Day 1 of Week 5 was Prep Day for Cream of Broccoli! How stressful! We got her done even though I personally made many mistakes along the way. Jasmine was certainly the rock of the team. She was cranking out peeled and sliced vegetables like a well-oiled machine. Steve seemed like he was doing a decent job making the potato puffs. My job was to focus on getting the velouté ready as soon as possible, and I didn’t. My bad. The velouté didn’t get on the move until there was about 25 minutes left of class, and it takes 45 minutes to an hour to prepare properly. I stayed after class to finish cooking, pureeing and cooling however, and it looks and tastes decent enough to serve. I hope.
Day 2 of Week 5 was Event day. Long story short, things didn’t go entirely to plan. But when do things ever go entirely to plan? Our teams’ level of success certainly increased as the event progressed, which I believe was the whole purpose. The idea behind taking a class on cooking is that you grow your knowledge base, and I personally learned a lot.
The weakest link in any chain indicates the true strength of said chain. While I will not name names, I do feel that there was an imbalance in the amount of work and passion put into this project by a member of our team. This imbalance resulted in a lack of clearly communicated expectations. I take responsibility for the areas in which I failed my team, but I will not take responsibility for that which we, as a team, had decided to divide upon the other two members.
AHA Moment
So, in an analysis of this previous paragraph, my AHA moment for this week is that 1. I can be a little bit of a control freak, and 2. I can only be in control of myself, my actions and my behavior and attitude about my surroundings, not other peoples’. Sometimes I find myself pushing other people aside and taking over their work because I feel that I can do the job that they are doing better and faster than they can. That’s just an ineffective and immature way of leading other people. I need to be willing to let other people fail so that they an learn instead of taking over and doing things for them, not only for their benefit, but also for my own. I cannot do everything by myself. It is impossible.
Maison de Gastronomie 