ALL DONE!

Woo hoo! today was my last day of finals! tomorrow we get our "exit interviews" where the chefs tell us our grade while the rest of the class cleans the bottoms of the pots and pans (exciting, no?). Anyhow, I am fairly pleased with my cooking. Yesterday was the most difficult day but i finished with an hour to spare! in fact, the chef came by as i was cleaning up and told me to go take a break or get some coffee because i worked so hard. I could barely believe it! was he that impressed at how i managed to finished everything so quickly or was he seeing through my aching body as i was dying to crawl into bed and catch up on much deprived sleep? anyhow, took it as a complement. Today was short but tricky, I had to make Pommes Lyonaise (1/2 in sliced potatos that are fried and served with fried onions), a fine herb omlette, sauteed spinach, and Girodoine (Hollandaise mixed with dijon mustard). The catch, this all needed to be presented at once. its tricky cause the omlette will begin to cook itself if it lays around for too long and the spinach will wilt if it does too. Also, you need 100% attenetion when you work on a hollandaise (not good for multitasking). I worked on my onions for the Lyonaise first, concetrating on browning them and NOT burning them (the biggest mistake people tend to make on this dish). Then i fried the potato medalions and set those aside with a bowl on top to lock in the heat. I next worked my wisk at the hollandaise (although thanks god i caught up with a further along in the program student yesterday that told me the key is to move the wisk side to side, not around). The sauteed spinach was what i did next (it took litterally 30 seconds becuase longer can make it change color, and then devoted another 30 seconds to my omlette. TADA! fini! and i believe i was the second dish turned in of the night. I am a natural multitasker, in fact, its rare i find myself doing only one thing at a time. Even when i eat, i need to be reading or even watching tv, or talking on the phone, or something! Perhaps the one exception is driving, but i am prone to do my friend check ups while in bumper to bumper traffic. Well tomorrow i get me grade and on monday, sadly, no more Chef French and Chef Woodstock. I'll really miss them and i am a little nervous about getting new chefs. SO Intro I (the name of the class i just took) is done and monday i begin Intro 2 which is more focused on meats and fish and other interesting things (becuase this class was uber basic). Yay! i cant wait to eat those dishes cause i am sick and tired of rice pilaf and potatos!