War Wounds

Chef Shotgun said, "You'll never own your knives until you cut yourself." I thought he was kidding. People cut themselves on the first day we got our knives. Then people managed to cut themselves in the most unusual ways. I kept saying to myself how lucky I was to not have cut my self that bad.

Well, today was our final plate day, and the final day of everything Foundations II. I was stoked. My plate was coming along nicely, I had all my things mise en placed, a good pace to finish and everything was cooking to perfection. Then I got to my garnish while everything was in the oven, and started cruising through them. The first one, perfect! Half way through the second one, I hit a snag on the potato, the potate slipped out of my left hand while my right continued the motion and THUNK. Right into my left index knuckle, straight into the bone.

After wedging the assailant out of my finger, I realized I was bleeding onto almost everything. And then I realized, "Shit, that hurt!" and then I realized, "I just said that out loud". And then noticed, Chef Keep You on Your Toes, standing behind me while my hand dripped blood into the sink. "Sorry," was all I could get out. Her response, "Ok, do you want to try and wrap it real fast and continue, or do you want to go to the hospi-". "Bandage me up I have to finish this!" I bled through two band aids and two finger cots, had no idea where I left off in my groove and was suddenly very confused and lightheaded.

I finished, -3 points on my plate for stupid things that I knew to fix but had by then managed to grab every pan out of the oven with my bare hands and suffered from PTSD whenever I picked up the red potato to try and finish. Hoping to still pull my solid A, so we'll see. The most positive thing out of the day, one serious war wound that is about to be dumped into salt water or diluted hydrogen peroxide and my chef comment for the day, "you have a lot of potential, you just have to keep an eye on the small things".

I am just fine, aside from a momentary freak out where I thought I might need stitches, which I probably still might need, and that I might not finish my final. Final finished, and now it is time to enjoy the wonderful Portland sun that showed itself today! Summer break, here I come!

Tip for the Day: It's the industry, if you can't stand the heat, get outta the kitchen. And if you cry like a baby, just make sure the ones you want scared of you don't see you or read your blog see you do it.