My Apologies to Dr. Johnson

This past week I got off the couch and went back to school. High school that is; I went to speak to the culinary classes at Liberty North High School. The teacher, Ms. Fowler, was the "home economics" teacher back in my day and recently made the switch to strictly culinary teacher. As a bored senior in high school, who already knew what they were going to do after graduating, I didn't see any purpose in my classes. So I invented one: pastry show pieces. I proposed that the school just let me spend my last semester making big sugar, chocolate, and cake show pieces like the ones featured on the Food Network Challenges. I had watched Jaques Torres' show on the Food Network for many years so I was cocky and sure of my abilities, when in reality I had little idea what was going on...

Never the less, I made showpieces; they were displayed in the library and front office. I made a jungle themed chocolate piece, a sunken treasure scene with coral and fish  out of cookies and quick breads, and an outer space piece featuring extra large suckers, pulled and blown sugar and hard candies. I was proud of them and I should have been, considering that the only training I had had was watching TV. However, Ms. Fowler recently told me that she found her pictures of my pieces and I groaned with embarrassment. (Nothing is as humbling as getting reminded of a first attempt and where you came from.)  

 When Ms. Fowler asked me to come talk to her classes and give a demo, she told me that they are currently talking about grains, seeds and root vegetables. So the perfect subject for me to talk about was flour. I put together a 10 slide slideshow describing the components of wheat, gluten and its development, and the different types of flour. I was very excited to talk about flour and I naively assumed the students would be as well. They weren't. I was not sure they paid attention, I wasn't sure they were awake, I wasn't even sure there were souls in those bodies...

 

I did manage to catch a few twinkling eyes when I started demonstrating the cake. I thought it would be fun to show them a Valentine's cake with lots of garnishes. I made Red Velvet Roulades with Cream Cheese Mousse, Rosewater Macarons, Modeling Chocolate Roses and Chocolate Plaques.



One students was very concerned that I kissed each chocolate plaque. It is red cocoa butter that I stamped on with a rubber stamp from Micheal's.



When I had spoken to half of the classes, I thought about how I could be more exciting so that the students might appear to care and my mind drifted back two months, when I was a student at the Culinary Institute of America. When I bothered to show up to my 8 AM Ethics and Leadership class at all, I sat in my chair with droopy eye lids, counting the seconds to the end of class. My apologies to Dr. Johnson who showed up every morning with a cheerful smile. He had a "can do" attitude and never seemed phased by his sleepy, lack luster audience. Now that I was in his shoes, pangs of guilt filled me for all the times I didn't care, didn't raise my hand, and didn't bother to show up. Dr. Johnson is a great professor, I was just too sleepy and too close to graduating to see it. 

In a moment of clarity, I realized that the student's blank faces weren't personal, it was the morning and it was school. The students wouldn't have been more interested if I had run into the room on fire, naked, juggling fresh fish. So I pushed through the lectures, trying to be interesting. When I had finished all of the classes, Ms. Fowler praised my speaking ability and said that I should consider teaching. High praise from a professional, however I'm not likely to take up a class soon.  To be a successful teacher, you need more than knowledge, you need the ability to draw energy from yourself at 8 AM. I had fun talking to the culinary classes, but more than two days in a row and I probably would have rather slapped a student with the fish for attention than juggle it. I'll leave the teaching to the professionals.