Herb of Your Choice

All characters and interests are drawn to a culinary school. Today never proved to be more true. One of my out of kitchen classes is Interpersonal Communication and in such a class we were instructed to give public speeches on anything that sparks our interest as long as it has to do with food. Each student, whether full of confidence or terror, approaches the front of the room to immerse the class into all the different possibilities this field offers. I, myself, spoke on food writing. Other topics included fermentation, sustainability, economic commerce, environmentally concious design, coffee, and many more. My favorite, however, could not be topped.

A young man in his mid to late twenties swaggered up to the front of the class with a box clutched to his chest. He had an arrogant smile played on his face as he introduced his topic. It was interesting, I do admit. This "tool" could specialty bought for several hundred dollars, or you can make it yourself for about $300. He explained that by taking a common found power tool (I couldn't tell you if my life depended on it) and a few simple attachments you could make a vaporizer. In this vaporizer, he explained, you could put your "herb of choice" into the attachment- a beautiful ironic foreshadowing- and as the tool runs it is then vaporized into thin air and captured into a second attachment that included a plastic bag and a valve.

I had seen ideas of this done before to where a scent was captured into a plastic pillow under a heavy plate in molecular gastronomic restaurants and punctured by a waiter to waft up to the customer's nose, capturing his palate before he even touched his food. Beautiful idea, taken very, very wrong.

As this young man ground up cinnamon in his "vaporizer" and captured it in the bag, his audience-captured and stunned- asked to smell the "cinnamon air". His grin got broader, knowing his presentation was a hit, and informed that chef would get the first puff of "cinnamon air" With a pump to the valve, visible vapor dispersed into the air all around chef's head. He then proceeded to give the rest of the class the pleasure of the oh-so-awaited vaporized cinnamon.

The smell was not that of cinnamon. It was blatantly, without question, marijuana.

Chef ended the session with the closing statement: "When I was younger, we had bongs."