There hasn't been much blogging happening in September. In fact, there's hasn't been any blogging happening in September because the first weeks of culinary school have been, well, uneventful.
Until yesterday.
On the very first day of my Knife Skills and Fabrication class (the one in which I will, in short order, be learning how to properly break down chicken carcasses), my instructor informed us that a sharp knife was a chef's best friend, not necessarily because it makes cutting up fruits and vegetables so much easier, but because when you cut yourself ("not if, when you cut yourself") it makes a clean cut. He promptly demonstrated by cutting himself approximately five minutes later while showing us how to dice an onion.
Chef: 0. Knife: 1.
I remember thinking, "Oh, but I shall be careful! I shall pay close attention to where my fingers are at all times! I shall not bleed on my nice sharp knives!"
Fast forward to yesterday.
I made it through Knife Skills and Fabrication unscathed. We learned how to properly prep bell peppers and broccoli florets. We learned how to chiffonade basil. We learned how to break down a red cabbage. We learned how to flute mushrooms, and we learned how to tournet potatoes (which is apparently a skill that I will never be called upon to repeat in the real world unless I find myself working for Paul Bocuse in Lyon).
My Mise class began innocently enough, with our instructor demonstrating how to clarify butter and how to make roux. We then set to work making espagnole (one of the five Mother Sauces). I volunteered to prep the mirepoix my group needed, dutifully got out a cutting board and my chef's knife, and started dicing carrots. I might have made three cuts before, on the next pass, the blade of my knife went not through the carrots on my cutting board, but through the end of my left thumb.
Chef: 0. Knife: 2.
The sight of blood, even my own, has never bothered me, and this time was no different. I calmly put down my knife, went and sat down like we were told to do when ("not if, when") we cut ourselves, and called over my Mise instructor. I knew the cut was, relatively, not that serious-- there was a lot of blood, but I couldn't see bone or anything. My instructors, however, reacted as though I had cut off my hand. This in turn made me start to feel woozy. As I sat in my hard orange plastic chair, I could feel all the blood draining out of my face and, presumably, out of my thumb onto the side towel on the table in front of me; I was having trouble breathing and getting really hot; and the voices of the approximately 17 people crowded around me began to go fuzzy and sound really far away. Thankfully, my Knife Skills instructor, at the direction of the program director (what can I say, I do love an audience), brought me a glass of sugar water (which is disgusting) and a bowl of chocolate chips (which he later replaced with higher-quality, better-tasting chocolate chips; once a pastry chef, always a pastry chef), the combination of which effectively rescued me from the brink of passing out.
Blood flow at last, for the moment, somewhat stanched, I now faced the decision of whether or not to take myself and what was left of my fingertip to the ER to see if they could stitch or glue it back on. After weighing my options ("do I really have three or four hours to waste today? are the antiseptic and the gauze pads at the hospital really worth the $400 they will charge me?"), I did what any self-respecting, ex-Yeager (read: admitted long-time overachiever), first-year culinary student would have done: I cut my losses (um, literally), gritted my teeth through the hydrogen peroxide bath and first-aid kit bandaging, and got back in the kitchen to learn how to make tomato concasse.
Chef: 1. Knife: 2.
Many thanks to Cindy and Anna, who have since properly cleaned and dressed my wound! Thanks especially to Cindy for the digital block and the non-stick pads. Many thanks also to Casey, who cleaned the blood off my knife.
