In which this doesn't even come close to resembling Julie & Julia
Apparently my Mom has been having visions of us chopping vast quantities of onions like in the movie Julie & Julia (did it come out last year?) in which there is an absolute blizzard of onion pieces when Julia Child's husband, Paul, came home after her first day of classes.
First of all, and lucky for us, no one in class is a professional chef except our teacher. Secondly, the chopping was only one of several things we did. Thirdly, I suppose usually people envision chefs cutting things very precisely and very quickly, especially if we've been watching cooking shows on TV. They do. We students most assuredly don't.
The reality
We have 2 1/2 hours for a practical class so that there is enough time to show your plate to Chef X, get your feedback, clean up and clear out in time for the next class to come in.
Each student got 2 onions, 1 leek, 1 rib of celery, 2 carrots, 3 sprigs of thyme, a few stalks of parsley, 2 cloves of garlie, an eschallot (aka French shallots) and 2 oranges. We were practicing a few specific cuts and it's not a matter of good enough, it's a matter of perfection. It took 2 carrots for me to get 4 acceptable sticks (which were a bit on the skinny side), a large dice (also on the small side) and a small dice (a bit on the big side). By the way, these are all Chef's comments to me. Hopefully they will get better once I know what 2mm looks like.
What I learned: I can't cut straight. It doesn't seem that hard - you line up your vegetable and you slice down, avoiding any fingers. It's getting the exact right angles that was the problem. So you shave a bit here, shave a bit there (in order to even it out) and pretty soon half of your carrot is gone because you've shaved off bits and pieces. Celery is a bit easier because it won't be exactly a cubed piece given its barrel shape.
Leeks get curly when you slice them (or even just cut them in half) so you end up wasting a lot squaring them off in order to get an even cut. No wonder they asked why we wanted to come to cooking school - if you didn't already love food, you might not last. I seriously think that not only will I not start a love affair with carrots, I may may actively dislike them, at least until I can cut them at right angles.
I think one piece of the large dice carrot passed muster - completely by accident - and the julienne of leek (the orange zest julienne was too fat, barely passable; the onion slices were too uneven - some fat, some skinny and there wasn't enough orange juice in the bottom of the bowl). I never thought I would be so happy and relieved to hear that the precision wasn't there but there was some promise and I should practice. A Lot.
Also - onions weren't too bad but the echallots are a real killer when it comes to making you cry. For me personally, they are supremely painful, unlike onions which are only mildly painful. I considered wearing a snorkelling mask but you can't bring in equipment which hasn't been provided or approved by the school.
AND - your hands must grow calluses. A blister on the index finger was indicative of holding the knife incorrectly (demonstration Chef and teaching Chef's examples notwithstanding) and I must hold the handle only - not the handle and the blade. So no band-aids - your hand has to toughen up.
As for cutting in general and hand/finger placement - cutting the palm of your hand is ok - you can bandage it up and still keep working. Cutting your fingers, especially if it's the tips of your fingers, is not ok because it makes things so much harder. No nicks and scrapes today, but time will tell.
It helps if you have bigger hands. It's a lot harder to maneuver the paring/turning knife and the peeler (for zesting) when you can't get a proper grip and leverage on the knife without cutting yourself.
Zesting and julienning the orange took any remaining garlicky/oniony smell off my hands (yes, of course we washed our boards, knives and hands before we did the oranges). But I still smell like celery...
A warning from someone more advanced to the newbies...
An intermediate Patisserie student warned me that the final exam for our basic Patisserie is a killer. They judge against professional standards (after all, isn't that what we're there for?) and a lot of competent students still do not get super high marks. Apparently no one in her group got a distinction.
It seems that the requirements to succeed well are that you have a knack for Patisserie, you have prepared well and that you have good luck on the day.
I must confess that I don't aspire so high after our first day. Right now it will be a cause for celebration if I can get a properly squared off piece of carrot so that I can do the other cuts. At the moment they are more trapezoidal than cubic. Trapezoid does not fit into any of the categories of recognized basic cuts.
There is a vast difference between cutting things up at home (where you're the boss) and in a school which expects to turn out professionals. I suppose we all got so caught up and excited about the course that we forgot that this is to teach us the stuff that you can't/don't do at home.
Chef's suggestion
Practice, practice, practice. It won't get us to Carnegie Hall but we might be able to do the above list in 20 minutes (the standard) without too much wastage, rather than the 2.5 hours which then resulted in pieces good enough for the stock pot.
Also - it's French cooking. So the fact that I didn't know 4cm is approximately 2 inches - well, I must learn centimeters (thank goodness for tomorrow's conversion class, although I am afraid that will be more weights and measures than lengths...).
On the agenda tomorrow (and possibly more cutting practice) - salads. Lots of salads - and lots of different salad dressings.
Prediction for the fate of some vegetables for the next few months
I have a feeling that London runs short on sugar, scales, carrots, onions, celery, leeks, eshallots and oranges at the beginning of each intake for the Cordon Bleu because we all need to practice.
It's a good thing it is still relatively chilly because we can at least use all those cut/sliced vegetables in a winter soup or stew...or perhaps there is a soup kitchen nearby where I can practice. Have definitely thought of offering my services to the advanced students to prep when they are putting on their final exam of multi-course dinner.
I also predict that I may never buy another vinaigrette dressing again.
In the meantime
Spring continues apace with all of its vaunted variability. The cherry blossoms around the corner on Devonshire Place have mostly been blown off the trees but the ones below my kitchen (Something-or-other Mews) are still on the trees. Westminster has started to put up baskets of flowers on the hooks hanging from the streetlight posts. Window boxes have daffodils and tulips growing tall over the ivy and smaller bushes for which I don't know the names.
We have days which seem to have four seasons at once - freezing early this morning, quite warm in the afternoon, rainy/drizzly but not overcast at the moment and who knows that tonight will bring?
So until next time - happy eating! (And remember that it took a lot of practice for the person in the kitchen to be able to make those carrots perfectly cube shaped.)
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