Cutting Potatoes, Part Deux

Chef looked at my board and was very quiet as he lifted pieces of potato, examined them, turned them and rolled them in his hand. "The batonnets are getting better. Work on the smaller cuts." As he he walked away, I heard him say, "We'll get there." I wanted to shout in reply, "I'll make it, Chef!" But I only dropped my head and gave him a demure "merci, Chef."

I live with the hope.

I had stolen into the Foundations 1 lab two hours before class and had hoisted a few potatoes from the walk-in. Alone in my endeavors, I had cut and cut and cut shapes, without anyone looking, but progress just wouldn't come. Then later in class, Chef unexpectedly told us we'd have a little drill today - several cuts in various sizes, a specific number of product for each cut - and only two potatoes. Mon dieu, I would need to think about waste and save scraps.

I could feel everyone's tension and tried to breathe as I whittled away, and then Chef did something interesting. He turned on music. That seemed to drop a few shoulders down below the ears. I managed to finish on time, and then we gathered near the stove to see Chef finish a chicken fricassee in white sauce.

Can I describe the moment at the stove? I was admiring the white sauce as he stirred it in the pan, smelling the aroma and listening to the music. In a flash, I realized the symphonic addition was from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," the moment when Richard Dreyfus walks into the alien ship, in a total state of awe. I heard those five "tones" they played to talk with the aliens, bum bee bum, ba buuummmm. And then I was weeping.

I quietly pulled out my Grandmother Daisy's dusty rose handkerchief I carry for moments like this and dabbed away. You see, I've never felt this emotional connection - sort of a powerful intersecting moment when smell and sound and sight all blend harmoniously - in a workplace cubicle before. And in that moment when tears came, I was grateful, so grateful.

Grateful to be standing at the intersection.