First Day of School!

There was no yellow school bus to pick me up, but the first day of school was just as fun and exciting as any other first day. We showed up early so they could properly inspect our uniforms and make sure we had everything on properly. Once all that was done we went into our classroom and met our chef instructor for the first level. There appeared to be about 22 people in the class and only 4 girls. However, one girl got really sick and had to be taken to a doctor so I'm not sure if she will be back or not.

Last night we covered basic kitchen safety, hygiene, the layout of the kitchen, equipment and tools, etc. We also got our student toolkit which included our knives, as well as a lot of other fun gadgets.




We learned the proper setup of a work station (poste de travail), and how to properly wash and peel - or as the French say, lavage et epluchage. Yes, this is a French school so almost all of the terminology we learn is in French.

It was then time for us to start learning how to properly use our knives and moved onto the the different methods of cutting vegetables. The proper cutting of vegetables is essential because it leads to uniform shapes and sizes. This is important not only so the dish is aesthetically pleasing, but it also ensures that all the items will cook uniformly. The chef instructor demonstrated all the various cuts, and then we were off to try on our own.

The school is nice enough to allow us to have cameras so we can take pictures of our work. Below are pictures of what all of these cuts are supposed to look like (sorry my photography last night was not great, I was snapping them quickly. The camera is a bit of a pain because it can't touch the workstation and after I have to wash my hands so I tried to get these in at the end of class):




The vegetables we worked with were onions, shallots, carrots, turnips, cabbage and parsley. I also snapped a photo of my workstation right at the end of class. Just carrots and turnips here. The cuts on my board are supposed to be the julliane and brunoise (carrot), and the jardiniere, macedoine, and paysanne (turnip). I also have a chiffonade of cabbage - this I think was the only one that came out correctly.



My julianne was too thick in width, so as a result the brunoise was not the right shape since this is made after you julienne the carrot. The jardiniere are the rectangular shapes on the top right of the photo. They are supposed to be about 2 inches in length, but my turnip to begin with was small so I had to make the best of what I had. I also need to practice making these perfectly rectangular. Below the jardiniere is the macedoine (they are supposed to .5cm cubes.....again my cuts were a bit wide) and below that is the paysanne (I need to work on making these thinner in width).

That pretty much took the entire 5 hours of class, believe it or not. We do get a 30 minute dinner break at 8:30 - or as the school calls it a "family meal". The level 4 students are learning cooking for large groups of people (catering and buffets), so they cook dinner for the entire school every night and the meals get delivered to your classroom buffet style. Last nights dinner was a fillet of sole (ok, I think it was sole...haha....the menu is supposed to be on the student site but I can't find it so I'm still not 100% sure what I ate :-O But it had a nice sauce on it which also had some grapefruit and tangerine in it). This was accompanied by cous cous, sauteed green beans with cherry tomatoes and a salad with a lemon vinaigrette. All in all, nicely done.

Wednesdays class I think will pretty much be 5 hours of lecture as we will be covering preventative approaches to food safety. In the meantime, I will be chopping away at home....something tells me there will be a lot of carrot soup and turnips on the dinner menu at home in the next few weeks...haha...