It was in one such high school that I saw an ad, in the small neighborhood newspaper, for learning Chinese cooking. As this is one of my favorite cuisines, and the price was very reasonable for a ten-week course, I signed up for it. This meant that after work, instead of going home---I would go straight to the school. The set-up was great--in this special classroom, for a class of fifteen students, we each had our own range with stove top and oven, pots, pans and utensils.
Our teacher was this lovely Chinese lady, who told us that by the end of the course, we would at least learn the basics, not only of Chinese cooking , but techniques in cooking that could be applied to any cuisine. And though we might not be gourmet cooks, at least we would learn to appreciate the genuine dishes, and be able to prepare some of the basic ones.
Now, as you know, in every class you always have the smart-aleck, who doesn't listen to the teacher--and thinks they know better. Well, we had this woman, who wouldn't pay attention. So while the rest of us were chopping, slicing , dicing---she was too busy talking about this or that---and not really focusing on the techniques being taught.
So, of course, when it came time to prepare the meal---she was absolutely lost! She tried to fake it by hurriedly throwing everything into the very hot wok (the special pan used for stir-fried cooking). Next thing you know---FOOM! this big flame went up--and we all screamed.
Luckily, our teacher kept her cool, and grabbing one of the fire extinguishers, quickly--put out the flames. Needles to say her food was ruined. And we all learned a valuable lesson: pay attention when you are cooking!
