Adventures in Culinary School

One word … Terrified! My stomach is in terrible knots. Nerves are really getting the
better of me on the first day. I have no idea what to expect. The one thing I do know is “My
culinary begins now!” On day one we toured the kitchens, storage spaces and the coolers
downstairs. I was on overload that entire day. I barely remember where the carrots are stored.

We all went around the room and said why we decided to enroll I said, “I have catered a
few friend’s wine parties and everyone seems to love my food. One by one a few people started
telling me I should go to culinary school.” This suggestion was first met with laughter. There’s
no way … But after a few more people made the suggestion, I started to think … Maybe? Could
I do it? Can I stand through a dinner service? Can I stand through a class in the kitchen? Only
one way to find out! After we all got done saying what brought us here Chef Jack says that home
cooking has NOTHING to do with cooking professionally. Man! That took me down a few pegs.
It was then that I decided to “erase” my preconceived notions of cooking and let Chef Jack teach
me how to be a professional chef.

Day two was met with the same butterflies as day one. I am still incredibly nervous. I
have not figured out yet how to shake this feeling. Today we learned how to hold the chef knife.
Two fingers on the side of the blade with the other two fingers and thumb wrapped around the
handle of the knife. This feels incredibly weird but I’ll get used to it eventually. We started
working on knife skills in the kitchen this week. We were introduced to all of the knife cuts we
will have to produce in the practical. Knife cuts for the practical are: Julienne, brunoise,
batonnet, small dice, medium dice and large dice. It seems impossible but in the spirit of practice
makes perfect, I am going to commit myself to working on my knife skills each week.

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