Our final exam: no blood, but sweat and tears

The six week introductory course at the Ritz flew by, and all of a sudden it was time for us to take our dreaded final exams.

I say “dreaded” because we didn’t know what to expect. Our teachers kept it all purposely mysterious until the last minute, perhaps correctly banking on the fact that a certain amount of obfuscation might inspire us to take the whole thing more seriously. A few days before the exam, they passed out a list of six recipes for which we would be responsible. We wouldn’t have to remember ingredients; those would be provided by the school. All we had to do was memorize the steps involved in the creation of each dish. During the test, we would be randomly assigned an appetizer and a main course, and would then have two and a half hours to prepare them for our instructors and a panel of judges from the hotel and school.

Unlike most cooking schools, the Ritz doesn’t have individual stations for each of its students. Most cooking is done on the hulking range at the front of the classroom under the watchful eye of one of our instructors. Things are very group-oriented, which definitely fosters friendships and camaraderie but may mean that you don’t actually get to bone an entire chicken yourself because there are only three for twelve students. I struggle with this format; on the one hand it means we get to cover many more dishes than we would if we were each measuring out our own ingredients and doing individual presentations, but it also means that the instruction is occasionally less hands-on than I would like.

The prospect of the exam, in which we would each get to cook two dishes on our own from start to finish, was both exhilarating and daunting. I am mildly obsessed with our gorgeous periwinkle blue La Cornue stove, and the thought of manning all of its roaring hot burners by myself was thrilling. On the other hand, I was worried that I would forget parts of my recipes, or burn my sauce, or set my hair on fire. You know, typical cooking school student fears.

I began reviewing my recipes on Thursday and noticed a funny tickle in the back of my throat. By Saturday the tickle had erupted into a full-blown cold, and I was down for the count. I spent the weekend sipping tea in bed and trying to review the steps for Tarragon Chicken and Pork Fillet with Grainy Mustard Sauce without passing out. By Monday (our longest day of classes yet), I was very, very sick with what now seemed to be the flu, and fairly miserable to boot. My parents were arriving from the U.S., my exam was the next day and I had to keep dragging myself around to classes for fear that I would miss crucial last-minute exam information.

On Tuesday, I felt as prepared as I could be under the circumstances. I doped myself up with the variety of medicines I had amassed over the weekend, met Nastia for a pre-exam lunch and review session, and changed into my whites. We intercepted some of our classmates that had been assigned to the morning section; they were glowing and happy, telling us not to worry, to have fun, and that the whole experience was relaxed and enjoyable. I took this advice with a grain of salt, however, because their section had been staffed by the more easygoing of our two instructors. Our supervisor often drives us hard and can be pretty tough. I like it.

We each chose an envelope, and I was satisfied with my selection: my old friend Oeufs Meurette for the appetizer, and Sea Bass with Sweet Peppers on Herbed Couscous for the main dish. I started slowly and with much deliberation, carefully writing down the steps for each recipe and marking all the prep that I would need to do first. I began by methodically brunoising my peppers, making sure that each one was a perfect little square. I tried to ensure that my work area was clean and tidy at all times. I dropped a handful of herbs and garlic into a pot of boiling water to start infusing my couscous water, and then carefully chopped up some lardons for the final garnish on the egg dish.

“Sinteeaah! Be careful! You infuse those herbs too long in the water, your couscous will taste terrible!”

The instructor’s stern warning jolted me out of my happy codeine haze. Nervously, I tasted the water. It tasted like …water. The herbs hadn’t done much of anything yet. I went back to slicing bread rounds.

“Sinteeahh! How much people you cooking for? Twenty? You don’t need so much.”

I looked down at the pile of bread I had cut into little circles. Okay, true, it was a tower big enough to feed our entire class rather than four judges, but I wanted to be sure there would be enough to cover me in case I scorched some, or dropped them on the floor.

“Chef, I’m American. We do everything big.”

He laughed and turned his attention elsewhere. Phew.

Two and a half hours later, I was no longer cooking methodically or deliberately. I was cooking in a frenzied panic, sweat pouring down my temples, wisps of hair escaping my ponytail and clinging damply to my neck, apron stained with red wine, cutting board long abandoned and not so tidy anymore. I had gotten my wish: I was camped in front of the stove, repeatedly lighting fussy burners, ruining my first poached egg by forgetting to turn the heat down and allowing the yolk to break into my vinegar water, reducing a pot of red wine, sweating shallots and haphazardly sautéing my carefully chopped peppers. I had completely forgotten how sick I was.

Unfortunately, I was starting to get really nervous. And earlier, during my pre-exam lunch with Nastia, I had gulped down an espresso. This combination gave me the shakiest hands of my life, a liability when one is trying to carefully and artfully pour mahogany colored sauce onto a minimalist white plate. The sauce flew everywhere, droplets instantly baking onto the plates’ superheated rims.

“SHIT!” I croaked as I rushed to wet down a dishtowel and clean up the sorry mess. “SHIT SHIT SHIT!”

“Do not worry. Just take it easy. It is all fine,” said Nastia, appearing at my side. She had already served her Provencal Vegetables appetizer to the judges, and with zenlike calm began garnishing my eggs with delicate chives.

“Thank you thank you,” I blubbered.

“But where is your fish?” she asked.

“I haven’t even cooked it yet,” I replied, and when I saw the look of shock in her eyes I knew I was in trouble. We had been assigned the same sea bass dish to prepare, and out of the corner of my eye I saw that her plates - delicate fillets resting gently atop their beds of beautifully molded couscous – were ready and waiting across the room on a silver platter.

“SHIT!”

The rest of the exam was a blur. I turned in my dishes only a few minutes behind schedule, but also managed to melt a plastic container right onto the flattop of the aforementioned gorgeous stove. Luckily my teacher was in the other room judging the dishes, or I would have received a scolding for my carelessness: “Sinteeeaaah!! What have you done here??” I wiped up the molten plastic quickly with my dishtowel and nobody was the wiser.

Later, when we went to the library to receive our critiques, I noticed that among all the full plates of food we had created, one had been scraped clean. A judge had liked my Oeufs Meurette so much, he’d eaten the entire thing. This meant more to me than any grade. I fed a French chef French food!

So, Nastia completed the exam with flair and elegance. She made it look easy. I made it look like a trainwreck. I found out later that two of my classmates had actually broken down in tears. But in the end, we all passed, and tomorrow many of us will continue on with the intermediate course. Only five weeks until the next exam!