My 100th Post!

I'm a touch paranoid (again) that my blog has been discovered by the Powers That Be at Cookin’ School. I ran into a guy from admissions who asked me if I was doing any writing, any writing at all, about the food I was making and my experience here as a student. I said no, I was taking a break from journalism (which is true, after all). He raised an eyebrow.

Then yesterday, Darth Chocolate assigned Mandilicious and me a recipe based on my favorite drink, which happens to be made with my favorite rum, Gosling’s Black Seal Black Rum, of which I have sung the praises more than once on this blog.

Mmmm, Gosling’s.

Okay, I admit, very possibly pure coincidence, but I just felt I needed to say that, even if my blog has been discovered, I’m not taking it down like last time. I haven’t used any real names, not even of Cookin’ School, and my experience has been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve told the truth, with only the occasional slight exaggeration (I have no proof, for example, that der Erlkonig possesses superhuman powers). And hey, it’s not my fault Zesty got to her second year without learning how to zest an orange, make a caramel or the difference between French and Italian meringues.

Speaking of Zesty... it is indeed a pleasure to be parted from her as a teammate. Working with Mandilicious is everything I thought it would be: we pay attention, we work hard, we get decent results and we have fun. What more could I want? I’m sure we’ll have a bad day at some point, but so far we’ve been working really well together. It’s like night and day.

And, I know I shouldn’t rejoice at another’s misfortune, but I couldn’t help but smile as Darth Chocolate went after Zesty yesterday, not once but twice in his chilling, imperious way. (Favorite Darthism uttered to Zesty so far: "You should attempt to follow the procedures I explain to you. That’s sort of why you’re here," delivered in a malevolent "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die" tone.) She seems to think she can just smile her way through everything and that screwing up isn’t a big deal because she’s active in student government, but I have faith that Darth Chocolate will whip her into shape the same way he muscled her separated ganache back into usable form this morning.

Until Mandilicious and I land in his crosshairs, I’m really enjoying Darth Chocolate. He is a master of dreadful puns - he called his lecture on ganache "Sweet Emulsion, with apologies to Steven Tyler and Aerosmith" - and he does a pitch-perfect impersonation of der Erlkonig. It turns out he worked under der Erlkonig early in his career.

"He was not as gentle then as he is now," Darth Chocolate noted cryptically.

He has a great sense of humor about himself, too, referring to himself in the third person sometimes as a know-it-all, or mocking his own evil supergenius persona. On Monday, as we were coating truffles, he walked past, looked at my bowl of chocolate and said "nice temper." As he walked away, I murmured to Mandilicious "I don’t know if he was serious." He heard that, of course, and turned to say "I know. It can be hard to tell with me. Sometimes even I don’t know whether I’m serious or not. But that is a nice temper."

He is also an exceptional lecturer. As much as I’ve loved Santa and the Divine Chef M and a few others, they sometimes wandered off on tangents. Darth Chocolate will announce "this morning’s lecture will conclude at 8:13" and damn if he doesn’t perfectly wind down at 8:12:56. He is uber-organized and so precise he makes the other chefs look like slackers.

I imagine he would be a terror to work for, but hey, for three weeks I intend on learning as much as I can from him (already quite a bit... at last my chocolophobia is ebbing).

And trying not to look too gleeful when he tears Zesty a new one.