"Moore" is Better: A Small Tribute

She can be an emotional sap but it's passion that drivers her every thought:  true Otherworldly love for a child, unfathomable loyalty and devotion to family and friends, and ambition to affect excellence where mediocracy (the system ruling mediocrity) exists.

That's Chef Instructor Moore on the left;

Mrs. Gloria Newell, aka Mama Newell, on the right.

I was blessed to witness all manners of passion from the petite red head this past week, from anger over improperly stored produce to dealing with last minute changes.  She handled them all.

She's ever mindful of the quality of the program and the safety and well-being of all her students, not to mention the health of the public.  And! If a student truly desires to know more than offered in the program, she can handle that as well.

One of the happiest days of my culinary education...

I often feel the need to mother her, to nurture the head of the department as one of my own, she's just that endearing, often having to give myself a good mental shaking to keep from putting a ribbon in her hair.  She's strong enough without my encouragement; she does have a mother already, although it doesn't stop the occasional text from being sent.  Sometimes, this gray matter forgets that she's not a peer, that I am not her equal in culinary skills.

She's beating the butter down for puff pastry:  NOT

a skill I'm finding necessary to master, given the availability

of it everywhere, even at the Pig...

Chef Instructor Moore has a tough job, keeping all of us in line while teaching the finer points of culinary arts in the hospitality industry.  It's not a position I'd ever desire but I'm thankful she has it, merely grateful to have her presence in this life.  Sometimes being in the lead position isn't the most popular, but she's leading us forward (sometimes kicking and screaming) to excellence, making the Jones County Junior College Culinary Arts Technology program the place to be in the South for a remarkable education.

And she's also very generous with praise when we've

deserved it!

Her program consistently produces graduates ready for whatever commercial kitchen or front of the house position or, like myself, cakery institution they've a mind to work in, sufficiently schooled by the mind and sometimes emotionally sappy spirit of the petite red head I'm fortunate to call Chef Moore.  Thank you, ma'am, for being here!

Things They Don't Teach In Culinary Arts

I learned so many things the spring semester as a student in the culinary arts department at Jones County Junior College in Ellisville, Mississippi.  I've discovered just this evening, though, that there are a lot of things that weren't learned;  common, every day things that should've been part of some curriculum but weren't.

For instance, one box of pickling cucumbers from Eubanks Produce/Charlie's U Pick will yield 21 pounds of sliced cucumbers (minus the ones held out for eating).

That's enough sliced cucumbers for one making of

14 day sweet pickles and one making of lime sweet pickles.

One very large cabbage yields a little over ten quarts of coarsely chopped cabbage

Ten quarts of cabbage is enough for 2.5 makings of

picalilli, per the Ball Blue Book of Canning.

Five large green tomatoes yield two quarts of diced tomatoes.

A dough scraper is a very handy tool in the kitchen!  

Not only does it make icing on cakes very smooth,

it also doubles as a diced-vegetable picker-upper.

Dicing six quarts of green tomatoes goes a lot quicker if the little rounded bits are diced separately and individually.

 My largest pot is not large enough for 2.5 batches of diced vegetables for picalilli.

A nicely scrubbed ice chest is large enough for 2.5 batches of vegetables for picalilli.

I took the lid off, covered the veggies with plastic wrap, 

and have it in the big cooler on the back porch to be dealt with tomorrow.

And lastly, but certainly not least:  One perfectly ripened cantaloupe can entirely disrupt an afternoon, if consumed over the course of the day

But it was so worth it...

And that's it for the time being.  If anything more is discovered that needs to be covered during kitchen lab for any given course, I'll come back to pass on the education.

Y'all have a good one!

<3 Mary