"Did everyone get a chance to see the menu?"

So its almost Christmas time at The Culinary Institute of America and let me tell you EVERYONE is excited to go  home and do a whole lot of nothing for 12 whole days. Free time is not something that we CIA kids get a lot of here so although I only have 1/3 of the winter break of other college students, I am ecstatic.
But before I can check out of Hyde Park there is a graduation to be served. That's right, served. I am in the Banquets and Catering portion of my education now which consists of both cooking and serving banquets of 60 to 300 people. My class already had the pleasure of creating the food for 6 days, so we now are serving the creations of our sister class.

Some of the things we made while in Banquets and Catering.

Serving is harder than I ever would have imagined. There's protocol for everything. Set from the right and clear from the right; that's American Service. De-crumb the table with your handy dandy crumber. Be a pessimist-- if the glass is half full, its actually half empty; fill it up! Remove the proper silverware between each course. And yes there is a specific way to hold the clean and dirty plates in your hand.

All of the spoons that were polished for graduation.

All rules aside, there are several reasons I love this class:

1. I don't come home sweaty and stinky.
2. I rarely get dirty.
3. As Justin said "You come home pretty."
4. Servers get to chat a lot during set up.
5. Family meal is always made and plated up for me.
6. I can wave at Justin through the big window.
7. Free cappuccino!
8. I am home, in my PJ's at 7:30pm.
9. I sort of like to fold napkins.
10. Pretty Ties!