My own little ceremony!

Having missed the real graduation ceremony to travel to San Francisco, I went in to the academic office to receive my diploma yesterday (and to have my absences excused). I have to admit, I was pretty sad to have received it from Céline in the office rather than hearing my name called and taking pictures with the Chefs. Nevertheless, I went to my first demo class of intermediate (guinea fowl, fish stew, and an apple tart...more on that later) and really looked at my certificate. When i first decided to take this journey, I was hoping to not flunk out and just make it through basic. Now- I'm sad that I didn't graduate from basic with distinction and I'm already plotting how I can improve for intermediate. I never in a million years thought that this is what I'd be doing right now, that I'd be living a dream of mine in Paris and meeting the friends that already have and will continue to change my life.

I have proudly displayed the diploma and our class picture with distinction and prominence in the house- where it should remain to remind me just what I have done. I hope to look at it when I have a bad day and think to myself that I overcame what I thought impossible at the beginning and was able to do well and finally feel like I've accomplished something in a school setting.

Let me rewind a bit here- or as Anthony would say start at my 21st birthday and move forward. Wednesday March 17th and the days preceding were quite stressful. I tried to remain calm and have a sense of humor through it all, but there were times when I was so scared I could barely speak. A group of us practiced at Laura's house one day and I was mute. Constantly thinking about which dishes might be on the final and going through the steps in my head. We had been tipped off that our dishes were going to be brill (a flat fish) and the roast duck, but we couldn't rest on that. I memorized every step in every recipe. When we were there- a sudden calm came over me. People were freaking out and for some reason, I felt ready. Chef Caals was our proctor and knowing that he would give us the grades on organization, our skill (turning 2 artichokes), technique and generally overseeing us in the kitchen made me nervous. He's SUCH a clean freak that I really wanted to blow him away. I thought of the organization and the technique as gimme points. We could control everything about those 2 aspects of our exam, so it was imperative to really knock those out of the park. I chose the brill dish- so I just went right to work.

Pretty soon into the dish, Lara cut her thumb, badly. I didn't think anything of it initially, but when she came back with a glove on her hand that was filling with blood- I knew it was bad. I told her that of all the Chefs at school Caals would freak about the blood, so she went down and had it properly taken care of. She was gone for 30 minutes of our final. At first I thought to myself, keep going Carolyn and get yours done. But when she still wasn't back- I knew she'd be in trouble if I didn't help. I cored her tomatoes, put on a pot of boiling water for her to peel the tomatoes, skimmed her stock, chopped her mushrooms and made her a bouquet garni. She came back and was right on par time wise with me. We both went on to chop out onions and shallots, peel, seed and chop our tomatoes and were in good shape. We talked each other through steps and it felt like it was just she and I in the kitchen. All of a sudden, it was time to plate- and we were SCRAMBLING to finish on time. Both of our sauces weren't reduced enough, and I knew my presentation wasn't going to be great.. but when push came to shove, Lara and I both were finished. While she wasn't pleased with her performance, I knew we both had passed. Caals had told us that we all had received great organization grades- so I knew we were ok. We presented our dishes to the jury of Chefs and went down. Sweaty, tired, and emotionally exhausted- we went to clean out our lockers. I just started crying. Not sure if it was because I was happy, I wished I had done better, or that I was just proud of myself- but I sat on the floor of the locker room surrounded by all my stuff and cried. After pulling myself together, Lauren and I went to have a celebratory lunch. We sat outside in the 6th and had a bottle of wine and a great lunch. I called Dad for him to make the phone tree calls that I had finished and that I knew I had passed. Lara came later to join us and we had a great day. Anthony, Gillian, Bruna, Laura met us later and we celebrated with a bottle of Champagne (or 2).

I'm happy to report that we all passed with flying colors. In fact, our own Lauren was #2 in our class!!!!

Back in Paris after a quick, but fantastic jaunt to San Francisco- and my first demo was a fish stew, guinea fowl, and apple tart. Having gotten to class early Caals had recruited me to help him along with Sara and Lara to remove the digestive tracts of LIVE crayfish. You pinch a section of the tail, twist and pull it out. It's repulsive and they are in fact still alive at this point- pinching and squirming. That was nothing compared to what we have to do to the guinea fowl. Those who know me that ligaments and tendons give me the willies due to the amount of times I've torn them. The guinea fowl come with their feet on, and in order to really lop them off, you need to remove the achilles tendons. So a knife cut on either side of the tendon, then reach an S hook around it, twist and twist and twist and YANK! It 'should' rip. While you do this however, the toes on the feet clench around you. I have to do this tonight, so Dr. Marzo- wherever you are, I'm very sorry to have to do this to the guinea fowl- I know how much it hurts!

I'm in a brand new practical group- thank goodness for Lara, she saved my spot for me!!!! I'll report back after my first practical tonight! I'll leave you with a picture I took out the window last night!

A Bientot!