A broke woman's blog.

Yesterday some of the Culinary students volunteered to help at the Chefs Ball at the Governor's Mansion. I was sooooooo nervous going to the mansion. I've lived in Little Rock up until I was 16 and the only thing I've ever done was pass by the mansion. There I was at the security gate and I forgot to turn my radio down. It wasn't loud but I'm pretty sure the guard could hear. I introduced myself and told him what I was doing there and he told me where to go. No he didn't tell me to go to H E double hockey sticks!!!!! So I get to the side entrance and once again I had to introduce myself and the gentleman told me where to park.

I had to think about what I was doing. I grabbed my cap and jump out of my truck and walked up to the door. I know people was looking at me like I was crazy but I was nervous as a bull rider! When I walked in the house my mouth hit the floor (not literally but you know what I'm saying!) It was so pretty in there. The first person who I say was Mrs. Beebe. In a low faint voice I asked where the culinary students were. She told me and I proceeded on. As I walked towards the steps I saw the dining area and I was in complete awe! There were so many tables and what caught my eyes were the globes on the table. They had red flowers in them. But I thought to myself, "How in the world are we going to serve all of these people?"

I found the kitchen! There were about 10 students and chefs in the kitchen. I didn't know where to turn. There was Chef Will and I asked him what he wanted me to do. I had the great pleasure of trimming toothpicks down to about 2 inches. Oh what fun. If you believe that I can sell you water from a water fountain! Once I finished that I watched Chef Will roll some sushi. It was interesting. At that moment I probably would have been amused watching water boil lol.

There was a familiar face that I saw. It was my lab partner Jason! I was so happy to see him. Jason and I have so much fun. He's funny. We talked and laughed. Chef Douglas brought us trays and told us how we needed to carry them. Jason, Lee and I handled the hors d'oeuvres. PAUSE...Wait a second....who in the world came up with that spelling? That word is not spelled the way it is pronounced. Is the v silent? Doesn't it seem like it should be pronounced ordurves? Okay that's just me. Never mind. It's a French word. No wonder! PLAY...Jason had Teriyaki beef. I had shrimp shooter's and poor Lee had sushi lol.

We were standing in the walkway and I kept advertising for my shrimp shooters. Jason and I had almost emptied our trays. Lee my poor friend he still had almost a full tray of sushi lol. Jason and I finally moved to our second tray and Lee was still on his first. I'm was good at advertising there was a gentleman that came up and Jason asked him if he wanted to try the Teriyaki beef. He took one and I said how about a shrimp shooter. He said I don't like shrimp much. I said all you have to do is chew it up really fast, swallow it and get more Teriyaki beef. So he said I heard they were good. I said go ahead and get one. He ate it and chased it with some Teriyaki beef. He said it wasn't that bad. So I said how about some sushi? He just looked at me. I said come on now you gotta try it lol. I said chase it down with more Teriyaki beef. He said okay. If I was a sales woman I would have made five sales!!!!!! I've never had sushi and I had to choke it down. After the fifth one I think I was okay with the taste.

We kept advertising to everybody who walked by. I heard some music playing. I turned around it was a band playing some Jazz. The drummer turned out to be the guy who I sold the Teriyaki beef, shrimp, and sushi to lol. I told Jason and Lee and they said they hope he wouldn't get sick!

We made our way back to the kitchen and that is where the rest of the magic took place! All of us students and chefs got in the kitchen and hustled our behinds off. Every chef had their own dish to put out but WE ALL worked on the dishes together. It was tight in that kitchen but we worked our way. We were all together as one heart beat. I have never seen so many people come together and be productive as we were. One chef handed out trays of food and I pulled the trays in from the servers. It was beautiful. On the main course we had 15 people in an assembly line fixing plates. Everything went so quickly we finally finished. We all were tired.

Governor Beebe came in and told us that we had done a fantastic job! We all pitched in to clean up and all the Chefs commended us for doing an excellent job. All I can say is, I'm so glad that I have chosen this profession to go in. Team work is so important and that is what we had in the kitchen!