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How Drill & Ceremony saved me

 The General is coming. This is an announcement I have heard many times. From the moment these words were spoken, intensive repetition commenced. Hours of duplicating every step taken, every word shouted, every head turn and every order to present arms. It was out of this, that a large group of many would become one synchronized machine. Every heel hitting the ground would sharply thunder. Every move made would snap with precision. Words became one voice. The General would arrive, and in a 60-second choreographed production, the hours of work would meet their goal. He expected nothing less. Nothing could ever go wrong. This is the art and curse of Drill and Ceremony.

I have pulled my fair share of fire-guard too. In a military barracks, no one dies in a fire because there is never a chance for the fire to go undetected. Beginning at 9 PM, 1-hour shifts begin, in which one person per floor is assigned to walk the halls, making sure that no dangers arise as the rest of the unit sleeps. When one guard comes to the end of his hour shift, he awakens his relief, and this goes on until wake-up comes at the god-forsaken hour of 4 AM. Not only is this a 100 % guarantee of people's safety as they sleep, but it is also the perfect training vehicle for just about every type of guard duty that soldier will encounter ahead. It is mastery through regimen and repetition.


For me, all of this type of experience happened when I was 24. I had been living a life of making minute to minute decisions and that is a characteristic that has followed me through the decades. I admit it is much more watered down, thanks to no longer being in my 20's and also lack of alcohol, but I still am a "non-planner" in some ways.

I am grateful that I did have this regimined style of life though for 10 years because it has given me something to pull from the toolset and use when I need to. While certain tasks may seem like no-brainers in a book, on YouTube and in theory, there is a world of difference in the tasking it out.

That is critically true in matters such as, backpacking, camping, public speaking and cooking. In the last quarter century I have quite the resume of cooking wins and losses. One may think that no matter what I do, I will have a higher degree of success even on a bad day respectively. But failure comes in many forms when it comes to cooking. 

Typically, flavor is the one place that someone with 25 years of mad-scientist like experience should not encounter much. I am happy to report, I am pretty good here, although I can make the mistake at times of not tasting along the way because of being distracted with meeting time goals and that can cause flavors to start going off course. 

Texture is also something that must be checked in on at inception and later on, in taste testing. Asthetics too, it should look delicious, not just taste delicious.

Just because an entire genre does something a certain way, that does not mean that it is made in the shade at home. Environment and tools account for much. I learned this lesson yesterday. I am about to deploy a significant cooking mission. I am doing Korean barbeque for roughly a dozen diners. It is Korean tradition to use beef brisket for the super thin portions of beef that are placed on the fire or grill and cooked by the diners themselves. 

I cut the brisket as seen in a video in which the chef was processing the brisket for use in Korean Barbeque. I partially froze the meat so that I could slice thinner. Of course in the video, they had a commercial meat slicer like those used at the deli. I could not achieve anywhere close to this thinness. Any Texan knows there is a reason that smoked brisket is smoked low and slow. That meat is seriously tough.

Thank goodness for those seemingly ridiculous days doing Drill and Ceremony for hours on end so that some ego-centric General could walk or drive by us in a matter of seconds or minutes. Yesterday, I did my D&C and I am so thankful that I did. The beef brisket turned the meal into a chewing festival. I don't need to tell you that this level of mistake compared to what my diners are expecting would had been an epic failure for me.

I could not help but think, thank goodness for all those years doing those stupid drills. I have been testing and practicing for this even for a week now. I have learned a great deal. I have a long way to go. Every public cooking event I take on, is never without important lessons learned or the epiphany of realizing a better way.

I don't know yet what I will do to replace the brisket, but thanks to what I did yesterday, I did not make this terrible error. 



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