Partings
August 23 1998		A trip to the train station and a short goodbye
The task of the day: Resting in Peace		Got up this morning and headed towards home. Stopped at the Dunkin' Donuts first, which had a very minor selection of donut types. This Just Seems Wrong to me. Carol was in agreement with me. We decided to go for some kind of law about it. Hung out at home for a bit, and we talked to Marla about her first day working in a New York Hot Spot. She ran pastry and part of the salad station. She also did all of the plating for the deserts that night. And she's going back next week, so it looks like it's a real job. Pretty cool. Carol and I went to the Vanderbuilt Mansion today and walked around the gardens. It was a bit humid, but not overly hot. Came home and rested for about twenty minutes, but then it was time to go. Drove her down to the train station, and put her on board headed for Grand Central Station. Sigh. I miss her much more now than before she came. I guess that's understandable. * * * Today is laundry day again, and then I go to pick up my notes for the week and find out times, places, and chef. Rumor is that this week we'll have Chef Smyth again, which will be very cool. The Japanese are also going to be in this class again, which is Hot and Cold Buffet. I'm going to try to make sure I have either only one, or none of them. As I said, they are nice enough people and they really do try hard. However I'm not really here to teach other people how to cook. Of course, Chef Smyth will probably be able to teach them a bit better than Chef Yellsalot. Marla is at home making bagels (I think), and my stomach is growling just thinking about it. * * * Drove up to Reinbeck tonight for a quiet read and a pizza. The weather here has turned humid again, but of late the evenings have been pretty cool. Nice to get out of the house and just sit and think. I also went and picked up the materials for my course this week. It is PM with Smyth, so I'm looking forward to it. It also looks like it's going to be pretty intense in terms of workload and the productions. If I'm with a good group, this could really turn into an excellent week. * * * Today was also the last day of the Certified Master Chef test. This is a ten day long test with no breaks, covering a wide variety of cooking styles. The test started with five chefs, and by the third day, only three were left. The judges require basically no mistakes. The window outside of the kitchen for the test had a dozen students and instructors watching the various goings on. It was very interesting to see Chef Instructors humbled by watching these other chefs.
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