a message from the salad department

🥗🥬

My culinary lab is well in the swing of our student led projects. Each group gets the chance to lead class and dictate what’s on the menu based on the produce and products rolling in each morning. It allows us to stretch our creative muscles and start sharpening our leadership skills. When we last spoke, I was still mastering knife cuts and stock production, but now my class feels more like a restaurant kitchen — a very chill one.

I was on salad duty twice this week which makes a whole lot of sense. I was a vegetarian in high school and college, so vegetables have a special place in my heart. They were quite literally the bread and butter of the foundation of my passion for cooking. But they also remind me of a dark time, when they were all I ever allowed myself to eat. And this guilts me every time I take a bite off my fork and a salad brings me to nirvana.

Most people aren’t excited to build a salad, often dressing the greens at the last possible minute (which, yes, you are supposed to do but it’s because we got carried away with the other tasks on our docket). Over the past week I’ve found that the humble salad is what pushes me. Making a good salad is tough, and making a salad look great is an even more daunting task. But I’ve found great peace in plating a crisp plate of greens among a busy classroom kitchen. It reminds me of who I once was and asks me to show that girl just how far I’ve come. Ask me now and I’ll tell you that the salad is not a means to belittle oneself. Let me show you what I mean.

Chef had us clean the fridge out on Tuesday; my group got two heads of romaine, grape tomatoes, and red onions. Bacon runs rampant in our classroom, so it only made sense to make a wedge salad. I whipped up a blue cheese dressing using buttermilk blue cheese and gorgonzola, and to give the romaine some structure on the plate, I halved it and seared it in a hot pan.

On Thursday, my group was assigned salad again. While my teammates were occupied with bolognese and buffalo wings, I got lost in the salad station. Is it giving the Lost Kitchen? Because that’s what I was going for. Enter more blue cheese.

We went to the career fair after class on Thursday, and I left in disbelief that all these opportunities are open to me. I’ve had many pinch-me moments since starting school — sometimes I can’t believe I’m really here, doing this thing for myself. It is so much fun, but the career fair cautiously snapped me back to reality. And luckily I’m very inspired by the types of jobs I’ll be able to work all because of this education I’m getting. Honestly, I didn’t feel that way when I graduated the first time, so I feel much more secure in my decision to go down this path now than I did when I started out on it back in April when I quit working.

Two-ish semesters remain for me at Johnson & Wales (all thanks to entering with a bachelors), and I’m asking myself to yet again consider what I want to do with my life. I love the idea of cooking at a place that is reliant on its surrounding environment — like a farm — or of its community — like a place integral to a destination. Wherever I end up, I’m lucky to say that it will definitely involve cooking. <3