Wow, time flies when you’re in the kitchen. Culinary school is intense, to say the least. It’s a lot to remember, a lot to keep in mind while you’re working, and — DON’T TOUCH YOUR FACE, YOU’LL HAVE TO REWASH YOUR HANDS!!
I just read over the grading rubric for the first practical, which is at the end of February. The scope of what you’re being graded on is rather intimidating. It all makes sense, of course. It’s testing everything you’ve been learning. But we’ve been learning a lot and everything, from your hand washing to your garnish, is being evaluated.
The nice thing is that I have been able to practice a lot. I’ve been working on my knife cuts, mise en place, and I’ve started using all of my health and safety regulations in the kitchen whenever I cook, just to get into the practice of doing it. I really hope I don’t melt the skin off my hands from washing them so much. Because apparently I touch my face waaaaaay more than I thought I did.
Tonight I’m making a beer cheese soup from the book. Which means making everything from scratch (save for the stock, I’m cheating on that one), all kinds of knife cuts, and I’m actually going to fry croutons as a garnish. Which I’ve never done before, but it sounds really tasty. I’m super excited.
Culinary school is definitely a lot, but I have to say, it is challenging in a good way. You have a lot of things to keep in mind when you are cooking and running around the kitchen with 15 other students can get quite hectic. Not to mention using all new professional equipment that seems foreign at times.
It’s funny though, I was watching Beat Bobby Flay on Discovery+ and suddenly I understood a lot more of what the chefs were saying. When they talked about mirepoix, I knew exactly what they were talking about. I had just made one! Different techniques and principles made more sense as everyone discussed how they were going to win the food war. I feel like I got a more out of the show than I would have otherwise.
Not that you should go to culinary school in order to fully enjoy watching Food Network shows. But it is a nice bonus.
