For better or for worse...
Cuisine final is over and I am still recovering. 15 of us going into the kitchen - they had people going in 2 by 2 (opposite sides of the kitchen) and I was second to last - had to wait almost an hour before I got to go in and set up my station. There was last minute panic in the hallway, a few questions for the Patisserie chefs who were walking past as they set up for their tasting from Group C and a few nervous trips to the bathroom. At least it was before and not during the exam...
There have been sporadic instances this week where I just wanted to curl up in a little ball on the floor and have a nervous breakdown. But we don't do that - we're chefs and we deal with it. Or as one of my friends told me when I told her I just wanted to die, "do it after the exam." As you can tell, we're a sympathetic lot. The bright side is that the feeling does go away - eventually - and there are 4 of us from my cuisine group who will be repeating this experience on Friday morning in staggered starts. The enthusiasm with which we look forward to Friday is as palpable as that which might accompany a doctor's appointment which involves taking off your clothes and being put in positions you normally wouldn't engage in with someone who isn't your spouse / lover / [insert word of your choice here]. It has also reduced even those of us with pretty extensive vocabularies to mostly 4-letter words which you wouldn't say in front of the very young or the extremely elderly, especially when something boils away. You will note that I have not said "boiled over" - I stopped doing that last Thursday.
The exam...
I didn't take in my time plan because I figured if I had to check it too often I'd been in deep s#$* and looking at it wouldn't fix matters whereas looking at my mise en place told me where to go next. It was a busy but not horrific 4 hours and if it hadn't been for the couple of things which went wrong (and if I had had another couple of pots and burners) I think I could have done it in a little less time.
Things were pretty on track in terms of timing right up until I had to plate my starter. Of course that's when things start to go pear shaped. I recovered from burning my carrots (had to scoop out a couple more, but luckily I had a whole extra carrot so that was no drama) and burning away my wine (for the Hollandaise) twice. Then...as I was starting plating, disaster struck - my egg broke and the backup wasn't usable because it looked awful. So I had to poach another egg. This then threw off my hollandaise schedule a little bit and it was cold by the time I had to plate it - so I tried to recover it with a little hot water - hopefully it didn't split but it started to look thin although it went over the egg fine. This time I remembered the lemon and the salt so although the tartlet didn't look as pretty as during the mock exam (and I didn't make a spare) hopefully it will taste better. Also - I presented 2 minutes early! I suppose I could have used those 2 minutes to try to fix the hollandaise a bit more, but really, I wasn't in the mood to mess with it any more than I already had.
Then the main...everything on track again except for a minor hiccup with the mousse which I will tell you about after the debrief on Monday. I also dropped the bowl which had my pigeon legs marinating in it, so I had to clean up the floor and wash the legs (I was going to do that anyway). I don't know how that affects the hygiene marks - I didn't have any spare pigeons and I had to make the legs so since they were going to cook in gently boiling oil for about an hour or so, I figured any bugs would be long since cooked away. The dish ended up looking quite nice - I think everything was there, including the parsley chiffonade. And finally the pigeon was cooked, but it's possible one of them was slightly over - ugh, will it never go right??? Time - 2 minutes over because I had to clear my station down so that I could plate - and there were a lot of components: glazed vegetables, cutting the bottom off the braised and stuffed lettuce, the sauce, the chiffonade, the potatos fondant, the confit pigeon legs where we have to debone the thigh, then pan fry to get the skin crispy (and which took forever), the glaze for the stuffed/braised lettuce and the sauce. Think one pot or something similar for each of those things which then has to go on 2 very hot plates.
My station was a shambles. It seemed like crap was proliferating everywhere, but never the stuff I needed. Another small pot would have been nice (we had an extra one during the mock exam so it was a real nuisance not to have one today). Also, they said we could trade our used pots for clean ones, but there weren't any in the washup area for the first hour of my time so I either washed my own or I had to do other stuff while waiting for my pots to get cleaned - I can tell you where my 2 minutes went. In the meantime, there was quite a bit of "hot pan!" and "mind your backs" but otherwise, it was intensely quiet in the kitchen except for the sound of pots going on stoves and oven doors opening. Oh, ridiculous - I couldn't open my oven unless I used both hands, which meant a little bit of juggling. Small in the grand scheme of things, but awful when seconds count.
Good night...
The next time you hear from me, hopefully the Patisserie will also be finished and I will be able to tell you that it felt good. Until then, may you have enough pots and pans (or whatever) to do what you need to do. And may you beat the clock...
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