So far, so good

My first two weeks of culinary boot camp (that's what I'm calling it, it's not the official title) at the REOC program have streaked by, and I scarcely know where to begin in my re-cap of it. Brevity may be impossible, but I'll take a stab at it.

On Monday, June 12th I gathered with a group of seven strangers in small conference room in the basement of the Red Cross center in Rochester. We were introduced to our instructors (Greg Christo, CEC, and Earnie Miller, CEC, CCE) and to what we would be doing and learning about over the following 16 weeks. Despite some students' assumption to the contrary, we were up in the kitchen that morning after our orientation, so about half the class had to go get their uniforms from their cars. It was an apt and immediate illustration that we would be learning by doing, and that our course would be largely hands-on.

Since that day, the class has increased to ten students, and we have quickly become a very cohesive team. We work well together, and have no personality conflicts thus far. In addition to our ten students, there are four remaining (of an original number of eight) from the previous class, who graduate in mid-July. We look to them for a lot of information and some instruction, as they started out where we did three months ago. Greg mentioned that there is frequently some attrition in these classes, and that it was fine if any of us discovered that cooking isn't for us. He didn't predict that some of our class would bow out, but I was left with the idea that it was probable. So far no one has left, and I have high hopes that we all stick to it; we're a fine crew, I think.

Demographically, we're a diverse crew too. I'm one of only three whites in the class, although one of eight males. The remainder of my colleagues are black and Hispanic. It's evident how much of a meritocracy a kitchen is, as our ages, ethnicities, genders, religions and backgrounds have no impact when we're working together. All that matters in the kitchen is getting the food made or learning how to do it better.

Our first culinary lecture classes have been sanitation and food safety. It's been mostly enlightening, learning about all the hazards of preparing and eating food in restaurants and commercial kitchens. There are very few pathogenic bacteria, but those few varieties are unarguably dangerous to people; killers at times. Botulism, salmonella, listeria, we learn about it all, and how easily it invades the foods we make and eat. We're learning about time and temperature control, which is the primary battle against these micro-scopic soldiers.

We're learning about cleaning vs. sanitation, and the "danger zone" temperature range of 40° to 140°. How to thaw frozen meats safely, how to reheat safely, always to cook to at least 165°. Greg has even touched on how important it is to know how to get out of the restaurant in the dark in case of a fire or other disaster... he's been through such things. How important it is to pack a serious burn with lots of ice, and keep it coming for at least 10 minutes. With that last lesson, he told a story of a chef who was badly burned by a pot of boiling water that was knocked off the range just last week. The EMT was a moron and instead of ice, used a cold towel, and as he rubbed the burn, he peeled the poor chef's skin right off.

I've begun to establish myself as an advanced, experienced cook in my class' ranks. I'm not sure how this happened, as at least three other students claimed that they had several years' experience in kitchens, and I definitely don't. Maybe they're full of shit, maybe I pick things up really quickly, maybe I'm just right there every day, ready to do any job I can in the kitchen. Maybe all three... I know it's definitely the latter two, I can't say whether or not those students are bullshitting. Greg and Earnie have apparently spent the first couple weeks evaluating our class to see where everyone is, and where everyone can go. On Thursday this week, I was pleasantly surprised when Greg put me to work on the hot line with Larry, the head chef of the kitchen. He said, "this guy has a lot of solid experience. You ask him to do something once and he gets it done. He'll be getting into more production and working with the cooks more." Kind of nice to hear your instructor say something like that. I helped Larry make quantity veggies and pasta for Meals on Wheels (shortened to MOW around there), which we made in a braiser (a rectangularlar, 30-40 gallon tilting vessel) full of boiling water.

As I've learned more about sanitation, my feelings towards my current place of employment have transformed somewhat. I still enjoy many aspects of working there, but the sanitary conditions there are atrocious:
• there's no sanitizer in sight;
• most surfaces are wiped with filthy side towels;
• latex gloves are rarely used in circumstances they should be;
• one of the dishwashers is astoundingly lazy and never empties the trap in the dish machine, therefore the dishes he sends up are caked with food particles and grease. He also does a less-than half-assed job at cleaning pots/pans/utensils/knives in the sinks, and those are always still dirty too. His impression of sweeping and mopping are laughable at best. But don't get me wrong, he is a decent enough guy;
• the walk-in cooler has a tough time keeping below 40° and would be an incredibly large petri dish under the proper temperature conditions. There's standing water on the floor, it's rarely, if ever cleaned or mopped, and buckets of soups, sauces and other food are set on the floor with no cover (which is actually helpful for hot foods to drop below 40 in the required time);
• every aspect of production, from prep to cooking is rife with cross-contamination (i.e. raw chicken and burgers are tossed directly into the Cajun seasoning bucket and then onto the grill, so that the top layers of the seasoning are contaminated with any bacteria that may or may not have been on the meat. Obviously the bucket o' seasoning is never changed before it's empty.

Now, maybe I'm full of piss and vinegar, and I'm just too new to the biz and don't understand, but it seems like a restaurant ought to adhere to some basic food safety and sanitation standards. Any experienced cooks (who don't work at slop-houses) can chime in and tell me if there's no time in reality for proper food safety, and there's really no risk anyway; I'm willing to listen to experience, I suppose.

Ok, enough for today. I'm sure your eyes are tired from my tirades. I'll do my best to update this more regularly as my course progresses, but I'm usually dead tired by the time I get back from class. Some great things I'll be posting about are the upcoming week 3 of culinary boot camp and my attendance Monday night to the local chef's association monthly meeting.

Good times!