And now I own a meat grinder.

Culinary school is just like any other school; it's expensive. And in addition to tuition, we have to buy a knife kit, text books and uniforms.We don't have campus housing, so we all commute from somewhere. And if we have full time jobs, they have to be a little less full time so that we can go to school, so we are making less money.
But going in, we knew the deal. School was going to be a ton of work and it was going to cost a lot of money and it would often be a burden on our families, spouses and friendships.
Here's what they don't tell you. You will need an extra bucket of money for all the stuff you will want (you know, need) to buy because you used it in class. I'm referring to all of those gadgets that you have seen or read about but never knew how to use properly. Or the spoons/knives/zesters/spatulas/pans or ingredients you've never had but now cannot live without.
I'm telling you, there should be a separate section in our student handbook about this titled, "Stuff you'll want after taking these courses."
For example: We made gnocchi in class one day, a simple pasta made with leftover cooked potatoes. To get the potatoes nice and smooth, we used a potato ricer.
I now own a potato ricer.
During a class on pork, I made sausage. The next day, I bought the meat grinding attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer and ordered the sausage stuffer online.
After one of our chefs spoke lovingly about how wonderful freshly nutmeg is as opposed to the bottled kind, a few of us went on a culinary road trip to a spice store to buy our own.
There are other things, but I'm resisting (ice cream maker, gnocchi board, brioche pan).
I'm not alone. We are all doing a lot of kitchen store shopping. And we encourage each other "Go ahead, buy it! You'll use it all the time!"
And we have a list of culinary destinations: Armenian bakeries, restaurant supply stores, a huge produce market in Watertown.
I could go on. I could feel guilty. Or I could just look at it as part of the package. You know, the part they don't tell you about.
Did I mention the school sweatshirts?

I brought my mom to class today

I had such a good day today. I woke up at 5 a.m., drove to school and arrived in time to walk down to the coffee shop with a classmate and grab a coffee. Cafe Zing in Porter Square in Cambridge sells great coffee, coffee drinks and tea. I'm very fond of cold-brewed iced coffee and they make it there ... and it's lovely.
On the way back to school, we found a dozen red roses in a box on the street, clearly abandoned, and grabbed one to bring to our chef instructor.
Once in class, we made bread: cheddar cheese bread, challah, bagels, cinnamon swirl bread, white pullman, baguettes, herbed-olive rolls and a beer bread. We also made a butternut squash soup and zucchini-spinach salad, so that we had something to eat today besides bread. 
After class, a few of us went to visit Penzey's Spice Shop in Arlington, recommended by one of our chef instructors. We bought nutmeg, Vietnamese cinnamon, cardamom pods, vanilla beans and flavored salts.
On the way back to Cambridge we decided to stop for milkshakes and do some studying together. My new friends are bright and talented. We are from all walks of life. On paper, we don't have much in common. In the kitchen, we have everyone in common. We cheer each other on, we help each other out and we laugh a lot.
Today, I felt so much joy being in the kitchen. It wasn't all about my classmates or the sunshine outside. It wasn't just about the cute little baby who went by in a stroller and waved to me. And it wasn't just about the lovely loaves of bread we produced.
Today, I felt my mom's presence so strongly. My mother taught me to make bread. Her recipe made nine loaves, and that's what we made. It was a basic white bread recipe. We would take some bread to the neighbors, make one pan of dinner rolls, freeze some and eat the rest. I remember the big yellow bowl we used to let the bread rise. It had pink and blue rings around the outside. I remember the various pans we used to bake the bread. She would teach me how to shape the loaves, how to tuck them into the pans. I remember the smell of the kitchen, the warmth, the quiet.
But what came to me so magically today was the simple, sweet meditation of kneading the dough. I could hear her talking to me, showing me how to push the dough away with the heels of my hands, how to fold it over, how to sprinkle a little more flour on it, turn it and push it away again.
Many of the students today knew how to knead bread dough. It's not hard to learn, but it takes practice. It's not just about learning how to knead, but also about how to read the dough.
There were about 10 minutes today when I was kneading my dough and I just felt everything else fall away. It felt as if I was back in that little kitchen on Martin Street with my mom making bread, with the big yellow bowl and the sweet smell of the yeast filling the air.
When my mother taught me how to make bread she couldn't possibly have known what a loving, wonderful, magical gift it was. I know I didn't.

Soup class was hard

We likely all had the same thought heading into our class on soups and stocks last week, "How hard can this be?" After all, who can't make soup?
But there is making soup and making really good soup. And because I'm in culinary school, it's not just really good soup, it's nicely presented really good soup, layered with flavor, perfectly seasoned and plated with panache.
At 9:30 that night, I got a text from a classmate "Why am I so tired? Soup class was hard."
It all started out innocently enough. We were all present and accounted for when our chef instructor Erin came in and said the folks in the kitchen downstairs needed help with prepping stock. Since our class dovetailed nicely with that mission, we got down to business.
We rolled up our sleeves and cleaned chicken backs for about an hour. We chopped the vegetables to go in the stock (mirepoix - a combination of carrots, onions and celery) and threw in herbs. A few folks in class also roasted bones for veal stock and chopped up mirepoix for that.

My cream of mushroom soup, garnished with croutons,
crispy shallots and chopped sun dried tomatoes.

Then, class began.
Lecture was about the various kinds of soups, how they are made, what differentiates one from another. We then went over the recipes we'd be making and got to work.
The process isn't just getting together the ingredients and starting to cook. We all must mis-en-place before we do anything; we "put things in place." We grab a sheet pan. We get small bowls. We grab our knives and any other utensils we need. When the food is brought up from the downstairs kitchen, we measure and chop and pour and weigh our ingredients. It all has to be in place and checked by our chef or chef assistant before we proceed. And it isn't as simple as putting a potato on the tray. If the potato needs to be chopped, we have to chop it. If a carrot needs to be julienned, it must be presented that way ... down to a pinch of salt in a bowl.
So, you can imagine how long that part of the process takes when it comes to soup.
But also, we are learning the correct way to make soup, how to add layers of flavor and to season it correctly. We all had to bring our soup to our chef unseasoned with a bowl of lemon juice, one of butter, and some salt and pepper. We then tasted the soup and decided together how best to season it to bring out the flavor.
It's not exactly the way I cook at home. It actually doesn't resemble how I cook at home at all. Then again, my cream of mushroom soup was excellent. I used three kinds of mushrooms, shallots, sun dried tomatoes, cognac, fresh herbs, chicken stock and a little potato.
Other classmates made shrimp bisque, chicken chowder, borscht and an Italian soup, pomadoro, made with bread.
We all sat down and ate soup. Then we finished the dishes, cleaned the counters, swept and mopped the floors. We trudged out together and headed for home.
Soup class was hard.