First Cut

I've spent the past two mornings cutting pounds of carrots--now we're doing fine julienne (1/16 by 1/16 by 2 inches) as well as julienne (1/8 by 1/8 by 2) and batonnet (1/4 by 1/4 by 2)--without a single minor injury. Others in my class have already broken out the first aid kit for band-aids and the blue "finger cots" that are required to cover them--they're also referred to as "finger condoms", so you can get an idea of what they look like.

Then I made turkey chili for dinner at home with my friend Andrea. Excited to break out my new knives, I began chopping an onion (the only chopping at all necessary for this recipe, by the way) with my favorite knife in my suitcase of tools, the Japanese Santoku. It's a little smaller and lighter than the traditional chef's knife. Sure enough, I'm slicing and dicing the onion and feel a little nick on the tip of my middle finger, and then I'm bleeding on the cutting board. Ahh, overconfidence! I guess I wasn't focused on keeping my fingertips back as instructed by my teachers and by Dan, my first knife skills instructor. Fortunately, it was just a tiny cut and after a quick band-aid application I got back to the chili, which turned out delicious.

Today in class the chefs demoed a classic breakfast dish: eggs Benedict. They chose this because it involved a lot of smaller lessons: how to make hollandaise, poach eggs, blanch and shock asparagus. After they demonstrated and produced two perfect plates, we went up in groups to poach eggs ourselves. I was wrong about not cooking at all in this class--exciting! After poaching our eggs and giving some already-blanched asparagus a quick saute, we were allowed to assemble our own Benedicts to eat. Too bad hollandaise is one of the only foods I really, truly can't stand (it's in that mayo family). Remembering what Chef M. told us the other day--that of course there are a few foods he hates, but he still knows how they should and should not taste--I tasted their example of a good hollandaise and could appreciate its perfect texture and flavor. But one bite was enough.

After that, it was back to the cutting boards and huge bins of carrots. After my home onion injury, I'll be sure to keep my fingertips back tomorrow...