Hi, it’s been a while. I finally got internet! I just wanted to give you an update through my journey of becoming a cook. I was working full time as a cook while going to culinary school full time, I passed all of my modules and successfully completed my professional cooking course 
Now I’m still working at the same restaurant and it’s the crunch season. I’m working 70-80 hours per week, not sleeping, and barely eating. My doctor says it’s impossible to do this for someone with narcolepsy but I’m doing it! 
Unfortunately it has its side-effects. Well the burns, cuts, and exczema are a given. Bruises everywhere. Then came the rotting feet, yeah they had holes and were almost bleeding cuz of being in enclosed sweaty shoes for so many unhumanly hours. I made an action plan to revive them and it seems to be working but its so much work to take care of yourself. 
Then all of a sudden I was having trouble breathing one day, like I was breathing but absorbing no oxygen, what is going on? I don’t have asthma and I seem to be having an asthma attack 
Still had to pump out 57 mini burgers, almost passed out quite a few times. I know Ive been getting bronchitis and sinusitus over the past year and I cough like crazy every time I make my doughs… It must be the flour! Chef thought I was crazy; turns out I was right! It’s called bakers asthma, go figure. So I keep pushing myself and hallucinations keep happening, that’s a normal occurence for a narcolept but now it’s much more often. And no, not like imagining voices or people who aren’t there (we have a neurological sleep pattern disorder, not psychosis ) but some things are amplified while others are drowned out or you see a lot of movements around you that aren’t happening, you get used to it but it’s a bit trippy. I checked my weight, I’ve lost another 10 pounds, that’s 35 lbs over the past year, I haven’t been so skinny since pre-adolescence! Then I feel my blood pressure is very high, having a lot of chest pains. So my roommate checked my pulse one night, 159 BPM… oh! That’s not healthy.
So I’ve checked my BP twice and it was 142/89 @98 BPM, 2nd time 148/88 @108BPM. Ok so I have high blood pressure and Tachycardia, wonderful. 
Then my roommate caught me a couple times sleeping in extremely rigid, fetal pose, rigor mortis positions that were immovable, a form of catatonia… So what next!? Well let’s hope nothing else, I will try to take better care and I warned my chef. I will be trying to quit smoking this week and trying to get myself to bed earlier.
On a positive note, when looking for my stage, I had applied at “Moto” in Chicago, with michelin star chef Homaro Cantu. My second e-mail to him was explaining how he had inspired me. When I went there, it was revolutionary but there was one thing I ate that I just had to re-create. It was the 3rd dish of 13 and it blew me away. He had made a pairing of 3 types of smoked fish with 3 types of baked goods. a mini everything bagel, a mini mozza cracker, and a mini spinach-ricotta macaron. 
When the taste of the exquisitely made macaron with the smoked salmon hit my tongue, it changed my life forever. So when I returned to school I asked my chef if I could make “savory” macarons. He was hesitant but let me go for it. We had never made macs and I was on my own on this project, they are apparently one of the most difficult things to master in pastry. So I decided to make green, purple, and yellow macs that looked a bit like mini BIg Macs.
The yellow was a curry and saffron macaron, with a saffron cream cheese spread and curry chicken filling. The purple was a beet and cardamom macaron, with a fig compote spread and duck magret filling. and the green was, of course, a pistachio macaron, with a spinach ricotta spread and smoked salmon and salmon prosciutto filling. My teacher thought I was crazy to try to pull this all off for 60 people in less than 10 hours… I did it! 
And everyone was amazed at the unconventional but mind blowing flavors. Then I became the “macaroon queen” and I had to make some for the last service as well. This time just dessert ones so I came up with the colors again and went with that. I wasn’t on desserts this week but had to help out Veronica to do them so we worked with what we had in the fridge and came up with yellow, pink, and orange. Orange was an orange zest mac, with chocolate buttercream and chocolate ganache spread and a mint jelly filling. Pink was a coconut mac, with cream cheese spread and a lychee-pomegranate jello filling. Yellow was a banana split! with banana mac, sucre a la creme spread and banana, pineapple, and raspberry filling, topped with a chocolate ganache. The garnishes, respectively, were orange segments with ganache, lychee flower with fondant flower, and vanilla chantilly cream with maraschino cherry. People loved them! This macaron trio proved to me that it wasn’t just a coincidence the last time, I happen to actually be good at pastries. 
So when I sent the letter about the macs to Homaro, I guess he felt my passion and sent me back “when can you start, a Friday or Saturday?” It broke my heart that I can’t just up and go from Montreal to Chicago so I was turned down but I will make it a mission to go back when I have the time, it’s an amazing opportunity.
One who works and thrives in a kitchen is undoubtedly messed up in some way and in need of constant motion, stress, drive, discipline, self-recognition, and pain. We are of a special breed who are slightly massochistic, as are army-men; have been through so much that we find comfort in chaos, and strive to find magic and beauty in ourselves that come out on our plates.
Adventures of the Onion booty Foodie 
Leave a comment