Day 50 of 60 | Bonjour, Paris! 🇫🇷✨
Today was exam day - our third and last warm-up before the final boss battle next week. Picture a six-hour cooking marathon where every student has to deliver two dishes in a five-minute window to a Master Chef who can spot a mistake from across the room without even looking up. Then, just for fun, they hand us a 25-question multiple-choice test when our brains are already sautéed.
Bienvenue à Ecole Ducasse.
Dish One: Hempstead vegetable medley with pesto.
Dish Two: Beef sirloin medallions, potato purée, beef jus, and peppercorn sauce.
And I’m happy, and honestly a little shocked, to report that I crushed it. As one of the most inexperienced chefs in the class, I don’t have the luxury of improvising. I survive on meticulous preparation, prayer, and the occasional “please don’t burn” whispered to my sauté pan. But today, everything clicked.
There’s something pretty special about being the underdog. When you’re not the best in the room, every improvement feels like discovering a superpower. It’s been a long time since I’ve been the worst at something in a classroom, and weirdly… I’m loving it. There’s freedom in starting at zero, nowhere to go but up, and every day you climb another rung.
This whole adventure has pushed me harder than anything I’ve done in years. Challenging? Yes. Humbling? Absolutely. Fulfilling? Beyond words.
And now it’s 10 pm. We just stumbled through the door after being on our feet all day. I poured myself a glass of Clase Azul tequila and reunited with my couch like two long-lost lovers. Honestly, I might sleep right here. The couch and I have barely seen each other in 50 days, we needed this moment.
Tonight, I’m exhausted… but also extremely proud. Not because my dishes were perfect, but because I proved once again that with enough heart, hustle, and humor, you can reinvent yourself at any age — even in a French kitchen under the watchful eye of a chef who could probably detect a broken emulsion telepathically.
Onward. Final exam in 10 days. Let’s go. 🥂✨
I was so excited to deliver my second dish., I forgot to take a picture, but here’s the first one. It is cooked hempseed and vegetable medley with pesto puree. I was pretty proud of my plating.
