Culinary School

I am in my third week of culinary school and can scarcely wipe the smile off my face. It's awesome. I am taking three classes: Intro to Hospitality (how to run a restaurant), Sanitation and Safety (how to not make someone sick or kill them with your food) and Intro to Cooking (how do use a knife, convert recipes and cook).

I wish I would have done this years ago. I am a duck to water.

Top ten things I have learned in culinary school:

1. How to hold and handle a knife.

2. Cover the pan when you are boiling water and it traps the heat energy in the pan and boils the water faster.

3. Beef stock is made by boiling beefs bones for 8 hours with mirepoix.

4. Mirepoix is celery, carrots and onions cut in a large dice and added to most soup and stew recipes.

5. There are about 35 food borne diseases that can kill you or make you really sick. Use Clorox Clean-up to wipe down your kitchen. Seriously. Go wipe down your kitchen right now to kill all those germs. Throw away your kitchen sponge.

6. The internal food temp of 165 (for about 15 seconds) kills bacteria in your food. Especially eggs.

7. If a cow uses the muscle to walk or move, it will be tough and you have to cook it on low heat (225 degrees) for a long time with a little water and covered to make it edible. You only grill steaks that have enough fat in them to keep the meat juicy and tender.

8. If you get sick at a restaurant, it usually is because a restaurant worker DID NOT wash their hands after going to the restroom and got feces in your food. Ugh!

9. Eating raw oysters is a bad idea. The diseases you get from doing that are really bad and can cause you to forget your name (seriously) and go into a coma.

10. Chef's aren't necessarily good cooks (although it really helps if they are)...they run a team of people that are good cooks and have a kitchen staff that work their butts off to make great food and they depend on incredible waiters to make the customers feel great. But the back bone of the entire restaurant rests on the shoulders of the pot washer and the ones that do the dishes. Without them, nothing could get done.

11. Most likely, you can't go to the store and buy the steaks they serve at Three Forks, Ruth's Chris, or Bob's Steak and Chophouse. Those are Prime and cost a lot of money. Buy Top Choice (if you can find it) and only cook your steak to medium (never well done). Salt meat at the end of cooking or it will draw out all the moisture in the meat and make it dry.

Bon Appetite! More tips later.

Missionary's Kid

I grew up an MK. Actually the moniker would be VDMK (Vocational Domestic Missionary's Kid). When I was six, my parents lived in Northwest Tennessee, a hotbed of conservative religion, when they heard about a place in Western Colorado that had no church of Christ in the entire county. Actually, there had been one there in the 40's and 50's but had closed its door for about 10 years. So, within two months of finding that out, we moved to Delta County.

My mom and dad made a five year commitment to the Paonia church. They worked hard in the tiny town and brought many people to Christ by meeting people's needs for friendship, partnership, and compassion. My dad ran orchards, raised cows, worked in the coal mine, farmed and bartered to be able to stay there (they are still there). It took at least 20 years for my parents to accepted in the community, to stop being outsiders.

But what happens when you stop being a missionary but you are still where God sent you? How long does one have to be someplace before you can be called a towny, where you actually become part of the community?

PKs and MKs and EKs don't have it easy. They grow with their parents given to loving God first and doing his will first. I wasn't neglected as a kid, I just knew I was second behind God. I knew that being involved in God's work was a higher calling, a more important calling. I was not the center of my parent's world, my family were more like planets revolving around God's will. We all did it together.

Are you a MK, PK or EK? What was your experience?

Going Back to School

Today, I enrolled in culinary school at El Centro College in Downtown Dallas. I am taking Basics of Cooking, Sanitation and Safety, and Introduction to Hospitality Services. I am really excited about taking this step although I am not looking forward to driving to Downtown Dallas for two years. Although with tuition comes a DART rail pass so I won't have to look for a parking space in the center of downtown.

I forgot about the joys of standing in line, and sitting around waiting for academic advisers to put me in classes...but it was very easy. I was the oldest person in the room, even the registrar and all the advisers were younger than me. Oh well. I look forward to being able to learn more about being a chef and operating a restaurant or food establishment. Along with books, I have to get a chef's hat and coat and all the knives and utensils for the kitchen.

So...is there anything you have been putting off than you need to get on with? You ever wish you could be or do something but never got around to it? Carpe diem! Take the first step. Stop wishing and dreaming about it and take your first step. If I can do it, so can you.

Peace.

Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

Have you noticed that authority reacts to whining?

As a parent of three boys, I tend to let them have freedom until they start a ruckus then I intervene. When they start arguing or hitting each other past a certain point, I step in and try to de-escalate the situation. Most of the time, I have to initially get louder and stronger in order for there to be some peace.

Churches do the same thing. Churches chug along at a complacent clip until people start grumbling or arguing. Then the authorities of the church step in to mediate and moderate the problem until there is peace or someone leaves.

Governments do the same thing. Citizens go along with status quo until someone gets their panties in a wad and then government steps in, makes a law that gets everyone back into the status quo. The biggest complainers cause the most laws to be passed, which in turn, causes a new norm to be established that everyone has to live by.

Equilibrium is the balance we have in any social system that are seen as normal. It is not always good (like when injustice or discrimination are the norm) nor is it always bad (driving on the correct side of the road is an agreed upon norm). Every social system from families to the global community has equilibrium. Some society's equilibrium is constant war, injustice and oppression (like most Muslim countries) while others are based on individual freedom and justice (like what our constitution espouses).

So why do whiners and complainers always get their way while the rest of us suffer? Until we take matters into our own hands (learn how to solve problems ourselves) we will have to turn to whatever authority is out there to solve problems for us.

Midstream Career Change

I am thinking seriously about going to culinary school in Dallas. I love to cook...actually, I have a passion for cooking. Cooking a meal taps into my creative side (sometimes a little too creative) and, most of the time, people really like what I cook.

My Grandmother Helen started a home cookin' (no "g"..."g's were too refined) restaurant after she retired in Palmersville, Tennessee. She used every country fried, gravy covered, sugar glazed recipe in her arsenal and she could pack the place at night. I think I got her cookin' DNA.

But what I want to know is God is calling me to be a chef? Can I serve Him well cooking food and serving others? I am praying about it.

Life Like Gardening

I like well tended gardens. I like gardens where there are no weeds and all the flowers bloom. I like gardens that have flowers blooming, birds singing, and neat rows of flowers and plants. I love gardens like that....but mine is nothing like that.

My garden looks like a Mega-Gardening Center threw up. I have plants everywhere and thanks to a "plant-buying" addiction, I have plants in pots that need to be planted. I have difficulty curbing this addiction. For example, I went to Lowes and they had Wax Myrtles on sale for 4 dollars....4 dollars! So I bought one. It now sits with two upright yews and a couple of fringe flowers waiting to be planted. Keep me away from Nicholson and Hardie, Calloways and Jacksons (three places I score my addiction) until I plant what I have.

Plants need to come with warning labels. My root beer plant that I bought two years ago has now taken over half my back yard and is now trying to take over two other flower beds. The warning label should have read, "Plant in a pot only. This plant will utterly take over your back yard." Same should go for Monkey grass (which should be renamed "ground cover from hell") and Asiatic Jasmine (I hope the person who planted this at my house years ago suffers from a really bad case of hemorrhoids). Why can't petunias or Japanese maples take over? That, I would enjoy.

Weeding is a whole 'nother issue? I have a bind weed problem. My vegetable garden (which has only produced 7 tomatoes in the past ten years) seems to attract bind weeds. If I don't pull weeds at least every other day, I would not be able to find my tomato plants. I wonder what would happen if there was a smack down between bind weed and root beer plant. Now that would be a pay-per-view event.

But life is like gardening. We all have weeds. We all have something in our lives that "goes rogue" and tries to take over. And we all have beautiful spots in our lives that bloom and bring joy despite the best attempts of the weeds to ruin it. God gives us all a gift that, when planted, watered and cultivated brings joy to his heart and ministers to those around us. Yeah, we have weeds but the beauty of what God has planted surpasses the chaos in our lives. Have a great weekend.

Who is Spiritual Among You?

Here are my observations about the characteristics of the most spiritual people I know:

Spiritual people many times look like their lives are a train wreck. People who have disasters, tragedy, and/or hardship in their lives and turn to the presence of God for life and sanity have a different understanding of God than others who have a great life. Some spiritual people have dealt with depression or anxiety while others are transformed through incarceration or addiction. But they all know Jesus is real and that the power of God is good.

Spiritual people don't argue religious dogma nor do they cling to a traditional view of God.

Spiritual people have a constant eye out for other spiritual souls and are attracted to those who gently and humbly carry the transforming message of hope in Jesus Christ that they daily live in.

Spiritual people don't always talk about everything they know or have experienced without being asked.

Spiritual people usually don't ask the question of "why me?" but have just accepted that sometimes good people hurt and the reason may be God's alone. They are thankful for today and today alone.

Spiritual people hunger for the word of God in Scripture and in the "still quiet voice."

Spiritual people show up to pray for and encourage others who are going through difficulty and have the faith to really pray for healing and deliverance.

Spiritual people find true praise and worship as pleasing as spending time with their closest friend because it is.

Spiritual people aren't all up tight about everyone believing as they do.

Spiritual people find beauty in the quiet moments with God.

Spiritual people belong to a fellowship of believers.

Spiritual people love Jesus with all their heart and aren't afraid of raising their hands or being demonstrative during praise and worship.

Spiritual people give freely to those in need and shows hospitality.

Spiritual people are spiritual because of their daily walk. They are not born into it but rather are borne into it in the arms of Jesus.


When you think of spiritual people, what characteristics do you think of?