Hey, my name's Matt Martin.
I'm a culinary student
at Southern New Hampshire
University, and this is my day.
It's the morning-- pretty
tired, a little sleepy
from the night before,
from class the day before.
It's cool.
Because what I really
like is that we've
got a coffee shop right in our
building, which is really nice.
I got to start the
day with my coffee--
get me a little wake-up.
So we start off in the morning.
I'm looking at my recipes.
I'm writing a list for what
I'm going to do for the day.
I feel pretty confident.
I write down everything.
I make myself a prep
list so that I'm
fully prepared for the day.
I ask Chef Flanagan
any questions
that I may have for the day.
We've only got about a
class size of 12 to 16,
at most, which gives you
a lot of one-on-one time
with the teacher.
Prep for service
is a lot of fun.
We'll do that.
I'll have a really
good time doing that.
And then, right as
lunch service starts,
things really kick into gear.
The pressure gets on you.
You feel a little anxious.
You feel a little nervous.
You never know, really, how busy
the restaurant is going to be.
I was in charge of
making shrimp and grits.
I made some crab
cakes, fried those up,
and then I put some pan-seared
shrimp on top of them.
I was pretty happy.
I thought that it
came out really nice.
I knew the flavors
were really good.
We present all of
our food, and you
can see a full plate
already made up
of what you would like to eat.
So you can kind of
eat with your eyes.
And as soon as
service starts, it
gets hectic, busy,
crazy-- which is something
I like about the school.
Because it really prepares
you for when you're
going to be out
in the real world,
and when you're going to have
to perform at 100% every day.
During lunch service
it gets really busy,
which helps you get the mindset
of what a real restaurant's
going to be like.
On a typical lunch, we might
go through 45 to 60 people.
It gets really
busy, which is nice.
After service,
we'll all sit down.
We'll talk about how
crazy things were.
We'll talk about
how much fun we had.
We'll sit.
We'll eat.
We'll get lunch.
This is the best
part of the day.
I'm so happy during
this part of the day.
You build really
close relationships.
Everybody's laughing.
Everybody's cracking jokes.
It's a really good time.
After class, we clean up,
pack up, we go back upstairs,
and we start
lecture class again.
Chef Flanagan is very good
at portraying the information
about the region,
or about the country
that we're learning about.
You always feel great,
going out of her lectures--
like you've really learned
a lot, which is awesome.
After lecture-- and the
day's over, and I feel great.
I know I've learned a lot.
I know I've accomplished
a lot for the day.
And tomorrow I get
to do it all again.
