School Update

Kelly is kicking butt in school. He's acing all of his quizzes and goes in early to study so he can spend a little more time with Anni and me at night.

How could you stand to be away from this face?

They're kind of like boot camp as far as the dress code. He has to be in full uniform all the time: a toque (the hat), jacket, pants, shoes (polished), apron, side towels, and cravat (a tie thingy), it all has to be perfectly pressed and clean and he has to be clean shaven (except for existing facial hair).

Yesterday we found out that he was awarded a $1500 scholarship for an essay that he wrote about why he was going to culinary school. I'm so proud of him, and all the people in his presentation group are really happy to have him with them now.

Anni wearing Kelly's toque.

After this week he's done with his first class, skills 1 and sanitation. Skills one was mostly knife skills and some product ID. He's gone through about 30 pounds of potatoes at home and in class practicing. The hardest cut is a chateu. It basically looks like a 7 sided football that's 3 inches long. Today, he had to ID 80 herbs and spices for a final. Tomorrow is the knife skills final, he has 2 hours to do 5 chateus, 8 large dice, 12 medium dice, and 12 paysanne of potatoes, 18 julienne and 24 brunoise of carrots, 12 julienne of green pepper, 12 batonnet of celery, half an onion in a perfect medium dice, chiffonade 6 leaves of spinach, and supreme 1 orange. A paysanne is 1/2 by 1/2 by 1/8 inch cube, a brunoise is a very, very fine dice (1/8 inch cube), a batonnet is a perfect 1/4 by 1/4 by 2 inch rectangle, a chiffonade is the finest strip you can cut, and supremes are perfect segments of citrus with no peel or membrane.

Monday he starts Nutrition and Writing/Composition. He won't be using his knives for these ones, so they'll get packed away for 3 weeks.