CAP Test 8 - le dernier examen !

I spent many hours last night cramming for the CAP - studying all the recipes for hot and cold entrées, chicken and fish recipes, and basic pastry. I ended up only getting a couple hours of sleep since I was tossing and turning, and having dreams that I was late to the exam. It wasn't necessary for me to study since we were assigned two recipes that I have never done before. Ultimately, it focused on basic technique which we all learned in school. Just a combination of different ingredients. Natalia and Jessica were there as well for the exam. The techniques required in the recipes were techniques we were already familiar with.

Our recipes:

Feuilleté aux champignons, oeuf cassé

Pavé de cabillaud en croûte d'herbes. Flan d'épinards

The "techniques de realisation" were given. So were the quanties and ingredients. AND, the feuilletage was done, the fish already fileted, the spinach already cooked. ??? It is obvious that the school exams were significantly more challenging. We always do our own feuilletage, filet our own fish, prep everything from scratch.

I was quite relieved actually - that means I could relax during the exam. I had been seriously stressing myself out over it. Oh yes, and I cut through my nail on my left thumb. Within 10 minutes of the exam. (Remember this?) One of the chefs kept asking if I was okay - I think it looked worse than it was. Just a bit bloody. Afterwards, various chefs kept stopping by to pick up my Japanese knife and check it out. hahahaha

Natalia, Jessica, and I all worked slower than usual since many of the things were already prepped. We took our time to prepare our dishes and still realized we were quite ahead of everyone else. And we noticed that for the duxelles, a good chunk of the other test-takers cut them into quarters. Strange.

Simple as they are, I was quite proud of how pretty my poached eggs were. One of the other students ended up taking them off my bench. I freaked out for a bit and was like where the F are my eggs?! I saw them on his bench. Right next to his plaque. Why on earth would you take two plaques of eggs when one is clearly not yours?! I mean seriously. I got them back just in time as he was going to steal them and put them on his plate. Later on, he ended up breaking every single one of his poached eggs on his presentation plate. Bad karma (Just kidding)

From the advice of my chef, I spent extra time making sure I was extremely well organized and clean. I made some mistakes such as not cooking the dehydrated mushrooms long enough, not adding enough herbs to the Croûte d'herbes, forgetting to hacher the spinach (stupid!), and the sauce for the fish dish was too salty. And because my sauce was way too salty, I only put a little line of sauce rather than drowning the fish with sauce, the way it is supposed to be plated traditionally. Otherwise, I feel that I did okay on the exam.

My first dish was very neatly presented and well-seasoned. I got a good "gratinée on my cod en croûte. I made the mistake of making the croûte too thick one time in school for a lamb recipe - it didn't gratinée well and it was apparent that there was a block of unmelted croûte on top of rack of lamb. Thankfully, I learned from my mistake - this time I made it uber thin - it coated and "gratinée" perfectly (almost perfectly - nothing is perfect!) Many of the other test-takers made the same mistake I did the first time.

The few extra seconds it took to stay propre and organized paid off. When the exam was finished, it really took me a good 5+ minutes to clean my station. A lot of the other stations were serious bordels. It took a few students like 20 minutes to clean their poste. It's amazing that even if you spare a few seconds during each task to stay organized, in the end, it helps you become more efficient.

During the interview at the end, I had to explain the dishes and techniques of how I cooked them in French to two chefs. One of the chefs was from Ferrandi. The other chef asked me where I was from and I said the U.S. I don't think he liked Americans. (Typically, I say California first since I have gotten 100% positive response from the French.) He kept making comments about Americans in a negative manner.

Do Americans eat it like this? Americans always say 'ok' to everything. In America they do this? In America blah blah blah.

One question he asked me was how I could have made my sauce less salty. I gave him my answer and he said "non!" And then he gave me his answer which was the same thing I had just said but in a different way. ??? Then he proceeded to scoff at me, roll his eyes at me, then look at the other chef, laugh and roll his eyes about how much of an idiot I was. Good times =)

They also brought up the presentation of my fish dish. I told them that I knew that traditionally, I was supposed to put a generous amount of sauce underneath the fish, but it was way too salty so I only put a little line. (The line of sauce is considered "gastro" plating). I would rather not plate traditionally than have them gag on my super salty sauce. hahaha!

Anyway, it was a good experience. At the end of my interview, the Ferrandi chef was organizing my papers and I quickly got a glance at my score sheet. I got quite a few "très bien" and "bien. It was a nice feeling. I had doubts about taking the CAP because of the amount of extra time and stress, but I am glad I did it. I mean really, I have nothing to lose right? I am SO GLAD IT'S OVER! I think I had a total of 11 exams including the ones at school.

After this exam, I really appreciated the time and dedication my chef gave to us in terms of teaching technique and organisation. I feel it really paid off and I am actually thankful for all the times he told me to cut things over again, clean up my shit, organize my bench better, make things "more regular and more sexy," and overall have better taillage, etc. I know that know matter what, you can always be better. You can never stop learning in this industry. That is the beauty of it.

CAP test 7

Last part of the series of written exams. This one was super important - Technologie of Cuisine. They tested us on a recipe that we haven't done in school before. However, with trial and error, I was able to figure it out. It's neat to see that if you have the basis of one recipe, you can figure out others.

This test was 12 pages long. I feel pretty good about all the questions regarding cuisine and techniques de cuisine, but there were some other random questions about bacteria, disenfectants, and TACT/PRONET which to this day, I still don't know.

On my way home, I decided to get off a couple stops before mine so I could walk around the Place de la Concorde, one of my favorite spots of Paris, and also through Jardin des Tuileries where I normally run. As I was crossing the Seine, I swear I saw this guy putting away his fishing line. Or was I just delirious? Who knows? But I still love living in Paris. So beautiful.



I was so exhausted by the time I got home that I just crashed. Napped, then laid in bed all day. I think my brain was fried after all these hours taking these exams all in French. Sometimes it's exhausting really focusing on translating the language so I can really understand the context of it all.

But I am glad the written part is over. Now just one more test for the CAP - the practical in cuisine. Aiy !

CAP tests 4, 5, and 6

I didn't realize until last night at 23h00 that the three exams for the CAP were today. Hence, you can imagine how much I was able to study. I am such a procrastinator!

So today's tests were the French test, Math/Physics test, and vie sociale et professionnelle. 5 hours total. I crammed mostly French grammar and some of the vie sociale info last night. Granted these tests are ridiculously easy for the average person fluent in French. A few things got lost in translation on the Physics part of the exam, as well as the vie sociale exam. But otherwise, the math/physics part was sooooo ridiculously easy. It was just adding and subtracting... maybe some dividing going on. hah!

The Vie Sociale et professionelle test had a diagram of a spine and asked to identify the parts in French. I don't even know them in English! I just left most of that blank, and then wrote "tailbone." ahhahaha. There were a few other parts I wasn't quite sure about either.

French test went okay. It was just a blurb out of a script about someone who sells souvenirs and knick-knacks. I actually had to write 15 lines for the last "essay" question. I just had to write another part of the script.

Not so bad. I think I did well enough to pass. I hope!

Oh and btw, Jessica and I ate at this really great Italian restaurant in Levallois (suburb just outside of northern Paris), where the exams were. I ordered a simple spaghetti with tomato/basil sauce, and she ordered a tiramisu. It was excellent! It's hard to find really good Italian places here in Paris, and this place was fresh, delicious, and not pricey. Funny because we initially sat at some brasserie, looked at the menu, and walked out. Never done that before, but Jessica has so I will follow the European.

Yes, I will make a trip to the suburbs for Italian food. hahahaha. The pizzas looked excellent also.

La Piazzetta
1, Pl Henri Barbusse
92300, Levallois Perret
01.47.57.12.86

CAP tests 2 & 3+ the Last Restaurant Service...

Today I had my second and third CAP tests. The first one was at 9am and for History and Geography. I had written my history paper on Molecular Gastronomy (progression of traditional cuisine to molecular), and the geography paper on the ban on foie gras in Chicago. I spent a bit of time on both papers (and so did Christophe for editing!) but malheureusement they didn't except my papers because the subjects were supposed to be more specific and on things like wars, etc. As for the history of cuisine, the lady interviewing me said it had to be more specific like on the history of a restaurant. Tant pis!. My papers were interesting.

Instead, she pulled out a diagram and photo about the increase in production of materials needed to build tanks and planes (Renault) during WWI. Since she knew that I couldn't speak French fluently, she cut me some slack and asked me really easy questions. She asked me to describe the diagram and photo, and also discuss why there was an increase of women working during this time. She was really nice. Only 15 minute oral test. So far so good.

My next exam was at 13h30, so I went home to study for that. It was for "Connaissance l'entreprise" or knowledge of the restaurant/hotel business in general - 10 minute written, 20 minute discussion.

When I arrived, I ended up seeing one of the French teachers, who is totally nuts by the way (she hates all the Anglo cuisiniers), but that is a completely long and different story. Since she knew me, she couldn't be my interviewer. Instead, I went to the next jury. He gave me a list of questions to answer. I heard the French teacher talking to him so I was afraid she put in a bad word for me. I never did anything to her, she really is crazy. But who knows?

So the first part of the exam had questions about working contracts in France and what papers were required. The second part was easy since it was about recipes and costs. The third part was about budgeting. After I wrote down answers to the questions, we discussed the material for 20 minutes. Generally, for someone who knows French really well, this test is ridiculously easy. But I did not know some of the technical vocabulary and acronyms in French, and some questions he asked me were lost in translation. When he was explaining it to me later, I was thinking "this is so easy!" Overall, I don't think I did well but I think I at least passed. I was feeling very frustrated afterwards because I do know how the business works in general, but couldn't express it in French.

After the oral exams (phew, so glad I got those over with), I went to school to begin prep for the last restaurant service. There were no recipes given, just some ingredients written on the board. I was originally assigned to the pigeon dish but those were finished by the time I got to school. Darn, still haven't worked with pigeon. I just helped with random things like turning artichokes and carrots. We had 65 covers tonight coming all at once as a big group. Everything was to be sent out at the same time.

We were in a different kitchen today because the other kitchens were reserved for CAP exams. This kitchen was fucking hot. Like sitting in a sauna with sweat dripping down your back for 8 hours, hot.

But it had a nice view of the school.


Me and Felipe


Amuse bouche to go with the pigeon - Compote d'abricots à l'amaretto


Poitrine de pigeon au réglisse


Mise en place for the veg. This was my station tonight.


Took a long time to plate all the veg


Table-side cut (wonder how that went for the waiters in training) of Train de cotes de beoufs. Look at the size of those things. I wish I saw what the meat looked like cut.


Service was fast tonight. Didn't feel like a typical restaurant service since a few of the other Anglos were in pastry. *Sniff Sniff Sniff* Last resto !