Bring on Superior!

Well...Intermediate is finished. Never again will I get to see a Thivet or Caals demo. I won't get to hear Thivet yell YEEHAW!!! while tasting one of his dishes. While the end of intermediate relieves me a little, the thought of superior scares me. Intermediate was much like basic- replicating recipes and learning more complicated garnishes and techniques. Superior is going to be really hard- we have to come up with our own recipes. There are guidelines to what we have to make, which ingredients we must use, and ones that we can't; but we have to design our menus. While this scares me, I think it will be the turning point in my culinary education. I'm always so concerned with following the recipes and making sure I do things exactly like the Chef that I'm too much in my own head. If I'm making my own recipes, I think I'll be far more comfortable in the kitchen...at least I hope.

Graduation was bittersweet. Sweet in that it was my first one, bitter in that it marks the 2/3 mark of my journey. It was also sad that Anthony and Gill weren't there with us. Not many people were there as we have 2 weeks off until Superior begins, most are traveling. I had helped our Chefs Caals and Lesourd the day prior to get all the food ready for graduation. It was really fun, but tedious prep work. We were there about 8 hours chopping, blanching, peeling, confit-ing. It gave me insight into what a stage might be like...peeling peas for 8 hours straight! The ceremony itself was fine- the new school director was so nervous and it was about 60000 degrees in the winter garden. We got to celebrate upstairs with all the Chefs and take lots of pictures. Chef Clergue (my favorite) gave me his hat and signed it! I'm keeping that thing forever :) Chef Caals gave Lara his hat, and Lesourd gave Noor his...we all got the hats of our favorite Chefs!



The following day, I went to Zu's superior graduation. Her family wasn't able to make it, so I was her date. It was so cool, and got me SO excited for August! I'm not going to post details because I want you all to be surprised when you see the pictures from my graduation!

The really exciting news is that Gill, E'Lane, Lauren and I are heading to LAKE COMO ITALY!!!!!!! We rented an apartment right on the lake for 5 nights and we're going to relax, unwind and get ready for the challenging summer we have ahead of us. I can't wait, I've never been and it will be so great to have a home base where we can cook, play cards, scrabble, read and just have fun.

We depart on Tuesday morning and return on Sunday before superior starts! Thank you all for sharing this experience with me and for all your words of encouragement. I vow to be better about blogging and taking photos of my plates in superior.

A Bientot!