We'll Now Sing Verses 4 and 7.

The words we know, the tune we hum: "The Ballad of the Flaky Culinarian." Whereas in Baking and Pastry, "flaky" would be a positive attribute, in our program it's just damn frustrating.

Prior to the group sing-along, featuring a lengthy solo by Chef Vinita, we cooked "ovo-vegetarian" dishes from Italy, as directed by Aaron. He was a group of one: the other two people in his assigned group failed to materialize, ever, and eventually disappeared from our roll list. So Chef let him run the whole show. It was a loose day, as a result, and we're also being encouraged to use up perishable inventory: school will be closed next week and we must honor our ingredients and not waste them. So several dishes were somewhat deviant from the ovo-vegetarian diet: the three shrimp dishes, for example, and the chicken florentine crepes. But we had bruschetta (five types, from Andy), and Tuscan bean soup, and fresh pasta with vegetable and tomato sauce, and zeppoli with marsala-marinated apricots. I worked on dessert. Zeppoli are fried balls of dough, sprinkled with sugar. Chef picked up one and bit it, and smiled. "What can be wrong with that?" she said. Andy said they reminded him of the Minnesota State Fair. We had peaches so I used them instead of apricots, marinating them in marsala and sugar, and just before serving, I added toasted pecans and diced bananas.

I also made some really nice crepes that Julian filled with chopped chicken and creamed spinach. There's something really satisfying about making them. Today, I smartened up and used two little pans. You can stack them up and make them ahead of time, and they're perfectly wonderful and forgiving and they make people smile.



And look what I bought!



Time to make good on the promise to Self and make some nutritious delicious lunch snacks.

Chef told us that every day, when we leave the classroom, we should ask ourselves the question, "Would I hire me?"