G is for Good Grief Girl and Greatness.

Its been a while. I know you're thinking "Good Grief Girl". It's been a while because I have been in school. A school that not only demands greatness, but demands great food and a quality in excellence that can only be described as demanding. In the best way. It is something I have always demanded for myself.

If one is thinking of joining the ranks of my fellow culinary students, you had best be ready for a wake up call. This is no walk in the park. However, for me at least, it has been one of the best experiences of my life. I wake up everyday alive with ideas and raring to go. Get my notes together, throw the most weather appropriate outfit on and head for the train. Upon arrival change as quickly as possible into "the uniform" (which are rather cute) and hurry to my food fate for the day.

   It sounds like a lot of rushing here and there, but the pace is what keeps me going. This lifestyle is not for everyone, which is why culinary school is a career choice, not typical as in college. You can choose if you want to major in pastry, lets say, but you can't choose your schedule. 

I for one, personally recall not taking some classes because they were late at night or really early. So,believe you me, those who haven't gone to college, or for that matter didn't finish, have been struggling with the timetable. Not to say that having gone to college is a measuring stick for everyone who walks in the door, but it is a formidable growth period in which respect is learned as well as organizational skills. 

As for greatness, there are few who achieve it. Artistically speaking you have your Monet, Gauguin, David, Chagall and  then of course Rodin, Picasso, Renoir and DaVinci (tip of the ice burg really). But to achieve greatness in the food world, well, it can be as if one is living up to the ranks of these great artists.I find myself recalling names of chefs like they painted the Mona Lisa. Instead of a brush stroke on a canvas, is a drizzle of some kind of reduction that just ever so delicately beads up on the plate. 

   I may sound silly, but a true chef has to be an artist to some degree. There is balance and harmony in food that is achieved through a very thorough searching of the senses. I am currently reading, among many other things, The Marchesi Co de. Gualtiero Marchesi, the founder of the school I will be attending in Italy, ALMA (and in less than a month!) writes about food the way that I want my inner dialogue to sound. As I am reading it I find myself  agreeing and even wondering if I was channeling him all along. 

For example.  While sitting at the Delancy/Essex JMZ stop over the weekend, sweating profusely, for the first time hating the subway and wishing that humidity was something God left off his list of things to do, I read this passage: 

      "The first duty of a cook is in any case to cook healthy foods, thus satisfying the physical demands of those who eat his food. The purpose of technique in the transformation of a given raw material in the kitchen is to reconcile artistic intention with the maximum digestibility....

       Technique must remain an instrument: when it becomes ostentation, it gets the upper hand and interferes in cuisine...technique must not prevail over art, which is a quest for emotion and beauty."

- Gualtiero Marchesi

 The book is thus far astounding. I devour each word. This man, who I can say in the very near future, I will have some kind of distant connection to, is a genius. I am so proud to have read this book. So, once again, a huge thanks to Chef Haley Stevens. 

 Many tests have come and gone, many a weekend of frolic has flitted away into a distant past. My birthday even went by in the blink of an eye. The city stirs with energy and life everyday, and I'm in it. Corny? Yep. Great. Yep.
But greatness, not quite there yet. Maybe someday.