Day 4: The Real Intro to a Chef's Knife

Day 4 and we are chopping away! The Chef instructor gave us a set of vegetables to chop and dice up, helping us practice our knife skills from the get go. Overly eager about my new onion cutting skills, I dug a little too hard into the onion and ended up cutting myself. While this did not hurt right away, as soon as the chef instructed me to sit down and apply pressure, the throbbing kicked in. Two chef instructors examined my cut and decided it was not deep enough for stitches, but it was indeed deep and ugly. It was bound to happen eventually, so I am glad I got the true introduction to knife skills over with quickly.

I was once told that there is no crying in the kitchen so I tried to keep my cool (only 1 or 2 rollers once I looked down and got a good glimpse of what the knife did to me). I was bandaged up, cleaned my board and knife, and got back to work. Although I initially powered through I decided to take a quick break. I went to the ladies room where I had a good cry. After all, no one said there is no crying in the bathroom. I felt better so I returned to my station and cubed up the potatoes! Somehow this helped me cut better cubes! We then learned how to dice garlic. My obvious question to the chef was: "why do people think they will smell like garlic after they eat it"? Her response was that many foods have this effect. Many times vegetarians can smell when someone ate meat! I found this very interesting, especially since I am so hypersensitive to smell.  She also told us that rubbing your hands on stainless steel can remove the smell of garlic from your hands, so happy to finally know the trick! At this point I was doing all that I could to keep from thinking about the pain in my hand, so chop chop I continued.

Following knife skills we had a cheese tasting lesson, something that can make any cut feel better. We learned how cheese is made, and the difference between cheese types such as fresh cheeses, washed-rind cheeses, and hard/grating cheese. We were offered a taste of each cheese to distinguish the different flavors and textures. Pecorino Romano and Manchego cheese were my two favorites. Most interesting to me was the fact that many cheeses use mold to age the cheese or flavor it. Although it is fine to eat this mold, this is still a concept I find entirely intriguing and even a little odd.

We finished up class with herb ID. Rosemary is one of my favorite herbs but today I realized that Chives will become a close contender in future cooking: it looks like grass and is oniony tasting. This is an herb I have always seen in foods, but have never personally cooked with. I am going to test out my knowledge of herbs tonight on some chicken that is waiting for me in the fridge.