Saturday, September 4, 2010

I'm too sexy for my chef pants.

Today I picked up my uniforms, student ID, etc. in anticipation of the first day of classes tomorrow. Going into school was great and got me really excited for school starting, but at the moment, I’m completely hung up on the uniforms.

We are expected to wear nametags with our hometown written on them, which I thought was fun as a “getting to know you” sort of thing. Once I slipped on the uniform, I realized that the nametags were out of absolute necessity, not cuteness. I could easily be a 250 lb, 50 year old man hidden under the parachute of black and white checkered pant fabric that I’ll be wearing every day. Combined with the skull cap and no-makeup rule, and ginormous chef coat, I’m fairly certain that my own mother wouldn’t be able to pick me out of a culinary student lineup.

Sigh. I figure the upshot to this is that I could gain 40 pounds and nobody would notice.

This should be interesting, considering I usually cook in some mixture of tank tops, flip flops, and athletic apparel:

(Note that I am still working up a sweat, even without the 20 pound shoes on)

I’m fairly certain that the sleeve of my chef coat will catch fire before the year is done. I will practice my stopping, dropping, and rolling for when that time comes.

Additionally, since I missed orientation, I missed the boat on some of the insider information. For example, I have no idea how to button the boy-scout like neckerchief to my chef coat – it’s like some sort of origami challenge. I also did not get any of my uniforms hemmed or altered, so I am attacking them with safety pins as we speak. I have nightmarish visions of the chef inspecting everyone’s fingernails and pant hems and calling me out for my bootleg tailor job, but I’ve got football games to watch and chicken wings to eat – it IS Labor Day weekend after all.

But first – I have to go to Target and buy an ironing board. Though I’ve managed four years of business casual dress without one, I don’t think I can maneuver my kitchen table with an iron at 5:30 am every morning. Stay tuned for tales from my first week! Wish me luck.

2 comments:

  1. Why won't they let you wear make up? So you can wipe your face and not get your hands dirty?

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  2. They are afraid that eyeliner, etc. will contaminate the food. I maintain that seeing me without makeup at 7am is FAR more hazardous to people's health.

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