Today's menu: Could be flounder, could be omelet

A dose of reality for the culinary classroom today: Depending on what is delivered, and what is not, we will cook either a flounder dinner or an egg breakfast.

Chef said Thursday that he put in an order for fresh flounder, and if the flat fish with the bulging eyes arrive, each of us likely will get a whole one to clean, fillet and cook to chef's specifications. First course will be a salad that hasn't yet been defined and second course a soup, possibly based on cauliflower.

If the fish don't arrive, we will cook breakfast -- French omelet, eggs over easy, scrambled eggs in a vol au vent tube of pastry or poached egg. And, maybe, bacon. Our bacon slabs are at the end of their curing, hanging in the walk-in cooler to await today's smoking in cherry-wood chips.

That's the reality. In a restaurant, one must make do with what is available.

Chef and we students are banking on the fish coming in. Then we can cook breakfast on Monday, our final daily cooking lesson before the midweek final exam.