After packing all our belonging's into a van and traveling across the country we arrived Portland during a winter storm. We headed to the school located downtown on 16th. They had arranged for housing out in the Cornell area and I needed to check in. My excitement almost split open the van. I had arrived. Chef students walked around in whites with toques everywhere I looked. We got directions out to the apartments and they gave me the name of my roomate, "Chris". Fianlly we located the apartment and unloaded my stuff into the empty room. The apartment was empty other than the items we brought. Val left to head back to Lewiston where she would stay with her mom while I was in school
Chris and I were talking with the manager and signing all our paperwork when he mentioned that an elderly gentleman had died and left everything in the apartment and had no relatives to claim any of the items. He said we could take the furniture to use in our apartment. A blessing from above although a little creepy. The stuff was used but nice. After we moved it all in it took about a week to get over that it was - Dead Man's Furniture. Later during the year this would prove the center of several parties.
School officially started January 1991 the day we went to war with Iraq. I can clearly remember this as one of the older students who looked like a clone of Uncle Fester from the Adam's Family stood up with his headphones on and yelled, "Were at war with Iraq". Between that and the F. Dick 6" flexible boner in the knife kit - day one ended up quite interesting.
As the school year went on it became evident that you should never let someone you don't know set you up with a roommate you don't know either. The arrangement had been very uncomfortable at best. So Val moved to Portland and we rented an efficiency apartment downtown at the Ongford Arms. It was a small 500 square foot hall with the kitchen in a closet. 2 burners and the smallest dishwasher I've ever seen. We had a futon couch/bed some other furniture but not much else. Val took a job with the YMCA working with kids in an after school program while I went to school and took a weekend job cooking at the Catholic Diocese house for the Franciscan Monks. Down the block was what was called Psycho Safeway and up the other block was The Tele-Cafe. This particular Safeway had armed guards due to the especially unique crowd that shopped there. Cop cars were there almost every day and night. The cafe was an eclectic mix of phones bad coffee and strange tattooed Portlanders.
My good friend Rich Hyatt and I had joined up with one of the chef instructors who was mentoring us and entered the local student ACF food competition. We worked all week on our plates learning how to glaze and arrange for height and color. It was hot food cold so we did not have to serve it. We worked the event at waiters and afterwards found out that we had one the gold. Rich got the medal as I did not have enough money to join the ACF at that time. But we had entered as a team.. I hate small print!
Also during the end of my term at WCI I was approached by a film producer from the local TV station KGW. He was looking for a food stylist for his Thanksgiving piece he needed to film. So I became a Food Stylist. It was pretty awesome to see my work on TV that November. Finally school finished and I graduated with Honors. A quick rush from completing the dream and......oh now I need a job.
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