How long does it take to make horchata?

It's not a joke, but it might as well be one.

In the first job I had out of college, I worked with a team of women in the bookkeeping office of a medical clinic. Each of us had the same job, each covering patients within a specific section of the alphabet. When somebody was slammed or sick or on vacation, the rest of us would help pick up the slack, except Beth. Beth never had any extra time. In fact, her own work seemed to grow or shrink to exactly fit her daily schedule.

We have our own Beth in our class at CCA. In fact, her one task can stretch to two or three days (brioche in European, for example), and today, it was the horchata. She needed to blend, strain, and sweeten the rice that had been soaking since yesterday, and it took all morning. It's hilarious.

Meanwhile, the Menu team and some recruits from Set-up and Equipment took the day's production list and "busted it out," as Andy likes to say. There was salsa-making galore: three types, plus chimichurri, which is basically the same thing. Andrea made the chocolate cakes. The first thing I did when I got into the kitchen was check the flan -- I was worried about the consistency and the taste but you can cut it out with a circular cutter, just as we had planned, and it tastes great. I went online before leaving the house this morning to get an alternate recipe, just in case we needed to remake it.

The Mexican wedding cookies are another story. Andrea rolled them out and baked them, and instead of holding their shape, they collapsed on the cookie sheets into flat formless blobs. She rolled out a second pan and refrigerated them before baking, but the results were the same. We surmised that the recipe was inaccurately increased by "someone" on the Menu team. I brought home some supplies and I'll be baking this afternoon.

Sam went to the ER this morning with some kind of throat infection. She's supposed to rest and take antibiotics, and hopefully she'll feel okay tomorrow. She's the "hostess". She's threatened to wear a red dress, which we're all hoping to see, as she's not exactly a "girly girl," if you know what I mean.

And everywhere, there is bureaucracy. We have a bright blue sheet of paper that needs four signatures on it before we can leave the program. Although all four people who need to sign (financial aid, burser, externship, and registrar) are in the same suite of offices on the third floor, there seems to be an unwritten rule that I can only find one person actually available on any given day. I want to be finished by Friday, because next week, we're back at the North Campus for the duration.