cochina vs. cocina

Our first day back for the week was tiresome. Li, our Malaysian groupmate, got kicked out and sent to production for accidentally touching our chef instructor when she walked by her and Deborah is leaving.

Deborah gets to rotate to pastry and it makes me sad. Although we can’t verbally communicate with each other in depth, we have developed a relatively close relationship. She is like my ambassador in the group and has given me more mis-en-place to do in the mornings—for example, a fish aioli made with crab, shrimp, lobster, and scallops and yodada, a sauce comprised of shallots, white wine, mussel stock, micrui and crème fraiche—because she knows I can get it done and do a good job. (She told Aroldo this, who in turn, told me this.) I fear that with her gone, I will have less to do in the mornings.

I was too tired to shower this evening. Deborah came into the room and asked, “Alex, lucha?” I told her no.

“Cochina!” she responded, because I once improperly pronounced cocina, or kitchen, as cochina, which is a very bad, very dirty word for women.

Although the joke is on me, I like that Deborah feels that she can make fun of me. It makes me feel like we are somehow communicating.