You may have noticed a large gap recently in the sequence of posts on this site. Life has gotten incredibly busy around these parts, as I decided to enroll in the Culinary Techniques course at the International Culinary Center (formerly known as the French Culinary Institute). It’s a step I’d wanted to take for a while and over which I’d hemmed and hawed a bit, but the timing just fit at this moment to sign up for this intensive series of lessons (five days a week over five weeks) to upgrade my cooking skills.
First injury of the course
On the very first day of class I sliced open my thumb (see above). It produced a nice-sized spurt of blood. The chef instructor had me go over to the wall-mounted first aid kit to put some anti-germ spray and a bandage on it. I also had to wear a stunning royal blue latex cover over my thumb the rest of the day so that food and stuff wouldn’t get into the cut. I’m blaming the over-achieving, type-A environment in which I was raised for this one, as I’d managed to be the first person in the class to cut him/herself on our new knives.
Knife kit – guess which one did the damage
What an ice breaker! During the second week, it’s gone a bit better, although I’m still rather gun-shy about the paring knife that was the culprit for this particular scar. I’d forgotten just how sharp new knives can be, which might say more about the ones I have in my kitchen at the moment and my skills in using them than about the ones in my culinary school work kit. Still, I’m looking forward to learning lots of new things and, hopefully, to getting more ideas for how to pull together delicious dishes and to coming up with great new recipes for this site.
Buon appetito!
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