Lesson 2: Sanitation, Culinary History, and Dairy ID

I have to admit, I was still a little bit nervous for day 2 of school.  Definitely a lot less nervous than yesterday, but I still had butterflies in my stomach.  When I got into the city  I went into whole foods and grabbed some lunch... I brought it with me to school and ate in the school library while I browsed some food magazines.  

At 12:30 I headed up to the 14th floor to suit up in my uniform and prepare for class.  I was really surprised I wasn't the first one ready, since I'm always at least 15 minutes early for EVERYTHING.  I talked to another girl before class started, whose name is also Allison.  She's from Orlando and dropped out of college because she hated business and wanted to pursue her passion.  She just moved up to Brooklyn 2 weeks ago and is still adjusting to the fast paced environment.  

Today we finally were able to go around the room and introduce ourselves.  I always hated this at Elon,  but  I really enjoyed it here because I was so curious where everyone came from and why they chose to come to culinary school.  I found that most people were just unhappy with what they were doing and decided to pursue their passion.  Ironically one boy works in the Nordstrom cafe  at the Freehold mall, where I worked since I was 16.  Another girl's brother currently goes to Elon, where I went to school!  Soo weird how out of the 14 other people in my class, there are those connections that bind us together.  

Chef Allen lectured a bit about sanitation and culinary history.   The information was a little boring and tedious and I found myself taking notes like, "Wash hands, Brush teeth, Wash hair immediately after class"... DUH!  Then we got to the good stuff.. Dairy ID.. Our first tasting!  He took out different milks and then gave us little tastings of a secret ingredient.  I immediately knew what it was based on the sour, slightly creamy taste.. buttermilk.  Some people thought it was yogurt or sour cream, but based on the consistency I knew it was buttermilk.  Chef Allen made fun of my face when I tasted it and guess that I didn't like it so much.. yuck.  Next we tasted something absolutely wonderful... sweetened condensed milk.  I could eat a whole can of this!  Kind of tastes like liquid frosting.. sweet and creamy and delicious!  He passed around a french baguette and we tasted some french butter, which didn't taste all that different from regular sweet cream, unsalted butter.   At the end of class we also had some dark chocolate covered nuts from the class next door.. delish!

We got out of class early and I was able to catch the 5:03 train home and be home for cocktail hour with my parents :)    Tomorrow is my first knife lesson which I'm PUMPED about!  The tastings tomorrow include all types of vegetables..and I happen to LOVE vegetables.. Tomorrow's definitely going to be a good day :) :)