The Children's Museum and the CIA

Allow me, if you will, to attempt an explanation of Duchess County liquor laws. First of all, beer, wine, and hard liquor cannot all be sold in the same store. Grocery stores can sell beer until 9pm. Beer stores (which only sell beer) can sell beer until 11pm. Liquor and wine stores are only open until 7pm. These are the things that I learned Friday night. The end result of that evening is that I now have lots of limes and tonic water, but no gin. It was truly, truly unfortunate.

On Saturday, I went to New York City for the day. I left school at 8am, got to the train station at 8:30 and hurriedly had to park my car and buy my ticket and make it to the platform in time for the 8:40 train. Luckily, years of navigating and walking quickly through the world’s largest children’s museum have taught me how to walk with purpose. I made it. The train ride was interesting. Coming from Indianapolis, public transportation is a little foreign to me. The ride was about two hours long and took us right into Grand Central Station. That place was actually a little more impressive that I had anticipated. There is marble everywhere and it only smelled like urine a little bit. I went with Jen and Katie to meet Andrew Bornstein (a friend from my Le Moyne College years) at Rockefeller Center. This is when it started to rain. It was already less than 40 degrees with wind chill and the rain did not help. We decided to find some Indian food, so Jen and I pulled out our iPhones and did a little research. The place we wanted to go was closed, but being NYC and all, there was another Indian restaurant across the street. When we sat down, my hair was literally dripping wet from the rain. Not fun. Luckily, there are few things in life that make me as happy as an Indian lunch buffet.

After lunch, Katie wanted to go to some really big candy store to get some special candies that her mom likes. The walk over was simply miserable in the rain, cold, and wind, so I broke down and bought an umbrella. It was perhaps the second best purchase that I have made in my entire life (the first being the Dinosphere cup at the museum. $6 five years ago gave me free drinks at the museum for life). The umbrella made my life so much easier. After the candy store, we took a cab to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was crowded, but it didn’t even matter because the museum is so large. We were there for about 4 hours. I could have spent the rest of the night there but the others were getting really restless. There was a really cool exhibit about how art reflects societal changes and history. While this may be obvious, the gallery did an awesome job of interpreting the paintings and explaining what part of history they reflect. I wish more art museums would do this. A painting just hanging on a wall can be beautiful. But when it is explained, it becomes beautiful and meaningful. I guess this is my Children’s Museum background speaking again….

We left the museum around six and it had started snowing. We had all intention of searching out some good ol’ New York City pizza, but the snow and cold got the best of us, so we took a taxi back to Grand Central. We ended up just eating some pizza at the train station. It was not great, but it served its purpose. When we got back to Poughkeepsie. There was about a quarter of an inch of snow on the ground. The campus is really pretty with some snow. There are a bunch of evergreen tress on Anton Plaza that have been decorated with Christmas lights and ornaments. There are also a bunch of banners with clever sayings like “Merry Crispness”, “Season’s Eatings”, “Soy to the World” and “Happy Hollandaise”. Haha…oh god…I love this school.

On Monday, I got a bunch a quizzes and project grade back. I don’t think I have ever been more proud of myself. I think for the first time in a while, I am really trying hard in school. I’d always been successful at the museum. But in the classroom, I could never see how analyzing poetry applied to my life. Here, though, I don’t just want to learn the material; I want to master it. I am actually learning the information that will be vital to my success as a chef. I got a perfect grade on my last two math tests, I got an A and an A- on my Product knowledge tests, I got a perfect on my cauliflower paper, an A on my last Gastronomy test, and A’s on all my Writing papers and assignments. I honestly couldn’t be happier.

It’s only Tuesday afternoon, so I haven’t done much in class this week. Math is finally starting to get kind of interesting and challenging, though. We are putting together everything we learned so far and are costing out individual dishes and menus in order to take into account waste and labor costs. Then, we are creating food purchase orders based on out menus and such. Who ever thought that I’d be learning about business? We did a unit on tomatoes, peppers, chilies, and squash in product knowledge. Writing was canceled this morning, and in Gastronomy we discussed New American Haute Cuisine.

A word on palate development: *Ahem* Fish is gross. I really want to like it. Salmon is everywhere. People rave over scallops. Tuna is as present on a menu now as chicken is. However, I cant seem to get past it’s grossness. I have been trying so hard to like it. There is a breaded flounder appetizer that is served over a tartar sauce slaw that I have been able to eat all of. However, every time I am given a salmon filet, I can make it though about a third of it before I want to reach down and rip my stomach out. And the third that I do eat, I cover up the flavor with horseradish mashed potatoes. Last night, the amuse bouche at dinner was a Haddock fritter with pink sauce. I popped it in my mouth and immediately regretted it. I was chewing and chewing trying not to gag. It took an entire glass of water to help me get it down. I want to try these things and develop a taste for them, but I am really struggling.