Day 57 of 60 | Bonjour, Paris! 🇫🇷✨
Sunday in Paris usually means leisurely walks, café hopping, and pretending calories don’t count.
Not today.
Today was Final Exam Prep Sunday.
Lori and I spent the entire day preparing for our final culinary exam on Wednesday, which meant hunting down last-minute equipment, sourcing ingredients, and turning our apartment into what can only be described as a very enthusiastic (and slightly chaotic) test kitchen.
The good news:
✅ We successfully practiced three of the four dishes we’ll be serving on exam day.
✅ All three were major upgrades from earlier attempts - better flavor, cleaner plating, sharper execution.
✅ Confidence level: rising 📈
The honest truth:
⏱️ Timing is still our biggest enemy.
Right now everything takes way too long. Apparently, mastery does not arrive simply because you really want it to. Rude.
But here’s the thing I’ve learned over and over in life, whether in business, real estate, fitness, or now the kitchen:
When the pressure is on…
Preparation shows up.
Repetition kicks in.
And somehow, you find another gear.
I have no doubt that come game time, Lori and I will pull it together.
Below are a few photos from today’s practice plates (we forgot to photograph the last dish out of exhaustion). On exam day, we’ll be delivering two plates per dish to four judges thus the double plating practice.😅
One more long push.
One more level up.
Then it’s showtime.
Onward. 👨🍳👩🍳🔥
