I've been hearing those words a lot from my students -- Especially in our first few weeks of the course as they learn to navigate the kitchen and attempt to use equipment they have never even seen before. But most often, questions arise at the beginning of the process, or when a student is about half way through making a recipe and his or her bowl of ingredients resembles scrambled eggs instead of a smooth creme anglaise. Usually, we can catch the error, come up with a remedy, or... start over. But this instance was different. Lovely Student brought me her final cookie that she was about to present at our "Final Tasting" at the end of class. She handed me her Meyer Lemon Shortbread cookie and with pleading eyes she sincerely asked the fateful question: "Did I do something wrong?" Wanting to inspire confidence and show off my amazing, problem-solving taste buds, I shoved the entire cookie into my mouth before delivering my diagnosis. All at once, my mouth seized up unable to chew the rectangle of cooked dough inside. My teeth felt frozen, my tongue stinging with pain. I ran to the compost bin, tried to spit out what I could, and took 4 glasses of water to wash the remaining cookie down. The mistake was painfully obvious. Lovely Student had replaced all of the sugar in the recipe with... Salt. Take a look at the picture. Could you tell the difference without tasting it?
Friday, May 15, 2009
Did I Do Something Wrong?
I've been hearing those words a lot from my students -- Especially in our first few weeks of the course as they learn to navigate the kitchen and attempt to use equipment they have never even seen before. But most often, questions arise at the beginning of the process, or when a student is about half way through making a recipe and his or her bowl of ingredients resembles scrambled eggs instead of a smooth creme anglaise. Usually, we can catch the error, come up with a remedy, or... start over. But this instance was different. Lovely Student brought me her final cookie that she was about to present at our "Final Tasting" at the end of class. She handed me her Meyer Lemon Shortbread cookie and with pleading eyes she sincerely asked the fateful question: "Did I do something wrong?" Wanting to inspire confidence and show off my amazing, problem-solving taste buds, I shoved the entire cookie into my mouth before delivering my diagnosis. All at once, my mouth seized up unable to chew the rectangle of cooked dough inside. My teeth felt frozen, my tongue stinging with pain. I ran to the compost bin, tried to spit out what I could, and took 4 glasses of water to wash the remaining cookie down. The mistake was painfully obvious. Lovely Student had replaced all of the sugar in the recipe with... Salt. Take a look at the picture. Could you tell the difference without tasting it?
