If I Ever Leave This World Alive

So I suddenly remembered in the past three weeks I actually haven't talked about my classes all that much.

For Meat ID and Fabrication my Chef was Chef Schneller.
He was an awkward kind of funny.
He grew up around and was exposed to meat because his father was a butcher.
He wrote both our Meat and Poultry books.
He knew a lot about meat and sometimes he would talk so quickly and throw so much information at us it was hard to process it all.
Well it was hard for me at least.
I'm not really a fan of fabricating meat.
The blood and all that jazz wigs me out.
But don't get me wrong, I enjoy a cheeseburger just as much as anyone.
The whole process though, I could happily do without.
Don't tell me about the labor, just show me the baby.

Chef Johnson was my Fish ID and Fabrication teacher.
He seemed to really know what he was talking about when it came to fish.
But the thing is whenever he would talk, he had no problem with making sure everyone heard him.
In other words, Chef Johnson was an extremely loud talker.
But such a nice guy, so it made up for it.
The sad thing is, he wasn't able to teach us the whole seven days.
Our last two days he had to substitute for Chef Elisa, I believe it was, down in the meat room, because he was one of the only chefs that were certified to also teach meat.
So as a substitute in our class we had Chef Viverito.
Very intelligent, very blunt, very intimidating.
Pescetarian.
Funny as hell and has self describe himself as "eccentric".
I find smartassed, cocky, sarcastic people funny.
But that's just me.
I genuinely like Chef Johnson, but I think I would have really enjoyed Chef Viverito's class a lot.
Even though I was really intimidated by him, he seemed to genuinely enjoy teaching.

I found fish class a bit easier then meat class.
Not enjoyable,
Just easier.
Probably because I was just more comfortable in my abilities in cutting.
Speaking of cutting, the other day I got a 50 out of 50 for my Up and Over fillet cut.
Up and Over cuts are used for hard boned, round fish.
Hard boned fish are primarily bass, snapper, grouper, cod, and flat fish.
Hard bones are good for stock.
An Up and Over cut is a cut, which can be pretty challenging depending on the fish, is when you are basically cutting up and over the spine and rib cage.
I'm a pro at it.
It came very simple to me.
We even had to do it for the practical for the final, problem was that we had haddock as our fish.
Haddock is a cod.
Cod is very flaky and fragile and will fall apart because it likes to stress people like me out.
I did it and got a 56 out of 60, but still.
Would it kill them to give be a bass to cut?
I would have been happy with a snapper and the threat of possibly getting stuck with one of their poisonous needles in their fins then cut another haddock.
It stressed me out that bad.
Hopefully I did well on the final as a whole.
I would hate to fail that class.
The overwhelming sent of fish is enough to keep me away forever.

Knife Casualties: 4