Out of My League

Today was the first day of classes at the Culinary Institute of America where I am dong the "Career Discovery: The Flavours of Napa Valley" course, and I found myself completely out of my league here. For a start, of the 18 participants in the class, 14 are sponsored food professionals, of which 12 are men. Only 4 are paying students (all female, myself included). All 14 of them have had some form of professional kitchen experience, and I count 2 current sous chefs, 2 or 3 line cooks, one head pastry chef, a few kitchen operations managers, and a couple of senior executives... PHEW!

To say I learnt a lot about cooking today would be a complete understatement. Without doing the course proper justice, but for the sake of conciseness, I will list a few of these new insights here:

1. I worked in a professional kitchen for the first time. WOW. Makes my relatively well-togged out home kitchen look like kiddy-play.

2. Everything is hot. Burners and ovens work at much much higher temperatures. Do not ever grab a pan or pot without a mitt or a towel.

3. Everything is heavy. I almost keeled over under the weight of a not-that-big pot of boiling water.

4. It is physically challenging. For close to 4 hours, I was on my feet chopping, moving, mixing, kneading, rolling. It was hard work and my feet still hurt right now.

5. I learnt how to clean a fresh artichoke for the first time.

6. I made gnocchi for the first time. (I don't even like the stuff...)

7. I learnt proper knife skills.

8. The pros in my class have a lot of industry experience and tricks up their sleeves, but they are not perfect. My lunch quail for instance, which was made by 2 line cooks, was beautifully flavoured but undercooked (tsk tsk...).

9. Presentation, presentation, presentation.

10. I discovered I actually already know quite a number of the techniques they teach (it feels good...) :)

Pet peeves? Just a few.

1. I can't help but think that some of the pros aren't that passionate about food. I guess for them, it's a job, it pays the bills, they are here because their employer sent them. 'Nuff said.

2. The pros have their own set ways of doing things, and I can't help but feel I'm slowing things down.

3. Someone trying to explain authoritatively to me what an emulsion is (this person by the way, is not even a kitchen person, but runs "front-of-the-house"). I mean - HELLO, I know what an emulsion is. I aced chemistry, I make bearnaise, hollandaise, aioli all the time.

4. Getting asked why my English is so good. Uh................................. Because I am a native speaker, I scored 6/6 in GMAT writing??! (sorry could not help that...)

But I had fun. A lot of fun. Would I recommend the course to others? Well I think if one came fresh without any home cooking experience at all, it would be very tough and demoralizing. Granted, the instructors did mention that to have a majority of food professionals in the course is quite atypical, but I think the instructors themselves assume some level of basic kitchen proficiency even among the amateurs. But for me, it is the right level. It pushed me to think about food at a different level. I can't wait for tomorrow.

PS. CIA did not manage to score us a table at The French Laundry. What they did manage to get us was a table at Thomas Keller's new restaurant. Ad Hoc. I had the best cheesesteaks and cayenne crisps there today. YUM.