Finals Part Deux

This Wednesday, I passed my Intermediate Cuisine final.

PHEW! What a relief.

You may remember my Basic Final went a little more smoothly and quickly, but I passed and that's all that matters!

Instead of starting the final at 8am, this time I was scheduled for 1pm. Those 5 hours make a really big difference in how much time you have to psych yourself out over the final. So, I tried my hardest to not psych myself out, though I know that I sorta did.

Anyways, I pulled the Guinea Fowl Pie, which is known around the school as a dish mentioned with a shudder. It can take about an hour to cook and you have in reality less than 2.5 hours to prep, cook, and plate your dish. So, that pie pastry and stuffing have to be prepped FAST.

Well, I totally botched my pastry dough. Looking back on it, I know I added too much flour. I know now why my measurements got thrown off and I know now that I should have thrown it away and started over.

Unfortunately, super adrenaline rush-ed out Elyssa was not thinking so sanely. I just kept trying to fix the dough and when I laid the pie crust top over the stuffing and it cracked literally everywhere, all I could do was cut out little diamond-shaped patches and egg wash them over the holes and pray it would hold.

It didn't hold. It was the ugliest god damn pie you've ever seen. No joke.

And despite that it was no joke, I laughed incessantly about it, almost hysterically throughout the process. One of those times was right after I put the dough disaster in the oven. I then had to chop up what was left of the carcass bones to make my sauce. So, I'm pissed and hacking at that bird with my cleaver when all of a sudden, the girl across from me screams.

Apparently, a piece of my bloody bird bits had gone flying into her flan mixture. She starts yelling at me to get myself under control and I lose it. Bent over laughing. She kept yelling at me. Then I apologized and said, "you're right it's not funny. (It's effing hilarious) I'm sorry."

Another one of those times was about 5 mins after it was sent out the door to the mysterious tasting panel in the other room. The chef who had taken my dish to that room also happens to be the chef in charge of Superior Cuisine- the next and final course for me.

He came back into the room, walked up to me and goes, "Elyssa?"He has no idea who I am as I have yet to have him as a teacher.

"Yes, Chef?" My heart is racing. This is the moment. Because, I was not sure at this point that I would pass (re: ugliest effing pie in the world) and was having visions of re-doing the course, figuring out a plan on what to do next.

He smiles. "Your face (forcemeat stuffing)" he tells me in French, "was really, really good." (*yes there were TWO reallys)

"ooof. Merci, Chef. Merci Beaucoup!"

Then I started laughing hysterically.

See, as you may have noticed from previous posts, I love terrines and forcemeat stuffings and sausages. It's something I pride myself in and to have the chef who will be my next teacher find me out to tell me that my farce was "really really good," is better than scoring a higher grade. It's the most self-affirming compliment I've received in a long time.

So, it was at that moment that I knew I had passed.

Now, I graduate on the 20th (my birthday) and will start Superior cuisine on the 23rd or 25th.
Phew!