A Little Class Goes a Long Way

I know I've mentioned I don't start school for a few weeks, however, I am practically a professional kitchen aficionado already. My initial brush with culinary greatness came to a crashing stall earlier this summer, exactly 4.5 hours into my very first class, Basic Cookery. That is the moment my husband, who doesn't wear pants unless he absolutely has to, shot a panicked look at me from our attached off-kilter chair/desk contraption thingy and I knew it was over, temporarily. If he got up and I did not, I'd go crashing to the floor like I did when Susie E. (full name not divulged to protect the not so innocent) decided she'd rather go on the merry go round with David B. then support her best friend in keeping all the skin on her knees intact. I'm not saying my husband walks around naked in public or anything, he just prefers cargo shorts, even in winter, although we do live in the desert. I have a feeling even if we lived in Alaska his fashion choices would remain status quo.

Now, I'm not sure why neither of us realized we were actually IN culinary school, maybe because it is at the Community College. Between the two of us, a potentially over-educated non-pants wearing teacher, the other mildly intelligent, you'd think one would have a clue as to what Basic Cookery entailed. Did we think we'd be learning knife cuts out of a book? The college catalog was vague at best people, would you understand that this:

"Introduction to culinary fundamentals, techniques and skills of modern cookery. Class covers procedures, ingredients and cooking theories"

means ACTUAL cooking, kitchen, sanitary dish-washing class? So, when our professor, Chef Acosta, started touring the class around the Top Chef wanna be professional kitchen, I think we both realized this was getting serious. I was, although not expressing it, already having second thoughts about doing this class right now this summer, and my out came when Chef Acosta invited another Chef in to speak to the class after our tour to tell us about knives and the uniform. Now, I have always had issues with required garment wearing. I'm not sure why, but on corporate T-shirt Fridays I would break out in hives. I never worked fast food, instead opting to go into retail, just to avoid being a polyester look-alike. My parents wanted me to apply to Hot Dog on a Stick, because those girls made 2 whole dollars above minimum wage. Of course they did, who else would don a 3 foot high hat and bounce up and down making lemonade in yellow and red stripes? But even so, I was already thinking about scanning the Crocs website for cuter chef shoes than the ones that come with the student uniform. So I WAS gonna go with it, although I did ask if I could buy solid black pants instead of the checkered ones. For those of you out there wondering, solid black is for the actual Chef, not a student.

Just as my husband realized he would not be able to pair his chef jacket with shorts, we were given a 15 minute break. Both of us picked up our bags, went out to the hall, and began walking toward the Registrar's office. I knew exactly what he was thinking "no way am I putting on pants this summer." And me, I was just thrilled to have more time to prepare myself before I have to break down a chicken.

So does anyone know if the chef hat comes in paisley?