NON-ALLITERATIVE TUESDAY: I AM NOT A CROOK

Non-Alliterative Tuesday: no obligations, no rhyme, reason or methodology other than that it's something relevant to food and goings-on in Kitchen Toro...

I'll preface this post by saying, I am not a crook. Seriously, I'm no klepto.

Disclaimer out of the way, I'd like to share something with you all. There are little changes in your life when you change professions: a change of routine, change of scenery, a different walk to work, and different people.

In my case for instance making the change from a newspaper to a kitchen, I'm on my feet a lot more than I had been in the past five years. While my bad knee (torn and reconstructed ACL from playing basketball in high school) has been barking lately because of this it's not necessarily a bad thing to be moving around a lot and burning calories. I've gotten some cuts from knives and burns from hot pans and ovens, things I didn't encounter with such frequency or in such precarious situations. My hands have also gotten rougher from the heat, from ice, from water and constant use.

But one of the most amusing changes in my life since starting school at FCI has been my new proclivity to attract silverware...

Over the past eight months at FCI I've somehow acquired the silverware below. "Thief! Crook! Klepto!" I hear the accusations fly. I swear, I've never had this problem before.

Here's what happens-- I'm in class and using spoons to taste the food we're preparing and because I need to have one at all times, it ends up in my breast pocket or more likely in the pockets at the top of the sleeve on my chef jacket. It's a convenient place to have a spoon, a sharpie, a thermometer or a pen but also a place that's easy to forget about at the end of the night before heading back up to the locker room to change before going home.

It's in the locker room when the spoon falls out of the pocket as the coat is taken off that I realize I've acquired a new piece of silverware. Then it ends up being put in a pocket of my knife bag to return later on my way out of the school--only by the time I get downstairs, tired and sweaty and rushing to catch the N, Q or R train uptown to the L train before the last one runs for the night (I know, it's unfathomable that a train not run all night from one borough to another but the L has not been a paragon of dependability late at night or on the weekend.

Since I bought a new sexy tasting/saucing spoon about a month and a half ago (something we've all been instructed to buy for ourselves), this acquisition of silverware has ceased. Still, I've forgotten to return this motely collection and they've collected uselessly on my bookshelf, where they've been longing to return to the restaurant kitchen.

I can assure you that it's a strange thing to unwillingly acquire silverware but it's also one of those things that's absurd and funny enough to make you laugh about life.

l'll be returning them on Wednesday.