Final Days

Days 118-119

The last day of class has arrived.

I'm feeling every kind of emotion right now: excitement, exhaustion, sadness, happiness, nervousness, anxiousness... the list goes on. Just about the only emotion I'm not yet feeling is relief, but I'm hoping that will come at 3 p.m. Tuesday when my two plates are judged and I get the green flag for graduation.

The final works like this: Students pull a piece of paper from a hat, and on it is their fate for the day. It lists two dishes that must be completed in an allotted time. Every dish has multiple components—some more difficult than others—but each is challenging in its own way.

There are four possible combinations of the eight total dishes. Chefs and students agree the seared pork chop paired with the lobster consomme is the hardest combo; I'm counting on my lucky stars to not get that deadly duo. Either way, I'm preparing as much as I can this weekend for the final. I plan on cooking multiple dishes to jog my memory in terms of what I need to accomplish come Tuesday.

Besides it being the final week of culinary school, this week was just like any other in the kitchen. I finished the last couple days on entremetier, creating sandwiches and canapes for the restaurant. My contributions included a turducken sandwich (yes, you heard that right), roasted bone marrow with shallot confit on crostini, and chilled pear soup with a blue cheese crisp and amaretto "caviar."

No time for being inventive this weekend; I'll be replicating Level 6 dishes. Preparation for the final starts now.

Oeuf!... I Did it Again

Day 53

Consomme was consuming my life before; now it's poached eggs.

I think I have the clear soup down. It no longer intimidates me like it did a few weeks ago. What is scary is poached eggs over cooked vegetables with hollandaise. Individually, all the components for the dish aren't too bad. Something changes, though, when they're all put together.

It's funny, because this seems to be the one dish with which the majority of the class has issues. For many, it's the hollandaise. I don't want to jinx myself, but I find the sauce enjoyable to make (besides the fact that I apparently over-salted it last week). I've never really had problems with it breaking like the others.

Today, the vegetables were my obstacle of all things. They were a runny mess and weren't seasoned properly. Hopefully it's an easy fix for Friday when we have to make the dish AGAIN.

Hit me baby, one more time.

In the Clear

Day 45

Phew—I made it.

Consomme was a breeze the second day; I had no problems whatsoever. Good thing, considering I had two dishes to make this time around.

Every Friday in Level 3 is a practice midterm where we have to complete two dishes in a certain amount of time. The only difference is that on test day, we draw random dishes out of a hat as opposed to knowing what we're making ahead of time.

Besides the consomme, we also prepared the center-cut pork chop with green peppercorn sauce. The pork was cooked perfectly, the sauce was superior and the pommes darphin had a crunchy/creamy contrast. One glitch, though: I was about a minute late plating. I think that's an easy fix.

Alright, I'm beat. I'm gonna kick up my feet, watch Barefoot Contessa finish her truffled mac 'n' cheese and wish I had a bowl of it in front of me.

TGIF.

The Italian Job

Day 44

"Life is too short not to eat well."

That's the sign posted above the checkout area at Eataly, the 50,000-square-foot specialty Italian market in Manhattan's Flatiron District that I finally had a chance to roam. There are no words to describe this place besides "amazing." From the giant lobster mushrooms and the shelves of honey to the homemade pasta counter and the station dedicated solely to fresh mozzarella, Eataly is true perfection.

I ended up there this evening after a lousy day at school, hoping a glass of wine and some prosciutto di San Daniele with figs would put a smile on my face. It did. (So did the real dinner at Shake Shack afterwards.)

In regards to the not-so-good day, it started with a failed consomme. I did it incorrectly and had to start over. Embarrassing for me, but the chefs didn't seem to mind. "That's what we're here for," chef told me when I thanked him for his help. It was nice to hear, but I still felt like an idiot for messing it up.

C'est la vie, the French would say.

Either way, I get another shot at it tomorrow. Each student is making the same two dishes: consomme and the pork chops I made earlier this week. We have to complete four plates of both recipes at designated times. It should be interesting.

I'll think about it in the morning. Right now, I'm going to enjoy the Super Tuscan I purchased from Eataly's wine shop, watch a movie with Ryan and remind myself the weekend is near.

If You Can't Take the Heat...

Day 8

My mom said it would happen.

There was no doubt, she told me, the chefs in culinary school would scream at you, put you down and make you feel like dirt. Well, eight days in, that time has arrived, and I'm pretty sure it's only going to get worse.

But that's OK. Really. I know the instructors are there to push you. How else are you going to make it if you can't multitask in an efficient manner? After all, the quote is, "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen," right?

My partner and I were "f***ing behind" today, according to the chef. "Embarrassingly slow" I was told (loudly) in my right ear. Next time I make farmer's soup, I will be sure to focus less on my paysanne cuts measuring a perfect 0.5 cm x 1 mm and more on getting it done. "What farmer do you think focuses on perfectly cut vegetables?" the chef added as an extra stab.

We weren't the only ones, though. As a whole, our class was so far behind schedule that we couldn't really eat lunch because we were busy cleaning up and preparing for the second half of the day. We wanted to step it up—and we did.

Our beef consomme—the first either of us made—wasn't too bad. And we did it without falling behind.

I think this morning's test is what killed us. None of us knew what to expect, so many (including myself) were up late cramming every last bit of information into our memory. By the time our answers were turned in, our brain activity was already slowing down. In college, I would have headed back to my dorm and taken a nap before the next class. Here, we still had an entire day of soup making ahead of us.

Ryan would probably joke that it's time to suck it up. (It was his favorite line during his residency, initially told to him by his first-year chief.) The chefs would likely say the same—but mean it.

I'm slowly developing a thick skin.