Fun With Knives

Well, yesterday was absolutely exhausting, to say the least. Just to teach you a little bit about the system of Le Cordon Bleu, there are two different types of classes, demonstrations and practicals. For all of you in college right now or who just graduated,  a demonstration is basically like a lecture class where you watch a chef prepare two or three dishes depending on the amount of time each recipe takes and a practical is like a lab class where you make one of the dishes that you saw prepared in the demonstration. There's a third type of class called "Culinary Theory", but it's just another type of lecture and we only have one or two of them in total. Each demonstration or practical lasts around three hours!

Now that you know the basic layout, I had one culinary theory class, two demonstrations, and a practical yesterday. We made a rustic vegetable and bacon soup that mainly had us practice the knife cuts we had learned in the demonstration (mirepoix, paysanne, brunoise etc.). I also had another practical this morning that followed the second demonstration yesterday where we had to fillet a fish ourselves. I never expected to be taking a whole fish apart in our second class!!!

I also got my first cut today during the fish practical!!! I somehow feel initiated into the school even though I stupidly got it while putting my knives away :-/. Anyway, I have to go back soon to have another demonstration and practical, and then I get tomorrow off!!! Just to leave on a happy note.....here's a picture of my cut :).