catching you up...

i know, i haven't updated in a while, and so much has happened. too much to cover in one post, so real quick I'll just first explain that today was my last day at my International, the last day of the term where all we do is clean the lab (or kitchen as normal people might call it) and get our final grades and such. so yes, this was finals week, but you missed a hell of a week last week so I'll fill you in about that week now.
Our lovely chef had a family reunion and was out for all of last week. We knew this when we first started the class but didn't think much of it. We've had substitutes before and they've been nice enough. Hmm, maybe we got spoiled. The sub was the chef that teaches our class but on a different schedule (as you may remember i do the "c" schedule which runs from 6pm to 11pm, she teaches from 12pm-5pm). A friend of mine in class (yes, believe it or not even after the whole class finding out about my blog, some people apparently still think i am cool enough to talk to) told me her boyfriend had that particular teacher and that she was scary. how bad could it be???
I guess bad, real bad. On the surface, she was quite friendly. But she ran the class in such a way that EVERYONE was getting upset and angry. and angry and negative atmosphere is terrible for an effective. She was super strict, which i suppose is good, but I've had strict chefs before and there was this unfriendly aura about the way she followed "the rules". She spent a lot of class time lecturing about the recipes which really didn't need it so we got out very late. She would not let us really venture out of the recipe. Our regular chef told us before, i don't care how you make it, but make it taste good. This is our last formal class in the program so we're fairly advanced, this should be our time to glance at recipes to get an idea, and sort of build our dishes on our own. Everyone, and i do mean EVERY student in the class was very unhappy with this teacher. the class seemed like work or a boot camp and the joy of cooking that we had before was gone. As a result, people started to get snappy, no one was relaxed and everyone could have used some Prozac (me included). I didn't actually go on the last day she was teaching (last Thursday) which is rare because I've never missed a day of class throughout the whole program. Apparently, people got so on edge that there was a actually a physical fight between the students! i wasn't there thank god, bu i know enough simply from this blog not to get into peoples business so i am forever going to stay on the sidelines when it comes to personalities clashing.
The animosity aside, the theme of the week was south America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. this is my dish from our south American day, its a achiote marinated pork chop (which the chef referred to as so overcooked that it was "dead")with grilled cactus (not so bad tasting, and apparently very rich in vitamins!), and rice. the one good thing she said about my dish was that the rice was nice. And i suppose that was good enough for me. If you may remember, rice was the first dishes we learned way back in our Intro I class and people forget how to do it right. And its fundamental, i think every eatery serves rice of some sort. anyhow, more about finals week in my next post. thanks guys, for those still reading this!