Crazy things I did in Culinary School

[Nicko]

In reading Palmiers post about culinary school and showing up his instructor with his julienne cuts in the Opinions about culinary instructors I started thinking about similar stories that happened to me in school.

One time in skills kitchen I totally pulled one over on the instructor. Everyone in class was required to display their work in class, and then the instructor would have one student pick the best. One day we were doing different sized cuts and we were working on medium diced potatoes. We always worked in pairs and my partner and I decided that we could get our work done faster if one person did all of the knife skills prep for both while the other did the mise en place for the meal we had to prepare each day. I was doing the knife skills prep this particular day and cut medium diced potatoes for both of us.

When we went to display them the instructor asked me "Nicko, which is the best, and you can't pick your own". Of course I picked my partners and the chef examined them and "yes I believe you are right, these are the best.
We got a good laugh out of that one.

Anyone else have funny culinary school stories?

When I was in culinary school, I had one class where the instructor was absolutly horrid. He was never prepared and we were learning absolutly NOTHING! Four of us in the class went to the director and alerted him to the situation. He listen to us, but did not hear us. He advised us that we should work harder and the problem was ours! I was so upset, other classes were learning so much more!
We had a paper due on Escoffier and we were all less than thrilled to complete the assignment because we knew he did not read them, he would just slap a grade on the front as he had done with our previous papers with no reason what so ever!!
I decided I would write an entire paper on our class experience and how unprofessional our instructor was. I handed it in, hoping it would not be read. It worked out, he just slapped a "B+, nice work" on the cover which had the title of the actual assignment. As soon as I got it back I took it to the director... it was so obvious that he didn't read it! The director could no longer ignore us, we got a new instructor!

[ February 28, 2001: Message edited by: OneSockChef ]

[Nicko]

Now that is a hilarious story. What a chump, good for you. Way to stand up for yourself.

[coolJ]

When I was in my second year of my apprenticeship the instructor had a problem with inapropriate use of terms,anyway one day we were making desserts, and two guys working together made baked alaska, and apparently your supposed to have a fruit salad base then the ice cream then the meringue when you make baked alaska, well these guys forgot the fruit salad, so the instructor is tasting it, he takes a big spoonful, says 'where's the fruit salad ?' puts the ice cream in his mouth and this guy says it's "a la mode", of course the instructor couldn't help but burst out laughing.(mouth full of ice cream and all)

[SpicedUp]

hahaha nice one OneSockChef!

Btw Nicko- totally can relate to that, in a different sense(hard to explain!) because me and my stove buddy were always helping each other...*coughcough*even during finals!

Fun, unforgetable experiences ;D