Today I'm standing at the halfway mark of my culinary education and by standing I mean propped up in bed watching Glee, drinking diet Sunkist and eating chocolate chips out of the bag because I'm classy like that. Last night was our much anticipated, somewhat feared midterm which accounts for 50% of our Level 3 grade. The curriculum for this level focuses on discipline, timing, and refining your skills. We rotated our way through 16 recipes organized like the stations of a restaurant kitchen: Garde Manger (Apps, Salads, Soups), Poissonier (Seafood, its sauces and garnishes), Saucier (Meat, Poultry, its sauces and garnishes), and Patissiere (Pastry). There were 4 recipes for each station and we had an opportunity to cook each of them at least once and some of them over and over and over again. There was the much maligned Oeufs Poche dish, which is a poached egg with hollandaise sauce served over a bed of perfectly petite cubes of vegetables with so much potential for disaster: broken sauce, overcooked or broken yolks, undercooked whites, ugly knife skills...the list go on. There was the familiar old friend: Poulet Roti Grandmere, literally translated to roast chicken with grandmother garnish, which consists of potatoes turned into cocottes and cooked 3 different ways until they are a crispy, golden brown, meaty chunks of browned bacon, mushrooms sauteed in bacon fat, and pearl onions glazed and caramelized to perfection. We made this dish every class for weeks and every class we would all say "I don't know if I can eat anymore Grandmere!" while gnawing on a drumstick. There were the dishes that had so many components that getting your four required plates to the chefs hot and on time seemed like a cruel joke. I'm talking to you Barramundi with Lobster Sauce, Steamed Mussels, Poached Shrimp, Fennel Compote, Potato Cocottes, and finely chopped Parsley, Chervil and Tarragon. COME ON!
For the midterm we would be drawing a station number which corresponded to the two dishes we would be required to execute for a panel of judges. We're evaluated in the kitchen by a chef-proctor on cleanliness, technique and timing and then we are to walk our plates down an endless hallway to a room housing the judges where we present our food to be evaluated on presentation, flavor, seasoning, etc. We've been told repeatedly by our chefs and Level 4, 5, & 6 students that the midterm is more difficult than the final, that we will screw up, that we should be scared but we shouldn't freak out, that our dishes won't be perfect so we must not make stupid mistakes, that our stations better be clean, and on and on and on. So there were definitely nerves at work as we sat around waiting for the clock to display the time when we could enter our classroom and try to piece together what we might be cooking.
"Surely he wouldn't give us the egg, right? They say the chefs only pick the egg if they want their students to fail!"
"If I get beef bourgignon I am just going to turn around and walk out and plan to do Level 3 over again."
"If I get skate and lemon tart, I am golden!"
Well, I got skate and lemon tart and I was golden. I also lucked out and drew one of the later presentation times which gave me a full extra hour to prep before my skate was due. There were a few minor hiccups with my dishes: my skate needed a little more color and seasoning, my stupid potato vapeur (a larger version of a cocotte) didn't have clean enough edges, and my tart dough was a little uneven on the bottom due to a mishap during blind baking. I had no major missteps and turned out some food I am proud of.
The evening didn't end at the judges table though. It ended at some pizza joint in the East Village around 3:30 after a few solid hours of karaoke with my school pals. Who knew a classically trained musician's go to song would be Bust a Move? As I climbed the stairs to my apartment, I had that glowy feeling of contentment that comes from having good people in your life and from doing things that you are happy to put your name on. I'm not talking to you bacon pizza at 3am, but I'm pretty sure we will meet again.
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