Well team, critically acclaimed season two of Lucas Is in Culinary School and You’re Gonna Hear About It has reached its final episode. And what a season it’s been!
Between a rewarding class rotation, mornings spent working alongside pals and budding mentors in Caterina, enough fish butchery to permanently embed the essence of the sea beneath my fingernails, mandatory games of pool with buddies before class, and late-night train rides back to campus after a day in an NYC kitchen, it’s been a special stretch.
This semester has made me feel more confident, competent, and excited for what’s next. While I certainly don’t feel prepared for the demand the summer will bring (I don’t think I ever would, no matter how long I was given), I do feel ready for the experience, which I think I can attribute to the last four months. I know for certain my tushy is about to be kicked in a major way this summer, but in like a deeply valuable, once-in-a-lifetime-growth-opportunity sort of way. And after speaking to enough chefs about what to expect, feeling more comfortable in my ability to process constant critical feedback, and feeling gradual growth, I wanna get started right away (especially because being on campus for this long is taking QUITE a toll. No one should live in a dorm at age 26, it’s not right).
And the good news is, I’m days away from kicking things into the next gear. Gone will be my twin XL bed, cinder block walls, and the deeply unpleasant feeling of being marooned on an island seeing as I have no transportation up here. And replacing that unpleasantness will be a never-before-visited area of the country for me, a cast of uber-talented chefs to pester with questions, and hopefully a queen-sized bed! In short, a new – albeit brief – adventure awaits.
If all goes according to plan, I will have details to share in short order!
--
In rather disappointing fashion for readers hoping for a whole bundle of action in these final weeks, I fear the vibe has been mostly about running out the clock before the summer hits.
My classroom-style classes are no longer meeting, we’ve been warned the week ahead will be incredibly quiet in the Egg as a lot of students move out early, and, because I have a disease where I need to pack unreasonably far in advance of a move to feel calm about it, I have very few belongings (read: enrichment opportunities) left to occupy my time with. Somehow, my stark walls have become starker, especially during rainy days.
Now! I fully accept this as my own doing, but it’s a lot more fun to blame the dull vibes on the school than on my insistence on packing weeks ahead of time. ← This is what we in the biz call a feeble attempt at being conscious.
However, the week was not completely devoid of activity. This week at the Egg: Burger station! From one popular station to the next!
I will say right off the bat, flipping burgers is not as fun or satisfying as whipping up pizzas. While making pizzas is a relatively clean, aesthetically pleasing endeavor (stretching dough into a nice circle, sliding pizzas off the peel, spinning them gently as they crisp, love that stuff), flipping burgers is a bit of a mess. Oil splattering everywhere, gunk buildup on the griddle, steam scalding your knuckles as you smash the patties, a completely different world.
Such a scrambled environment does, however, provide some deliciously chaotic footage:
How the sausage (mushroom & beef blend burger) is made.
But even through such unsettling imagery, true beauty shall rise:
Our cajun-inspired burger with a punchy-spicy seasoning blend, cheddar cheese, pickled jalapeños, and a lime crema. I would contend we achieved fast food commercial-adjacent staging.
On an average day, I would estimate we served between 125 - 175 burgers, all of which were doubles, bringing our patty total to 250 - 350 (math flex). A buddy of mine also assigned to the burger station absolutely tore it up (crushed it, did a great job, etc.) on the grill each night. He, much like myself, had been terribly starved of culinary activity over the last few weeks and felt alive as can be slinging so many burgs (and serving up smiles in the process).
As a brief aside, there’s this newfangled app everyone on campus seems to be on called Fizz. As a practicing senior citizen, I don’t really understand it, but what I do know is it’s an anonymous, campus-based social media app where, among other postings, people will review the quality of food coming out of the Egg each block.
Pressure!
I am proud to report our entire class has received largely rave reviews (or so my classmates who are actually on Fizz tell me), with people calling our final burger special a “10/10” and saying our block is killing the game. Feels good to give the people what they want!
On the topic of that final burger special, on Friday we dreamed up a double cheeseburger with caramelized onion, candied bacon, a confited-garlic-candied-bacon aioli, and a garlic-herb-butter-basted bun. Not for the faint of heart! Luckily, our campus is full of brave souls and it was the only day we sold out completely of burger portions. At one point, the line stretched the entire width of the dining hall and we were firing 10-15 orders at a time. Rush hour babe!
The staggering setup can be found here:
Pushing the limit.
Bun content:
Mama mia!
With my time on burger station in the rearview mirror, I’m off to breakfast-all-day to wrap things up. Given the precipitous drop in students during this final week, chef has hinted at featuring some stations with a little more pizazz. Waffles? Eggs Benedict? Who knows what’s to come, but should be a humdinger of a time.
--
Final bits as well as bobs from Season 2:
Bit of a mishap at the compost bin left two brave souls soaked in god-knows-what. In their defense, the bin was 215 lbs. and no one told them the wheelbase of the bin was a separate piece and should not be grabbed while emptying it. The eruption of compost after dropping it was followed by a comparable eruption of laughter.
Pro tip: Intimidate wasps with your shadows as a first line of defense.
Was absolutely charmed by the Knicks at MSG. Where else can you watch a basketball game in the same room as Seth Meyers, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Tracy Morgan? I’ll wait!
Was so charmed in fact I fed my hat addiction with a fresh addition.
Free portal to a mirror-image universe, if anyone’s interested.
I hope to bring you all the next edition of my ramblings in a couple weeks time once I’m settled out west!
Until then,
Lucas
