Of sanitation and introductions.

Maybe I should have taken notes today when everyone introduced himself/herself. Spent half the class today doing that, but it doesn't mean that I'm very good at attaching faces to names. On the other hand, we did learn that several people in the class do not like raw tomatoes. (What's gotten into them??? :-)) And our new thing is that we don't say we hate/dislike certain foods. We merely 'find them challenging'. There was another person who didn't like vinegar and lemon. Oops. Fortunately in my case, the only thing I can really say that I don't care for is coconuts. I wasn't about to say why though.
The cooking world appears to be rather small too. But then again, who would not have heard of a chef who has his own show, right? Anyhow, I've been on the fan site for Alton Brown, and through that I wrote a bit to someone who went to the Blue Ginger, a restaurant run by Ming Tsai, another one of my favourite chefs. Since I have to do an externship to graduate, I'd really love to work there. This afternoon I talked to a graduate of WCI who says BG might be on the list. If that's the case, yay! Will have to check that out. That would be so sweet. Incidentally, a college pal that I talked to last night also dined there. And she got a book with his autograph. Wimper, wimper! Talk about being jealous.
I'll take it as a good thing that the first thing we're covering is sanitation. Mainly talked about the danger zone today. It's funny what that term might mean to different people... (Not funny ha ha, funny odd.) It had not occured to me to think about how some of the stuff culinarians do actually violate the health recommendations for safety. But I don't think I'd want to give up sushi, for example!
I also collected a few phone numbers today so that we could do a study group later on. Went to the library for the first time too, and did my homework there. Bumped into someone there in the pastry program that I'd met while getting uniforms. Got her number too. (Free pastries??? :-))
Oh, and I forgot to mention yesterday that there was an Elisa (sp?) who came to have a birthday dance with Chef Ron. Too bad my birthday won't be in this 6 weeks.