Breakfast Disasters & Triumphs

Let's start with the disaster(s) of my "get up at 3:30am" breakfast cookery class.
First day of course the one person in the class (and "there's always one") who doesn't wake up by 4am is one of my two group-mates. There is a picture of him here washing pork casings...you can see in the window to the right that it's pitch black outside...perfect time to be stuffing pork casings with lamb sausage. SICK. So anyway, the first day was a minor disaster as we were making biscuits and gravy AND weird polenta with coconut milk and roasted pears. Adrian and my miscommunication led to the gravy never being made until ten minutes before service, which Chef actually started for us and wasn't done until ten minutes into service. I made myself feel better by telling my conscience it was only happening because A. Ryan wasn't there to help and B. it was the first day and we didn't have a day to prepare anything. Never mind our gravy only served ten people and we had to "86" it after ten when we were supposed to be serving 20. Yikes.

Second disaster...day three Ryan, despite showing up, was expediter so was not able to help the last hour of so of production and service because he was getting ready and taking orders from the customers. Adrian and I were making omelets....oh boy. Not only did we have the wrong omelet pans, which Chef told us the day before (I hardly remember) to be sure to grab the larger non-stick pans for omelets, but we also had to be rescued by Chef while our line piled up with orders and hungry people waiting for "three-fold omelets." CRAP. It was so embarrassing. SO embarrassing. I was already flustered and then an angry girl from the class ahead of me, who mind you I'm semi-friends with made me feel like the scum on the inside of the toilet while she waited for her omelet. She wanted her omelet with no mushrooms and my teammate Adrian is very hostile to people making "special orders." Because of this it took him a few times to "remember" to not put mushrooms in. She first gave me death stares as I apologized while handing omelets full of mushrooms to the customers behind her and then blew up at me saying with fire in her eyes accompanied by extreme look of disgust to me and our production saying, "I've been waiting for 15 minutes!" Looking like a deer reacting to headlights I told her sorry and hurried Adrian up. I turned around twenty seconds later to hear her saying, "This is ridiculous and I'm leaving." SO pissed at me! I never knew someone could make me feel so horrible. I know, I know, I need thicker skin but WOW, doesn't she know this is a SCHOOL? I told her sorry again but WANTED to say, "listen up lady, we're 'in the weeds' aight? Lay off...weren't you in this class? Were you perfect? I didn't think so...give me a BREAK." Then I wanted to straight up burst into tears. Pitiful I know but kind of valid. She put me in the worst mood ever and I was nearly depressed for the rest of service. I then ventured to get into a tif with Burroughs about him giving us feedback on our omelets. Yes I was being sensitive but he WAS a jerk. Oh it's kind of funny now thinking back.

Enough of that depressing news. On to the TRIUMPHS.
1. I made a bomb.com roasted-pepper hollandaise sauce one day.
2. I can finally flip an egg without breaking the yolk (it was a big deal alright?)
3. I wanted to make green eggs and ham for our last day banquet and my teammates loved it and we made the coolest dish ever! It's pictured here...I know it looks kind of gross but it was DELICIOUS. We put pesto in the eggs and baked proscuitto to make it crispy...all on top of a tasty potatoe pancake that tasted more like pancake than potato. YUM
4. I did well on my egg practical...one poached, two over-easy, one three-fold omelet and a 4-egg hollandaise sauce all in 15 minutes. Yeah, I was stressed.
5. I'm finally back to normal and not "out to lunch" as I felt every minute of everyday while I was waking up that early. I literally felt mentally challenged.
6. I aced my written exam. One of the questions, What is the white part of an egg called??
answer: the albumen.
7. I'M DONE!!!