Friday, September 9, 2011

The Big O




This was the week that the three weeks of orientation (yes, I know we must be the most and best oriented school on the planet!) finally melted into the first week of school. That first day that is the joy of joys!

But before we get into blogisodes about the new school year, I want to dwell for a moment on this year’s orientation. We went from orientation for senior staff, department heads, new faculty, returning faculty, student proctors in the dorms, new students and finally, returning students. Whew! But the other day came one of the most fun things I have done in our time here at KA. Julianne, the intrepid and fearless Dean of Students wanted to foment a little inter-dorm competition as we got set for school. She came up with the idea of “Madaba Games,” an Olympics-style competition that would accrue points for the top 3-placing dorms in a variety of competitions. Not just physical competition, although there would be that, she came up with a science competition in the form of a Project Egg Drop, and a crazy hair-styling competition, and an art competition and skit competition and music competition and a bake-off competition.

She asked me if I would spearhead the Chocolate Chip Cookie Bake-Off Competition for my Nihal dorm and I enthusiastically agreed. However, on the day of the Madaba Games I started to wonder, what in the world were we doing with a bake-off? What boys would want that choice of competition and how would it work? I guess I didn’t think about it too much, but then Monday afternoon came and all of a sudden I had two hours to fill and two hours to bake award-winning chocolate chip cookies. Julianne got the idea for this partly from a great year at Hackley, maybe around 2003 or so, when the faculty there indulged in several heated food competitions and bake-offs. They were immensely fun as entrants brought their selections and a team of judges picked the best. Our friend Mike always wrote a hilarious commentary afterward about the proceedings, the corruption among the judges, and the rancor amidst the entrants. It was great.

So as the Nihal dorm boys split up into what competitions they wanted to do, I found myself with 12 boys who wanted to help make the best chocolate chip cookies in Jordan. We met at my apartment, the baker’s dozen of us, and I still wondered, “Are they going to just watch me bake these cookies? How should we run this???” As I walked in, cranked up the air conditioning, I thought, “Let’s have this be a cooking class and somehow we all have to be a part of this baking experience.”

First I read them the criteria by which we would be judged—four points,
(1) Taste (2) Texture (3) Presentation and (4) a WOW factor. So we started by talking about criteria factors 2-4. What did they know about texture in a cookie? How should we present our cookies? Then I went on-line and looked at recipes from food.com and suggested we use one that was called “award-winning chocolate chip cookies.” That sounded hopeful. I mentioned that I had purloined a silver tray from the Dining Hall and we could serve the judges the cookies on that. But we needed to think about the presentation later.

As we got going, Mohammed Attar ran into my apartment a little late to join us. He had brought a present for me, an orange tie box from Hermes. A real tie from Hermes! I opened it, and thanked him for the exquisite black silk tie, and then said, “Guys, this orange box—hey, that’s our dorm color. Let’s wrap the cookies up in this box and present it to the judge. Wait—Mohammed, I’ll bet you have a tux, right?” This student is one of the most suave and debonair students I know—I figured he had a tux. He did, and I suggested that Mohammed get in his tux for the judging portion and present the fancy box of cookies in our dorm color’s box.

Okay, okay, we need to get going. I divide everyone up into teams for the baking portion. David I put in charge of the recipe itself—he is to check it over and over and make sure our measurements are correct, the order correct, the temperature correct. As we start I tell them some things about chemistry and how baking works on the principles of chemistry. Unlike what I thought would happen, these 12 guys are excited and ready to go. So I have a team to be in charge of keeping the ingredients ready, a team to measure the ingredients, a team to cream the butter and sugar, a team to chop the chocolate, a team to get the oven and pans ready. Everybody is on board and ready to go. In the recipe it calls for a box of instant pudding—I tell them that might help the texture since that is one of our criteria. I don’t have any brown sugar, but I have about 100 packets of raw sugar for coffee and tea, and so now there is a team to open the packets and measure that sugar. This does produce the first mess! But they actually seem interested to know how the different kind of sugars can affect the texture of a cookie.

In the next hour we measure, we double-check, we cream—someone asks if I have any fancy chocolates to add and I remember some great mousse-like chocolates. A new team is created to microwave that chocolate and add it to the mix. They like how this might be a good wow factor with the fancy chocolate in taste and texture and a new amber-colored glow to the batter.

Then after the cracker-jack team of Asher and Khalook have creamed the butter and eggs and sugar expertly, we start to mix in the dry ingredients. You would have thought we were working on nuclear fission or something from the level of interest and precise measurement and careful stirring and uber-double-checking. I bring out two kinds of vanilla—the imitation kind and the real stuff. I explain to them the difference, and we all pass around and smell the imitation and the real, and my 12 bakers all agree the real stuff is infinitely better and yes it is worth the money., Only the real stuff would go in our competitive dough! Finally, the large glass bowl is full of this glorious chocolate chip cookie dough. Someone wonders if we should taste it—you know, taste is one of the judge’s criteria. Yes, I agree, we need to make sure it is as great as we think. It is…you wouldn’t believe their expert-palate discussion of how the instant pudding and the real vanilla and the fancy chocolates have elevated our chocolate chip cookie dough.

It is time to get the dough onto the baking sheets. We have a little discussion over whether 1 big cookie or regular size cookies were better. If we wanted to use the Hermes box, then we needed to go with the regular size. As I demonstrate how to roll the dough to a consistent size (and why…) they realize it is just like eating their comfort-food mansaf as they take the balls of meat and pop them in their mouth.

The first baking sheet goes into the oven. There is a little nervousness if they will be perfect enough. While that one bakes we discuss the presentation again. Someone suggests that we put a label over the Hermes label on the box and write our dorm name. Walid is elected to practice his penmanship, and after about a dozen shots, we take the perfect label of “Nihal” and affix it over Hermes. Someone also suggests that when tux-clad Mohammed serves the judges the cookies from the fancy box that he first offer to shave fresh chocolate over the cookie for them. So we get Mohammed to practice grating chocolate from a fancy bar.

As I took the first batch out of the oven—I have never seen more nervous and excited and interested bakers in my life—I realized three incredibly great things: (1) I had only instructed and guided them in this effort; all I physically did was put the baking sheet in and take it out of the oven (2) this was more fun than I ever thought it might be and (3) one of the young men in this cohort was someone with whom I had never gotten along previously. This guy had been in another teacher’s class in my room and I caught him numerous times punching my art posters with the thumb tacks. I chastised him and we developed a nasty cold war. But look—here he was, my right hand man, carefully checking on the microwaved chocolate, checking with me on the oven, checking on the bottoms of the cookies so that only the most perfect cookies would be submitted. I realized that this was one of the best teaching experiences I had ever had.

We decided that we would bake all 36 cookies, and then judge them ourselves and pick the 5 best for the judges. Why should we submit all the cookies to them? We would submit 5 cookies in our Hermes/Nihal fancy orange box, with our concierge Mohammed shaving fresh chocolate on them, and then we should eat the rest. I mean, we needed to see if they were as good as we believed. We believed these were great cookies.

So we narrowed down the choices. We prepared the box. Mohammed changed into his tux. We gingerly placed the perect 5 into the box. We left for the competition. On our way out, the boys thanked me profusely for the afternoon—and I thanked them. We just had to win. I mean seriously—we thought about texture, we had expensive chocolate, perfect cookies, a young man in a tuxedo with a designer box…and a spirit of reconciliation with that formerly errant boy.

We get to the competition and I can feel the rush of adrenaline. Every other entry had put cookies on a plate. Sniff. Well, that is a choice. Not a wow choice, but a choice. That evil and wonderful Maria (I love her!) had dyed her dorm’s chocolate chip cookies the color of the dorm. Good move Maria, but was there a tux or gown around??? The others look fine, but we are ready to trounce them in the competition!

The judges are lined up, the students ready for the presentation. Obviously, ours look great. Okay, the judging. Julianne sees me biting my nails. She is having a ball with this.

How does it come out?

Oh dear reader, it is not quite the climax of the movie that I envisioned.

We placed second. Now, this is not sour grapes, BUT the winning dorm, I learn something interesting—no boys in the winning dorm made their cookies. Faculty children—7th grade girls, no less—made their cookies. I silently seethe.

John, the usually-wonderful-headmaster-but-today-the-nefarious-one, says, “Well, there really are layers of corruption here. I am attached to that dorm and my daughter helped make the cookies.” Corruption indeed! It reminds one of the infamous 1820s “Corrupt Bargain” that put the wrong man in the White House. Oh, boy.

So in the end, we did not come in first place. I am getting over the anger. I started an Anger Journal by which to channel my rage and wounded pride.

But the Madaba Games—a success…such fun. In the days since our bake-off, many of those boys have stopped me and thanked me again for a fun afternoon. Two of them now speak to me every time I pass them. And that one guy, well, I took him aside and told him how proud I was of his diligence and commitment and patience. It might have only been chocolate chip cookie baking, but I saw a new kid that afternoon in my kitchen.

Good heavens—I love education! And I guess competition too.

1 comment:

Charlie said...

You did deserve serious points for that presentation!

For the record, in fact one boy from the dorm did show up to help bake. Also, two of the girls, as well as the kitchen owner, are affiliated with Sulafat. Julianne invited us to get help from faculty affiliated with the dorms--why not faculty children?