So, since I’m not able to get a comic up to you these past few days, I figure I could at least let you in on how things have been going in my life this week. It’s something, right?
Pretty much, on saturday I showed up at moscone center (it’s the big convention center here in San Francisco, for those who didn’t know.) at 8, and Dave and I put together the entire Dave’s Gourmet booth – we had to build 40 of these modular cubes we got. I finally got out of there at about 6 pm that day, and had to show up bright and early at 8 the next day to prep for the show. All day Sunday, and from noon till 5 the following two days, I worked the booth. On the bright side, I finally got to taste a lot of our products that I had, until that point, not had the opportunity to taste. FYI : our Roasted Garlic hot sauce is THE SHIT. I kid you not. And our Soyabi sauce, too.
School has been something of an on-again, off-again love affair. This week we got into making soups, and we made a KICK-ASS clam chowder, as well as some of the best cream of mushroom soup I’ve ever tasted. We also made Shrimp Bisque today, which was good, and potato leek soup, which, while good, kind of pales in comparison to the other stuff. Also made consomme today – ours came out pretty damn decent.
The off-again part came when I initially failed my knife skills test on tuesday. It wasn’t that my cuts were bad… it’s that I only had 6 out of 10 done in the half-hour provided. Basically, in half an hour, we have to have (caution, culinary terms follow – those who know them, great. Those who don’t, google is your friend) Battonet potatoes, small dice potatoes, julienne carrots, brunoise carrots, brunoise onion, minced garlic, minced parsley, spinach chiffonade, tomato concasse, and 2 tourned potatoes, all cut to precision. I would have been fine, but the spinach I got was wilted, which makes doing a chiffonade impossible, and my tomato was mushy, which would have been hell to try to blanch and then cut. The good news is, I got to retake the test the next day, and thanks to some good preparation, I was able to get all 10 cuts done, and got a 92 overall. So, I don’t fail yet. :) I do, however, have a lot of studying to do, still. We’ve got an oral report on a piece of kitchen equipment next week, and we have to study up on the range our team decided on. Thankfully though, tomorrow’s friday. I can finally get a weekend, collect my thoughts, and get some comics planned, at the very least. :D
Thanks for being so patient through all of this. I really do appreciate it. You guys are the best readers anyone could ask for.