I met an incredible shoes salesperson today. 

In my entire life, I have only lived through a couple of winters. (Yes we spend Christmas in France but these holidays don't really count due to their brevity.) My very first winter in Cambridge (Massachusetts, not England) was harsh with blizzards and over four-feet high snow. At that time, I had a sturdy pair of boots, suede and leather mix, with cute stitches on the sides. 

Then there were days when the temperature was below freezing point but without snow. JL got me a pair of classic Ugg's with soft furry interior to keep my perpetually cold feet lukewarm. I'm still wearing them now - my third winter. Also I added to the collection a pair of ankle-high leather ones last winter.

A couple of weeks ago we welcomed the new year by having our friends over for lunch. S and T never fail to amaze me by their tenacity in raising a toddler in Manhattan. I am saying this not to judge nor compare our friends who are parents, but simply to share what I observe to be a major challenge for parents living in the Big Apple who use public transport. That's nearly all parents here, actually. 

I mean, how do you carry the stroller with your little darling in it up and down the subway station stairs? Unlike its younger, newer, cleaner, more modern thus even more comfortable counterparts around the world, the New York subway stations do not come with escalators by default. Elevators are either hidden away or questionable depending on who's around you. Oh, and then it snows, which means bulkier outfits and slippery steps that are already narrow.

So unless S and T tell us their preferred location to meet up, we'd try to make it convenient for them by having them over - lunch usually - at our place which is a subway ride away. No need for reservations or queueing for a table, and their son N gets to hang around the living area while the adults keep a lookout from the dining table two steps away. Hey, that's really how tiny apartments here are. 

"Do you want them?" I asked my classmate Bill, referring to the three portions of pâte brisée he had made during our morning lesson. It was approaching the end of our day and we had to clear out everything from the refrigerators. He looked at them, as if remembering the minor struggle he faced when making them, shook his head so lightly one could have missed seeing it, and said quietly, "Nope."

I swear I saw his eyes like a red laser burning through those plastic-wrapped pieces of flaky dough sitting among a few other items left on the sheetpan waiting to be discarded.

This classmate of mine was one of two who took charge of our class since day one. Having worked about four years in restaurants, he left his home-state Florida for New York for our program. I had learned much from him because prior to this I had never stepped foot in a commercial kitchen. So something as trivial as Bill checking the pull-sheet and setting up the ovens and salamanders for the day intrigued me. He made me realize my fillet knife blade was a flexible one even before our chef-instructor did. Bill's greatest strength - my own observation - was in seafood, particularly shellfish, shucking oysters since he was four. I had even suggested that he get himself into Le Bernardin for a trail or even better, his externship.

But on that day, with just two lessons into our pastry module, I could sense his dislike for baking. 

One of the best things I learned in culinary school was neither a dish nor a trick. Rather, it was a concept that brings about the skillful people we see in professional kitchens. The same that makes Jackie Chan's character in Thunderbolt the excellent race car driver that he is. There is a scene where he sits in the car, engine-off, just to practice his gear-switching coordination and speed. The same which sees Donnie Yen's Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man training solitarily with a wooden dummy. We also witness the same among world-class classical musicians, ballet dancers, not forgetting the Olympics gymnasts.

The concept of muscle memory. 

I never realized I could just buy a whole chicken and spend half an hour trussing it as many times possible, snipping the twine and using a new one to repeat the same movement until my hands remember how to do it, no thinking required. All this I never knew, until my chef-instructor suggested it.