Pleased to "Meat" You, Part V

   
       Today isn't the best of days for me in class or for this blog. For starters my phone didn't save any of the pictures or the 30 second clip I took capturing the vacuum sealing process in action so I hope the picture above holds you over for a while. I also had an EPIC 4th of July fireworks video on my phone from my summer excursion with the home posse to my friend Jaime's lake house (aka Jon the RA's girlfriend). The video captured fireworks exploding directly over head while my friend's and I went bonkers, which I was going to infuse into my 100th post but somehow it got deleted as well...
    Class was so-so for me today as well. We started Veal and after a demo everyone in the class grabbed a chunk of meat to fabricate before demonstrating individually how to slice cutlets in front of our chef. I brought up my fabricated veal sub-primal and chef said it was "beautiful". That would, however, drastically change when he watched me slice cutlets...
    Chef Elia slices the first piece on a bias (at an angle) to get you started and then he watches you slice a few cutlets for a grade. I begin with the first cutlet (a tad too thick), chef looks at me and goes, "what am I supposed to do with this?" Clearly hinting that my cutlet was improper size. I slice another cutlet off and he likes it, so he has me keep going. Ok, I got this now, I thought. I slice another one off and completely botch it. "This is fucking horrible" Elia roars, and tells me I'm done and need work. That's it. I got less than 2 minutes to demonstrate that I know how to slice a proper cutlet (I mean this should be a cake walk for me...I KNOW HOW TO MAKE CUTLETS DAMN IT!) but I got a "this is FUCKING HORRIBLE" instead. I go back to my table a bit defeated, shake it off and clean up.

"WHAT DID YOU DO!?!?"

     You only get a few chances one-on-one with the chef to standout from everyone else and I missed the dunk...stuffed by the rim. What can ya do? It's not the end of the world, but messing up like that erks me. Others are fine with messing up, and go back to joking around, but for me I want to be perfect. When the starter goes down and you get called from the bench, you only get one chance to show what you can do if you want the job. You have to be great (just ask Tom Brady or Jeremy Lin). I'm not worried though, I'll pick it up, it was just a minor speed bump in the road...I'm a HAHM, all we do is win!

Its all about the comeback, baby!