Those Darn French And Their Bâtonnet!

Finally we got to cook something! After a scintillating video on parasites, bacteria and fungi, we finally got to break out our kits and demonstrate our knife skills!

Mine suck.

Seriously, I had no idea it’d be so hard to cut a frickin’ potato! In nice straight lines, we had to make a perfect small dice, then make French fries. For cryin’ out loud, if I can’t even cut a potato straight…!

But mmmm, the French fries were good! I’m glad at least some of the folks in our class were better at it than me. ☺

It’s a pretty fun class, too. On just the second day people are relaxing and getting to know each other, and we’re a pretty friendly group. In all honesty, I’ve had that whole ‘am I gonna fit in’-nervousness thing goin’ on since I signed up, but I can ditch that as this is a real easy group of people to get along with.

But hey, in that French fry frame of mind, I found a list of the best-voted fries in Chicago. It’s from ’07, but a quick search ‘round the ‘net shows most of these places are still in business:

http://chicago.citysearch.com/bestof/winners/2007/french_fries

So there it is. Now I’m hungry.

Peace.

The journey begins...

“The C-Dawg Chronicles.” Cheesy title? To be sure. But I wanted to get this thing goin’ and the only way I could think to start it is with a cheesy nickname given to me when I lived back in Cali.

Yeah, I’m a transplanted Chicagoan back from SoCal in the Windy City, trying to make a new start of things. Man, I shore did mess up the first fifteen-or-so years of my life (at least, the life after high school, which is when I start counting). I’ve made lotsa mistakes and paid for them, so here I am, ready to start all over again and head in a new direction.

Which is Food. I’ve always had the culinary bug ever since I was a kid, but of course never took it seriously. I had much grander dreams (more of that later). But when those didn’t work out I was forced to reboot, to wipe the slate clean (as it were), and to find something that genuinely made me happy that I felt I could make a life out of.

So I enrolled in culinary school at The Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago (a.k.a., CHIC). I have little idea of what awaits, or where I want to go with this thing. But that’s sort of the point. It’s nice for once to take each step one at a time, to savor each moment, with no firm set expectations of what’s to come. As Shunryu Suzuki said, “In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.” That’s why I’m doing this.

So this is the story of my journey. I hope you dig it as much as I do.

Peace out, and namaste.