Level One FINAL

I studied. For 48 hours every non-working, waking moment, I studied. I left home earlier than usual to ensure that I arrived early enough to get my mental mis en place. I entered the French Culinary Institute as anxious as I have ever been for a test. Kind of pathetic, maybe, since I feel like I have been taking major exams for my whole life.... from the PSAT, to the SAT, all through college and graduate school, the GRE and even the LSAT.  But this test was a bit different. I was going to be in action and observed. And this test mattered... to me.

This day was worth 20% of my Level One grade (Theory Final and Practical Final)... and I still hadn't received my second kitchen evaluation (Eval 2). So 40% of my grade was still outstanding.

Culinary Arts Level One Grading 

I went to the locker room, changed, and headed upstairs to the fifth floor kitchen where the exam was going to be held. A new, different kitchen. There is something about kitchens, that you learn as a Chef - knowing your way around is one of the most important elements of success. The Iron Chef frequently wins because he is in his kitchen - he knows where things are, he knows the equipment, he is comfortable, etc. An experienced Chef walks into a new kitchen, and immediately inventories the kitchen to learn where everything is and map it out in his/her head. So this was the plan for us. Can we or not enter a new kitchen and quickly get the lay of the land and be prepared to work? I thought I maybe bought myself a couple extra minutes. No such luck.

On the forth floor landing I looked up to see one of my classmates coming down. We were not yet allowed on the fifth floor. The chefs were setting up. Great I thought. Now I have really done myself in. You see, I do not like to interact with anyone before an exam... especially people who are amped up for the same exam. Throughout college I purposely avoided all classmates on exam day. I arrived at exams at least three minutes late and sat outside of the auditorium listening for the shuffling papers and chit chat to quiet down. Then I would wait a few more minutes for papers to be handed out and the test to begin. Approximately 10 minutes into the exam, I would enter the auditorium, get an exam from the professor, find my "away from everyone" seat, and begin. The 10 minutes never made much difference, but the mental frame did. Wednesday. I entered the library full of students cramming for exams. Mistake. My heart started racing. My mental mis en place disappeared.

I ate an apple hoping to distract myself, but it didn't help. At least I won't be hungry during the exam. You see, I have developed a technique of eating the evidence... which is a potentially dangerous habit if you are caught. If something isn't cut right, if a carrot isn't a julienne or if things aren't similarly sized, I hide the evidence in my stomach. Yes, I eat it... Don't you remember when your teacher caught you passing notes in middle school? Did you ever put that note into your mouth and chew as fast as you could? I did. This is the same principle. With a note about that cute boy, if you moisten it and chew it, and spit it out when your teacher threatens to go in your mouth and get it, it cannot be read. With food, if you eat it, no one has to know how bad it looked or tasted. But during an exam when people are looking over your shoulder observing and questioning your every move, this is probably not a good idea. You do not want to be accused of eating the evidence... because that might be considered cheating. Ok, so I must cut proper taillage.

At 5:40 we made our way up to the fifth floor kitchen where we were asked to wait outside until 5:45. I quickly realized that we had MUCH less space than we had in class. This was a restaurant setup. Each student had approximately two feet of space - enough for a cutting board and a couple of bowls. There were people on each side of you and behind you in the aisle. This was not going to be fun. I quickly began inventorying the kitchen and the "good" stations - stations with only one student behind or only one student on one side.

At 5:45 we entered the kitchen. We were told to stay away from the stations - that they would be assigned. Why did I waste my time? I should have known better.

I was assigned to an undesirable station... between two other students, and half of my two square feet was taken up by a conduction burner.

The exam tasks were written on the white boards. The exam was in three parts. All students would complete part one at the same time, and then parts two and three would be traded off.

Part One: Taillage - Julienne one carrot, Macedoine one turnip, Emincer 1/2 onion, Ciseler 1/2 onion, Ciseler Shallot and reserve for Part Three.

Part Two: Tournage - Turn one artichoke and remove choke, Turn one potato and make eight cocottes.

Part Three: Tomato Fondue

... I am going to spare you the step-by-step details of the exam because the anticipation is often SO much worse than the exam itself. I will summarize the high (or low) points below.

Part One: I had a strategy. 1. Follow the rules. Make sure you wash your vegetables. Never put an unpeeled vegetable on the cutting board. Make sure your peeled vegetables stay separate from your unpeeled vegetables. Save your mirepoix in separate bowls. Got all that? Ok. 2. Do the "easy" stuff first. For me, this means the onions and shallots. Emincer went better than usual. I cut all the way through on one piece of the ciseler and had some trouble, but it worked out. Macedoine the turnip. For me, bigger is easier. 3. Finish with the carrot. I HATE julienne. I can NEVER get my cuts to 1-2mm. But I did get them to 3mm, which was better than I hoped for. But then Chef yelled one minute and I was only through 1/3 of the carrot! My hands started SHAKING! Then I noticed that the student to my left was only starting his shallot, and his onion wasn't yet cut. Then I noticed that I shouldn't be noticing what other students are doing. I remembered what someone told me, "I think this test is more like a swim meet (or triathlon) than an academic test. Keep your head in the game for each individual task and you’ll do great." And I thought to myself, "KEEP YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME." Ok, five seconds wasted. Carrot and strategy 4.Whatever you do, FINISH. Dump the extra in the mirepoix bowl at 5 seconds. Chef yells 10 seconds. Ok, I got through 90% of the carrot with my hands and knife shaking.. I put the julienne carrots on the plate, and dumped the rest of the carrot in the mirepoix bowl. We were asked to leave the kitchen for evaluation.

Part Three: Tomato fondue. Nothing exciting here. We were asked to leave the kitchen again. Chef tasted each plate of tomato fondue, at least once and sometimes three times. .... I did use a bit too much garlic and the liquid didn't evaporate 100%..... I probably should have strained it before plating, but I didn't. At least I knew my technique was solid.

Part Two: Surprisingly, the turned artichoke and potato cocottes went A-OK. They were not "perfect" but they were "good enough".

The practical exam was over. We had 30 minutes over dinner to worry about the written exam, and believe me I did worry. But, thank goodness, it ended up being a walk in the park... except for the part about "What makes a brown stock brown?" where I repeated the same answer three or four times and wrote down just about anything else I could imagine. I confidently handed in the test.

Level One. Complete.

Seeing Chef Greg, who had returned for another ServSafe lecture, I came back to his Day One question -- "Great success or horrible disaster?"

Honestly? I think that these six weeks have been a GREAT SUCCESS!

Thank you for sharing them with me.