School has started. I’m officially a student at the International Culinary Education. Everything is moving fast, and I’ve been trying really hard to absorb everything in class. It has been a little more than a week now, but we already had an exam and a paper, and I have to write another paper by the end of February. You may think that culinary school is all about learning knife skills and juggling pots and pans, but no. We have to sit in the library and do research also. Chefs need to use both their hands their and brains.
Cutting vegetables and practicing knife skills has been fun. I had been using only a Santoku knife for a long time but am getting better at using a chef’s knife and paring knife. It’s all about using the tool for right job. Carrots, celery and onions are chopped daily, and potatoes are diced into ½” cubes. Dicing the potatoes has been torturing some of us. It’s actually not an easy thing to do. Who knew!
We’ve made potato puree, blanched green vegetables, caramelized onions and cooked some eggs. I’ve done that before, but apparently I wasn’t doing right. Within a week or so, I’ve learned so much already. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the speed and nervous or frustrated but fortunately I have classmates I can share my feelings with. They all have different back grounds. Some of them are career changers like me, and some of them have worked in professional kitchen before. They are good people and easy to work with. Unfortunately, I can’t take pictures in class, but I’ll try to keep you posted about what’s happening, so stay tuned!
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Awesome! Sounds like you’re having a lot of fun. I look forward to reading more about what you’re learning. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Faythe!