Friday, February 4th, 2011     12:05p
Wednesday I had to call off work, since the county was under a class 1 emergency, allowing emergency vehicles on the road only, and towing anyone trying otherwise. My father seemed to catch a bit of cabin fever pretty quick. He speant spent most of the day cleaning the house, floor to ceiling. He even tried to wax the kitchen floor, but I shut him down on that with my remedy for cabin fever; baking some English muffins. With this latest batch, I tried something new; I made a makeshift proofer box out of the oven by setting a baker's sheet full of water on the floor of the oven, and setting the temp as low as it would go; in the case of our oven, 170°F. The results were pretty good; they proofed in a matter of about 25-30 mins, instead of an hour or more, and the crust was moist enough that it didn't crack (much) when I seared them. Later that night however, my father got more drunk than he usually does, and found something that he could yell at me about, and throw a temper tantrum over; I left three dishes out that needed to be hand washed. He raved on how I don't contribute to the house in keeping it maintained. He always gives this speech whenever he gets into one of his OCD cleaning fits, that I don't help around the house. This, despite the fact that usually the one cleaning the messes he makes in the kitchen. I won't write on this more, since it's far too petty to give any thought to. Last night at work, being on the deli side, I drummed up some dialoge with Pat. I've not worked with her before, but I know we'll get along just fine. She's another can-do types that can see what all should and needs to be done in our little kitchen. It's good to work with people like that; build motivation and plays a bit of Darwinism into the group. Class this morning started at a fast pace, since I walked into class, and noticed from the other students that there was a test we needed to print out and complete. I scrambled to the computer lab around the corner and finished it, purely by guessing and what little I knew already. In the end, I got a 50% on it. Thanks to the extra credit I got from being sous last week, I'm still sitting on an A. After that, production was rather slow paced. A number of dishes were slow to finish or took very little time to cook. I took one recipe, purely on a single word; "clear" chicken stock. Knowing what I learned last quarter in MG club, I treated the stock with some agar, froze it, and filtered it to remove all of the sediment and fat in the stock. By the time the chef rolled around to critique, my soup got lukewarm rather than hot, but he did like the presentation and the clarity of the soup. During the massive downtime while waiting for my stock to freeze, I bumped into Jessica, one of the baking specialty students I've worked with before. She was in tears from making a mistake in class. I gave her a good little pep talk. Later on in the day, I saw her smiling. So I feel I got a bit of karma going from the encounter. I've got a good deal of time to kill before I have to get to work tonight. Aside from finishing this entry, there's nothing keeping me here at school. Hopefully tonight I'll get off in time, unlike last night. I suppose I forgot to mention that.