Paper, Rock, Scissors

Another quick day. We had our daily quiz first, with Andy loaning his iPod for background music: live Dead. Derrick said he felt like he was in a doctor's waiting room. I don't know what kind of clinic he attends. I've never heard the Dead at Kaiser.

Chef Stephanie graded the quizzes quickly, then spent time with each student on missed problems, and she reviewed a particularly tricky polenta problem on the board. (How many sheet pans will you be able to fill with 2 kilos of dry polenta, after it's cooked? 2 kilos = 4.4 pounds; according to the Yields book, 1 pound of dry polenta = 11.4 cups cooked for a total of 50.2 cups or 3.14 gallons; each sheet pan will hold 1 gallon: 3 sheet pans.)

Then we took the final: 70 multiple choice questions, with about 1/3 of them being variations on the yield formula. It was clear that Chef is anxious for us to succeed if at all possible: the polenta question on the quiz was replicated on the final, with a slight variation. Quite a number of the answers were obviously wrong: "Paper, Rock, Scissors" are not the three steps of the Purchasing Cycle.

If you have been coming to class, and paying attention, your chances for success are high. Where have we heard that before? Dava was uncharacteristically absent several times this session: rumor has it that there's a new boyfriend.

I've definitely learned an immense amount in this class, despite having a pretty solid foundation in Word and Excel. I also have some familiarity with our next subjects: three weeks of "Intro to Business Management" (marketing techniques, staffing and employee motivation, accounting and profitability) and "Wine Studies" (including "how to read a wine label"). We'll be back at the North Campus starting on Monday.