Wordless Week Day 2

I did this once. I miss culinary school.

For obvious reasons I can't show the whole thing...

But, you guys. This is a thing. This happened. Today. It feels nothing like I thought it would. I expected this sense of accomplishment and pride. Really? I am just happy I didn't fall on the stage. 

To next steps, I guess. And to finally figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. Now if I could only figure out how the fuck to grow up, we'd be good.

Thanks for the words of encouragement for the past two years. Thanks for having faith in me when I didn't have it in myself. Just thanks. Love you guys.

Be Right Back? Maybe.

You guys, I graduate in six days. SIX. DAYS. My entire family arrives in four days. FOUR. DAYS.

On the plus side, I have four days off.

On the negative side, I am going to be poor. And my entire family is coming.

I am so excited. And terrified. And excited.

Gah! I may be absent around here for the next week or so. Or I may be blogging the hilarious things my grandmother is saying. It could go either way.

Either way, wish me luck! The end has finally arrived.

Updates

A few random things. Krackle sent me a gchat that just said "update your blog" so I guess that I need to update my blog. You guys are so needy. Jeez.

NCH is doing great, fine, super, still trying to kill me. I accidentally locked him in the guest room yesterday when I went to work, even though I find this to be impossible, somehow I did it. So, when I got home yesterday, he was batting my hand away every time I tried to pet him. He was doing the same to the boy. So, suffice to say, he is back to normal. Pissed and evil. Here is a picture of his belly after the surgery.

It looks like the surgery was done with a chainsaw because he has so much fat on his belly. He kind of has a fat butt on his belly now. It makes me laugh.

Short Dog also got his teeth cleaned and the vet said they were on side by side tables, which for some reason, made me happy. Even though they kind of hate each other. 

I graduate in less than two weeks, which is equal parts exciting and nerve wracking. There are a lot of preparations to do and a part of me is kind of regretting having a party and making a big deal out of it. It is an associates degree in culinary arts, it's not like I am becoming a doctor. And I am almost 30 years old. I feel a bit ridiculous making such a big deal out of it, but it is too late now. So, I guess own it and drink up, right? Plus, my cousin is bringing her twins, so that alone makes it worth it. BABIES!

I will end on a final story, which is quite hilarious. I went to this gay bar on campus with Iceburg Jones. He had been trying to get me to go there for ages and I finally relented. They are in the process of redoing their patio and covered the entire thing in astro turf. Yes, I would think this would be the last decision a bunch of gay men would make, but who am I to judge. Well, the astro turf covered little tiny steps all over the place. I am sure you can see where this is going. So, I take my first beer out to the patio so that Iceburg Jones can smoke and tripped over the tiny one inch step. I rammed my shoulder into a guy's chair, flung beer all over myself, and completely skinned my knee. By the next day, my shoulder was covered in a giant bruise, my knee looked like someone had put a baseball under my skin, and every inch of my body hurt. Oh, and I was the laughing stock of the entire bar.

In case you guys didn't know, awkward is my special talent. 

I Can't Even Believe It!!

I took my last final today. No more school. Forever. I am officially done. And in celebration, I am going to take a nap.

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Cheating

Sometimes I feel like I am leading a double life. Not in a cool action movie kind of way. And there is no "other family" somewhere that misses their mommy. Not that there is a family anywhere that calls me mommy. Right.

I spend so much time with so many people that nobody from my old life knows. Or even knows about. I refrain from telling stories here because what is hilarious to us, will probably be stupid to you. For example, one of the grill guys, who I call boo, spent all of last night trying to gross me out by describing one of our other coworkers covered in mayonnaise. We laughed so hard it hurt. We have created these weird relationships forged during late nights where we are all exhausted and crabby. Relationships that are spent drinking beer and eating greasy bar food while everyone else I love is sleeping. We blow off steam and bitch about work and laugh and then go home to our respective lives that we will never really share with any of those people. There are exceptions, obviously. C, for one. But, for the most part, none of those people will ever know anyone in my personal life.

I think it was different when I worked 9 - 5. There were happy hours that significant others would come to. It was easy to get everyone together, easy to be a part of each other's lives. Often it was a good thing, sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes friendships were forced because of these circumstances. 

There are people at work that I care about. That I call friends. But, when I am out at 1:30 in the morning winding down from the night, I sometimes feel like I am cheating on my old life. Like I am cheating on my friends and family. That I should be home. But home is three animals and a sleeping boy. I can't laugh and blow off steam at home. I've tried. The dogs just give me "that" look and go back to bed. And NCH meows at me and runs off to plan his next assault on the bathroom rugs.

I am hoping when I am done with school I am able to find a better balance, to get some semblance of normal back to my life. To be able to go out and blow off steam without guilt, to see my loved ones more. But, I am really, really scared that I won't. 

Happy, Excited, Happy!

I am freaking out right now. I am not sure why RIGHT NOW is the time this is all hitting, I mean, really hitting. I am two weeks from being done with school. You all know this because I, surprisingly, can't stop talking about it. On Monday I made my first step to becoming a chef. I went to Barnes and Noble and I bought myself a notebook. This notebook is dedicated to writing down my every culinary whim. Ideas of things to try. Notes on really good food I have eaten. A culinary journal, if you will. It is also the beginning of my recipe testing. The boy in his nerdy wonder is going to design me an online database to log all of this. In two weeks I get to start the journey that is becoming a chef. I get to develop my own recipes in my own kitchen. I get to cook my own food with my own twist. I get to cook what I want to cook.

No offense culinary school, but I am mother fucking sick of French food. I want some curry! I want habanero peppers. I want avocado and yucca. If you have never sliced a yucca (or cassava) on a mandolin and deep fried it, you have never lived. And, oh, while you are at it, let me develop a bad ass dipping sauce for that.

I texted Big Jed and said I was food geeking out. More like food fucking flipping out. I love it. I love all the ideas in my head and the excitement I feel to finally have time to explore them.

Food Porn VI

This week was Asia, specifically China and Japan.

 King Pao Chicken.

 Dan Dan Noodles that are the bane of my existence. I made them twice this week and they were subpar both times. New life goal: perfect the Dan Dan Noodle.

 Chinese Barbeque Pork.

 Bring on the Sushi! This is eel, obviously. Or Unagi as all the recipes said. It took me 15 minutes to figure out what the fuck Unagi was

 My first roll of sushi! This is a Dragon Roll. Tempura Shrimp in the middle, Unagi and Avocado on the outside.

 Dragon roll cut with pickled ginger and wasabi balls. I said balls.

 California rolls.

 Vegetable sushi of some kind. I didn't roll this, but my dragon rolls were on the plate, so I took a picture.

 Spicy Tuna rolls. This shit was good. We had some issues with rolling it and making it look good, as you can see. Too much rice, not enough spicy tuna.

 More of the vegetable rolls.

 Oshikashi. It is a wilted spinach salad with soy and mirin dressing. Surprisingly good.

 Seared Salmon with wasabi mayo.

 On the left are california rolls. On the right are a bunch of variety rolls...we just put a bunch of stuff in the them and rolled them. Not sure what some of them are. 

 These are the vegetable rolls done correctly. 

 Green tea rice. Surprisingly good...but the green tea that I used to make it costs $50 a pound. Probably not something I can realistically make at home.

 Up close of the Dragon Roll. You are not supposed to have that spiral affect in good quality sushi, but considering it was my first time, I think I still did a pretty good job.

Salmon Sashimi.

Food Porn V

Last week was riddled with snow storms, so not a whole lot of pics for the week. We were in South America, where the food is spicy as FUCK. But, good. 

 Churrasco served over rice pilaf with salsa.

 Deep fried avocado. The. Best. Thing. Ever. 

 We had a cheese demo and had a shit ton of cheese leftover, so grilled cheese competition! I made a roasted red pepper, basil grilled cheese with cayenne aioli

 This was this weird beef pot roast with capers that was just not good. It was tough and blech. Plus, I plated it on a yellow plate with a mustard cream sauce? Der.

 My practical. Marinated grilled flank steak with jalapeno rice and thai chile salsa.

 Another angle.

Also my practical. Mushroom ceviche. 

Food Porn IV

More food porn! This week was Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. I only have pictures from the day we did Mexico, the Caribbean and my practical today because apparently this week's theme was forget to take pictures. Yay for themes! 

 Mexican Rice. Weird, weird Mexican rice. The recipe had you cook down a bunch of stuff and puree it, then add it to the rice. Everyone else loved it, I thought it was a little mushy.

 Chicken Enchiladas. I mean, you can't go wrong here. Yummers. AND I finally found an enchilada sauce I like that doesn't taste like cumin with a hint of tomato. I dislike cumin.

 Prawn curry. Have you noticed I make a lot of curry? Can't wait until we get to India. I will probably die like that dude in the beginning of Seven. I feel like death by curry is totally the way to go.

 Our practical was different this week because we had a different chef. We were required to do an amuse bouche, a deconstructed entree, and an appetizer. This was my amuse bouche, it was grilled chicken on a chip with salsa, sour cream, and piquillo peppers.

 Another angle.

 Deconstructed chicken enchiladas served over cilantro lime rice.

 Another angle.

Grilled shrimp (I didn't soak my skewers long enough. Sad face.) with roasted tomatillo salsa.

In case any of you forgot, I hate people.

(Picture explanation to follow. Stupid phone. )

Sooooo...my car got broken into Sunday night. They stole my knives. And some text books. And possibly some empty mountain dew cans. But, mostly, it was my knives. I cried like a blubbering idiot. You know who is not sympathetic to lost knives? Drag queens. I was at drag bingo. I mean, of course I was. Then I woke up Monday with either food poisoning or death. Either way, I was ready to end it all.

So I get to class today and this stupid bitch face has left me a passive aggressive note about how our class doesn't alphabetize the spices. So, I did this. Don't fuck with me, bitches. I always win passive aggressive.

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Food Porn II

This week was Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, and Portugual. I was sick for Monday and Tuesday, so it will be a short week of pictures. But, a yummy week!

(Spain) Leche Frita. A dessert made of a cinnamon orange dough that is breaded and deep fried. Delicious.

 (Ireland) Colcannon. If you have never had colcannon, run to your nearest Irish/Scottish restaurant and order it now. Right. Now. Mashed potatoes, braised cabbage, bacon, scallions, and onions all mixed together with a pool of melted butter in the middle. Seriously, you guys. Do it. Now.

 (Spain) Chicken with Almond Sauce. I do not know the Spanish name off the top of my head, so deal. This was delicious. I saw a video the next day that showed traditional plating of this dish and this is not it. The sauce should be thinner (I would ALWAYS serve it this thick...so yummy) and the hard boiled egg, almonds, and parsley should make a sort of cross atop the dish. This picture makes the dish look like dog poop, but it was so good. I served it over rice.

 (Spain) Piquillo Pepper Dip. I made this to serve with a classmates deep fried egg plant. The dip was delicious, simple, and unexpected. 

(Ireland) We are into Friday, the day of my plated practical. This is my soup, Cheddar Beer Soup. I used Guinness as the beer, which was a mistake. It made it this poop brown color and it tasted like, well, Guinness. Not my crowning moment. But, the plating isn't awful. If it weren't for the color...

 (Great Britain) Chicken Curry. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that makes me happier than a perfect curry. And this was it. I don't toot my own horn often, but this shit was bad ass. It is garnished with toasted coconut, roasted peanuts, and mango chutney. It was the perfect mix of spicy and sweet, just the way a curry should be. 

(Great Britain) This was my side, a minted pea puree. It was really good...for peas. Not my favorite vegetable. 

I also realized that I need to figure out a different angle for all my pictures. Yeesh. Just because it is a cell phone doesn't mean it has to make the food look like this...Believe it or not, some of these plates look beautiful. I think I need to make photography a bigger priority rather than quickly snapping pictures and then digging in!

Food Porn

I am going to try to start taking pictures of my food since I am now in international kitchen and no longer making boring French food all the time. 

This week was Germany and Italy. I also made Porkolt, which I forgot to take a picture of because there was a potato dumpling crisis that required my attention. Each day we do a buffet for the school and then on Friday is a plated practical. 

 This is a curried butternut squash and apple soup. We had to choose one day to do a vegetarian dish of any region, so naturally I chose something with curry. Shocker.

 Gnocchi di Semonlina. Yummers. Basically it is semolina flour patties coated in herb butter and parmesan cheese and  baked until slightly golden.

 I forget the exact name of this, but it is ham and cheese stuffed pockets. This was day 1 of making these and they were awful. Stay tuned.

 Green Eggs and Ham! Except we were out of green asparagus, so it is White Eggs and Ham! Still beautiful. When you cut into the deep fried soft boiled eggs, the yolk oozes out. And the sauce is gorgonzola cream. Probably the best thing I have ever made in my life.

 Round 2 - switched to bread flour to make the dough more tender, added a little sage to the filling, and let the dough rest longer. Delicious.

Weiner Schnitzel with a mustard cream sauce. Braised brussell sprouts with bacon. Potato pancakes with homemade apple sauce. I don't really like the plating on this. I should have plated it differently, but I was in a hurry because I completely over did it and made too much. I also made a potato leek soup. We only had an hour and a half. Sometimes I am a crazy person. But, I got the best grade in the class. 

To sell out or not to sell out, that is the question.

I am torn. Stuck. I am facing a point in my culinary education where I need to make a decision on where to do my externship. Most of the managers at my current job have asked me to stay on and do it there, with hints of a partnership promise in the future. This means money. Stability. Being with a company that is doing some innovative things and plans on doing nothing but growing over the next 10 years. 

On the other side it means not cooking much food. At least not the kind of cooking I want to do. I want to create dinner specials and make sauces and be a chef. Not a restaurant manager. 

I am so torn because one route means security with a company that I respect and like and the other means a lot of job hopping and not a lot of money for a long, long time.

I was stuck at the bank forever because I couldn't find another job where I made that kind of money. This has the opportunity to blow that money out of the water. Ugh. 

I hate these decisions. I have a long time to live my dream, right? I can put in my dues and save up money to open my own restaurant, right? Or take a huge pay cut and go back to being a chef. 

Am I selling out? I mean, it's not like this is a bad place to work. Look how pretty. 

Fuck. Please tell me I am not selling out... 

Balance

I am struggling to find balance. To balance what I want and being somebody that other people can have in their lives. Work and school are what they are. I can't change my hours, or the fact that I am at school 30 hours a week and work 40 hours a week. I can't change the fact that those two things are really the only things in my existence right now. They are all consuming.

The boy needs me to try to conform to a schedule where we are awake at the same times. We are home a lot, but one of the two of us is sleeping. I want to wind down with a few beers when I get home. I want to have time to decompress. I don't want to go to bed when I get home.

My friends need me to be available during normal hours, not at midnight. They need me to be able to meet them for cocktails and to catch up during times when it is convenient for them. I want to call them at midnight when I get off work and catch up. I don't want to call them when I am driving from one to the other or on break at school. I want to use those times to decompress. To have some me time before I am thrust into situations where I am required to communicate.

As a blogger, I want to tell you all the stories, but this industry is so fucking terminology centric. Like, I had a funny story the other day about mire poix and I started blogging it, but after I spent a paragraph explaining what mire poix is, the story just didn't seem funny anymore. You all need me to be relate-able, to be someone who tells funny stories about work. Someone who can talk about my life and share with all of you.

I don't know what to do to change this. I don't know how to be this person anymore, but I really really want to be someone who can still have my old life and my new one. I want the best of both worlds.

It's a balance I haven't figured out and I apologize. To all of you, to my friends whether Internet or not. I am trying. I am not giving up this blog, I don't care if I do a terminology list on the side so you all know what I am talking about and can laugh along with me. I will figure this out.

However, something really cool is happening. Tomorrow night my class is preparing the meal for the American Culinary Foundation meeting here in town. I am really excited and completely plan on a post tomorrow full of pictures.

For the record, mire poix is the combination of onions, carrots, and celery (2:1:1) that is the basis for most sauces and stocks in French cooking. The whole point of the story was knowing that you need to cut your mire poix based on the cooking time - small for short, big for long - so you don't end up with mush. In hindsight, the story may not have been that funny. I laughed my fucking ass off, but it may have been a "you had to be there" kind of moment. I really just miss blogging.

Broom Shoes

I have 1, 250 unread emails. My car looks like a homeless person is living in the backseat. Fuck, a homeless person could actually be living back there and I am not sure I would know. But, if there is a homeless person back there, I would appreciate if they would stop stealing my sharpies. I need them for work. My backseat homeless person is a dick.

I am watching my blog readership dwindle. Helplessly watching. I want to blog. I love this space, this little piece of me. I love all of you. I want to provide you guys with funny anecdotes of my culinary life.

Like this conversation with time change guy.

TCG: You know what the best idea ever is?

Erratic: I feel like this is a conversation I am going to regret, but what?

TCG: Broom shoes.

Erratic: And, here comes the regret.

TCG: No, seriously. So many people would buy broom shoes. Like moms.

Erratic: Why would moms buy broom shoes?

TCG: For their kids.

Erratic: The regret is actually becoming painful.

TCG: TONS of people would buy them.

Erratic: Like who? Other than the obvious answer of moms.

TCG: People who like brooms. AND PEOPLE WHO LIKE BROOM SHOES.

Erratic: So, your demographic for broom shoes are people who like brooms and broom shoes?

TCG: Don't forget moms.

Erratic: Ah, yes. Moms.

TCG: It's genius.

Erratic: Do you realize that drugs have made you this stupid?

TCG: You're just jealous of my broom shoes.

I love all of you that have hung in there. I promise to start blogging more. I promise to not be that person who promises to start blogging more and then stops blogging. I have SO MUCH I want to say. I will find the time to say it.

Sometimes, it really is my fucking nightmare.

Our class is divided up into groups every week and each group is given a time to present their entrée. The groups are then divided into cleaning assignments. This is often the most frustrating part of my day because only about half the class actually cleans.

Today, being exhausted, I cleaned out the refrigerators and dry storage for our group, while they assisted with dishes and stoves. As I was doing this, I found myself getting lost in my thoughts and looking around the room. One of the non-cleaners was staring at our assignment list for the day for at least five minutes and I found myself wondering what was going through her head. Does she choose to be lazy? Was she thinking people were fooled by her attempt to look busy while doing absolutely nothing? Did she consciously make a decision to walk over there in lieu of cleaning? Or is her head just full of crickets chirping and bad grammar?

My eyes wandered to another girl, furiously doing dishes. I knew she didn't want to be here, that she wanted to get out of class so she could go home and smoke pot with her roommate. I again found myself wondering what she was thinking and what made her so different from the non-cleaner.

I then watched another girl, a girl I know to be crippled by insecurity, hide at the end of the dish tank like she does everyday, putting away dishes, careful not to draw attention to herself. She never does anything hard or tries to better herself in anyway. I wonder too if she consciously chooses the easy thing to do because she knows she can do it or if she is just too lazy or scared of embarrassing herself to do something else?

I find myself wondering often if other people's inner monologues are similar to my own. The first day of kitchen when we had to clean, I went straight for something I knew how to do. I was terrified of the dish machine, not knowing how it operated. My inner monologue was along the lines of, "not today. Try it another day. Not today." And I did. I watched people to figure it out and then asked when I was more comfortable.

I always think my mind is way different than everyone else's mind. That my thoughts are crazier, critical, darker. When I watch people, I like to imagine what they are thinking. To imagine that they are as crazy as I am.

Today as I watched that first girl, reading the list far longer than necessary I imagined she was thinking that if she squinted her eyes while reading it, people would think that she is concentrating. That she didn't want to do anything, but was sick of people saying that, so she was going to try really hard today to do absolutely nothing without getting yelled at. Step 1: awkwardly stare at list.

The girl furiously doing dishes wanted to go home, but she also wanted the girl she had a crush on to see how hard she worked. That she could do more than fuck around, that she was mature enough. She stole glances, hoping she was watching, but she never was.

The insecure girl, well, I imagined her head full of crickets and Justin Bieber songs.

The whole time I am watching them, Avenge Sevenfold's "Nightmare" was in my head.

"You should have known

the price of evil.

And it hurts to know you belong here.

It's your fucking nightmare."

All of this unconscious, just cleaning along, oblivious to the crazy in my head. Until it all dawned on me and I laughed out loud.

Way to go, subconscious me, way to go.

Tired. Happy. Tired.

The new restaurant opened on Tuesday. It is Thursday. I realize all of you know this, but I am trying to figure out how it has only been three days. It seems like a month.

I closed Tuesday night and didn't get home until 1 2:45 pm. I leave for school at 9:00 am, to give you some perspective. I get out of school at 3:30 pm. My shift starts at 4:00 pm. I will give you a moment to contemplate that.

This isn't going to be easy. Tonight I did not close and got home about 11:15 pm. Here's the thing. I found home. I mean, not necessarily this restaurant. Just, this world. This industry. This life. My last job, I came home in tears. This job? I walk in the door with a smile on my face and a shit ton of energy. I'm happy. I'm tired. I am finding myself short with people, especially at school. But, I'm happy.

I never thought I would find this. I felt a little bit of it when I started culinary school, being surrounded by people with similar goals. I feel it every time I get to sit and talk to a chef, any chef. I really feel it now. Does this happen to other people? Do they just wake up one day and realize they fit in? That they are where they belong?

Because that is exactly how I feel. And it feels pretty damn good.

I am about to talk a lot about freezers.

Sometimes I just believe things because they make sense and I am too lazy to look them up. Like, that this song is about Kurt Cobain. However, upon googling for the sake of not sounding like a total ass clown in this post, I have learned that it is not. It is about Budd Dwyer. See, people, this right here is why you should just not believe things because you are too fucking lazy to verify the facts.

I am getting off subject here. This weekend was very eventful. I got fired from a job and got hired at a new job. A lot of the things that went on surrounding this were about me just believing people because, well, why would they lie to me? I was wrong. Very very wrong.

I have written about my current former job and it was hell. It was dirty and unorganized and poorly run and hell on earth. I believed the people around me when they said, this is the kind of job you will get. This is what you are stuck with, this is the way people are treated. I believed the people I worked with when they told me that it gets better, that it wasn't that bad, that I should hang in there.

FUCK. ALL. THOSE. PEOPLE. OK, except like three of them who I really liked.

Friday evening I went and interviewed at an organic, sustainable restaurant about a mile from school. It was clean. The people were friendly. They wanted to make sure that I was a good fit for their company and that their company was a good fit for me. When asked why I was leaving my current job, I explained the situation without talking too much shit. By the end of it, I was practically begging them to get me out of that hell hole.

I came in Saturday morning for a second interview. Then an impromptu third interview. They hired me on the spot. I attended orientation on Sunday and start training this Saturday.

The restaurant opens the end of July.

Can I just say that this is my dream job? They talk about buying locally and have organic cotton chef coats and THEIR FREEZER IS ONLY USED FOR FRUIT FOR SMOOTHIES. Can I repeat this? I am not sure you heard the pure and utter glee in my voice. THEY DON'T FREEZE ANY OF THEIR FOOD. It is fresh. It is local. It is helping the planet. I am helping the planet just by working there. Seriously, I just. I can't put into words what this means.

Saturday on the way there, I was a wreck. I felt like I was going to throw up. I was so excited that this could happen, when he offered me the job, it took everything in my power to not kiss him on the mouth and do a victory lap around the restaurant. At the orientation, they emphasized the good energy they want in the place. That it is important for their employees to be happy. That they want people to want to come to work. And, seriously, I believed them. Not in the "I really hope they are telling the truth" way. In the way that they really hope they can foster this kind of work environment.

DID I MENTION THEY HAVE AN ENTIRE GIANT WALK IN FREEZER THAT ONLY HAS FRUIT?

And their refrigerated walk in, just, balls. It is huge. And they have it setup to grind all their meat in the walk-in so as to not run the risk of it entering the temperature danger zone and possibly harboring bacteria. Am I getting too dorky here? I may be.

When I put in my notice at my previous job, they pretty much told me to go fuck myself, which was fine by me. I felt the same way about them.

So, I am going to just believe again, believe that this is really, truly the start to my career. The start to the path I want to head down. Because, dear readers, if I ever open a restaurant of my own, it is going to look pretty damn close to where I am about to go work. And that just makes me want to cry I am so excited.

Did I also mention that they mop everyday? Because the last place only mopped once a week. ONCE A WEEK. AND THEY FROZE SHIT.

Wheeeee!!!! I am so excited!

Could you kill a lobster with a knife?

I am an omnivore, through and through. I love meat, I love fish, I love vegetables, I love fruit. You get the point. I love food. In my meat and poultry class, I had no issue fabricating large cuts of meat into single servings. None. I didn't think about the animal, I only thought about the delicious, delicious meat in my belly.

Today I filleted my first fish and it was nothing like that. It is hard not to think about it being a living thing when it's dead eye is staring at you while you cut perfect fillets from it's carcass. When I picked it up in my hand, it felt different than picking up a cut of meat. It had scales and a fin and eyes and little fish lips. And my heart sort of cringed. Then I got out my knife and made that first cut, and a very small part of me died. I don't know how to explain that part of me, maybe people feel this way the first time they hunt. Or even fish. I have never taken any thing's life that was not insect. The one time I had mice, I refused to kill them. Refused.

I try very hard to eat meat from food sources that are humane. I cannot stomach eating veal that is not free-range. The first time I heard how veal were raised was the closest I have ever come to being a vegetarian.

At some point in the next few weeks I am going to be required to kill a lobster with a knife. Through the brain. Just hold and stab. The chef instructor all but said you were weak if you couldn't do this. I just don't think I can. I am not weak. I just value life and I can't see killing something with my bare hands.

I have done research, I have watched videos on people killing animals on farms. I am aware of how it works and what goes into it and that it can be humane and it can be cruel. I do not think there is anything wrong with the circle of life. There are people out there who can kill an animal, fabricate it, and eat it. I am just not that person. I am perfectly OK with this.

I mean, people, I read this yesterday and sobbed like a little girl. I don't even know these people or their dog.

So, tomorrow I fillet another sole. I hope it is easier, that the fish eye staring back at me doesn't make me feel the way it did today. And I seriously, seriously hope that I come down with the flu on lobster day.