Culinary Fundamentals; Friday, First Period [01/22].

[chef_chocobro]

"Good morning, everyone." Ignis greeted the class in his usual, straight-forward, straight-to-business way. "And welcome back. Now that we all," and by 'we all', he clearly meant him, "feel more comfortable with handling knives in the classroom, we can turn our attention to how we might best prepare vegetables, something that may seem deceptively simple, but you may find that there is but a thin margin between a vegetable being of exceptional quality and being downright unpalatable, although I'm quite sure there are many out there who find vegetables to be unpalatable on mere principle alone. All the more reason, then, to ensure that we are doing our best to treat them well.

"Today, then, we will talk about preparing vegetables to the best of our ability that truly highlights the vast richness and nutrition that a vegatable has to offer."

Which, of course, meant launching into an astute lecture regarding the quality of the produce being used, how one must be careful not to overcook vegetables, as doing so not only makes them unpleasant to eat but also robs them of all of the nutritional benefits they have to offer, and how much more appealing well-cooked vegetables can be with the example of some perfectly sauted green beans compared to those found in a can.

"Now there are many different approaches to cooking vegetables, but we will be focusing on three of them today: steaming, sauteing, and roasting. The concepts for them all are simple, and the key, in addition to ensuring quality ingredients and preparation, is honestly a bit of patience and merely paying attention, so one does not over- or under-do it.

"Let us start with roasting, as that is generally the less labor intensive..."

And, with that, the hands-on part of the class began, as he invited them all to follow with their own vegetables as he explained the process, from preparing them to begin with, with helpful hints peppered in like the seasoning itself, and then onto the next one.

Lather, rinse, repeat. And pray no one burned anything down in the meantime.

Intro to Performing Arts | Friday, Second Period

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Morning!" Today, the Danger Shop was made up like a recording studio, with a bunch of soundproof cubicles available to the students. "So, whether you're singing or talking, clarity is really important when you're performing. I have some tongue twisters printed out for you guys to try out. It's gonna totally feel silly at first, but if you practice saying difficult sentences first, it's so much easier to absolutely nail the simpler stuff."

She gestured to the booths. "So, in the name of letting you feel free to let loose and not feel self-conscious, you can practice in these booths. And if the tongue twisters are too easy, I've got Gilbert and Sullivan lyrics for you, and you can try not only getting through those but carrying a tune at the same time. Next week, we'll go over scales and pitch, but for right now, I want you all to just focus on getting through words clearly."

And Annie herself would be off to the side, having firmly gotten that damn song stuck in her head, and now nothing was going to dislodge it all weekend, probably.

Disappearing in the Modern World, Friday, Period 4

[doesntstophurting]

"Let's talk about where you're going to hide out," Booker said to his students. "At least one of you mentioned camping in the woods, which is a good temporary measure--if there's literally no one around, you can't be found--but long term, it's kind of...cold and wet, and you start to miss indoor plumbing. Pretty much everywhere you can go has some drawbacks: big cities are impersonal, easy to get lost in the crowd, but they also have a lot of things like surveillance cameras, and more people means more risk of bumping into some random person you know. Small towns have less surveillance infrastructure, but someone new stands out, especially if you have something distinctive about you like, say," he gestured to himself, "an accent. So maybe you go further afield even than that, find a house in the middle of nowhere." Or a church in a village that had been abandoned because of planes landing and taking off next door all day every day. "The next best thing to camping, right? But that takes planning ahead, and it takes some skills, and you rarely get to talk to other people. So, what are you willing to put up with? What can you make work for you? Think about it."