Essential Skills 1 - Knife cuts

Not feeling much better yet, I stumbled off to school forgetting part of my uniform- my kerchief. (A big no no.) Well, chef was nice enough to give me a loaner, though he wasn't too pleased. Told me to return it to him first thing tomorrow morning-cleaned. Like I'm going to give him back a sweaty kerchief! (I washed and and ironed the damn thing.)


Today we wielded our knives for the first time and practiced our julienne, batonette, brunoise, and fine brunoise. We peeled, filleted and concasseed tomatoes and chiffonaded basil. During the demo, I thought I was home free knowing I had some practice and experience on my side.


I staked out my territory in the kitchen happily assembled my mise en place. I took out my 10 inch chefs knife and started to make my cuts. And then, for some reason I kinda fell apart.

It was so intense in the room with everyone trying to make these perfect 1/8 inch julienne cut carrots and 1/16 inch cubed brunoise. The pressure was on. To top it off, Chef wanted us all to use our 10 inch chef knife to get used to it and I felt like I had a sword in my hand. It was like I had never used a knife before. Also, I could see one of the other women in my class (there are only three of us ladies) out of the corner of my eye and she was cutting like a pro! Chef came in to look at our labors and made a big fuss over her. I got a "not bad" as he examined my brunoise. "Work on getting it more uniform." Was this a reference to my missing kerchief? I think I was starting to get a little paranoid.


We finished up with a lesson on Veal stock that we would leave to cook all night.


I left feeling humbled and a bit inadequate. As I attempted that night to finish my reading and 6 chapters in our workbook that had to be finished and turned in the next day, I had a little bit of a breakdown. When my husband came home, I told him I had made a big mistake. I don't want to go to cooking school anymore. I don't want to do all this reading and there is no way I can finish all these chapters in the workbook! (Yes, there were tears.) He said " Ok honey. I'll just go and get us some dinner."

So I did what most women do who need some understanding. I called my best friend. By the time my husband returned with dinner I was calm and back in school.

Goodnight.