Fw: Jury Duty

 

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011

Subject: Jury Duty

After almost 50 years of periodic summons and being excused because of my job, yesterday I finally got the chance to serve.

The Multnomah County courthouse is located in the middle of downtown Portland and hence is a parking nightmare. Having done some searching before hand, I found a garage for $9.50, thereby eating up the $10 they give you to serve. Usually I could have had Merlin drop me off, but he is in California with his brothers this week.

There must have been 100 of us in the jury pool. We had to be there by 8AM and were given an informational speech by a judge and then shown a video, thanking us for our civic duty. At 10:30, lo and behold they called my name, along with about 15 others, for jury selection. If your name is not called you must remain in the selection room until they decide they no longer need you and let you go. Sometimes that can be until 5PM.

We were taken to a court room where the state attorney, a defendant and his lawyers, and the judge were located. They told us this was a criminal case involving alleged sexual touching. The defendant's lawyer asked us general questions about our occupation, had we ever been in a court room before, etc, and then we recessed for lunch.

Lunch downtown was fun...don't have much of a chance to do that... and the Vietnamese salad rolls were delicious!

After lunch, back in the court room, the state's attorney asked us more general questions such as: did we know the difference between circumstantial evidence and direct evidence and did we trust all policemen to be honest.

The judge, lawyers and defendant went into the judges chambers to pick the 6 jurors they wanted. I was not one of them, so I was out of there by 2PM, having done the only jury service of my lifetime. One can elect not to serve after 70 years old, and since they don't call you for 24 months I have had my experience.

In a way I am glad not to have had the responsibility of deciding between the female (could have been woman or child) and the defendant. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt, had tattoos on both arms, a handlebar mustache, and thick glasses. And of course there was no direct evidence. Aargh.......

Final Week Spring Quarter

George Akau-first year instructor

Our last theory practice project is soft pretzels, savory with salt sprinkles and sweet with sugar sprinkles.

We have two quizzes this week, covering the chapters on yeast breads and cakes, and a final on principles of baking in the kitchen.

My assignment is the dining room. The first part of the day we help prepare the food to be cooked by CTO (cooked to order). After our 10am lunch we set up the tables and serve the customers, starting around 11. They say they have many regular customers, ( other than the staff who usually eat their lunch in the dining room), who come in at the same time every week.
One never knows how busy the dining room is going to be. One day the place serves only a few of the house staff and the next day every table is filled. I hear that the only one of the house staff who leaves a tip for the servers is our instructor, George. (His picture is at the top of this post).

Susan, the college employee who manages the dining room, allows me to have lunch with my friend from out of town on Wednesday. I think I'll be back as a customer many times. The food is much better than our cafeteria choices have been, and not all that expensive.

The traditional management course is three quarters. I hear from one of the third quarter management students that he plans to go on for a fourth quarter. He is on a subsidized program which pays his way, and with the tight job market I suppose school feels "safer". Another third quarter management student already has a job in one of the lodges at Mt. Rainier National Park.

The kids on the dessert station have a final day "bake off". They make molten lava cake, (which is literally death by chocolate), with strawberry sorbet and candied orange peel brownies.

Next Monday is the day of cleaning the kitchen, receiving awards and taking group pictures for the archives. I will receive my chef"s certificate by mail because I"ll be in New York City with my granddaughter.

Nineth Week Spring Quarter

Last week the health department inspectors came
to the kitchen and everyone scrambled to make
sure the place was spotless. I hear we received a
just about perfect report. The pizza warmer was
not keeping the prepared slices up to the correct
temperature, so they plan to order a new warmer.
Someone told me that Clark College has the most

money of any of the community colleges in the state, so they can pretty much order any equipment they find necessary. We have two commercial convection ovens that are new, and a 6 burner gas stove showed up in place of a huge soup kettle that was never used.

We are working our way through our heavy textbook, "On Cooking", with homework assignments and open book quizzes every other week. Since the quizzes are open book , I continue to get A's. It would require much more study and memorization if I couldn't look in the book for the answers.

Tuesday I signed up for a banquet from 1pm to 8pm. I decide to skip the day of school because 13 hours is like being a slave...been there, done that, don't plan to do it again. We can miss up to 3 days of school without it effecting our grade.

The only banquet I experience is created for the college alumni. It is held in the auditorium just outside the cafeteria and the food is served buffet style.

Before the event, the students make a delicious dinner for themselves of coconut shrimp, grilled new york steak, potatoes, rice pilaf , green beans, and salad. Worth working the banquet for the unusually good meal!

For the guests, we prepare chicken picatta, tri tip roast beef, manicotti stuffed with

ricotta cheese and covered with basil cream sauce, corn salsa served heated, caesar salad, a huge mixed fruit plate, rolls, and tiramisu for dessert. Some students cook and some set up the tables for 120 people, although there are several empty chairs. We are presented as a group at one point and thanked for our efforts. Because it is buffet style, we do not serve the tables, only pick up the used dishes and take them to the kitchen.
Once again there are too many students for too few jobs and the pace is half time with many breaks-not what it would be in the real job world.
When the banquet is over, and the speakers are finished, we clear the food and dishes and go home. Tomorrow is another day in the kitchen. I get to keep a beautiful red, white and blue bouquet center piece-another little perk to make my time worthwhile.

Eighth Week Spring Quarter

In theory practice this quarter, the focus is on baking in the kitchen. The dutch baby pancakes that my group makes from George's recipe are a learning experience. This recipe is among the many things we are baking that contain whipped egg whites prepared with a whisk. We decide that the convection oven does the best job, since we burn the bottom of the one prepared in the conventional oven. The one baked in the convection oven turns out perfectly. The school stoves are gas fired-the best kind of burner in my opinion. However, the electric convection oven is faster and has better controlled oven heat. The class also uses a recipe to make a gelatin candy-not too sweet, with fruit stirred in before it is set. Reminds me of the finger jello moms make for little kids.
Monday was the Memorial Day holiday with no school, so we have classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday only. This is my week for skills development class, which gives the management students a chance to teach, and a good review for me. We prepare seven different cuts of carrots, chop onions, peel and section grapefruit, and make hollandaise sauce with a whisk. (Something I would use an electric mixer to make at home).
My assignment is the soup station, with a manager and two other first year students. I cook a vegetarian soup with smoked vegetables that someone else had prepared. Soup creations are very versatile, in that chefs can add left overs from the other stations to exercise cost control. At the end of the day, when there's not enough food to reheat, the left overs are "dumped" on the soup station. We use many different commercial bases for the liquid part.
With so may students to do the work, one is not encouraged to work at top speed, which will be a real shock upon entering the real world of the commercial kitchen, I'm sure.
I cook a potato leek soup by peeling and boiling the potatoes, mashing them with butter and cream, and adding them to a chowder base someone else had fixed. There was very little left at the end of the day.

Seventh Week Spring Quarter

The menu for CTO, (cooked to order) is planned each week by the management student in charge of that station. We fix grilled halibut, rum glazed pork tenderloin, cajun chicken with mushroom sauce and grilled flank steak with gorgonzola cream sauce. The meat dishes are plated with rissotto and mixed steamed vegetables. On different days I have a chance to brown the pork tenderloin, stir the rissotto, (which takes forever to cook and leaves me sweating over the hot stove), and grill the halibut on the flat top grill. I receive several compliments from the dining room customers on the halibut I prepare, with the secret being the amount of clarified butter I use on the flat top grill to crisp the breading on the fish.
The dining room wait students take the customer orders and pass them to a manager who puts the ticket on a spindle for the cooking students. (There is a paid chef in this area who has the final word on everything, but is pretty much a figurehead). When the cooks have the order up , the manager adds the garnishes to the plates and yells the name of the waiter or waitress who delivers the food to the customer. I hear that this particular manager's voice is so loud and shrill that she is heard in the dining room by the customers.
In theory practice my current group consists of people who appear to know how to follow a recipe with skill. We create a jelly roll cake with vanilla pudding filling. Our steamed dumplings and custard with carmel sauce turn out looking professional.

Sixth Week Spring Quarter

Evidently my post for this week either didn't post, or I didn't get around to writing about my time in the veggie station area. The station manager is a vegetarian and comes up with many interesting recipes for us to try.We get quite a bit of chopping experience on this station and fix several dishes of swiss chard, including one with the chopped stems mixed with dried cranberries. The students working with me are pretty efficient, and we usually are able to clean up and leave right after we pull the left overs off the cafeteria line. Some left overs are reheated the next day and some are sent to the soup station to be used in the cooked soup.
In theory practice we make Baked Alaska dessert. We make delicious sponge cakes in small containers, put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle and cover the whole thing with whipped meringue, which we broil. I am so impressed that I make them at home for practice.
Sugar, sugar...I am not getting any thinner.

Fifth Week Spring Quarter

If theory practice has a motto, it's "organized chaos". We are making flour tortillas in groups of two or three people. The two others in my group just throw the ingredients together as fast as they can so they can be finished early. I am unable to complete the assignment to make three different kinds of tortillas, (chopped vegetable, vegetable puree, and plain), due to time constraints and the crowded conditions. One student gives up in disgust as her ingredients keep disappearing whenever she turns her back.
The day the students make flat bread I get to work on my own, making masa corn tortillas. I found the recipe on line and George wants a copy to use for his classes.
I am in the scatter station with three of us first year students and two managers. Students in the scatter area are responsible for serving on the cafeteria line as well as restocking all the areas around the line. We check all the drink cups and lids to make sure there are enough, make coffee, keep the milk and fountain drinks refilled, keep the straws, plastic utensils, napkins, salt, pepper, sugar, and condiments stocked, as well as wipe up the spills and periodically empty the garbage cans. Even with all that to do, having five of us in this area is too many bodies, so we are hard pressed to keep busy.