Cookin No. 37 - Holidays

I forgot that when your in school, you get a nice fat long break for the holidays. Three weeks, oh yes, I have three weeks to sit around and be lazy. So last week, I slept a lot, and this week is looking a lot like last week. Of course I get to hang out with some friends, which was really nice, not feeling rushed and tired all the time.

But let me rewind, to two weeks ago, right before I went on my sabbatical. The last week of Skill development was a lot of fun, Wednesday and Thursday we took a trip to Air Products, a pharmaceutical distribution company, to work in their cafeteria, which is run by Sadexo. Sadexo is probably one of the largest corporate dining companies in the US, if you got to college, your cafeteria is probably run by them. Working in their kitchen was an experience, and I really don’t think that corporate cooking is for me. There are too many rules and regulations. Its like you have to fill out an SAP just to cut an onion. But regardless I did enjoy myself. The first day I worked the station that cooks to order. Basically people came up to me and told me what they wanted off the menu and I cooked it up for them. Doug worked the station with me, and the choices of food were seafood paella and flank steak stir-fry. I got to show off a bit, and flip things around in the pan. It was kind of like what I do for Wegmans, so it was easy for me to fall into that talkative and friendly role. The next day we went to a different building on their huge estate, and cooked in that cafeteria, this time I was on salad bar detail, which was extraordinarily boring. The one great thing that came out of this experience was that I realized that I don’t miss the corporate world at all. I got to see all these people leave their cubical, and water coolers to eat lunch. Finding their peers and talking about meetings and reports and deadlines… all the stuff that seemed so unimportant to me. It always felt like I was just trying to find common ground with the people that I saw everyday, don’t get me wrong, I did make a lot of good friendships, but the only thing that you really have in common is meetings, reports and deadlines.

Office worker #1: “Good morning, how was your weekend?”

Office worker #2: “Oh great! I went to this goth club and danced my heart out with this cute guy who is a vampire. Oh and I got the best pair of pants, black leather with chains hanging off them… way cool. How was yours?”

Office worker #1: (silence) “ooookay… um I have to go answer my phone”

Alright, I don’t really frequent goth clubs anymore… but you get the point.

So work… a bit dull, I made so many fruit baskets for the holiday madness that if I see another orange, I’m going to do something severe. Today I got to cook for the first time in two weeks, I was nice to be back in style.

Christmas dinner was good too, my father got his hands on a nice pork loin, and stuffed it with figs and nuts, then roasted it. I made potato latkes, for Kim, in honor of Chanukah, and we also had roasted fennel. For dessert we went to my cousins house and I made cream puffs… I burnt that pastry cream, but other than that they were edible.

ok i'm going to be honest here... i don't forsee myself making another post until next year.

So until then, enjoy the rest of your year and Bon Appetite