This was our first week of competition class and I’m glad, but not surprised, that I survived it. The first day was nerve racking but as the week progressed it got easier as I got back into the groove of being back in school and as my nerves eased up. On Monday I was both nervous and excited on the first day. I was nervous for two reasons: one being my skills were out of practice since I wasn’t using them that often during the summer; and two, I was psyching myself out and over thinking what this class would be like. Even though I was nervous to the core at the same time was literally shaking with excitement. Since I didn’t use my culinary skills during the summer my hands were just eager and itching to handle food again. That morning I woke up at 4 in the morning, even though my class didn’t start till another four hours later, pumped and ready to go. I arrived at school two hours later and waited in my car silently freaking out by myself for about an hour and eventually I had to go to class. I went to class 15 minutes early as I wanted to soak in the kitchen that I would be working in for the next seven hours. As I waited for class to start I thought to myself “Oh man what have I gotten myself into?”
When class started things weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be. We went over the usual syllabus and paper work and then did an icebreaker which helped relax a little more hearing the nervousness in other people’s voices. It made me feel like I wasn’t the only one and that we shared a common feeling. As the day progressed we went over went to the culinary forum and after that we dove right into the vegetable cuts we’d be going over. 4 ounce of julienned vegetable, 8 tourneed carrots, 1 onion small diced, and a 2 tomato concasse. I did pretty well given this was our first run though but I knew not everything was perfect. My juliennes were off and my tournees looked like misshapen footballs. It was horrible. As we cleaned up and got ready to go home I was more determined to practice my cuts so I’d be better and faster than today.
Tuesday was similar to Monday I was still nervous but not as much. On this day we actually got to watch the previous team do a trial run of the each section of skills. It was exciting to see them demo. After the video we went through about two runs of the vegetable cuts. Since we didn’t have enough products for everyone we needed to reduce or exclude certain skills in the second run through. Overall I think I performed the same as the day before and when chef came through to critique my cuts were somewhat close but I defiantly needed work on my tournees and my julienne. I still needed to find the motion of cutting the tournee and I needed to focus on the consistency of my julienne. Other than that the others were good but still weren’t perfect.
Wednesday, we did two run-throughs. The first time for practice, which we’d look at our time and the second time timed and scored according to how our cuts were. I didn’t do too badly on my cuts but since I was always off like an eighth of an inch from perfect during the first run-through. So I decided to take my time on the second run-through and focus more on the cuts. To me it seemed like it was working but in the end the scores didn’t really do as well as I thought they would. By now my tounrees have progressed from misshapen footballs to semi-looking footballs but the dimensions are still off. So I need to work on the motion and trying to get them all the same. As we cleaned up I was talking to Alana about it and she just told me that I was thinking about it too much and I should just trust myself and relax. Tomorrow would be our last run-though of vegetable cuts so decided I would just trust my instincts and cut.
Afterwards we were split into the groups that we’d be with the rest of the class. Then we were given time to go over this year’s required classical Escoffier dish. Poulet Sauté a la Catalane. We researched the dish and it seems to be quite simple but it has a lot of other recipes behind it. We also have to come up with a starch and vegetable so it’s kind of exciting being able to recreate something that someone did over a hundred years ago.
Thursday we did one run through of vegetable cuts and today I just trusted my instincts and cut. Although my timing was off my cuts were closer than the days prior which was great. Even though my tournees needed more work its progressing gradually. I mean it was only Monday that I learned how to do a tournee and today I’m not perfect or even good at it but I’m getting there. I messed up on my julienne though. I measure the two inches but I cut it the wrong way so it turned out to longer than so that was a mistake on my part. So that’s still another thing I need to practice on. It’s all in the sleeves so I have to practice cutting those sleeves correctly. We watched the movie Miracle today in class. It was an interesting movie to watch and had a lot of good points about team work and competition in general. We then got into our groups and discussed out thoughts and ideas of starches and vegetables. We agreed on a sweet potato croquette for out starch and our vegetables were still up in the air although we have a few ideas floating around.
Overall the first week went by really fast. I got up on Thursday morning thinking that it was still earlier in the week. But when I looked at my phone I freaked out seeing that the week went by so fast. It’s as they say “time flies when you’re having fun”. I can’t wait till next week since we’re going into desserts next. I’m so excited that I’m shaking a little.
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