Crafty Thursday

I know I'm wayyy behind in posting and I actually do have several draft postings waiting to be edited and published but I'm going to jump ahead a bit and describe my pretty awesome night! Last Friday when I went to Craft's Damon: Frugal Friday, and managed to set up a trail for this week. A trail is basically working in a kitchen for a night, observing and helping out wherever you can. It's a chance to see if you like the kitchen and the people and for them to see if you have potential to be an intern or more. It's a bit early for me to start looking at internships since I'm only in the 6th week of school and it's still a bit time consuming. The later levels get easier so usually it's encouraged to look for internships after Level 2.

I headed to the restaurant right after class and changed into one of their uniforms. The kitchen was bustling with everyone getting ready for dinner service. I was excited just walking in and observing a real kitchen. I was put to work right away helping make skewers for the next day. I skewered for a looong time. Then I helped bread some salt cod fritters. I breaded for hours since the salt cod kept melting and had to be refrozen and rebreaded. So tedious. I was kind of relieved that I wasn't asked to do anything involving a knife or blade since my nervousness could have definitely caused some accidents. For awhile, I just stood and watched the various stations cook, plate and send out for service. There was minimal talking except for calling out orders. It was like watching a well-oiled machine. I loved it. I was so impressed by the intensity and speed of everyone in the kitchen. There were some stressful moments and I think the Chef yelled at each person at one point or another. It is not the place for the weak hearted.

I watched the pastry station for awhile and they fed me lots of homemade ice cream and gelato. It was interesting to note that the kitchen was all male except for the pastry station, which were all female. Aside from me, there was one other female...an intern (FCI alum, yay!) I ended up staying until the end of service and helped with some of the clean-up. At that point, I was starting to feel dizzy with exhaustion, having been up since 7am and standing since 8:30am.

And no, I did not see Tom Colicchio. I asked someone and they said he is around a decent amount of time, but is rarely actually cooking. I am pooped and still have to prepare for class tomorrow, but tonight was a really educational and fun experience and it was worth every yawn I will have tomorrow.