Oh...we’re half way there
At this moment I am roughly half way through my journey to qualifying as a cuisine and pastry chef at Le Cordon Bleu London. I still can’t believe I’m here, and I still can’t belive this far off dream of mine is halfway complete. The beginning of this journey was hard. The 5 am starts, the long days, hot kitchens and high pressure sink or swim learning environment. There were days (many days) where I would look down at my burned and cut hands and question whether or not I had bitten off more of the culinary world than I could chew. Those days however are gone. My confidence has grown so much and I find it laughable how I could have gotten so stressed about such simple dishes and straightforward preparations. I can honestly say that I have loved every single minute of intermediate so far. Now I can multitask happily and use all my senses to be completely in control of all my dish elements. It is such a similar feeling to finally learning to drive. Getting the coordination to operate the car and figure out where you are meant to be going. Intermediate has brought with it some brilliant new techniques and even a forray into some other European cuisines. It is such a great feeling to have mastered the basics of this whole new expressive language that is food, and to be able to start to create things that gives away a little of who I am as a chef and human. Last week we were given some freedom to plate our dishes creatively and after months of painstakingly copying dishes I jumped at the challenge. This is my creative plating of healthy breakfast items using alternative ingredients.
I like to tell stories with food and as the star ingredient in this dish is blackberry, featuring as a mousse and also whole fruit I decided to give it some context and depict a forest scene with the blackberry nestling snuggly on the forest floor. There is also a sun and moon and some turned blueberry ‘stars’. I was nervous for my critique with chef as it is the first time I am being artistically vulnerable at Le Cordon Bleu. Chef’s are split into those who see food as art, like I do, and those who see themselves as craftsman of artisan products but definitely not art. I know the teaching chef sees himself in the latter camp and was afraid he would tell me to put the paintbrushes away and focus on flavours, but he didn’t. He liked it a lot and gave me full marks for my first creative task. I was over the moon!
I have to go and clean the kitchen now as I have been practicing the Alhambra cake for exams happening in a few weeks and there is chocolate ganache everywhere. Here is a little look at the Alhambra and a few other dishes I have made so far in intermediate.