This is the Last Time, That I Will Say These Words....

This is the last time, That I will show my face...

(Keane - This Is The Last Time)

The Epilogue

I waited for the phone call. Saturday passed uneventfully. On Sunday, I went to a dinner party hosted by a friend in the pastry program. As we were talking about my exam, different people volunteered different opinions. One said that if I didn't get a call Saturday night then I would be home free. No, said another, the school won't call you until Monday. There was no agreement. Halfway through dinner, I saw that I had a miss call from a French number that I did not recognize. Distraught, I immediately called back and found that the person answered in Chinese. It was my classmate who would be traveling with me to Alsace the next day. "Are we meeting at 8am tomorrow?" You gave me a heart attack Meng.

Monday and Tuesday came and went with no phone call. So did I pass? I wasn't at graduation because I went to Alsace for its Christmas markets (totally worth it), but someone said the chefs called out my name, so I definitely passed! I was so happy that I celebrated by drinking buckets of delicious Vin Chaud / Glühwein, along with Alsacian beer and wine (try to pronounce Gewürztraminer) and Mirabelle Eaux de Vie. That was pretty cool.

So, I have completed the Basic and Intermediate Cuisine courses at Le Cordon Bleu. Check off "attend a full-time cooking school" from my life bucket list please. The program had been nothing short of life transforming. For one, I now see cuisine everywhere. Really:

What?  How did the bus lane turn into the "JUS" lande?
I'm seeing cooking vocabulary even on the street now!

I also went from a cooking neophyte to someone who's first reaction to a restaurant is not "oh nice food" but "hm the plating's a bit unbalanced. And there's not enough sauce!" Not sure if this is a good thing.

Now to be clear, I haven't completed the entire program at Le Cordon Bleu. I haven't even completed the cuisine program. I've merely completed two of the three level cuisine program and have the superior level to complete, not to mention the entire pastry program.

At the moment, I have no interest in taking any more classes at Cordon Bleu. My objective from the get-go was to become proficient at cooking, and I have fulfilled my mission. Though I may enter the food and beverage industry one day, I have no intention of becoming a profession chef.  I therefore see no purpose of taking a few months off, pay the ridiculously high tuition, and subject myself to more "Oui Chef!"s in superior. I might consider taking the pastry classes if I marry a power woman and become a stay-at-home dude, but I personally am not as interested in pastry as I am in cuisine. The pastry program has 1/3 fewer classes than cuisine, so it is more manageable to do the intensive program. I will NEVER do intensive cuisine again.

Was the program what I expected? Well I definitely became proficient in cuisine. I feel very comfortable now in the kitchen and slicing onions / meat / fish / lobsters. One letdown: I wished that we learned more complicated techniques in intermediate, but instead it was more an extension of basic, and focused more on learning how to manage more saucepans at the same time.

I was surprised by the composition of the student population. I knew the school would have a lot of foreigners, but I expected a few more French students. Instead, there were 3 French / Algerian nationals in my 50-person regular class and 2 in my 19-person intensive class. The ages of the students also surprised me. In the regular program, the majority of the students were in the post-high school or post-college range. Though they all enjoyed cooking, most of them treated this purely as a vocational school. There were a few mid-careers or retirees who entered the school to enrich their lives, but they were the distinct minority in the regular program. I had an awkward situation once when I invited a lady classmate and her roommate to dinner at my place one night, only to hear the two girls say "We're so excited to start college!" halfway through dinner. Definitely killed the conversation for me. This was not the last time I had an age-related awkward moment with my classmates.

The intensive program had more quarter-life / mid-life crisis people like me, which made sense since it was only one month long and professionals could afford to take time off for it. People were also more intense. My group mates were all really nice to each other, but I heard in the other group there were cat fights, ingredients hoarding / stealing, turf wars (really?), etc. Some people took cooking very seriously.

So this is good bye. My next steps in live is to move back to Hong Kong to start my job at McKinsey. Please feel free to leave comments if you have any questions for me about the school or my experience, and I'll be glad to answer them. Thank you for all your support. Good luck and good bye!

People I would like to thank:
Mom and Dad- for supporting me to take this detour in my life.
Elaine, Adrian and Clementine- for sharing 4 months of your lives with me
Karen and Orson- for always making fun of me even when you're in California 
Katy- for inspiring me to write this blog
McKinsey GCC office- for giving me the time to fulfill my dream
Chef Stril / Lesourd / Bogen / Andriamanjoka /  Caals / Poupard / Ju / Gui-gui (still forgot your last name, sorry) / Legué / Terrien / Vaca / Mysterious-old-chef-whose-name-I-never-learnt - for your time and dedication to the profession to teach a twit like me
My Basic and Intermediate Group mates- It's been really fun dismembering animals of all sizes and stripes with you. CHAUD!
AND last but not least You, dear readers- for supporting the blog and enduring my sarcasm

Post-blog Readings:
If you want to read more about other people's experience at Le Cordon Bleu, you can follow the blog of my group mate Maria. Deliciousyethealthy. Personally I think it should be called "Maria! You've gotta see her blog!"

Also, I would recommend this book: The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World's Most Famous Cooking School. I've never read it, but the author had an interview on NPR when it came out, so it probably is a good read.