pardon my french

Live to fight another day...

When Sabrina Fairchild attends Le Cordon Bleu, after learning how to boil water and crack an egg, she has to make a soufflé. The bête noire of culinary school.  Her judgement moment arrives, and the chef peers over into her dish and grimaces, "much too low." The old, sweet Barron takes her aside and says, "you forgot to turn on the oven!" Poor Audrey Hepburn looks like a sad puppy when the Barron continues, "your mind has not been on zee cooking, your mind has been elsewhere…"

Well, my dear followers (all 8 of you sweethearts!), it's no secret that the last couple of weeks have not been the best of my life. In fact, they would rank high amongst the worst. Needless to say, my mind has not been on zee cooking…

Yet, nothing can focus the mind like the words "midterm grades." Which of course, we received this week…and I admit to a touch of anxiety. Not so much because of the "grade" but the fact that we are mid-term already. Holy moly moment. The upside of the whole thing is that we each have an individual meeting with a chef. For those of us doing both cuisine and pastry, we have a meeting for each.

In my cuisine meeting, I was lucky to have a chef that knows me and has seen me do a fair bit of work in practical. His feedback was interesting, he said "I haven't figured you out yet." Probably because of the puzzled look on my face, he immediately added, "it iz not in a bad way, it iz zat I am not sure all you are capable of yet." Then he asked, "how do you sink you're doing?"

I said, "well, I've had good days and bad days. Honestly, I have been a bit distracted lately."

"Yes, good days and bad days iz a good way to put it," and he puffed my ego a bit by saying, "but, your bad days are still good compared to some ozer people." He added, "I watch you, you have good organization, you're clean and do good work." Then he hesitated, and said, "just some days you don't show up. You must be 100% every day."

"Oui, chef. Désolé."

"No, no, no, not to be sorry! It iz so you can focus. Zat is why we have zis meeting. But...it iz up to you…"

"Oui, chef. I promise, I will try."

I told him that I truly appreciate his feedback. I did not come here to be number one or have the highest grade. I'm here to learn, plain and simple. I want to get everything I can out of my time here, so I asked if there's something I be doing at home to improve. I said that I've been practicing turning mushrooms and carrots…what else can I do, what is the one skill that I should truly master? Soufflé? What?

He shook his head and told me, "just cook."

Chef said that every Sunday, French people, they go to church…well some of them do. (His words, not mine!) And then they go to the market and buy a chicken or whatever looks good. They cook, and sit around the table for hours eating and drinking. He said to just keep cooking, no matter what it is. Learn about ingredients, try new things. "It's clear you love to cook, zee more you do zee better you will be."

Sweet chef. Could he see that I just needed that go get 'em pep talk?
I have to say, compared to what I've heard from my friends about their meetings, I lucked out. Some people had a chef who didn't even know who they were.

Lucky girl that I am, I also had a meeting with the pastry chef that knows me. He also gave me more specific feedback, which is nice. He said that I am doing excellent work, even remembered my apple tart, but said that I need to continue to get faster. I'm never last, but I do tend to be a perfectionist, and I have always thought, "better to be slower and perfect than rushed and a mess." Now is the point where I need to get to perfect faster. Which is a fun challenge, I guess. "Keep practicing," and "Memorize what you need to do. Don't waste time reading your recipe."

Oui, chef.

Tomorrow we are making a Mocha cake, which requires a lot of piping with a tiny fluted tip. Piping is not my favorite; mostly because all that swagging looks like a supermarket sheet cake with over-sugared pastel icing. Yuck! Nevertheless, it is the "traditional" way to decorate a Mocha cake. So, swagging here I come!

It's a long life. There will be shitty times and terrible practical classes. I'm sure I have many "très biens" and "terribles" in my future. Today was also my first injury. Minor-to-medium burn on my left hand, courtesy of boeuf bourguignonne. But, I live to fight another day.

Merci beaucoup (beaucoup!) to everyone that has sent their love the past couple of weeks : ) It helps. xoxo