“Being a chef, cooking, conditions you to the tiny technical satisfactions of properly executing a single plate. Having kind of a private moment with that plate sits there momentarily in the window before it goes out to the dining room to be ruined, where you look at it and you know you did this particular thing well. Learning to like something so temporary, so fleeting…I think that’s been useful in being happy” – Anthony Bourdain

The midterm is week-long process in which half the class cooks and the other half cleans. The ones cooking have 2.5 hours to prepare a super long list of items. I’m still nursing a few wounds, and I don’t know if I can post the details here. But, what I will say is that all the students passed, I got an “A,” and we learned a lot. In lieu of formal class post, here is a list of things I’ve learned or have been strongly reinforced in culinary school so far :

• You need to season at all points in the cooking process, not just the end. A lot of people think this technique will make food too salty. The actual truth is that food absorbs and transforms salt if you add it as you cook. It becomes layers of tastiness. The salt bomb added only at the end of cooking is what typically makes foods taste “salty.”

• Refrigerators are for holding cold food, not for cooling food.

• Mayonnaise at the picnic didn’t make you sick. It was the sliced tomatoes or the unwashed lettuce.

• The odd-looking tall or floppy chef’s hat are for purpose. First, they help with ventilation in a hot kitchen. Second, they keep us humans from contaminating food as we may accidentally touch our hair or wipe our forehead. This item doesn’t prevent it all, of course, but it helps with a lot of the unconscious touching when we get overheated.

• If you are wondering what the magical secret ingredient is, it’s butter. Just a shit ton of butter.

• If you don’t know which knife to use, a good general rule is make sure your knife is longer than the thing you’re trying to cut.

• For the love of everything, let your meat rest. (About 8 minutes per pound)

• For the love of everything, sharpen your knives. 

• If you can learn to butcher a chicken, it is the most cost-effective and delicious way to go. Use the carcass and scraps for the most delicious stock ever.

• The more finely chopped a piece of garlic, the stronger the garlic flavor (so slices are less potent than mince).

• Your home kitchens are more than likely way dirtier than restaurant kitchens.

• Break eggs on a flat surface by tapping lightly, not the curve of a bowl. You risk breaking more shards of the shell on a curve.

• Taste your food. Toss a few spoons near you when you’re cooking. The only way to learn if you are an over-seasoner or an under-seasoner (plus a million other things) is to just taste as you go!

• The people that prepare your food, that stock your food, and that come up with the recipes that you use, work so much harder than you will ever know. I’ve never been more physically, emotionally, and intellectually stretched as I have in culinary school. Treat them well, tip them well, and enjoy the fruits of their labor!