Culinary School: End of the Line (The Final Practical)

At first there is only the sound of 11 knives beating against a board. Then there is the smell of butter melting in hot pans throughout the room, followed by the crescendo of whisks smacking stainless steel bowls. We don’t talk. We’ve been instructed not to speak unless our words are guttural sounds proclaiming, “I can’t stop the bleeding.”

With crazy structural changes at work, hospital trips visiting family members and out-of town-company, I’m running a tad on the emotional side. (Gasp, can you believe it?) But no one wants to be that guy complaining about backaches and bruises when the fate of our final practical looms ominously overhead.

We are asked to cook a cream of mushroom soup, asparagus with béarnaise sauce and a bordelaise sauce. And from the moment the clock starts ticking, I enter an alternate state. My mind and body move like a shotgun.

I jockey five saucepans on the range as if I’m playing an elaborate game of chess. I react without thought, leaving all major decisions to instinct and reflex. Vegetables are sauteed, roux is assembled, stock is added, butter is clarified, cream is heated, demi glace is thickened. Mushrooms are sauteed, vinegar and tarragon is reduced until au sec, eggs are beaten into submission, an orange is supremed.

Is this how professional sports players feel? Three hours is actually three minutes. After all of the focus, commitment, sleepless nights, and endless practice, everything comes down to one performance.

I fill three empty cups with three kinds of sauce and stare at them for a moment, judging their quality. I think I’m ready. Cautiously, I walk my sauces over to my instructor for final grading.

Clasping my hands, I stand at the edge of his metal table. My instructor quietly dips into the containers with a plastic spoon and I feel adrenaline drain from my body. My face is burning. I look down at my sleeve, fixating on a splatter of brown sauce. I wait.

Finally, he peers over his black glasses and knits his eyebrows.

“You get an A,” he says. “You did alright.”

I don’t know why but the only thing I can think is this: “I’ve survived another day.” I repeat this phrase in my mind several times as I turn and face the dish tank full of wreckage. “I did alright and I survived another day.”

It’s enough. It’s more than enough.

Tagged as: cincinnati state, culinary arts, Culinary School, midwest culinary institute