Culinary College and Secret Places

Wednesday I went on an annual day trip offered by the senior hall that involves a ‘mystery tour’ of a downtown building and lunch at the culinary college. Lunch there is like going to a five star, upscale restaurant---waitstaff uniforms and table linens all heavily starched, an entrée menu written with a poet’s flair and artfully plated foods with incredible flavor profiles. The experience began with a demonstration on making flaming Café Brulot and that required a spiral cut orange peel studded with cloves and soaking a silver bowl of rum. The orange peel was held up high and ladles of the flaming liquor was pouted at the top the rind so we could watch blue flames travel down to the bottom. After repeating this process a few times until the alcohol had all burned out of the rum, they added 8-9 parts of coffee to one part orange juice to the bowl before serving it. Was it good? You’d better believe it! The Café Brulot was served with personal setup trays that contained chocolate chips, spiced cream the consistency of whipped butter and candied orange sticks that looked like orange-colored coconut. I had two cups and was surprised that most of ladies on the tour didn’t even try it, opting instead for boring lemonade. I might not be adventurous in a bungee jumping kind of way but exotic coffee? Why not. 

Next came a pass-around tray with giant shrimp on sauce-soaked tiny toast that I couldn’t try because I’m allergic so I ate the decorative trimmings what looked like red sugar cubes but turned out to be yummy beets. The entrée I ordered was and I quote: “Bahia-inspired mignon of beef tenderloin gaucho style scorched with salt and garlic served with parsnip puree, broccolini baby carrot medley, cilantro chimichurri sauce and barbeque drizzle.” There was a half a potato in there, too, cut length-wise and sliced coin thin and used to elevate a stack of the sliced beef. For dessert they rolled out a cart with six choices. I went for a pineapple chocolate thing that was five layers of chocolate on chocolate of different textures. A paper thin fan of dried pineapple stood tall on the top and there were dots of pineapple sauce on the plate. My table of eight ladies all sounded like Meg Ryan faking an organism in a restaurant as we enjoyed our desserts. 

Our culinary students/waitstaff have such wonderful opportunities lined up for summer internships. One will be working in Maui, another in the Caribbean’s and a third in a European place I can’t pronoun or spell. If you’re wondering how much our meal cost we paid $25.00 for lunch, transportation and the mystery building tour. Tips included.

The mystery tour and lecture turned out to be at the Masonic Center, previously known world-wide as Masonic Temples. They’re trying to get away from the misconception that the organization is a religious group and also trying to get away from the reputation that they're a Secret Society. (Though it should be noted that on their altar was a Bible, Koran and Torah.) The Masons have their roots back to Medieval Europe when their membership was comprised of stone workers---freed men who traveled about to work on the great cathedrals and castles. Their secret handshakes were a method for illiterate workers to present their level of skill in masonry to would-be bosses/architects. Being men who traveled widely, they were exposed to different ways of thinking thus they evolved into a group that met in secret to talk about science and other forbidden topics that were punishable crimes to study in certain places. In more recent centuries their goal supposedly switched to teaching leadership qualities and 14 of our 44 U.S. presidents were Masons, the latest one being Gerald R. Ford.

My husband was fascinated by the Secret Society aspect of the Masons. His grandfather was one and Don collected Masonic memorabilia that I might donate to their statewide museum that happens to be in the building we toured. During the hour lecture I took notes until my pen ran out of ink and I asked more questions than the rest of the group put together. I couldn't help it! The opportunity was too serendipitous not to take advantage of it. I asked all the stuff Don would have loved knowing: Why do Masons use three pillars to symbolize the East, West and South but have no forth pillar for the north? How did Masonic symbols get on our money? What are Full Moon Lodges? It was a wonderful lecture for me but several in the group of twenty-five fell asleep. (They should have had the coffee!) 

Today I added orange juice along with cream to my coffee as a way to help extend the memory of an afternoon well spent. And next time I'm in the OJ/coffee mood I hope it reminds me that the magic of serendipity is always around the corner. I just need to keep getting out of the house so it can find me. ©