My second day of culinary school completed

My Chef Uniform!, originally uploaded by FinasZ.

So the past week has been pretty crazy for me, first I just moved here to Ottawa and first time living away from home. It was all a big rush of excitement mixed in with a little fear, since it is my first time being alone like this. I quickly unpacked and got everything set up, one of the first things to be setup was my computer. After that I busily went to finish up the kitchen, my clothes, the bathroom and so on. A day goes by and I remember that there is a bus strike going on in Ottawa! It sucks soooooo much, I was planning on meeting up with my friend Cara and wandering around Ottawa. Since I could not, I pretty much spent most of my time at home and playing computer or PS3.

A few more days passed and it was time for my orientation at Le Cordon Bleu! I was sooooo excited about it that I could almost not sleep the night before. Again with the stupid bus being on strike, I had to cab to school which sucked A LOT. I spent about 60 dollars that day on the stupid cab, of course going to school and going home. But enough of that stupidness, the orientation was amazing, so much was going on. We got to meet the chefs at the school and then they went through what was going to happen with the course. After that we went on a short tour and off to recieve our uniforms and equipment!!! I got my stuff and took an expensive cab ride home, when I got home I could hardly keep still. I was sooooo excited about going to my first class the day after, that night when I went to sleep again I couldn't sleep much due to my excitement.

So Wednesday, January the 6th came and I went to school and had my very first demo. WOW It was a crazy amount of information that they threw at us, all these new terms, terms that replaced the words I'd already use. I also learned new cutting styles, like julienne, paysanne, ciseler, emincer and many more. Watching the chef do his thing and me absorbing all this information was quite overwhealming. The two and half hours went by quite quickly, by the time the chef was done I could have swore only an hour had passed. Right after the demo I was excited to go to the kitchen and do my practical but they decided to change my timetable since we had too many people in class, which resulted in my practical being moved till Thursday.

Luckily this time I had a ride off a classmate named Josh, whom is a really great guy! So I finally got to enter the practical kitchen and do my stuff. WOW I thought ok ok this is going to be pretty simple, do a few cuts and make it look good. WELL! I was wrong haha, it was harder than I thought. Yes cutting up vegetables is quite simple, anyone out there can do that, but cutting to the standard that they want you to do it IS HARD! Even tho it was hard I still worked hard on doing my best, I had a few good cuts in the end but still required many many hours upon hours of hard work. So I thought that the demo class went by fast, the practical class felt like 15 mins had passed by when the chef told us to stop and clean up for the day. After that I went home and just had to drop on my bed and take a nap, since I had been getting up super early to get to class and what not.

Then came friday! I was still super excited and pumped for my second day of classes. The demo again felt like nothing, expect this time the chef gave us waaaay more words that made me go HUH!?!?! So class finished up and about an hour after, I had practical which I was still thrilled about! Went into class, set up my stuff and started to work on the new cuts that we had learned. We learned this technique called Turning, its pretty much when you take a piece of lets say carrot and shape it into pretty much a football, simply speaking that is. (Its quite hard, especially the motion of what you have to do, and the mushroom turning is insane) This being day two of class, I thought we were suppose to practice more on turning and such, turns out we should have done as much of the recipie shown in demo as possible. I had about 60% done when the chef said, OK! 5 more minutes left hurry up! I paniced a little and thought since I couldn't finish it yet, I should probably just clean everything up and get ready to go for the day. That was the biggest mistake I made, I should have done as much as I could and plated whatever I had to show the chef. The chef told me afterwards, if I can't finish its ok, as long as I can show the chef something so he could at least give me some feedback and thus I can improve. That never crossed my mind, and WOW I wanted to kick my self sooo hard after that. I got one thing done tho, which was Glacer a blanc. That is when you take a piece of vegetable and cook it with butter, a pinch of salt, sugar and enough water to cover it, then put a parchment lid on to allow the steam to flow out. Then you let it simmer till it reduce to a glaze, which covers the vegetable and gives it this glossy shiny look. After what happened today, I now know that I should be focuing on trying to finish the recipie to my best ability, even if some of the cuts don't look the best. I have also learned that no matter what, I should always plate something to show the chef even if its a piece of burnt meat.

Well that was my exciting first few days of Culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu, even after what happened today I plan on working harder than ever. I hope that my classes in the future will be a lot better than todays.