Spice and Equipment Test

Ok, so I rocked the spice test. It was 90 different herbs and spices. All laid out on the table and we had to go around and look, smell, or taste all the different spices to identify each one. No choose from a word bank--this was you either know it or you don't. I mean how else are you suppose to cook with it if you don't know the characteristics and what works well together. There was one drawback though. Whoever was studying the spices mixed a few of them up. So, #9 was supposed to be Tumeric, but it was Curry Powder and in Curry Powder's place was Tumeric. SO, instead of counting it as a mistake and accepting it, Chef didn't let us count it. So even though I know the difference between Curry Powder and Tumeric because it was in the wrong order and it wasn't according to the Chef's key it was counted wrong. The same thing happened with 3 other spices. So, I got them wrong even though I knew what they were. Out of 90 I got 4 wrong--not too bad.

I bombed the equipment test. I actually didn't know we were having an equipment test until Thursday night. On the way out, Chef said know your spices and equipment tomorrow! Oh no! I think I reviewed the equipment for about 15 min. I only got half right, but on the other hand. I did know what some of the items were, but because I put scale instead of portion scale, I got it wrong. Apparently I don't know any of my ovens. I guess I'll be studying that over the weekend.

Good news is, we have Martin Luther King Day off and I took a vacation day from work. Three day weekend so good! After sleeping 20 hours this week--sleep so good!!

I did survive week 2 of my crazy schedule. I learned a lot of what to do and not to do after that first week. First, drink less caffeine and more water. Even in the morning when I'm not all awake yet just drink water and then at lunch time drink a coke. I drink water for the rest of the day and my final coke is at our break around 10 pm. Second, Tylenol PM is my best friend. I tend to be an insomniac so that first week I wasn't getting sound sleep. I kept waking up in the night and early morning even though I was only sleeping 5 hours. With the Tylenol I was able to sleep straight through the night. That's all the tips I have. Only 4 more days and my first class is over. Now on to Food Science!