Culinary Chaos

Since my junior year I have been in a culinary program that is held at a different school as mine. When I first started I only applied because I wanted to learn how to cook for my family and for my future. Everyone else in the program was aspiring to become something with their talents and have been studying in the culinary industry all their lives, they were basically born to be there. This, of course, was a disadvantage to someone like me who barely knew how to cook pasta correctly. Chef always said that they would start from the very beginning, even if they knew it all, and he did, but I was much slower than the rest of the class. He had to teach me how to hold a knife, how to cut simple cuts, temperatures of meats, etc. The kitchen is split into two parts with an invisible wall, one side is just known as the bakers side and the other is known as the cooks side, each is stocked with the tools of their trade and the ingredients needed for the jobs. It was overwhelming at first but now its like second nature.

In the program, we serve customers that want to buy our food and rent our dining room for parties and meetings, so many jobs are being done in the kitchen all at once. There are the bakers on one side of the kitchen getting flour all over themselves, the people next to them, and all of the equipment and more. Then there are the cooks on the other side who like to light everything on fire and cut tons of onions so none of us can see. Sometimes I’m on baking, sometimes I’m on cooking, it just depends on if chef is mad at me or not, if he’s mad then he throws me to the pastry chef. I get chef mad quite a lot because I am not amazingly talented at what we do there, so I don’t just get it when he tells me something, I have to ask many questions in advance so I don’t get it wrong and have to throw everything away and try again. I also ask many questions during my job because, like I said, I don’t want to mess up. This is an insecurity of mine since I never really got yelled at as a kid, I was really shy and didn’t do much wrong. I don’t like that he yells at me because honestly, its a bit scary, so I make sure over and over again that I have it right. Who knows, maybe he said, ” Tabitha, make sure its 3 tablespoons of garlic” and not “Tabitha, make sure its 2 teaspoons of parsley”, so that means I have to double check. I get under his skin a lot, but it’s all worth it if I get the job done, otherwise he gets even more mad.

I ask a lot of questions when I’m doing a job because I know if I don’t, then I won’t do the job at all. This is a good reason for why I procrastinate with homework so much because if I have even one question that I’m not sure about, I won’t continue and farther. It drives me insane, and in class I am very shy and don’t ask as many questions as I do in culinary, but then again my teachers don’t yell at me. I am like this because I’m afraid of getting things wrong, and honestly there is a reason for it. My mom had an interesting way of teaching me things, and one time she told me that her boyfriend was Santa, and that I cannot tell him because she isn’t supposed to know. I took it lightly and didn’t pay too much attention, but I also didn’t ask what would happen if I told him. This is of course all fake, but back then I thought it was very real. Moral of the story is, I ended up telling him and he played along with it and got really mad and “sent her to the north pole.” I went to school that morning really upset and came home and my mom was back home so I was relieved, and then she told me that she was there for 5 years and that time runs slower here than in the north pole so I cried and cried for days. Ever since then I have learned 2 things, never to tell secrets, and to always ask so I dont mess up badly and do something like send my mother to the north pole for 5 years.

I’m always unsure of things, and there have been many other incidents in my past that has caused this insecurity of mine, thats not the only one, but it is a good example. Because of this, I have become paranoid to things, I always think I’m going to mess up so I ask a lot if I’m doing okay at whatever it is I’m doing, and a lot of people find that needy and annoying. I should probably learn to worry less and ask questions when needed, but also go with the flow when I can, otherwise I will worry about everything and never get a moment to relax. Questioning everything isn’t the best way to live.

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