday and Sunday but we had to move it up to Thurs/Fri. I was supposed to have my first Latin cuisine class on Thursday..then that got moved to Saturday, but they decided to have an Italian Cuisine class, so now I had to get up on Sunday for Latin class. Today was also the first day with Chef Cochran as a teacher. So far he's just been our go to guy for all the drama the boys have, I feel bad for him cause he is a really cool guy. He at least let us sleep till 7, class starts at 8 am. Of course this still isn't like normal school. I don't get free cappucinno when I go to class at Indy and somehow that makes you feel better first thing in the morning. This felt a lot more like AI than the rest of our lessons though. First class so we went over the syllabus, talked about our expectations as far as homework, preparation, and format for our papers and journals, all just like a normal class would be. Then we got to a regular old lecture on Mexico and the cuisine. After that we divided up the recipes and it was off to work. I got handed the chicken soup, which was just fine by me, I like making a good soup. I could use one now because I did finally come down with a full blown cold and my throat is killing me. Soup isn't difficult, especially this one, because even since we multiplied it by 4 to make enough for the entire group, the total cooking time I was looking at was about 30 minutes. The prep sucked a lot though. I needed chicken so they handed me two whole chickens and 10 chicken thighs, which all had to be deboned and small diced. I can work pretty quickly and I got it all done, but by I don't know about anyone else in this field, but if I have to do that repetitively I get sick of looking at it. Its a good thing the soup was good, because at that point I hated chicken. The whole meal turned out great. We have a group that is focused on what they need to do and there is a lot of skill here. I am proud to be part of this group. What was especially good was the pork with green mole sauce...anyone from AI that has taken this class probably knows what I am talking about. With the fresh tortillas our group made and the spicy salsa that was whipped up, it was excellent. For once there weren't any leftovers on at least one dish. We fed our group, but we ate family style with our class members sitting at the same table so the Chef could talk to us and we could all critique while we ate. There were few complaints, if you could call them complaints. Chef Cochran was also great in the kitchen too with helpful suggestions, different techniques and any changes that might be needed for a dish. After lunch and clean up I went home. I wanted to work some more internship hours, but they had enough help for the day, so I had to settle for going home and taking a nap. It was a short rest for me though because I wanted to get a start on all my papers for the week. I have to write 2 pages for every class with Chef Polegri and 2 pages for Chef Cochran, that's 8 pages of reports to write, all on different subjects. So anyone that doesn't think we aren't working, we are. We just have frequent coffee breaks and wine tastings. The rest of my night was spent talking to the guys and working on my papers, I got 3 out of 5 done, so I think it was a productive day. Tomorrow we are back in class with Chef Polegri for European cuisine. I am working in the morning and have class in the afternoon, so I know that I will be spending the whole day at the restaurant, which isn't bad at all.