Brunoise is even smaller than I thought!

The early hours are getting to us all, and the adrenaline is beginning to wear off. For me, anyway. I'm tired. Lying in bed this morning, waiting for 5:19 to change to 5:20, I calculated that I can sleep in for six of the next ten days. That was enough make me hop (vewy vewy quietly) right out of bed and into the shower.

I love driving into the City at six in the morning, though. Just a relative few of us move around at that time, and the metering lights are not always on yet at the toll plaza, and the twinkly beads of light still decorate the Bay Bridge. Only a few cars wait at the stoplights, and even the line at the Starbucks in our building is short.

I've lived in a world of telecom acronyms for the last six years, terms like DSL and CLEC and PON and WiFi. Not surprisingly, culinary arts has its own entire language (much of it French), and plenty of acronyms. So far, we've learned FAT TOM (the necessary conditions required for spoilage: Food, Acidity, Temperature, Time, Oxygen, Moisture); TTA (time/temperature abuse — the term for food held between 41° and 135° F for more than 4 hours, conditions ideal for the growth of foodborne organisms); HAACP (a food safety management system that requires identifying hazard points within a product's flow, in order to prevent, reduce, or eliminate them).... I'm sure I'll be running across "IANAC" any day now.

We had an in-class writing assignment: pick an article from the food section and summarize it in several paragraphs. Chef Joseph told us to select something that was unfamiliar to us, and Silvia turned to me and said, "What's brining?" I wrote about Fragrant pears, a newly available Chinese variety. Find them at a Ranch 99 near you.

In the kitchen, it was more of the same. Good knife skills require repetition. I cut carrots julienne and brunoise three times, attempting smaller and more even cuts. Chef Joseph said, "You must cook at home. You have good dexterity." He pays more attention to most of my classmates, and that's good. Jordan finishes each part of the task, then calls "Chef, Chef, look at these!" He's from Idaho. We added tomato concasse to the routine — after peeling the tomato, you basically "unroll" the flesh from the seedy core with a couple of strategic knife cuts, then dice it. Very cool. And after mincing parsley or other herbs, collect it in a paper towel, twist it closed, and run cold water over it. Wrap the whole wet package in a kitchen towel and gently squeeze out all the water. Shake the parsley out into a little bowl, and it's dry, almost powdery, and really easy to mix or sprinkle evenly.

We take turns doing clean-up tasks. Yesterday, I was part of the dishwashing team, and today it was stainless counters. I'll need to get some ponters from one of my classmates when it comes time for mopping with the rolling bucket. That's a chore I've never done, Industrial Strength. I'm more of a Mop and Glo girl, myself.

Tonight: three more pant legs to hem. Chapters 7 and 8 in ServSafe (The Flow of Food: Storage and Preparation). Chapter 8 in Professional Cooking: Stocks and Sauces. And I'll practice my cutting while making dinner. We'll have diced potatoes and red bell pepper with minced garlic and parsley. And some sort of carrot batonnets. With pork tenderloin (nothing fancy to try there, yet.)