#but I’m starting to get more and more pessimistic about the future of technical translation as a career path

[itsukismoon]

Yumekuro Artbook - Q&A (Tsukiwatari)

Crow

Introductions: I’m an explorer, Crow. My job is to find all kinds of interesting things around the world, it’s my purpose in life! What makes me happiest is when people get excited about the things I find. Also, I feel happy whenever I eat with everyone at home [TN: the guild home]!

MC first impression: First of all, I was really surprised. “No way, she’s so cute… even more than I imagined”. When we met for the first time, I was so excited I ended up immediately telling her how cute she is! Looking back on it now, it’s a bit embarrassing, ahah.

Evan first impression: Evan, huh? He’s such a tsundere! For some time after meeting him, I felt like he would cut me if I tried touching him. But I like how competitive he is. I think we’ve been getting along well lately, though I think he’d deny this and say “NO!”.

Meister you’re close with: Obviously, it’s everyone from Tsukiwatari, but outside my own guild there’s also the mechanics’ guild Lagoon. He’s the one that maintains my bike. He often tells me not to be reckless, but I think we get along well; even though we’re a little apart in age [TN: Crow is 22 and Lagoon is 36], we sometimes go on rides and eat together!

Itsuki

Introductions: I’m a moon reader, Itsuki. My job is to predict and research how the Moon Road, a road to other countries, will appear. Then uhh… what should I say… Hobbies? My hobby is cooking. Though… my friends say that my sense of taste is “out of this world”. Out of this world… huh… [TN: the verb used here can also mean “to lack common sense” lol]

MC first impression: The first time I saw her I was impressed. She’s so delicate that my impression of her was miles away from that of her father. Also, I thought her eyes were very beautiful. This has not changed even now. They’re pure and strong, and when I look at them, I sometimes feel drawn to them.

Navi first impression: Navi seems… busy. At first glance, he’s laughing, then angry then sad. Then, all of a sudden he starts playing tricks… his emotions change all the time. I was worried it might tire him out too much, but when I told him this he glared at me. I often make him angry like this, but it’d be nice if I could make him laugh, too.

Meister you’re close with: Since I’m not good at interacting with others, so I mostly only talk to the Tsukiwatari members… I guess the answer is Crow. When he fell on me from a Moon Road, I got scared to death. We’ve been together ever since. That encounter has changed everything for me… I don’t know what will come next.

Grandflair

Introductions: I’m the living paintings’ artist, Grandflair. I’m the leader of the World exploration Guild Tsukiwatari. If any of our guild members cause you any trouble, please contact me. Despite still being inexperienced, I’d like to make art that can make people smile. I look forward to working with you in the future.

MC first impression: Although Crow and Itsuki had already told me something… she was completely different from what I had imagined. I came to meet her thinking she was rough, bold and strong, but then I found out she is considerate, attentive and very capable… from the bottom of my heart, I’m grateful that she’s become our guildkeeper.

Himmel first impression: He used to be a bit of a pessimist, but I think he’s come to change a bit. [TN: not sure what the right translation is here for the next part…]. It’s a bit surprising how fast he switches from being awake to falling asleep (?) but… from now on, I’ll keep on telling him:”To fight back is not futile” [TN: technically, Himmel’s way of thinking is grounded on the fact that the future cannot be changes, so this ties back to that, although I truly don’t know why Grand is mentioning it here]

Meister you’re close with: …Do I really have to say his name? Rouge, from my same guild, though he’s more of a close friend [TN: the word used is 腐れ縁 which means undesirable but inseparable], rather than a good friend. I still can’t forgive him for calling me “Mom” [TN: because Grand is the “mom” of the guild]. If you loo at his character, he’s an awful person: bad with money, is a drunk hard, spends more time fooling around than actually working… although, there’s some good sides to him as well.

Rouge

Introductions: Yeees~ Tsukiwatari’s handsome poet, that’d be me, Rouge!~ Then, let’s toast to our introduction, shall we? Bahahah, don’t hold baaaackkk~ Oops sorry, looks like I have no money!

MC first impression: I was so surprised I thought to myself “Hey hey, what’s with this cute girl? Why is such a cute girl in my guild?!”. I thought she heard the rumours about me and came to check me out but… that wasn’t the case at all, ahah.

Shaymie first impression: Shaymie is so innocent and cute. I think that his whole being forgetful thing is also part of his personality. He always works hard and gives it his all but… I think he can take it more slowly and enjoy himself. Though, I think it’s about time he’d at least learn my name…

Meister you’re close with: Grand from my guild! “Lend me money~!” Is our greeting! …though when I say that, he always looks like he’s about to punch me again. Primus club’s Victor is my drinking buddy. He treats me whenever I lose at gambling. He’s so kind… eh? He’s charging me?

Noah

Introductions: Mythical beasts master, Noah… I belong to the World exploration guild, Tsukiwatari. My role is to protect the phantom beasts — and to do that, I need to become stronger than anyone else.

MC first impression: I knew she wasn’t a bad person because Corocle liked her. She takes care of me a lot, though I had some trouble adjusting at first… however, the food she makes is delicious, and I don’t think it’s bad.

Chitose first impression: Chitose is very knowledgeable and teaches me many things. Many of them, I don’t really care about, though they can be useful. It’s just… sometimes I’’m a bit surprised. He asked me why I was helping out a dying mythical beast, telling me it was going to die anyways. I didn’t really understand what he meant.

Meister you’re close with: There is no such thing. Mh? …Rouge? Don’t make me laugh. I despise that guy. I even keep my dirty clothes away from his. I don’t like breathing the same air as him, so why does he care about me…

#dream meister and the recollected black fairy #joseimuke #mobage #ymkr #yume100 #otome #ゆめくろ #yumekuro #yumekuro translations #otome games #夢職人と忘れじの黒い妖精 #tsukiwatari

[mira--mira]

Madara and Hashirama for the ask meme 👀

Hashirama

What I love about them:

I really love Hashirama's stubborn optimism. I say "stubborn" here bc I think after a certain point of pain in misery in someone's everyday life, in some way it is a choice to remain optimistic despite that suffering. I don't characterize Hashirama as constantly happy and he can recognize the more realistic/pessimistic possibilities, he just refuses to accept them. I have it in my notes for OoT but haven't worked it in verbatim but Madara would call him "ruthlessly optimistic " and while that's tinged with Madara's own bias, I think it fits quite well.

What I hate about them:

Hashirama is stubbornly optimistic LOL. It's a double-edged sword and I think by the time he reached adulthood in a canon setting, Hashirama was so desperate for there to be peace he maintained his "everything will work out" attitude when he otherwise shouldn't have. There were the concerns with Madara and the Uchiha, his own brothers views that he certainly should have recognized could become a problem, and, after depending on when Tobirama took on students/how old they were, the possibility of biases being passed down and a Danzo like figure coming to power. However this was not Hashirama's responsibility alone to fix. I don't think, despite his love, Hashirama alone could have kept Madara in a village that hated him and a clan that distrusted him. Tobirama was an adult and let his own bias pass under a veil of "logic" and passed that, either intentionally or unintentionally down to his students. None of this is Hashirama's fault, but I think part of the canon story being a tragedy was he was blinded by a bright, hopeful future that he failed to see the early signs right in front of him.

Favorite Moment/Quote:

"To me, Madara was like a gift from the divine."

Even thinking about it makes me melt. It's so sweet and really emphasizes how much Madara means to him. 🥺

What I would like to see more focus on:

In fics? Hashirama's mental health and how his childhood affected him. Most of the long fics I've read focus on Madara. Which I understand, Madara has an arc into becoming a villain while Hashirama is just kinda "there" and it's easy for him to fulfill a support role to helping Madara in canon Au fics. A sort of unshakeable, always optimistic stone for Madara to depend on and stop his downward spiral into villainy. But, what makes hashimada so great for me is that Madara and Hashirama are equals. There will be times one falters and needs to depend on the other, and they're capable of giving each other that support. It'd also be great to see Hashirama struggle yet continue to choose optimism and compassion time after time because that feels more weighty and important than an eternally optimistic characterization that never wavers.

Headcanon wise...this isn't something I've found but desperately want to see (and will come up in all of my own aus) is the connection between the god tree and the god of shinobi who's famed ninjutsu is wood release and who's cells can be used for everything under the sun and are specifically needed to control the gedo statue / ten-tails. 👀 Look when I got back into Naruto and only vaguely knew about the war arc plot I thought Kishimoto was Doing Something with that. He was not. I am.

What I would like to see less focus on:

This is pretty much mentioned above but Hashirama as mainly a support for Madara rather than getting his own (non romantic) arcs in long canon Au fics. Headcanon wise, this is such a small nitpick, but Hashirama constantly being the one described as warm whereas Madara is cold. The big tree can *retain* heat, but he pales in comparison to Madara's ability to *generate* heat.

Favorite pairing with:

Hashimada (Hashirama x Madara)

No one should be surprised. I can wax prose about this for days but it's about ultimately finding someone else in a terrible world that *understands* you that you can grow with and support. I'm a sucker for friends to lovers and battle couples so guess what's right up my alley?

Favorite friendship:

Canon/BoaF- Hashirama & Mito

I know Madara & Mito is more popular, and I do love their dynamic but christ Hashirama needs friends outside Madara and Tobirama and I think they'd be good friends. Canon!Mito would provide a good level-headed perspective and wouldn't have the messy, complicated history like the three founders have together and it'd be good for Hashirama to get a break from that. BoaF!Mito and Hashirama are cousins their relationship eventually progresses to a sibling-like bond. They’re quite protective of each other and gossip endlessly together. Mito’s not as good as gardening, but they do it together and incorporate Uzumaki sealing techniques for certain houseplant decorations. Mito also might know about Madara 👀 

OoT-Hashirama & Sakura or Hashirama & Sai

His and Sakura's relationship is p similar to how I would characterize his and Mito's but with the added hilarity of Sakura being his "student" yet having 0 deference for him once they actually get to the "teaching" part (surprise: Hashirama's most uttered lines are "you do the thing, you know the thing, you know you just...do it. The thing. Madara "translates" a lot of their sessions.) Hashirama and Sai antagonize each other constantly and he *will* tease Sai into oblivion as any older brother would. Tobirama never reacted to Hashirama's mischief in ~fun~ ways and he felt bad about messing with Itama, who was even more emotional than he was and Kawarama, who hero-worshipped him. Sai is the perfect "if anyone messes with you I will personally make them regret being born yet *I* will tease you mercilessly to my hearts content" kind of little brother.

NOTP:

Hashitobi (Hashirama x Tobirama)

I don't do incest. At all. Even "non-incest" aus where they aren't technically related squick me out.

Favorite headcanon:

Hashirama can Speak to the trees.

Either humorously or seriously, I love this kinda, sorta, maybe not quite human power.

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Madara

What I love about them:

Madara is kind and does his best to do what he thinks is right. The “kind” point is a lot of Hashirama talking/flashbacks and the “good” intention behind the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Making everyone a “winner” in the dreamworld, while absolutely insane and full of holes, is odd for a villain’s motivation. His role in the war arc is mostly focused on watching him wreck absolutely everyone he comes into contact with but I love Hashirama’s flashbacks and the glimpses of kid!Madara we get. Madara believed in his philosophy from a lifetime of pain that ended in him losing everything and being manipulated but he was still seeking a way to “help” the most people he could. He’s such a rich character that makes it easy to want to imagine other what-if scenarios where things turned out just a bit differently.

What I hate about them:

Madara takes all responsibility onto himself. This is more speculation because we don’t get Madara’s POV of his childhood or any significant scenes with the clan. However, I think this is one of the primary roots of most of Madara’s problems. If he blamed himself for mistakes that weren’t technically his, he could get into a cycle where he only blames himself and doesn’t seek help/support when he should have and purposefully reduces his support circle because he becomes paranoid that he won’t be able to protect them. A smaller issue that is both about Madara and not is he didn’t fall victim to the Talk no Jutsu, but was Madara aware of what was happening when he was possessed(?) by Kaguya? I forgot but if he wasn’t...I don’t think he’d agree Hashirama’s way was the right way at the end, merely his way was wrong. Because, in Madara’s point of view, the village may have been “better” (used very loosely) than becoming food/power for an alien goddess but it wasn’t good. It wasn’t the solution. Hashirama saying they were both wrong in some way saved the scene but Madara still jumped back to Hashirama’s dream being the right one too quickly imo. 

Favorite Moment/Quote:

“What are you going to do about the second [meteor] Onoki?” 

I’m sorry, that was just hilarious. We see this man slaughter an entire division and drop a meteor from the sky...two kages desperately try to stop it and it looks like they managed to succeed and he just...cool. What about the second? Really cemented Madara is Here and he is Dramatic. A close second fav is him flying across the battlefield to confront Hashirama only for the “I’ll deal with you later” line. 

What I would like to see more focus on:

I really love it when fics fill in the blanks of Madara’s childhood/his time with the Uchiha so that’s always a plus for me. The other thing is Hashirama calls Madara a “fundamentally kind man” and according to Tobirama the Uchiha feel love “too deeply” so I like fics that do focus on these aspects of Madara’s personality while staying true to his prickly demeanor. For headcanons I love, love, love exploring kekkei genkai/ninjutsu/genjutsu and how they individually affect people/clans. Digging deeper so that “fire affinity” means constantly running hot/pushing into possibly having fire resistance/unable to distinguish “too hot” / or even affinity acting like a secondary blood type so even if two people had AB blood if one had a water affinity and the other fire their blood would be incompatible. Also the mundane ways powers can be used (I have some Ideas for non-combat genjustu applications that the Uchiha use and those will come up in OoT 👀)

What I would like to see less focus on:

This again kinda ties into the Hashirama segments, but Madara completely depending on Hashirama and Hashirama alone for happiness. Especially in long AUs where he’s still in Konoha but has a poor relationship with the Uchiha. That’s fine starting out! But if the fic ends or doesn’t seriously work on improving that relationship it just sits a bit weird with me bc I don’t think Madara could be truly happy in that situation. (NSFW start) The other thing I see commonly is Madara is extremely passive/submissive in bed with Hashirama which is...weird to me? There’s also a reoccurring thing where he doesn’t have a lot of experience but Hashirama does and this leads to embarrassment and the aforementioned passive/submissiveness. I understand lack of experience can be embarrassing and I do believe Madara could be embarrassed, but instead of withdrawing into himself I think he’d push through it with something close to bravado and his usual single-minded intensity, for better or worse. I do think Madara usually bottoms in his and Hashirama’s relationship but both of them are as enthusiastic about sex as they are fighting and neither is especially submissive or dominant. (NSFW end)

Favorite pairing with:

Hashimada (Hashirama x Madara)

See absolutely everything else 😂 

Favorite friendship:

Canon/BoaF- Madara & Naori or Madara & Hikkaku 

I really like focusing on the Uchiha clan and exploring the dynamics within it. We get nothing about Madara’s early life outside of Hashirama so this is almost completely speculation. For the angst of canon, I like Madara being close to his clan only to lose them after his friendship with Hashirama is revealed bc he awakened his sharingan over Hashirama and that can’t be easily hidden. For BoaF, a large part of it is exploring the clans’ cultures before they made the village so this necessitates actually fleshing out said clans. Naori and Izuna are v similar in personality and both live to prank Madara and annoy him, but they hardly ever team up bc they start squabbling amongst themselves. Hikakku is stoic and calm in contrast to Naori’s mania and Madara’s intensity but he keeps track of every little favor and Madara dreads the day he’ll act on them because he knows it’ll result in something embarrassing for him. But like all BoaF!Uchiha, they’re fiercely protective of one another and you really don’t want to insult the wrong person. 

OoT - Madara & Naruto or Madara & Sai

I really Madara and Naruto’s dynamic, it’s very entertaining and fun for me to write and they’re both positive influences on each other. Madara gets more people to smother with his brand of affection and Naruto gets early recognition and training. Their weird non-training shenanigans (coupon collecting, gaming, etc.) also is p amusing. Madara and Sai have a similar relationship but I really like writing theirs from Sai’s POV bc he insists that he doesn’t feel close/like when Madara treats him like a little brother when he really does. 

NOTP:

Madatobi (Madara x Tobirama)

Logically, I know why this pairing is popular. Fanfic is saturated with the enemies to lovers trope yet emotionally I Do Not Understand it. Personally, I don’t enjoy toxic relationships, to read or write. And, to me, that’s what a close canon Madara and Tobirama pairing would be. Tobirama tried to convince Hashirama to kill him, he killed Izuna, even if it was in war, and I don’t think Madara could or would get over that. If Tobirama has similar attitudes about the Uchiha it makes it worse. AUs exist to rewrite this, of course, but I still don’t enjoy their romantic chemistry. At best, I like Tobirama and Madara as reluctant frenemies who insult each other and try to one-up each other. 

Favorite headcanon:

Madara is fire proof. 

I have a whole rant about this in OoT’s author notes 😂 Sasuke’s Amaterasu should have been a serious threat when it hit him. Instead the man just lets his clothes fall off then kicks their asses. He’s fire proof.

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In response to the ask game:

#asks #al-stuffy #naruto #hashimada #madara uchiha #madara #hashirama senju #hashirama #my fics #out of time #timetravel!au #birds of a feather #ask game #enjoy my exhausted rambles after 12 hours of driving #god i hope this makes sense #sorry for the grammar in advance #might wake up and edit the hell out of this #this should be obvious but #these are my opinions #not the word of jesus christ himself #...tho jesus' opinions on gay ninjas would be VERY much appreciated

[quirkless-and-embarrassed]

are you doing the character ask meme thing? it would be awesome if you talk about shinso!!

!!!

Hell yes!! It’s been too long since I did my last character meme, and Shinsou is majorly underrated. I love him. (Sorry this took a few days!)

Favorite things about him:

I love how he puts his hand on the back of his neck when he’s flustered, and I love how he’s got a toothy, kinda evil smile. It’s also cute how he plays it aloof and tries to hide his feelings, but Horikoshi draws him with little distress sweats to show he’s actually really nervous. Stoic, this kid is not. And his eye bags are cute. Why do I love characters with eye bags.

I love how, at the end of his Sports Festival match against Midoriya, he’s deeply moved by his classmates’ support (and the whole stadium’s support). It really blows a hole in his “I’m not here to make friends” image when he gets all choked up over being cheered on. Like…he wants acceptance so badly…just let him be accepted as a hero. None of this backhanded compliment “oh wow, with your quirk, you could do anything!” schtick.

His match is especially satisfying because even though he technically loses, it’s basically a victory. Midoriya beats Shinsou because he has people who believe in and support him, and by the time the battle ends, Shinsou discovers he, too, has people who believe in him. Not just friends—total strangers, too, and he can choose to listen to their voices as they cheer him on instead of hearing just his detractors. Plus, one of those supporters is Aizawa, and Shinsou accomplishes his goal for the Sports Festival: to transfer into the heroics course. SO…it winds up being a “failure” that is actually a win in disguise, and I love those.

I love how he has a complicated relationship with his quirk and society. It’s been impressed on him that he’s made for a villain role—and like…it illustrates how bizarre hero culture is in bnha, where some people are just so infatuated with the spectacle of it all to the point they’re like “oh cool! you’d make an awesome villain! don’t make me do bad things, though, okay? okay!”—but despite it, Shinsou has a defiant kind of pride in his quirk. He snarks Midoriya during their fight, being like ~oh you wouldn’t understand, but this quirk of mine is like a dream come true! (Though in the anime, it’s translated more like “even with a quirk like this, I dream of being a hero”?) Shinsou understands he could do whatever he wants with his quirk, and what he wants is to do good things. He’s bitter because like, is it that hard to believe someone might just want to do good? How/why do people have to be so pessimistic that they think someone with his power must abuse it? But at the same time, he gets it, he knows he’s not any better because he would also be dubious of someone with power like his. But also! It’s not fair! Because “heroic” quirks are also potentially destructive, but a kid like Bakugo or Todoroki is told he’ll be a great hero someday, not that he’d make a great villain—and the heroes industry guarantees them a fast-track to pro status at the expense of people like Shinsou or Midoriya.

So I love that Shinsou is this idealistic figure: he could do evil, but he won’t. His quirk enables peaceful deescalation of hazardous situations. It’s ideal. But it’s ideal because it is such a classically villainous quirk—a power that weaponizes communication, turns people’s trust against them, and exerts total domination to rob people of their autonomy. So very quickly, that inspiring interpretation of Shinsou being able to choose what he does with his quirk is easy to second-guess. The line between hero and villain doesn’t seem so distinct when both professions are distilled down with such brutal precision. Shinsou wants to use his quirk to help people, but the questions of which people he helps and how he helps them are the distinction between a hero and a villain, and it’s not as neat as the hero ranking would imply. His dialogue with Monoma about how they do unheroic things to accomplish heroic goals makes me hopeful that’s a seed Horikoshi planted for future exploration.

So…Shinsou sets up some interesting challenges, and that’s a major reason why I’m interested in him. I’m curious to see how his story unfolds.

One last thing I love about Shinsou. There’s a scene where Midoriya spots Shinsou in the hall and cheerfully calls out to him, and Shinsou’s only response is to rub the back of his neck and go “uh huh.” But! Later on, Shinsou has a flashback to this exchange, and he admits that he was actually really excited to face Midoriya again, and it’s like oh my gosh. You were secretly so pleased he recognized you, huh? You were so happy he remembered seeing you around and wanted to talk to you, and you wanted him to acknowledge how far you’ve come. But you’re a dumbass who couldn’t summon anything to say other than “uh huh.” D u m b a s s. But I like him for it. He tries so hard to be mature and collected that he really comes off as such a teenager.

Least favorite things about him:

Ok we both know he doesn’t get enough screen time, that can’t count as my least favorite thing. Hmm. Can I commit heresy and say that I think his hair looks pretty dumb?

Tbf though, Shinsou’s shortage of appearances is especially difficult because he’s fairly indirect and you can’t take what he says at face value, particularly because he aims to provoke. He’s also appeared almost exclusively in combat situations, so it’s hard to gauge how he behaves in more mundane circumstances (for example, in contrast to Mirio and Tamaki, who are fairly direct and who we see off the battlefield enough to get an overview of Mirio’s good-naturedness and Tamaki’s insecurity). I really dislike this uncertainty.

Other than that, it’s disappointing how, during the cavalry battle, he brainwashed all of his teammates. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Eliminating their brainpower definitely made them a weaker team, and I get the feeling he did it because he wanted to feel like he got to the final round from his own skill and not because he was relying on teammates with heroic quirks (which makes it ironic he taunted Midoriya about Ojiro’s “honor”). But I guess I get it, since he didn’t want to reveal his quirk to anyone and it would have been hard to persuade any of these strangers to team up with him.

Favorite line:

Ch212 – Brainwashing Midoriya to save him from blackwhip.

I just love how like…in the Sports Festival, Shinsou wasn’t trying to fight Midoriya as an equal, he was fighting Midoriya as a bitter underdog with something to prove. Then during this Class A vs B fight, even though Shinsou has inferred that his transfer to the heroics course depends on his performance, he’s happy to battle Midoriya again because he’s proud of how far he’s come. He’s discovered the shounen “let’s fight because we’re friends!” mindset, and I think it’s sweet.

And! There’s also this!

Monoma: “I like you, Shinsou. I really do. In order to survive, you too need to embrace your darker side. We’re much the same.”Shinsou: “No thanks.”

BROTPs:

Aizawa. Aizawa all the way. 90% of the Shinsou-centric fic I read is about a tired son and tired dad. 

I think Shinsou and Ojiro, once they get past the initial animosity, could be good friends. I know I mentioned that during the cavalry battle, I think Shinsou didn’t want to rely on teammates blessed with heroic quirks, he wanted to earn his own way. Similarly, Ojiro quit the Sports Festival precisely because he felt he didn’t earn his spot in the final round (something Shinsou provocatively dismissed as a sign of being a spoiled hero student who can afford to waste opportunities). I definitely have a weak spot for relationships that start off rocky and then, to the surprise of the idiots involved, they’re like wait we’re not that different…we might even be friends…? Anyways, Ojiro probably the number one Class A student I want to see Shinsou interact with more. I’d like to see him be Shinsou’s top critic at first, especially since Ojiro is generally such an easygoing nice guy.

On the other end of the spectrum, I love Monoma as Shinsou’s #1 fan. Their canon interactions cracked me up, and I like the balance Monoma strikes with Shinsou between his extravagant persona who’s all noise versus slipping him some thoughtful, barbed observations. Also like…Monoma emphatically embracing Shinsou as a member of the group is different from what Shinou’s learned to expect from people, so it’s funny to see him struggle with how to react. Shinsou has already said that he’s discarding any concept of good sportsmanship and so on, so I think having Monoma as someone to talk about how to fight dirty without being dirty would be a valuable friendship. …but mostly these two crack me up and I want more.

Okay, though Ojiro is the student in Class A I’m most curious to see Shinsou interact with, there’s also so much potential for humor with Kaminari or Aoyama. Kaminari’s little pep talk was really cute and I’d love to see him follow up on it by trying to befriend Shinsou while Shinsou is secretly pleased, embarrassed that he’s pleased, and unsure what Kaminari wants from him anyways. And Aoyama…LOL. Now, I dunno how these two would become friends, but imagine Aoyama trying to convince Shinsou to do something about his hair, about his eye bags, about his posture, about his dour inflections…meanwhile Shinsou suffers through it with his cool I don’t care attitude, gradually picking up on Aoyama’s hidden side. I can also imagine Aoyama and Shinsou being super passive aggressive to each other, ha.

I feel like Shinsou and Jirou could also get along pretty well, since they’re both pretty low-key. But I also feel like they might get along a little too well…I like pairs with a little more drama and tension. It’s easy to imagine them sitting in companionable silence, Shinsou listening to Jirou’s playlist while Jirou acts like this is no big deal. Or maybe Shinsou notices Jirou’s crush on Yaoyorozu and/or Kaminari, and Jirou is stuck seeking his opinion on matters he’s the opposite of an expert in…

I’d love to see Shinsou be subjected to Nejire’s relentless questioning. “Oh wow, hey! You look really tired! Are you really tired? Or are those shadows under your eyes just a side-effect of your quirk? Hey hey, wait, I recognize you. Aren’t you the brainwasher firstie? What do you say to people to brainwash them? Do you like, swing a pendulum in their face and tell them, ‘You are getting very sleepy’? You could do that to—oh! Can you brainwash yourself? Cuz then you could brainwash yourself to get more sleep! But…if you brainwash yourself, then who’s in control? How do you know you haven’t brainwashed yourself already—”

OTPs:

My favorite Shinsou ship is shiniida! This pic is what first put them on my radar, and the generally cute, funny fanart and fic got me the rest of the way invested. I like how on the surface, the two make an odd match, because you have Iida, who’s so by the book the bylaws are practically printed on his skin, and Shinsou gives a much more defiant, devious impression. But actually, Shinsou is surprisingly pure of heart, and Iida is someone who assumes the best of people, and it would be nice for Shinsou to find someone who implicitly believes he’s a good person. (…this is also something I like about Monoma.) Just the image of Iida fussing over Shinsou, and Shinsou being at a loss for how to deal with someone so well-meaning, respectful, and shameless about expressing his concern for Shinsou’s wellbeing. It’s intrusive but so sincere, I can imagine Shinsou getting pretty flustered.

It’s also interesting because Iida is from such a hero lineage with the sort of heroic quirk Shinsou begrudges for having it easy. I can see him being pretty caught off-guard by how seriously Iida dedicates himself to his dream to be a hero. Iida might have it easy compared to Shinsou, but that sort of determination isn’t something that can be scoffed off.

I also love todoshin, which I talked about here. One thing I didn’t talk about in that post, though, is that both of them in some way consider(ed) their quirks “evil.” Their complex relationships to their quirks are something else they might bond over, plus the fact that they’re both closely tied to the idea of self-determination, and I’m a weak-ass ho for free will as a theme so there you have shipping material galore in my book.

Shinoma is another ship I’ve read. I like this ship since it opens up different avenues of closeness between Shinsou and Monoma than between Shinsou and someone with a “heroic” quirk, but I think they’re more of a brotp for me. Kamishin, too—I like kamishin fluff/comedy, but I wind up gravitating more towards the platonic dynamic.

I haven’t read much shindeku, but it looks cute. I love the scenes where Midoriya greets Shinsou in the hall and Shinsou is too awkward to respond.

NOTPs:

Hmm…not really. Big multishipper here, I’ll ship anything I see nice content for.

Random headcanons:

There’s a fanfic where adult!Shinsou has a cat named Nyazawa, and Aizawa hates being a namesake. I approve heartily.

Though I also get a kick out of imagining that Shinsou likes cats, but he’s allergic.

I love this fic’s idea that Shinsou was once mistaken for Aizawa’s son, and ever since Shinsou has had a running joke where he annoys Aizawa by insolently calling him “dad.”

Shinsou has barely trained his quirk because he needs people to practice on, and, prior to Aizawa’s tutelage, he didn’t have any volunteers and he couldn’t quite find the nerve to ask people to be brainwashed.

Shinsou’s always wondered what it feels like to be brainwashed. Sometime after the Class A vs B training battle, Shinsou asks Monoma to copy his quirk and show him.

Shinsou could have gotten in to a different hero school, in their heroics program instead of entering general studies. I imagine some hero schools, unlike UA, must specialize in less flashy quirks. But Shinsou had enough of a chip in his shoulder that he wouldn’t settle for less than UA, the very best hero school in the country, because he so badly wanted the affirmation and endorsement that he can be a great hero.

Unpopular opinions:

Don’t get me wrong, I love reading fic where Shinsou has a crappy home life, is in foster care, etc. Angsty dadzawa and shinson is always a win. But the vibe I get from canon is that his home life is okay. His flashback sequence showing how people always think the worst of his quirk was sad, but it could’ve been much worse, so I think his life isn’t as terrible as it could be. Whew. (Though…it’s also a shame because he might get more in-story focus if it were bad…)

I like fic where Aizawa is a little harsher on Shinsou than the standard dadzawa fare, usually because he sees himself/Shirakumo in Shinsou, and that’s a good thing, sure, but it’s also an ordeal because it’s painful and difficult to reopen old wounds. This sort of internal conflict is one of the interesting things that differentiates Aizawa’s dynamic with Shinsou from his dynamic with Midoriya or his other students.

…I don’t really like erasermic+shinsou? Idk, Yamada never really feels like he fits into the dadzawa/shinson dynamic. He can be helpful for moving the plot along, but I’m not sure I’ve ever found a fic where I was emotionally invested in his role. Maybe now that there’s more canon content for him, I’ll take more of a liking to this trio.

Songs I associate with him:

I agree with this post that Mad World has a very Shinsou feel to it. I Surrender by Colleen D’Agostino reminds me of him too, since Shinsou seems like someone who tries to be cynical and detached but underneath he can’t help what his heart truly wants.

Favorite pictures of him:

Ch183 – zombie!Shinsou and terrified Kaminari!! I’d love to see Kaminari trying to revenge scare Shinsou.

(And seeing Mineta terrified is a different sort of satisfaction.)

Ch198 – Shinsou’s shock when Monoma ambushes him. He looks so awkward with his hands held stiffly at his sides.

Ch214 – why is he so cute. how did this happen.

Ch216 – This is the moment he loses to Midoriya a second time. I love the mix of emotion on his face.

Ch216 – His face when Aizawa announces Shinsou will almost certainly be approved for transfer

I’ve also answered these questions for Todoroki, Bakugo, Uraraka, Endeavor, Sir Nighteye, and Amajiki!

#shinsou hitoshi #hitoshi shinso #bnha #shinsou #text #nerd mumbling #writing this reminded me I still have a few characters I never finished these questions for #maybe I'll get my shit together and finish at least eri's #ask meme #asks #bnha society #shinoji #shinoma #jiroushin #nejire #dadzawa #shiniida #shinzawa

[easyfoodnetwork]

Just Like Restaurants, Culinary Schools and Their Students Are in Limbo

Yuriy Golub/Shutterstock

Culinary schools rely on hands-on training. Can they survive during the pandemic?

The morning of March 13 was normal until the intercom interrupted a discussion during Sarah Roundtree’s fine dining concepts lab at the Providence, Rhode Island, campus of Johnson & Wales. “They made the announcement that campus was shutting down,” she remembers. Roundtree, who graduated from the Charlotte campus of Johnson & Wales with a bachelor of science in culinary arts and food-service management in 2018, was working as a student teacher in the culinary arts program and had no idea what to tell the class about what to do next or when they’d be back. “The students had questions that I couldn’t answer,” she says.

She also didn’t know what it meant for her own studies. Roundtree was in Providence to complete a master of arts in teaching degree with a concentration in culinary arts education, and she was set to graduate in May, with an entry-level job at a restaurant already lined up. Instead, she left campus soon after that announcement, and in the coming weeks, the restaurant rescinded the job offer; it was forced to shut down due to COVID-19.

Today, Roundtree is living in Connecticut with her family, weighing her options for a career in a post-COVID-19 food industry. “Technically, I graduated a week ago,” she says via video call on a recent afternoon. “I’m sure I’ll do a Zoom celebration or something.”

As traditional college campuses shut down in early March, culinary schools followed, vacating their teaching kitchens, classrooms, and on-campus restaurants. But unlike traditional colleges, many of which shifted to online learning, culinary schools have had to contend with moving cooking classes, tactile in nature, to a virtual setting. Most have opted not to, meaning culinary schools and culinary students are stuck in limbo until campuses are cleared to reopen.

San Francisco Cooking School closed its campus March 16 and is not offering virtual learning for cooking courses, effectively putting the current stream of 42 full-time and part-time students on hold. “A hasty pivot to virtual learning didn’t make sense for SFCS because our curriculum is designed around hands-on instruction in a small class environment,” says San Francisco Cooking School founder Jodi Liano. Being in a kitchen-classroom setting ensures students learn to braise, cut, saute, chop, and dice under the tutelage of a trained culinary professional, an environment that’s hard to replicate via video call.

“Cooking is using all five senses,” says Lachlan Sands, campus president for the Institute of Culinary Education. Its campuses in Los Angeles and New York City both closed on March 16, affecting an undisclosed number of students (the school won’t say how many people are currently enrolled). “We believe it’s better to teach culinary arts in a kitchen in person.”

Culinary classes require an infrastructure that’s hard to mimic at home. A typical day of class involves students retrieving whisks, bowls, spoons, mixers, and stock pots from communal storage areas and retrieving ingredients from walk-in refrigerators or pantries to make the dishes that are part of the day’s lessons. Even if basic recipes were provided to students, there’s no guarantee that they would have access to the technology required for video calls. “Most of our students aren’t properly equipped for home study in terms of kitchen equipment, or even access to a kitchen where multiple roommates might be involved,” Liano says. Offering virtual cooking courses that may leave some students behind because of a lack of access, or asking them to venture out to secure ingredients during a pandemic, didn’t seem like the right move. “Simply put,” says Liano, “neither the school nor the students were set up to enable SFCS to fulfill our educational promise through virtual learning.”

Most culinary schools, though, have lecture-style courses for general education and professional studies classes related to specific majors, like menu planning and cost control, foodservice financial systems, food safety, culture, and technical writing; the Institute of Culinary Education, San Francisco Cooking School, Johnson & Wales, and New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute have moved their lecture courses online.

Schools hope to keep their students engaged with cooking during lockdowns, even if not officially for credits. The Institute of Culinary Education started offering cooking demos via Instagram Live with chefs like Marcus Samuelsson and Chris Scott to encourage students to cook along with industry pros. “We really want to get them to try new things and new dishes,” Sands says. But there’s no way to ensure that students are tuning in, and administrators are not monitoring who’s accessing the demos. It’s not a foolproof way of teaching cooking, but it is a way of doing something. “Part of what we can do right now is cultivate an atmosphere of community,” Sands says. San Francisco Cooking School has started a “Conversations With…” Zoom series that connects industry leaders and students via regular calls to “just to get together and talk about things like what they’ve been cooking for friends/family,” Liano says. “Teachers help troubleshoot during these calls, and classmates do the same — it’s been a really nice way to keep them together.”

As many states think about reopening, culinary schools are waiting for the go-ahead to resume classes. Leah Sarris, executive director for New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute, which opened in January of 2019, says the school’s 100-day certificate program moved lecture classes online. Administrators are planning on reopening the campus to “whenever it is safe to do so.” As New Orleans restaurants begin to reopen, NOCHI has a tentative plan “to resume classes whenever the city enters Phase 2,” Sarris says.

Culinary schools are adjusting to adhere to new safety guidelines at both local and federal levels, says Miriam Weinstein, communications director for Johnson & Wales University. Right now the Providence campus is planning on reopening July 6 with class sizes reduced from 18 to 14 students; a requirement that all staff, students, and faculty wear masks; and plexiglass partitions between cooking stations in hands-on classes. Both Johnson & Wales and San Francisco Cooking School will also introduce separate tasting rooms where students will bring a deli container of whatever they’re cooking to taste with disposable utensils. There, they’ll discuss with their instructor what adjustments should be made before disposing of the utensils and returning to the kitchen. Both schools say it will take some adjusting, but it’s something the students will eventually get used to. “It takes time and it adds steps, but it feels like a precaution worth taking,” says Liano. “I think it will become a routine that will be pretty easy to execute.”

That is, of course, if students elect to come back. Culinary school enrollment has long been in decline: According to data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), 16,792 culinary school degrees were awarded in 2017, down more than 8,000 compared to numbers from five years before. For many students, the costs associated with attending school (tuition for one undergraduate year at the Culinary Institute of America is more than $36,000; at Johnson & Wales, it’s more than $34,000), coupled with a downturned economy, might mean opting out of completing school altogether. And for both current and potential students, the restaurant industry’s crisis — and the likelihood of a lack of jobs after graduation — might affect decisions. An International Culinary Institute spokesperson says the school’s New York and LA campuses expect a “less than 2 percent withdrawal rate” after COVID-19, noting “students have expressed their desires to return to our campuses and resume their studies as soon as they are permitted to do so.” Weinstein, of Johnson & Wales, offers a slightly more pessimistic post-pandemic look: “We anticipate that the difficulties that our students and their families are facing will translate into future enrollment challenges.”

For those staying put, Sarris says that the New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute is being flexible with students’ timelines for class completion. “We understand that the current situation has a lot of unknowns, so for students who are high-risk when it comes to COVID-19 or who wish to take some time off, we are working with them on a personalized completion plan,” Sarris says. Johnson & Wales is offering undergraduates who are part of the 3,366 students across four campuses that were in lab courses (hands-on classes taught in kitchens) the opportunity to finish their studies in July or in the fall semester, according to Weinstein. Students who were on track to graduate with bachelor’s degrees were offered virtual lecture courses to complete their degrees, Weinstein says, leading to their graduation on time this year.

Looking further ahead, culinary schools are thinking about the trickle-down effects the crisis will have on their curriculums, which will need to be adjusted to prepare students to enter a changed food industry. “How are restaurants going to be staffed? What are menus going to look like? How do businesses balance delivery and dine in? There’s so many questions that we won’t be able to answer yet,” Sands says. “Before we can make changes to the curriculum, we have to see what the industry wants.” But he’s also hopeful that the industry will adapt to its new reality, whatever that may look like. “The demand for restaurants has existed for hundreds of years; you’ve got to give credit to the resiliency of chefs and restaurateurs,” he says. “It’s a big challenge, but I don’t want to undercut the resiliency of the leaders of the food industry.”

Roundtree is also looking to industry leaders and thinking about starting an ice cream sandwich business. Her goals have changed a bit, but she’s sure she wants to stay in the food industry. “Long term, I don’t know if I want to go into education,” she says. “I see myself owning a restaurant and maybe writing a cookbook.”

Korsha Wilson is a food writer and host of A Hungry Society, a podcast that takes a more inclusive look at the food world. She lives in New Jersey.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2UCX5AG https://ift.tt/3d0UgiR

Yuriy Golub/Shutterstock

Culinary schools rely on hands-on training. Can they survive during the pandemic?

The morning of March 13 was normal until the intercom interrupted a discussion during Sarah Roundtree’s fine dining concepts lab at the Providence, Rhode Island, campus of Johnson & Wales. “They made the announcement that campus was shutting down,” she remembers. Roundtree, who graduated from the Charlotte campus of Johnson & Wales with a bachelor of science in culinary arts and food-service management in 2018, was working as a student teacher in the culinary arts program and had no idea what to tell the class about what to do next or when they’d be back. “The students had questions that I couldn’t answer,” she says.

She also didn’t know what it meant for her own studies. Roundtree was in Providence to complete a master of arts in teaching degree with a concentration in culinary arts education, and she was set to graduate in May, with an entry-level job at a restaurant already lined up. Instead, she left campus soon after that announcement, and in the coming weeks, the restaurant rescinded the job offer; it was forced to shut down due to COVID-19.

Today, Roundtree is living in Connecticut with her family, weighing her options for a career in a post-COVID-19 food industry. “Technically, I graduated a week ago,” she says via video call on a recent afternoon. “I’m sure I’ll do a Zoom celebration or something.”

As traditional college campuses shut down in early March, culinary schools followed, vacating their teaching kitchens, classrooms, and on-campus restaurants. But unlike traditional colleges, many of which shifted to online learning, culinary schools have had to contend with moving cooking classes, tactile in nature, to a virtual setting. Most have opted not to, meaning culinary schools and culinary students are stuck in limbo until campuses are cleared to reopen.

San Francisco Cooking School closed its campus March 16 and is not offering virtual learning for cooking courses, effectively putting the current stream of 42 full-time and part-time students on hold. “A hasty pivot to virtual learning didn’t make sense for SFCS because our curriculum is designed around hands-on instruction in a small class environment,” says San Francisco Cooking School founder Jodi Liano. Being in a kitchen-classroom setting ensures students learn to braise, cut, saute, chop, and dice under the tutelage of a trained culinary professional, an environment that’s hard to replicate via video call.

“Cooking is using all five senses,” says Lachlan Sands, campus president for the Institute of Culinary Education. Its campuses in Los Angeles and New York City both closed on March 16, affecting an undisclosed number of students (the school won’t say how many people are currently enrolled). “We believe it’s better to teach culinary arts in a kitchen in person.”

Culinary classes require an infrastructure that’s hard to mimic at home. A typical day of class involves students retrieving whisks, bowls, spoons, mixers, and stock pots from communal storage areas and retrieving ingredients from walk-in refrigerators or pantries to make the dishes that are part of the day’s lessons. Even if basic recipes were provided to students, there’s no guarantee that they would have access to the technology required for video calls. “Most of our students aren’t properly equipped for home study in terms of kitchen equipment, or even access to a kitchen where multiple roommates might be involved,” Liano says. Offering virtual cooking courses that may leave some students behind because of a lack of access, or asking them to venture out to secure ingredients during a pandemic, didn’t seem like the right move. “Simply put,” says Liano, “neither the school nor the students were set up to enable SFCS to fulfill our educational promise through virtual learning.”

Most culinary schools, though, have lecture-style courses for general education and professional studies classes related to specific majors, like menu planning and cost control, foodservice financial systems, food safety, culture, and technical writing; the Institute of Culinary Education, San Francisco Cooking School, Johnson & Wales, and New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute have moved their lecture courses online.

Schools hope to keep their students engaged with cooking during lockdowns, even if not officially for credits. The Institute of Culinary Education started offering cooking demos via Instagram Live with chefs like Marcus Samuelsson and Chris Scott to encourage students to cook along with industry pros. “We really want to get them to try new things and new dishes,” Sands says. But there’s no way to ensure that students are tuning in, and administrators are not monitoring who’s accessing the demos. It’s not a foolproof way of teaching cooking, but it is a way of doing something. “Part of what we can do right now is cultivate an atmosphere of community,” Sands says. San Francisco Cooking School has started a “Conversations With…” Zoom series that connects industry leaders and students via regular calls to “just to get together and talk about things like what they’ve been cooking for friends/family,” Liano says. “Teachers help troubleshoot during these calls, and classmates do the same — it’s been a really nice way to keep them together.”

As many states think about reopening, culinary schools are waiting for the go-ahead to resume classes. Leah Sarris, executive director for New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute, which opened in January of 2019, says the school’s 100-day certificate program moved lecture classes online. Administrators are planning on reopening the campus to “whenever it is safe to do so.” As New Orleans restaurants begin to reopen, NOCHI has a tentative plan “to resume classes whenever the city enters Phase 2,” Sarris says.

Culinary schools are adjusting to adhere to new safety guidelines at both local and federal levels, says Miriam Weinstein, communications director for Johnson & Wales University. Right now the Providence campus is planning on reopening July 6 with class sizes reduced from 18 to 14 students; a requirement that all staff, students, and faculty wear masks; and plexiglass partitions between cooking stations in hands-on classes. Both Johnson & Wales and San Francisco Cooking School will also introduce separate tasting rooms where students will bring a deli container of whatever they’re cooking to taste with disposable utensils. There, they’ll discuss with their instructor what adjustments should be made before disposing of the utensils and returning to the kitchen. Both schools say it will take some adjusting, but it’s something the students will eventually get used to. “It takes time and it adds steps, but it feels like a precaution worth taking,” says Liano. “I think it will become a routine that will be pretty easy to execute.”

That is, of course, if students elect to come back. Culinary school enrollment has long been in decline: According to data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), 16,792 culinary school degrees were awarded in 2017, down more than 8,000 compared to numbers from five years before. For many students, the costs associated with attending school (tuition for one undergraduate year at the Culinary Institute of America is more than $36,000; at Johnson & Wales, it’s more than $34,000), coupled with a downturned economy, might mean opting out of completing school altogether. And for both current and potential students, the restaurant industry’s crisis — and the likelihood of a lack of jobs after graduation — might affect decisions. An International Culinary Institute spokesperson says the school’s New York and LA campuses expect a “less than 2 percent withdrawal rate” after COVID-19, noting “students have expressed their desires to return to our campuses and resume their studies as soon as they are permitted to do so.” Weinstein, of Johnson & Wales, offers a slightly more pessimistic post-pandemic look: “We anticipate that the difficulties that our students and their families are facing will translate into future enrollment challenges.”

For those staying put, Sarris says that the New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute is being flexible with students’ timelines for class completion. “We understand that the current situation has a lot of unknowns, so for students who are high-risk when it comes to COVID-19 or who wish to take some time off, we are working with them on a personalized completion plan,” Sarris says. Johnson & Wales is offering undergraduates who are part of the 3,366 students across four campuses that were in lab courses (hands-on classes taught in kitchens) the opportunity to finish their studies in July or in the fall semester, according to Weinstein. Students who were on track to graduate with bachelor’s degrees were offered virtual lecture courses to complete their degrees, Weinstein says, leading to their graduation on time this year.

Looking further ahead, culinary schools are thinking about the trickle-down effects the crisis will have on their curriculums, which will need to be adjusted to prepare students to enter a changed food industry. “How are restaurants going to be staffed? What are menus going to look like? How do businesses balance delivery and dine in? There’s so many questions that we won’t be able to answer yet,” Sands says. “Before we can make changes to the curriculum, we have to see what the industry wants.” But he’s also hopeful that the industry will adapt to its new reality, whatever that may look like. “The demand for restaurants has existed for hundreds of years; you’ve got to give credit to the resiliency of chefs and restaurateurs,” he says. “It’s a big challenge, but I don’t want to undercut the resiliency of the leaders of the food industry.”

Roundtree is also looking to industry leaders and thinking about starting an ice cream sandwich business. Her goals have changed a bit, but she’s sure she wants to stay in the food industry. “Long term, I don’t know if I want to go into education,” she says. “I see myself owning a restaurant and maybe writing a cookbook.”

Korsha Wilson is a food writer and host of A Hungry Society, a podcast that takes a more inclusive look at the food world. She lives in New Jersey.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2UCX5AG via Blogger https://ift.tt/3fh5nWE

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

[instantdeerlover]

Just Like Restaurants, Culinary Schools and Their Students Are in Limbo added to Google Docs

Just Like Restaurants, Culinary Schools and Their Students Are in Limbo

 Yuriy Golub/Shutterstock

Culinary schools rely on hands-on training. Can they survive during the pandemic?

The morning of March 13 was normal until the intercom interrupted a discussion during Sarah Roundtree’s fine dining concepts lab at the Providence, Rhode Island, campus of Johnson & Wales. “They made the announcement that campus was shutting down,” she remembers. Roundtree, who graduated from the Charlotte campus of Johnson & Wales with a bachelor of science in culinary arts and food-service management in 2018, was working as a student teacher in the culinary arts program and had no idea what to tell the class about what to do next or when they’d be back. “The students had questions that I couldn’t answer,” she says.

She also didn’t know what it meant for her own studies. Roundtree was in Providence to complete a master of arts in teaching degree with a concentration in culinary arts education, and she was set to graduate in May, with an entry-level job at a restaurant already lined up. Instead, she left campus soon after that announcement, and in the coming weeks, the restaurant rescinded the job offer; it was forced to shut down due to COVID-19.

Today, Roundtree is living in Connecticut with her family, weighing her options for a career in a post-COVID-19 food industry. “Technically, I graduated a week ago,” she says via video call on a recent afternoon. “I’m sure I’ll do a Zoom celebration or something.”

As traditional college campuses shut down in early March, culinary schools followed, vacating their teaching kitchens, classrooms, and on-campus restaurants. But unlike traditional colleges, many of which shifted to online learning, culinary schools have had to contend with moving cooking classes, tactile in nature, to a virtual setting. Most have opted not to, meaning culinary schools and culinary students are stuck in limbo until campuses are cleared to reopen.

San Francisco Cooking School closed its campus March 16 and is not offering virtual learning for cooking courses, effectively putting the current stream of 42 full-time and part-time students on hold. “A hasty pivot to virtual learning didn’t make sense for SFCS because our curriculum is designed around hands-on instruction in a small class environment,” says San Francisco Cooking School founder Jodi Liano. Being in a kitchen-classroom setting ensures students learn to braise, cut, saute, chop, and dice under the tutelage of a trained culinary professional, an environment that’s hard to replicate via video call.

“Cooking is using all five senses,” says Lachlan Sands, campus president for the Institute of Culinary Education. Its campuses in Los Angeles and New York City both closed on March 16, affecting an undisclosed number of students (the school won’t say how many people are currently enrolled). “We believe it’s better to teach culinary arts in a kitchen in person.”

Culinary classes require an infrastructure that’s hard to mimic at home. A typical day of class involves students retrieving whisks, bowls, spoons, mixers, and stock pots from communal storage areas and retrieving ingredients from walk-in refrigerators or pantries to make the dishes that are part of the day’s lessons. Even if basic recipes were provided to students, there’s no guarantee that they would have access to the technology required for video calls. “Most of our students aren’t properly equipped for home study in terms of kitchen equipment, or even access to a kitchen where multiple roommates might be involved,” Liano says. Offering virtual cooking courses that may leave some students behind because of a lack of access, or asking them to venture out to secure ingredients during a pandemic, didn’t seem like the right move. “Simply put,” says Liano, “neither the school nor the students were set up to enable SFCS to fulfill our educational promise through virtual learning.”

Most culinary schools, though, have lecture-style courses for general education and professional studies classes related to specific majors, like menu planning and cost control, foodservice financial systems, food safety, culture, and technical writing; the Institute of Culinary Education, San Francisco Cooking School, Johnson & Wales, and New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute have moved their lecture courses online.

Schools hope to keep their students engaged with cooking during lockdowns, even if not officially for credits. The Institute of Culinary Education started offering cooking demos via Instagram Live with chefs like Marcus Samuelsson and Chris Scott to encourage students to cook along with industry pros. “We really want to get them to try new things and new dishes,” Sands says. But there’s no way to ensure that students are tuning in, and administrators are not monitoring who’s accessing the demos. It’s not a foolproof way of teaching cooking, but it is a way of doing something. “Part of what we can do right now is cultivate an atmosphere of community,” Sands says. San Francisco Cooking School has started a “Conversations With…” Zoom series that connects industry leaders and students via regular calls to “just to get together and talk about things like what they’ve been cooking for friends/family,” Liano says. “Teachers help troubleshoot during these calls, and classmates do the same — it’s been a really nice way to keep them together.”

As many states think about reopening, culinary schools are waiting for the go-ahead to resume classes. Leah Sarris, executive director for New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute, which opened in January of 2019, says the school’s 100-day certificate program moved lecture classes online. Administrators are planning on reopening the campus to “whenever it is safe to do so.” As New Orleans restaurants begin to reopen, NOCHI has a tentative plan “to resume classes whenever the city enters Phase 2,” Sarris says.

Culinary schools are adjusting to adhere to new safety guidelines at both local and federal levels, says Miriam Weinstein, communications director for Johnson & Wales University. Right now the Providence campus is planning on reopening July 6 with class sizes reduced from 18 to 14 students; a requirement that all staff, students, and faculty wear masks; and plexiglass partitions between cooking stations in hands-on classes. Both Johnson & Wales and San Francisco Cooking School will also introduce separate tasting rooms where students will bring a deli container of whatever they’re cooking to taste with disposable utensils. There, they’ll discuss with their instructor what adjustments should be made before disposing of the utensils and returning to the kitchen. Both schools say it will take some adjusting, but it’s something the students will eventually get used to. “It takes time and it adds steps, but it feels like a precaution worth taking,” says Liano. “I think it will become a routine that will be pretty easy to execute.”

That is, of course, if students elect to come back. Culinary school enrollment has long been in decline: According to data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), 16,792 culinary school degrees were awarded in 2017, down more than 8,000 compared to numbers from five years before. For many students, the costs associated with attending school (tuition for one undergraduate year at the Culinary Institute of America is more than $36,000; at Johnson & Wales, it’s more than $34,000), coupled with a downturned economy, might mean opting out of completing school altogether. And for both current and potential students, the restaurant industry’s crisis — and the likelihood of a lack of jobs after graduation — might affect decisions. An International Culinary Institute spokesperson says the school’s New York and LA campuses expect a “less than 2 percent withdrawal rate” after COVID-19, noting “students have expressed their desires to return to our campuses and resume their studies as soon as they are permitted to do so.” Weinstein, of Johnson & Wales, offers a slightly more pessimistic post-pandemic look: “We anticipate that the difficulties that our students and their families are facing will translate into future enrollment challenges.”

For those staying put, Sarris says that the New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute is being flexible with students’ timelines for class completion. “We understand that the current situation has a lot of unknowns, so for students who are high-risk when it comes to COVID-19 or who wish to take some time off, we are working with them on a personalized completion plan,” Sarris says. Johnson & Wales is offering undergraduates who are part of the 3,366 students across four campuses that were in lab courses (hands-on classes taught in kitchens) the opportunity to finish their studies in July or in the fall semester, according to Weinstein. Students who were on track to graduate with bachelor’s degrees were offered virtual lecture courses to complete their degrees, Weinstein says, leading to their graduation on time this year.

Looking further ahead, culinary schools are thinking about the trickle-down effects the crisis will have on their curriculums, which will need to be adjusted to prepare students to enter a changed food industry. “How are restaurants going to be staffed? What are menus going to look like? How do businesses balance delivery and dine in? There’s so many questions that we won’t be able to answer yet,” Sands says. “Before we can make changes to the curriculum, we have to see what the industry wants.” But he’s also hopeful that the industry will adapt to its new reality, whatever that may look like. “The demand for restaurants has existed for hundreds of years; you’ve got to give credit to the resiliency of chefs and restaurateurs,” he says. “It’s a big challenge, but I don’t want to undercut the resiliency of the leaders of the food industry.”

Roundtree is also looking to industry leaders and thinking about starting an ice cream sandwich business. Her goals have changed a bit, but she’s sure she wants to stay in the food industry. “Long term, I don’t know if I want to go into education,” she says. “I see myself owning a restaurant and maybe writing a cookbook.”

Korsha Wilson is a food writer and host of A Hungry Society, a podcast that takes a more inclusive look at the food world. She lives in New Jersey.

via Eater - All https://www.eater.com/2020/6/12/21285538/culinary-arts-schools-covid-19-pandemic-impact-reopening-changing-curriculums

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[globalassetmgmt]

How Britain's oldest universities are trying to protect humanity from risky A.I.

University of Oxford Oli Scarff/Getty Images Oxford and Cambridge, the oldest universities in Britain and two of the oldest in the world, are keeping a watchful eye on the buzzy field of artificial intelligence (AI), which has been hailed as a technology that will bring about a new industrial revolution and change the world as we know it. Over the last few years, each of the centuries-old institutions have pumped millions of pounds into researching the possible risks associated with machines of the future. Clever algorithms can already outperform humans at certain tasks. For example, they can beat the best human players in the world at incredibly complex games like chess and Go, and they're able to spot cancerous tumors in a mammogram far quicker than a human clinician can. Machines can also tell the difference between a cat and a dog, or determine a random person's identity just by looking at a photo of their face. They can also translate languages, drive cars, and keep your home at the right temperature. But generally speaking, they're still nowhere near as smart as the average 7-year-old. The main issue is that AI can't multitask. For example, a game-playing AI can't yet paint a picture. In other words, AI today is very "narrow" in its intelligence. However, computer scientists at the the likes of Google and Facebook are aiming to make AI more "general" in the years ahead, and that's got some big thinkers deeply concerned. Meet Professor Bostrom Nick Bostrom, a 47-year-old Swedish born philosopher and polymath, founded the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) at the University of Oxford in 2005 to assess how dangerous AI and other potential threats might be to the human species. In the main foyer of the institute, complex equations beyond most people's comprehension are scribbled on whiteboards next to words like "AI safety" and "AI governance." Pensive students from other departments pop in and out as they go about daily routines. It's rare to get an interview with Bostrom, a transhumanist who believes that we can and should augment our bodies with technology to help eliminate ageing as a cause of death. "I'm quite protective about research and thinking time so I'm kind of semi-allergic to scheduling too many meetings," he says. Tall, skinny and clean shaven, Bostrom has riled some AI researchers with his openness to entertain the idea that one day in the not so distant future, machines will be the top dog on Earth. He doesn't go as far as to say when that day will be, but he thinks that it's potentially close enough for us to be worrying about it. Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom is a polymath and the author of "Superintelligence." The Future of Humanity Institute If and when machines possess human-level artificial general intelligence, Bostrom thinks they could quickly go on to make themselves even smarter and become superintelligent. At this point, it's anyone's guess what happens next. The optimist says the superintelligent machines will free up humans from work and allow them to live in some sort of utopia where there's an abundance of everything they could ever desire. The pessimist says they'll decide humans are no longer necessary and wipe them all out. Billionare Elon Musk, who has a complex relationship with AI researchers, recommended Bostrom's book "Superintelligence" on Twitter. Bostrom's institute has been backed with roughly $20 million since its inception. Around $14 million of that coming from the Open Philanthropy Project, a San Francisco-headquartered research and grant-making foundation. The rest of the money has come from the likes of Musk and the European Research Council. Located in an unassuming building down a winding road off Oxford's main shopping street, the institute is full of mathematicians, computer scientists, physicians, neuroscientists, philosophers, engineers and political scientists. Eccentric thinkers from all over the world come here to have conversations over cups of tea about what might lie ahead. "A lot of people have some kind of polymath and they are often interested in more than one field," says Bostrom. The FHI team has scaled from four people to about 60 people over the years. "In a year, or a year and a half, we will be approaching 100 (people)," says Bostrom. The culture at the institute is a blend of academia, start-up and NGO, according to Bostrom, who says it results in an "interesting creative space of possibilities" where there is "a sense of mission and urgency." The dangers of A.I. If AI somehow became much more powerful, there are three main ways in which it could end up causing harm, according to Bostrom. They are: AI could do something bad to humans. Humans could do something bad to each other using AI. Humans could do bad things to AI (in this scenario, AI would have some sort of moral status). "Each of these categories is a plausible place where things could go wrong," says Bostrom. With regards to machines turning against humans, Bostrom says that if AI becomes really powerful then "there's a potential risk from the AI itself that it does something different than anybody intended that could then be detrimental." In terms of humans doing bad things to other humans with AI, there's already a precedent there as humans have used other technological discoveries for the purpose of war or oppression. Just look at the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for example. Figuring out how to reduce the risk of this happening with AI is worthwhile, Bostrom says, adding that it's easier said than done. I think there is now less need to emphasize primarily the downsides of AI. Nick Bostrom Asked if he is more or less worried about the arrival of superintelligent machines than he was when his book was published in 2014, Bostrom says the timelines have contracted. "I think progress has been faster than expected over the last six years with the whole deep learning revolution and everything," he says. When Bostrom wrote the book, there weren't many people in the world seriously researching the potential dangers of AI. "Now there is this thriving small, but thriving field of AI safety work with a number of groups," he says. While there's potential for things to go wrong, Bostrom says it's important to remember that there are exciting upsides to AI and he doesn't want to be viewed as the person predicting the end of the world. "I think there is now less need to emphasize primarily the downsides of AI," he says, stressing that his views on AI are complex and multifaceted. Applying careful thinking to massive questions Bostrom says the aim of FHI is "to apply careful thinking to big picture questions for humanity." The institute is not just looking at the next year or the next 10 years, it's looking at everything in perpetuity. "AI has been an interest since the beginning and for me, I mean, all the way back to the 90s," says Bostrom. "It is a big focus, you could say obsession almost." The rise of technology is one of several plausible ways that could cause the "human condition" to change in Bostrom's view. AI is one of those technologies but there are groups at the FHI looking at biosecurity (viruses etc), molecular nanotechnology, surveillance tech, genetics, and biotech (human enhancement). A scene from 'Ex Machina.' Source: Universal Pictures | YouTube When it comes to AI, the FHI has two groups; one does technical work on the AI alignment problem and the other looks at governance issues that will arise as machine intelligence becomes increasingly powerful. The AI alignment group is developing algorithms and trying to figure out how to ensure complex intelligent systems behave as we intend them to behave. That involves aligning them with "human preferences," says Bostrom. Existential risks Roughly 66 miles away at the University of Cambridge, academics are also looking at threats to human existence, albeit through a slightly different lens. Researchers at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) are assessing biological weapons, pandemics, and, of course, AI. We are dedicated to the study and mitigation of risks that could lead to human extinction or civilization collapse. Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) "One of the most active areas of activities has been on AI," said CSER co-founder Lord Martin Rees from his sizable quarters at Trinity College in an earlier interview. Rees, a renowned cosmologist and astrophysicist who was the president of the prestigious Royal Society from 2005 to 2010, is retired so his CSER role is voluntary, but he remains highly involved. It's important that any algorithm deciding the fate of human beings can be explained to human beings, according to Rees. "If you are put in prison or deprived of your credit by some algorithm then you are entitled to have an explanation so you can understand. Of course, that's the problem at the moment because the remarkable thing about these algorithms like AlphaGo (Google DeepMind's Go-playing algorithm) is that the creators of the program don't understand how it actually operates. This is a genuine dilemma and they're aware of this." The idea for CSER was conceived in the summer of 2011 during a conversation in the back of a Copenhagen cab between Cambridge academic Huw Price and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, whose donations account for 7-8% of the center's overall funding and equate to hundreds of thousands of pounds. "I shared a taxi with a man who thought his chance of dying in an artificial intelligence-related accident was as high as that of heart disease or cancer," Price wrote of his taxi ride with Tallinn. "I'd never met anyone who regarded it as such a pressing cause for concern — let alone anyone with their feet so firmly on the ground in the software business." University of Cambridge Geography Photos/UIG via Getty Images CSER is studying how AI could be used in warfare, as well as analyzing some of the longer term concerns that people like Bostrom have written about. It is also looking at how AI can turbocharge climate science and agricultural food supply chains. "We try to look at both the positives and negatives of the technology because our real aim is making the world more secure," says Seán ÓhÉigeartaigh, executive director at CSER and a former colleague of Bostrom's. ÓhÉigeartaigh, who holds a PhD in genomics from Trinity College Dublin, says CSER currently has three joint projects on the go with FHI. External advisors include Bostrom and Musk, as well as other AI experts like Stuart Russell and DeepMind's Murray Shanahan. The late Stephen Hawking was also an advisor when he was alive. The future of intelligence The Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence (FOI) was opened at Cambridge in 2016 and today it sits in the same building as CSER, a stone's throw from the punting boats on the River Cam. The building isn't the only thing the centers share — staff overlap too and there's a lot of research that spans both departments. Backed with over £10 million from the grant-making Leverhulme Foundation, the center is designed to support "innovative blue skies thinking," according to ÓhÉigeartaigh, its co-developer. Was there really a need for another one of these research centers? ÓhÉigeartaigh thinks so. "It was becoming clear that there would be, as well as the technical opportunities and challenges, legal topics to explore, economic topics, social science topics," he says. "How do we make sure that artificial intelligence benefits everyone in a global society? You look at issues like who's involved in the development process? Who is consulted? How does the governance work? How do we make sure that marginalized communities have a voice?" The aim of FOI is to get computer scientists and machine-learning experts working hand in hand with people from policy, social science, risk and governance, ethics, culture, critical theory and so on. As a result, the center should be able to take a broad view of the range of opportunities and challenges that AI poses to societies. "By bringing together people who think about these things from different angles, we're able to figure out what might be properly plausible scenarios that are worth trying to mitigate against," said ÓhÉigeartaigh. The post How Britain's oldest universities are trying to protect humanity from risky A.I. appeared first on Global Asset Management Seoul Korea .

[poisonpainter]

I know there (again) has been a lack of content lately, but this time for a good reason: I’m busy writing stories! But I’ll get to that a bit later, as today I’d like to talk about writing stuff in general and stuff I did more or less recently.

Two years ago the Bücherstadt Kurier published their March volume including my story “Nebeljagd” (Mist Hunt). This was the first of my stories that has ever been published in a proper medium and not just on this Blog or on DF.PP Entertainment or in The Forum (back when it still existed :( ). I remember being so proud of this. I remember calling my Mum right away after I received the mail with the amazing “You’ve been chosen”-line. I remember printing out the story and showing it to her and the smile on her face. I also remember what happened next. For me those two things will forever be remembered together: My first success and my biggest loss. Still, that didn’t keep me from continuing, I knew she would have (verbally) kicked my ass if I had dared to do that. Just giving up, wasn’t quite her style. ;)

It took me more than a month to at least be willing to write again, the result being “Ein neuer Tag” (A New Day), starting there a lot of my writings involved darker tones about loss, flight and/or death. Part of me used this to talk about my own experiences and thoughts, another part just found it fitting for a characters’ journey. I believe a prime example of this is Mina’s side-story from my second Advent Calendar.

I’m fairly certain that “Der Weckruf” (The Wake-up call) was the first story I published on a Blog after it all happened – in retrospective it’s quite a fitting title for the situation – not counting “Der Zufluchtsort” (The Haven), which was the last story I finished the day before it happened and scheduled for the day after. Still, from there I kind of got back into things. “Your Picture – A Story” was (kind of still is, even if I didn’t manage to write anything for it these last couple of months…) a good outlet for me to just explore different topics and characters without going into too much details thanks to the word count. This was also where you could see the changes I mentioned earlier the most.

Another new step I made regarding my stories was/is attending a Lesebühne (Reading Stage) where I read them aloud in front of an audience (in a pub). It’s always a thrill to do that and I’m nervous time and again. Though there is rarely any feedback: A few people told me they enjoyed the stories, someone said the stories I read improved over time, another encouraged me to try my luck with a publisher, others had minor complains, but most of them said nothing. It’s still an interesting experience and with the amount of Short Stories I have yet to read (or write) I have quite some stuff still unknown to the listeners.

Speaking of trying my luck: I also managed to win Eve Estelles’s writing contest, twice, without actually expecting to do so:

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Contest #1

Contest #2

With “The Raven’s Omen” and the “Campfire Tale“, I impressed her enough to let me win and those two are also prime examples of my English Short Stories, as I usually tend to write those in German. The only downside to this is my pessimism coming into play here and telling me I only won, because (it feels like) there wasn’t much competition.

I am very pessimistic (in general and especially) when it comes to my stories, I like them, but I rarely think they’re good enough for anyone else to like them, so it came as quite a surprise when fruehstuecksflocke asked me to become a part of #Projekt24. With “Blind Date“, I hope I made an adequate addition to it. This project will soon be not just available on his Blog, but more on that when it’s officially announced. ;) With my success here I also tried to add an entry to the Literary Advent Calendar of the Bücherstadt Kurier and some people quite laughed at my take on “The Crib“.

When this year began I told you about three stories I edited/translated for another project, namely: Ein neuer Tag, “The Quest for Ore” and another one called “Verloren” (Lost). These three are for Projekt Myra as exchange for some advertisement they did and as they still wanted/liked to get more I sat down to write out another of my organ-concert-ideas (see link Ein neuer Tag) concerning the Dwarf–world, I came up with back when writing The Quest for Ore and drafting Verloren. That story, however, did not want to be a Short Story and has by now roughly 30k of written out scenes and notes under the (working?) title: Der Wunsch der Königin (The Queen’s Wish). It’s still a lot of work to do and I’m still not entirely convinced it fits into the corner of Myra that we decided on – and again, that they really like what I’m writing-, but we’ll see once I’m done. Which I hopefully will be one day and don’t let it go to waste (like Michael’s story that I still haven’t managed to properly write down). Unfortunately I’m already kind of bored of writing out the notes and missing scenes, as motivation plays a rather huge part in my process and when the voice in the back of my head tells me something is not worth doing, then I have the tendency to listen to it, which is awful and counterproductive and absolutely annoying.

Another annoying thing is me jumping between ideas. As soon as one pops up I want to pursue it and everything else is then put aside (like writing this post, when I should be doing something else ;) ). One of the last times this happened I had nearly/finally finished with last years Advent Calendar and then I somehow decided to write two more stories. The first one was the Christmas story “Santa’s Helper” that I kind of feel like continuing in this year’s Calendar, though I’m not sure if I really should – any thoughts? The other was “Winter Moon” that I did get carried away with and which now has the basics for the twelfth chapters I speculate to write under the working title “Neubrandenwolf“. Though I still don’t know whether I should publish a Chapter a month (close to the full moon) or just publish as soon as I’m finished, Twitter wasn’t helpful for that decision…

The idea-jumps doesn’t make it any easier to get anything done though, quite the contrary. They are especially awful when it comes to the Fanfictions I started over the years that are still not finished yet, especially as I kind of took a year long break from them. Though I did manage to update 3/4 stories by now, even if updating one of the stories was recently postponed by writing the first ~7k version of The Queens Wish and then finished after I dreamed about one of the characters pulling me towards him… Still, they’re a great medium where you technically don’t have to think up that much regarding the worlds you write in and just can explore different story lines with existing characters. Which doesn’t mean I did not think things through, because that would be impossible for me, as I want things to make sense, even if that makes things more complicated and nearly as bad, as if I thought up my own worlds.

Anyway, a few people keep telling me I have a talent for writing and that I should try sending stuff to a publisher, but the voice in the back of my head, still tells me that I’m not good enough, that the stuff I write is too full of clichés, too boring, too simple and that no one would want/like to read it anyway (hence the lack of motivation at times). I really don’t know whom I should listen to, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep writing – and potentially improving. All this stuff has to get out of my head somehow. There are still too many stories left untold that I don’t even dare to think about to not get distracted by them…

But don’t worry, you will get a few things to read in the future – whether you like them or not. ;)

PoiSonPaiNter

Celebrating @BK_Buchfink publishing 1 of my #stories 2y ago by thinking about what I #waswriting I know there (again) has been a lack of content lately, but this time for a good reason: I'm busy writing stories!

#fantasy #short story #stories #story #storytelling #thoughts #werwolf #writing

[easyfoodnetwork]

Yuriy Golub/Shutterstock Culinary schools rely on hands-on training. Can they survive during the pandemic? The morning of March 13 was normal until the intercom interrupted a discussion during Sarah Roundtree’s fine dining concepts lab at the Providence, Rhode Island, campus of Johnson & Wales. “They made the announcement that campus was shutting down,” she remembers. Roundtree, who graduated from the Charlotte campus of Johnson & Wales with a bachelor of science in culinary arts and food-service management in 2018, was working as a student teacher in the culinary arts program and had no idea what to tell the class about what to do next or when they’d be back. “The students had questions that I couldn’t answer,” she says. She also didn’t know what it meant for her own studies. Roundtree was in Providence to complete a master of arts in teaching degree with a concentration in culinary arts education, and she was set to graduate in May, with an entry-level job at a restaurant already lined up. Instead, she left campus soon after that announcement, and in the coming weeks, the restaurant rescinded the job offer; it was forced to shut down due to COVID-19. Today, Roundtree is living in Connecticut with her family, weighing her options for a career in a post-COVID-19 food industry. “Technically, I graduated a week ago,” she says via video call on a recent afternoon. “I’m sure I’ll do a Zoom celebration or something.” As traditional college campuses shut down in early March, culinary schools followed, vacating their teaching kitchens, classrooms, and on-campus restaurants. But unlike traditional colleges, many of which shifted to online learning, culinary schools have had to contend with moving cooking classes, tactile in nature, to a virtual setting. Most have opted not to, meaning culinary schools and culinary students are stuck in limbo until campuses are cleared to reopen. San Francisco Cooking School closed its campus March 16 and is not offering virtual learning for cooking courses, effectively putting the current stream of 42 full-time and part-time students on hold. “A hasty pivot to virtual learning didn’t make sense for SFCS because our curriculum is designed around hands-on instruction in a small class environment,” says San Francisco Cooking School founder Jodi Liano. Being in a kitchen-classroom setting ensures students learn to braise, cut, saute, chop, and dice under the tutelage of a trained culinary professional, an environment that’s hard to replicate via video call. “Cooking is using all five senses,” says Lachlan Sands, campus president for the Institute of Culinary Education. Its campuses in Los Angeles and New York City both closed on March 16, affecting an undisclosed number of students (the school won’t say how many people are currently enrolled). “We believe it’s better to teach culinary arts in a kitchen in person.” Culinary classes require an infrastructure that’s hard to mimic at home. A typical day of class involves students retrieving whisks, bowls, spoons, mixers, and stock pots from communal storage areas and retrieving ingredients from walk-in refrigerators or pantries to make the dishes that are part of the day’s lessons. Even if basic recipes were provided to students, there’s no guarantee that they would have access to the technology required for video calls. “Most of our students aren’t properly equipped for home study in terms of kitchen equipment, or even access to a kitchen where multiple roommates might be involved,” Liano says. Offering virtual cooking courses that may leave some students behind because of a lack of access, or asking them to venture out to secure ingredients during a pandemic, didn’t seem like the right move. “Simply put,” says Liano, “neither the school nor the students were set up to enable SFCS to fulfill our educational promise through virtual learning.” Most culinary schools, though, have lecture-style courses for general education and professional studies classes related to specific majors, like menu planning and cost control, foodservice financial systems, food safety, culture, and technical writing; the Institute of Culinary Education, San Francisco Cooking School, Johnson & Wales, and New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute have moved their lecture courses online. Schools hope to keep their students engaged with cooking during lockdowns, even if not officially for credits. The Institute of Culinary Education started offering cooking demos via Instagram Live with chefs like Marcus Samuelsson and Chris Scott to encourage students to cook along with industry pros. “We really want to get them to try new things and new dishes,” Sands says. But there’s no way to ensure that students are tuning in, and administrators are not monitoring who’s accessing the demos. It’s not a foolproof way of teaching cooking, but it is a way of doing something. “Part of what we can do right now is cultivate an atmosphere of community,” Sands says. San Francisco Cooking School has started a “Conversations With…” Zoom series that connects industry leaders and students via regular calls to “just to get together and talk about things like what they’ve been cooking for friends/family,” Liano says. “Teachers help troubleshoot during these calls, and classmates do the same — it’s been a really nice way to keep them together.” As many states think about reopening, culinary schools are waiting for the go-ahead to resume classes. Leah Sarris, executive director for New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute, which opened in January of 2019, says the school’s 100-day certificate program moved lecture classes online. Administrators are planning on reopening the campus to “whenever it is safe to do so.” As New Orleans restaurants begin to reopen, NOCHI has a tentative plan “to resume classes whenever the city enters Phase 2,” Sarris says. Culinary schools are adjusting to adhere to new safety guidelines at both local and federal levels, says Miriam Weinstein, communications director for Johnson & Wales University. Right now the Providence campus is planning on reopening July 6 with class sizes reduced from 18 to 14 students; a requirement that all staff, students, and faculty wear masks; and plexiglass partitions between cooking stations in hands-on classes. Both Johnson & Wales and San Francisco Cooking School will also introduce separate tasting rooms where students will bring a deli container of whatever they’re cooking to taste with disposable utensils. There, they’ll discuss with their instructor what adjustments should be made before disposing of the utensils and returning to the kitchen. Both schools say it will take some adjusting, but it’s something the students will eventually get used to. “It takes time and it adds steps, but it feels like a precaution worth taking,” says Liano. “I think it will become a routine that will be pretty easy to execute.” That is, of course, if students elect to come back. Culinary school enrollment has long been in decline: According to data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), 16,792 culinary school degrees were awarded in 2017, down more than 8,000 compared to numbers from five years before. For many students, the costs associated with attending school (tuition for one undergraduate year at the Culinary Institute of America is more than $36,000; at Johnson & Wales, it’s more than $34,000), coupled with a downturned economy, might mean opting out of completing school altogether. And for both current and potential students, the restaurant industry’s crisis — and the likelihood of a lack of jobs after graduation — might affect decisions. An International Culinary Institute spokesperson says the school’s New York and LA campuses expect a “less than 2 percent withdrawal rate” after COVID-19, noting “students have expressed their desires to return to our campuses and resume their studies as soon as they are permitted to do so.” Weinstein, of Johnson & Wales, offers a slightly more pessimistic post-pandemic look: “We anticipate that the difficulties that our students and their families are facing will translate into future enrollment challenges.” For those staying put, Sarris says that the New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute is being flexible with students’ timelines for class completion. “We understand that the current situation has a lot of unknowns, so for students who are high-risk when it comes to COVID-19 or who wish to take some time off, we are working with them on a personalized completion plan,” Sarris says. Johnson & Wales is offering undergraduates who are part of the 3,366 students across four campuses that were in lab courses (hands-on classes taught in kitchens) the opportunity to finish their studies in July or in the fall semester, according to Weinstein. Students who were on track to graduate with bachelor’s degrees were offered virtual lecture courses to complete their degrees, Weinstein says, leading to their graduation on time this year. Looking further ahead, culinary schools are thinking about the trickle-down effects the crisis will have on their curriculums, which will need to be adjusted to prepare students to enter a changed food industry. “How are restaurants going to be staffed? What are menus going to look like? How do businesses balance delivery and dine in? There’s so many questions that we won’t be able to answer yet,” Sands says. “Before we can make changes to the curriculum, we have to see what the industry wants.” But he’s also hopeful that the industry will adapt to its new reality, whatever that may look like. “The demand for restaurants has existed for hundreds of years; you’ve got to give credit to the resiliency of chefs and restaurateurs,” he says. “It’s a big challenge, but I don’t want to undercut the resiliency of the leaders of the food industry.” Roundtree is also looking to industry leaders and thinking about starting an ice cream sandwich business. Her goals have changed a bit, but she’s sure she wants to stay in the food industry. “Long term, I don’t know if I want to go into education,” she says. “I see myself owning a restaurant and maybe writing a cookbook.” Korsha Wilson is a food writer and host of A Hungry Society, a podcast that takes a more inclusive look at the food world. She lives in New Jersey. from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2UCX5AG

http://easyfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/06/just-like-restaurants-culinary-schools.html

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