Been a while since I wrote something on my blog and well time flew by and guess what tomorrow is my final exam! But before we get into that, a quick fly by of what's been going on with school and all those workshops we have. We've all been doing pretty decently in our workshops, even gotten complimented about us cooking vegetarian. Chef did ask why we couldn't be producing food like this when he gives us a nice cut of meat or fish.
There was however one day where everything pretty much screwed up, nothing was going my way it was as if I couldn't cook at all. The day just so happened to be our practice exam day, aka the whitebox exam. I had a plan, I had all the things needed, but when I walked into that kitchen that day it all went wrong. I was suppose to have 5-6 elements per plate and they were suppose to look pretty good. Then disaster, this reduced too much or that didn't cook all the way through and that was starting to burn. I was really really frustrated and I told myself just calm down breath a bit and get back into the game. I did do exactly that, yet nothing seemed to be improving too much. In the end I managed to serve something rather than nothing but I was quite late in serving and my plates were just bad. It was a pretty depressing day for me, I guess everyone has those days where they just can't seem to get anything right, I accept that but it was still a brutal day in the kitchen. Looking back at that day now, I feel like I lost some confidence when things started to mess up and started to give up. Thinking about it now I should have remained calm, and just move on and to never give up.
I'm not the kind of guy to just get up and quit, but that day was just horrible and I was reminded about not quitting under pressure again a week or so after. It was our last demo with the Chef and he decided to try something new with us. He gave us a list of ingredients and said okay your all going to be split into 4 groups. we were split up and then asked to come up with a four course meal with all the ingredients there, it didn't have to be super fancy as long as it could be done within an hour and half. Now here's the real kicker, after he picked one course from each of our groups, he then picked four students to come up and cook that menu. I was one of those four to be picked and lets just say I wasn't too happy about it. We went on doing this demo explaining what we were doing when the chef or everyone else asked. Preparing the dish wasn't super hard, but going into it unprepared with no notes and your peers asking random questions out the blue was quite frustrating. Things went alright, but near the end I messed up cooking my rice and felt really annoying/embarrassed at the same time. Having done that my confidence went out the window and cracked under that pressure, so I threw in my towel and burst out the door. Later on my chef found me and told me that even tho I messed up, I shouldn't have ran away. I should have just continued going on with what I was doing and complete the task given. The most important thing was that he told me I should never give up.
Roughly within a week I was reminded twice to never give up hope and to continue fighting till the very end. I like to live by a never give up never back down way of life and somewhere I lost it. I guess in a way it was a good thing those things happened right before my exam time and rediscovering my way.
Right now I'm a bit tense about my exam tomorrow morning, but I'm having good feelings about tomorrow. Gonna get my game face on and be ready to rock and roll, then be done with school. As rough as the weeks before my exam have been, I've not given up on myself and an confident that I will do good and pass. With all that being said I should go back and do one final overlook of what I'm doing tomorrow and get some sleep.
Menu that I will be preparing for the exam
App: Pickerel mousse, snow peas, carrot wrapped with asparagus, and a orange cream sauce
Main: Wild mushroom and Liver stuffed Duck Leg, roasted cherry tomatoes, braised white asparagus, parsnip puree, and a mushroom sauce
