Final Exams

I think I've already mentioned that since leaving college over two years ago, I've really missed taking tests. Yes, I'm somewhat of a huge nerd. The dork in me was pretty excited about the final two days of Skills 1. On Thursday, we had a two-part ID test: the first part was oils, vinegars, herbs, and spices; the second was 50 slides of various pieces of kitchen equipment, knives, and other small wares. Then on Friday, we took our final written test on all of the material we've covered and then got two hours for our graded knife practical.

I felt pretty confident about the ID test--the last couple of times we've practiced going through the spices, herbs, etc., I only missed one or two. Most of the kitchen equipment was familiar to me from the start, partially because just before moving I had written a big article for the Washingtonian about restaurant kitchens. Chefs I interviewed told me all about their favorite pieces of equipment, many of which I had never heard of--like a tilting skillet and a combi oven. Chef M. and Chef L. then pointed out all of these gadgets on our tour of the student-run restaurant's kitchen.

The written test wasn't scary either--I'd read all the chapters, and this is the kind of test I'm used to. The knife practical, however, was uncharted territory. We'd been practicing with time constraints, but for the test we'd have to do 10 cuts with only two carrots, one potato, half an onion, one tomato, and a bit of spinach (for chiffonade). Two hours is a ton of time, but if you mess something up, you may not have enough product left to re-do it.

As I practiced in class earlier in the week, I got my juliennes and batonnets down pat. My dice (bruniose and small dice) looked good, but they took me forever, especially when the chefs asked for a full souffle cup of brunoise (1/8 by 1/8 by 1/8 inch). That's a lot of tiny dice.

Onion ciseler is the one knife cut I actually do at home often, so I felt pretty good about that. Tomato concasse is really easy, too, but it does take some extra time to blanch and peel the tomato. Chiffonade is also pretty straightforward, I just had to make sure that my strips of spinach were thin enough (they should be about julienne width, 1/8 of an inch).

Tournes, of course, were still the problem. Mine had been getting better every day, but those seven sides were never perfectly smooth nor perfectly even. I knew that I wouldn't be earning a 10 on them on the test--each knife cut is worth 10 points--but just hoped that I wouldn't screw them up too badly. We had to make four from one potato.

In the end, I finished up with time to spare, no cutting injuries, and pretty decent tournes. Chef L. gave me an 8 out of 10 on them--not bad. Most of my other cuts earned 9s and even a few 10s. Here's a shot of the finished product that I presented to the chefs, plus the three knives I used (tourne, Santoku, and paring):



I can't even imagine what those cuts would have looked like if you had asked me to do them three weeks ago. I learned a ton in Skills 1, and I'm really going to miss it. On Monday we start Food Science, a classroom course, so my knives will stay at home for 3 weeks. I think I'll have to buy some whole carrots to dice and julienne and potatoes to tourne at home, just to avoid going through withdrawal.