Sprint Cooking Class

     I've been to my share of cooking classes.  I've learned how to make tortellini in Florence and chicken cacciatore in Tuscany.  I've sliced and diced with the best of them home and abroad.  The format is pretty much the same in each case.  Most classes are hands on and run anywhere from a couple hours to an entire day.  But on the high seas the class offered by the cruise line was not a marathon of methodology but rather a high speed sprint medley.

     It began with a brief introduction from an English interpreter, in this case from England itself, a Londoner, with a very pronounced British accent.  With an economy of words he described what each of the chefs on board was creating as we looked on.  We met in the kitchen/dining area of the Pinnacle Grille, a high end additional cost steakhouse restaurant located on the ship's top deck.  In rapid fire succession we watched as a four course meal was prepared in under an hour and were given small tasting samples of each item.  It was like a listening to a 45 rpm record being played at 78.

     But I guess in this day and age with the 30 second commercial and the 2 second sound bite that is the pace of life we've become accustomed to.  And if Rachel Rae can serve an entire meal on TV in under half an hour, I guess a cruise ship can teach us how to high speed cook, too.