Le Cordon Bleu – Foundations I

Back in March 2012, I made a spur of the moment decision to join culinary school. I had been cooking for about a year to that point (basically since I moved out to San Francisco and began fending for myself for the first time). I did some research, and found a program that was incredibly expensive, in terms of both money and time. Around the same time, I was working with my parents and local tattoo artist (and Utsavi!) to get the following sanskrit piece down my ribs:

जीव यथा श्वस्तनदिने मरिष्यसि
शिक्षस्व यथा शाश्वतं जीविष्यसि

Translates to:

Live as if you were to die tomorrow
Learn as if you were to live forever

Going to school to learn the fundamentals of something I sincerely loved to do makes absolute sense to me. I got mixed reactions from both friends and family when I told them I wanted to enroll in San Francisco’s CCA: Le Cordon Bleu certificate program (a 1 year, 20 hrs/week, ~$20k program). I made it clear I was not abandoning my lucrative career as a software engineer, nor my current role as developer for Salesforce.com.  Pretty much the only common agreement between everyone was simple: I am crazy. That’s fine with me, I have no interest in being normal.

So in the following months, I arranged all the necessary pieces to start culinary school October 1st, 2012. Around the same time, I moved out of the heart of the mission, further south into the boonies of San Francisco. I moved in with what was soon to become my new family in San Francisco. That’s important for a couple reasons: my commute became pretty rough. I’d ride by bike to school, then work, and finally back up the giant hill to home. Altogether this amounts to a pretty decent daily workout (which is fantastic because French cooking is very heavy on the butter and cream). It’s also hampered my social life a bit (I’ve gotten a couple texts asking where I fell off the face of the planet to). Instead, I fill my spare time with experiments with food:

Canning and preserving (berry jam)

Baked a cake for Mitch’s birthday! (Clearly I’m garbage at baking =X)

Mitch’s birthday dinner (cod en persillade w/ risotto)

Now on to the real reason I’m writing this blog. I figured I should share what culinary school is actually like. I went in pretty blind: having no idea what I was getting into until I actually jumped in. My explanation is not simple, so I figure the easiest way is to try to show what its like:

First off, meet Chef John: my instructor for Foundations I

Chef John plating our [hearty] breakfast

We had class from 6-10AM, five days a week. During that time, Foundations I was filled with knife skills:

Chef would show us the cuts we’re to know, what he looks for in evaluating them, and techniques to get there. Eventually we’d be tested under time constraints:

Knife skills practice exam

That was the first practice exam. I cut myself in the first 15 seconds =P. Second to “crazy”, was “be careful”… I can’t help it! =X

Chef would put up 10 cut/vegetable pairs on the board, and we’d have to produce them within a certain amount of time (initially 30 minutes). On the last day of class, we had a final knife skills exam for which we had 20 minutes:

Knife skills final exam

Chef would go around, grading each cut out of five points.

My knife skills final

The cuts and grades I got on my final are (starting from the top right going clockwise):

• Tomato concasse (deseeded, peeled tomato coarsely chopped) 5/5
• Potatoe mignonette (basic french fry, 1/4″  wide) 5/5
• Onion ciseler (small dice) 5/5
• Spinach chiffonade (long thin strips) 4/5 (not thin enough)
• Carrot julienne (long thin strips 1/8″ wide) 5/5
• Carrot brunoise (1/8″ cubes) 5/5
• Onion emincer (thin slices) 4/5 (not thin enough)
• Potatoe macedoine (1/4″ cubes) 5/5
• Garlic hachet (finely chop) 4/5 (not fine enough)
• Potato tournet (little football shapes – easily most challenging, time consuming cut here, Chef is looking for symmetric, equal sized football shapes with 7 sides) 3/5

Aside from practical knife skills, Foundations I has a whole lot of theory:

Stock lecture

Every other day, we have lectures where we talk about all aspects of food.

Meat labeling lecture

From prep techniques, to food purchasing, we learn about food in several dimensions. During lectures, we also frequently have demos:

Fluting a mushroom

NBD

Trussing a chicken

Supreming a grapefruit

There’s a little excerpt of our syllabus. Clearly, class is awesome.

We had homework too! Assignments are usually research topics that are pretty fun actually. (Thank you Anny Hunt for helping me with the above assignment!)

Mayonnaise assessment

Aside from the knife skills exam, the only other practical exam we had in the first class was the mayonnaise assessment. We had to whip up some mayo in 5 minutes! You fail if the emulsion breaks, and are graded on flavor and consistency of the mayonnaise.

Product tray

There was also a product and equipment labeling exam, where we were expected to name all different kinds of product and kitchen equipment.

Average lab agenda

Lab days were fantastic! We ate well on those days =)

Fried chicken and aioli

There were other classes in session too, that frequently made way too much food. We’d get fed well on those days too 😉

Catering class’ cheese platter

Catering class’ poached pears

Class has its serious notes, and but for the most part its learning anything and everything about food and having fun while doing it.

Serving food we prepared from 2AM for a catered breakfast the school held

Being in these classes and in this industry has connected to me a whole different world of people and cultures. Placing yourself in shoes you don’t wear is absolutely life changing. All in all, I’m having the time of my life. I wake up every morning before the sun rises feeling absolutely giddy to jump into an apron and cook something new.