Week11

I have never been a very good cook or baker. I burn almost everything I attempt to cook. Even though I love to bake and cook, the last time I made cookies for my dad he wouldn't eat more then a bite of them.
And my dad eats everything.
Apart of what makes my cooking and my baking a little less then Food Network worthy is probably my desire to experiment.
For example, baking cookies with applesauce instead of butter may sound like a fantastic idea. And although it makes the cookie quite a bit more healthy, it certainly makes it a lot less tasty. Especially considering I burnt them.
And as far as cooking goes... I just mastered the art of successfully frying an egg without making the smoke detector go off. So when it came time to come up with a speech to write a demonstrative speech for my oral communications class, I was at a loss.
I knew most of the people in the class would bring in things that they had cooked or baked. I tried my hand at making a chicken, cheese and buffalo sauce dip, but I messed that up too.
So I was sitting at the kitchen table at my apartment, with my cruddy dip sitting next to me, tapping my fingers on the tabletop, trying to figure out what I could teach my class.
I have accepted that cooking and baking are not my strong points. My mom's a great cook and so is my sister, so I'm clearly just the oddball out that wasn't given that gene. I went through my life and tried to think of something that I was good at that I could teach others.
There is always photography - but this speech was about creating a finished product. Something tactile that could be touched and, in most cases, eaten. I couldn't exactly do that with photography. I work with kids, so I considered for a moment some kind of craft that I could show. But as I brainstormed, nothing really came up.
I sighed, stood up, and decided to make myself some chocolate milk.
I learned when I was a barista at Border's that stirring a mixed beverage hurt more then helped the mixture. It was always better to shake rather then stir. So I made the chocolate milk, and while I was shaking it from glass to glass as opposed to stirring it, I realized that there was something I could share with the class after all.
I had a brief flashback to when I was a barista. I loved it. I would walk into work and tie my apron on, pull my hair back and push my sleeves to my elbows. I loved working quickly with my hands from drink to drink. I didn't follow recipes well; I did what I knew would taste good, not exactly what was written in the book. But I never had any complaints on how my drinks came out. I was a master at making whipped cream look great sitting atop a beverage, and I enjoyed moving quickly behind the counter at that little cafe.

Ever since I worked as a barista for the four months that I did, I realized I had a love for creating those beverages. I had little dreams of me someday maybe behing a bartender; tossing shaker glasses in the air and catching them, collecting tips as I did. Wearing old blue jeans and a black t-shirt, I'd pour rowdy bikers and cowboys whiskey sours and rum and Cokes.

Even though I was voted Class Klutz in high school and can barely go a day without tripping, working as a barista was something that surprisingly came easy to me. The first week I did it, I hated it and thought I would never be very good at it. I contemplated quitting.
But as I gave the job a chance, I got better and better. Soon enough I was tossing around stuff like a champ.
So inspiration hit me.
I grabbed the things I needed and started working.
I brewed some iced tea just like I learned at Border's; put tea bags in a pitcher, one for every 8oz serving, fill it with boiling water and let it steam for 10 minutes. I stuck it in the fridge and got out some pomegranite juice and mint leaves. I put ice into a cup and, when the iced tea was cool enough, I poured some of the juice and the other ingredients into a cup. I shook it all together (always shaken, never stirred) and took a hearty sip.
The mint hit me first - because I like a strong tea, I didn't use any sweetener but the mint was a great mild touch. The pomegranite added a satisfying tang, and it added a nice flavor to the tea.
All of the healthy and natural ingredients created a nice, refreshing tea. I decided that this sort of thing was perfect for my speech. I could give some tips that I learned as a barista; things that students who didn't work as a barista may not know. Maybe I could inform them and show them something they didn't know how to do before, which is precisely what the speech was intended for.
I smiled to myself as I fished for more ingredients around the kitchen; there were so many possibilities now.