A Happy Birthday?

I woke up after approximately four hours of sleep to breakfast in bed for my 24th birthday—French toast and fresh fruit. The nephews crawled into my bed and I hurried and downed my food. In a mad rush, I got ready and ironed my uniform. Yolanda prepared a bagged lunch for me and I left not sure that I had packed everything I needed for the day.

At school, it was the first day of producing in the kitchen. I didn’t have a digital scale so I had to use a manual scale to measure out all of my ingredients. This set me back in time and the fact that I had no idea what was going on made me rather stressed. I caught myself wandering the kitchen not remembering what I was needing to grab—possibly due to the lack of sleep. You can imagine how mad I was at myself at this point. All I could think of was the fact that I was so tired, behind, and disabled—literally disabled by a completely sore front side thanks to P90X. Argh. Not only that, I was making quite a mess at my station and I was frantically searching for all of the tools I needed in my huge heavy toolkit. All I wanted was out. Somehow I was able to finish the dough I needed to make and threw it in the fridge prepped for baking with just enough time to clean before class let out. Terrible, terrible day in the kitchen. In my next class when Chef Knight found out it was my birthday she said, “It’s your birthday? And what are you? Like 16?” Ha! I keep forgetting that I look rather young. She was surprised when I said, “24.” Wow, I’m 24!

Saladang Song

 
After making it home, I vented to Yolanda and Hunter now more conscious of my own lack of preparation. They treated me to a Thai restaurant called Saladang Song which is probably one of the best restaurants I have ever been to. Classy! Elegant! Incredible food! Their plating was impecable! Their Green Thai Curry was to die for! In wing-tongue, “Utterly dangus!” After dinner, Hunter drove me around as I bought everything I could think of that would help me be more effective and confident in the kitchen. I bought a digital scale from Sur La Table, extra tools, rulers, writing utensils, and extra towels. I came home to a Cheesecake Factory Godiva chocolate cheesecake with a candle in it. Oh yeah, it was my birthday! Ha. As I forked that perfect dessert down, I went through my toolkit and organized it in a way that would help me be able to find the tools I will need based on their function. I did my reading and then went to bed happily fed and one year older and wiser too.