chefs are stubborn

One thing I've come to realize, especially this past week, is that cooks are very prideful and very stubborn. I'm no exception. Currently in class, we're in a unit of "individual desserts" (aka plating individual-portion-sized desserts with the works -- aka. desserts served with tuiles, ice creams and sorbets, fruit compotes, sauces, coulis, other random garnishes, etc.) One of our biggest "projects" is to create an original dessert menu of 8-12 desserts, complete with recipes and execute it smoothly, and it's a lottt harder than it may sound. There are many components that must be taken into account with creating a menu -- first, the restaurant, its vision, theme, customer type, price range, feel, etc etc etc. Then, the food itself -- seasonality, covering all your bases of different types/flavors of stuff, feasibility, practicality, etc.

Soooo...our assignment a few days ago was to come up with 10 desserts for our school's restaurant, l'ecole. Then, we wrote our top 2 on the board and had a total of 36 desserts with everyone's contribution. Chef then told us that we had to go around and start vetoing desserts until the top 8 were left. We each took turns picking a dessert we didn't like, saying why we didn't think it was appropriate, having the creator defend their dessert, then the next person in line voting to say whether it stayed or went byebye. And of course we would want to see our dessert stay up there, so defend your butt off for that thing!

Oh. My. Goodness. That was a tense afternoon. Attacks, grudges, judgments, anger...It was just not pretty having to argue with 17 other people about what we thought was right. Actually..if I really think about it, I'm probably one of the other 4 people who REALLY got defensive. The rest had opinions, but I don't know how many of them actually got angry about the things that were being said... (I know I did, and I know my partner did. And since we had different opinions about stuff, it has just been a REALLY tense week between the two of us, having to work together and all.)

It's really bad, actually. I know that my pride is something that I wrestle with, and especially when it comes to things like these where I really 90% believe that I "know" better than my classmates, it just ... is a bit more out of control than normal. Add to it the fact that I'm pretty tired, therefore probably am not thinking 100% straight and am more easily irritable, I'm a little disgusted seeing myself like this. It's a real challenge to recognize this as sin, repent, and change my behavior, when it would just be easier to keep going at it because I just want to win! I must learn to show humility, resist criticizing, and take a blow to my pride. My pride has been tearing away at my soul, and this whole exercise and all of our emotions have been counterproductive to our morale, productivity, and efficiency. I actually have dreaded going to class because of the ugliness that I feel in these situations...

So...what to do? I know. I gotta pray that God will radically transform my heart to be one of grace, patience, humility, and servanthood. If I can't show this kind of behavior in the classroom, how will I ever show it in the working world and elsewhere? And, what would this say about my effectiveness as a witness to those around me? These tough situations are really showing the true nature of my heart, and boy, my heart has got to change.

Before his downfall a man's heart is proud, but humility comes before honor. Proverbs 18:12