Externship

Externship is one of the most important parts of your time spent at the CIA. There are so many opportunities out there just waiting for you. Pretty much anywhere in the world you want to go you can. Well as long as you can speak the language.
Where on earth (literally) do you go? There are so many things to take into consideration. I think I know where I want to go. Either I want to be at Trotter's or at The French Laundry (cliche, I know). I am pretty sure if I were to go to either of those places I would spent most of my time doing low end commis work, but I do not care.
What I care more about than the hands-on experience is the philosophies. I believe that all the little things that I would be around to see would get stuck in the back of my head as a haunting of sorts to influence every dish I put out for the rest of my life. That is a better foundation for greatness than knowing how to replicate a dish.
My real issue with not surprise is money. Neither of these restaurants offer housing or pay for internships. Then again, why should they. You should be happy to work there for free. Still, I am broke as hell. We are not actually considered registered students while on extern so loans are out of the question. My family is anything but rich, so that is also out of the question. What is a guy to do? I am not sure, but I do know that money sure as hell is not going to stand in my way from such a great oppurtunity. They only thing that might would be not being accepted as an intern.






Broke Student Donations Welcome

Here fishy fishy

Fish is over! I thought that I would be happy about this, but I am not. Class had a very rough start. Not just for me; for everyone in the class.

Clark was out of control the first couple of days. Well, maybe not out of control, but you get the point. I was scared to even pick up my knife when he was nearby. It was as though he expected perfect execution from us our first time doing a task.

The start was also hard since we were directed to take notes during demonstration. Trying to watch what Chef Clark was doing, listen to what he was saying, take notes of what he was doing and saying and then do what he just did was no easy task. I ended up with poor notes, little learned and no idea what the hell I was doing when it was my turn. By class three I had decided that I would only take notes during lecture.

Seven days after class started Clark had become nice, he had become funny (still blunt though) and he became very helpful. You began to want to cut things while he was around just so he would stop and let you know how to do it a better way. The fact that I was paying better attention and not taking notes made it so that I knew everything that was going on by day seven. It just got so much better.

Now fish is over and I am going back to that production kitchen on Monday, during my free time to help cut some more fish. Seven days ago that would not have been the case. I will admit that I am not going to miss my clothes stinking of fish, but I will miss that class even though it had some “tough love.”

Broke Student Donations Welcome