My days spent in the production kitchen of my school
Literally just minutes before typing up this blog post, I had a conversation with a good friend about how I haven't done much on my blog and that I should probably do something. He suggested that I blog about my time spent in the production kitchen. What is that and why I'm there you may ask, it is part of this work study program that I participated at my school. It’s pretty much like a working scholarship, I work in the production kitchen for 6 months and in turn they pay for 1 of my sessions in school. They also decided to change the program while I was the work study student, instead of having 2 students working at once (one mentor and one new guy) they changed it so that there will only be 1 student per 6 months. It was some shocking news to me, I already knew that I was in for lots of work and hardships but I guess they had to one up me and put me alone. It was quite nerve wrecking when I found out the news, I kept debating if I should continue on with the program or refuse to be in it. This one topic kept me awake for many hours just thinking and debating, but in the end I decided to take up the challenge.
My first few weeks in the production kitchen were pretty rough; I’d forget many things or do many others incorrectly. My biggest fault was that I was not organized enough, kept thinking that I could remember it all in my head and I’d be fine. In truth I wasn’t fine at all and Chef Christopher knew it, which is most likely the reason he loved to yell my name. Over a few days of yelling, more yelling, chef sat me down and explained that I should be using a notepad as well as the whiteboard. After that conversation I got into the habit of going over what had to be done for the next day and filling up the whiteboard, as well as filling up my notepad with the tasks that Chef would give me. (Full my notepad stayed, till I learned how to organize my volunteers better and get them to handle most of those tasks) Learning how to use the whiteboard and notepad was only half the battle to being organized down in production, learning how to keep the fridge and daily volunteers in order was the other half. Trying to teach new volunteers how production worked and trying to organize the other volunteers so that they were productive was quite the nightmare for me. Not only did I have someone asking me where this is or where what is, I’d have Jacqueline, Chef and other Chefs asking me where this or that was. Over the period of about a month or so I quickly developed the skills I needed for conquer these major obstacles. My skills may not have been the best but I’d developed enough that I could tackle them without over stressing myself. Proud of the fact that I’ve developed new skills and thought I would be completely ready for what production had to offer I was dead wrong. The fact is learning how to organize myself was just the beginning of it all, on top of trying to stay organized I had to make bread, check/receive inventory, making stock, etc. My first 3 months of making bread pretty much was a disaster, I could barely shape the bread in the shape of a baguette. Making stock was one of my favorite tasks to do in production, even though we had to make stock almost every other day. The aroma that came out of the pot when you made the perfect veal or chicken stock was just heavenly. Since I was the only work study student I had to speed up my learning process, what might take someone a week or two to learn I had to do it in a few days. Some of what I learned stuck on right away and some took a lot longer like baking bread. (Which I think took me about 3-4 months before I could do it without asking for help)
At this point in time you’re probably thinking wow what hardships I must have gone through, it was not all that bad. There may have been days where I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die, but there were also many where life was glorious. Being down there in the production kitchen has helped me become more organized, improved my leadership/communication skills, improved my kitchen skills and has strengthen me as a person all together. At the end of it all, I’m extremely happy that I decided to take on /complete this challenge and leave with new knowledge as well as more confidence in the kitchen.
I'd like to thanks all the Chefs and all other Cordon Bleu staff for taking care of me during those 6 months that I was the Work Study Student. I'd also like to thank all those students who came down to volunteer in the Production Kitchen, your help meant the world to me.(even if you thought you were a chicken running around with its head cut off, you were all more than useful) Last but not least I'd like to specially thank Chef Christopher, Chef Armando, Jacqueline, Helen and Gordon for always being there offering me advice and guidance for when I needed it most.
