Hello friends, and welcome back to my blog! This week, I have some exciting news for you. I am doing something I have never done before on my blog.
I am doing a series!
This series is called “Confessions of a Culinary School Graduate,” and it will be an eight-week series. This week is week one, and I thought, what better way to start than by talking about something culinary school tried to teach me…but I still can’t seem to get right.
Eggs.
Eggs Are Easy…Right?
Eggs. A protein that most people make without even thinking about it. A food that plenty of people can practically make in their sleep. Depending on what kind of egg I’m making, that includes me.
Before I went to culinary school, I knew how to cook an egg. I could make the perfect egg. The only catch was that I only made the kinds of eggs I liked: scrambled and over-hard.
But deep down, I knew that if I really wanted to make a different kind of egg, I could do it with no problem. I was so sure of myself and my egg-cooking abilities that I knew I could cook any kind of egg.
After all, they were just eggs. How hard could they be?
The Great Egg Disaster
When egg day came around in culinary school, I was confident in myself. I was ready. I knew I was going to ace that day.
I grabbed my frying pan, a few eggs, and a spatula. When I got to my station, my chef told us that we weren’t going to be using spatulas. We were going to be flipping the eggs without them.
The moment I heard that, my confidence shattered into a million tiny pieces. I had never flipped an egg without a spatula before. It was then that I realized…
I was toast.
But that didn’t stop me. I knew I had to do the assignment because if I didn’t, what would I learn? Nothing. So, I got to work. I grabbed an egg, cracked it into the pan, and let it cook and sizzle for a minute or two. When it came time to flip it, I wasn’t ready. I took a deep breath, tilted the pan down, flicked my wrist upward and…
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing happened. The egg didn’t move.
So, I tried again. I tilted the pan down and flicked my wrist a little harder this time.
The egg went into the air.
For that split second, I was so happy! I had done it! But when I went to catch it with my frying pan…
I missed.
The egg landed directly on the gas burner instead. My heart sank. What did I do wrong? But more importantly, how was I supposed to clean up that mess? My chef walked over, gasped, and cleaned up the egg for me since I had absolutely no idea how to do it myself.
I did try again, and the next time, I actually caught the egg! Except when it landed back in the pan, the yolk burst.
The rest of the day, I tried and tried and tried to flip an egg. But all I ended up with were scrambled eggs, a sunny-side-up egg, and a whole lot of eggs with broken yolks.
I Still Can’t Do It
By the time I graduated from culinary school, I still couldn’t flip an egg.
And even today, I still can’t do it.
I have practiced flipping eggs so many times, but no matter what I do or how many times I practice, I still can’t seem to get it right.
On that dreadful egg day, my chef told us that if we were having trouble flipping an egg, we should put a piece of bread in a frying pan and practice flipping that instead.
Well, I have tried that. Many times. And even after all that practice with bread, I still can’t flip an egg.
However, I can flip a grilled cheese like it’s nothing thanks to all that bread flipping, so I guess something good came out of it!
Maybe Culinary School Doesn’t Teach You Everything
A lot of people think that just because I went to culinary school, I know everything there is to know about cooking. But they couldn’t be further from the truth.
There are still so many things about cooking that I don’t know—and apparently, flipping an egg is one of them.
Yes, I learned a lot in culinary school, but a lot of what I know today came from taking that culinary-school knowledge home with me and building on it. I took what I learned in school, brought it into my own kitchen, practiced, experimented, made mistakes, and continued growing my skills.
Culinary school gave me a foundation, but it didn’t make me perfect.
And honestly, I don’t think any amount of training can do that.
Until Next Week…
Thank you for stopping by and reading the very first post in “Confessions of a Culinary School Graduate.” I really hope you enjoyed reading about my inability to flip an egg!
And just because I still can’t do it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying. Maybe one day I’ll finally flip an egg without a spatula and catch it perfectly in the pan.
Hopefully, it doesn’t land on another gas burner first.
Don’t forget to tune in next week for another “Confessions of a Culinary School Graduate,” because every week in this series, I’ll be sharing something new about my culinary-school adventures, what I learned from them, and how I use those lessons in my kitchen today.
And I want to hear from you! Is there one kitchen skill you just can’t seem to master, no matter how many times you try? Or do you have a question about something I learned or experienced in culinary school? Leave a comment down below. I love hearing from you!
Until Next Week…
Stay Saucy
Hailey 🍝
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