mary eats

My knife skills test is appromaxiately 12 hours away and I am freekin freaked out. The physical symptoms of stress have appeared, and I feel sick.

I have 30 minutes to complete the following cuts.

Batonnet 1 potato
Medium dice 1 potato
Brunoise 1 Carrot
Peel and segment one orange
Concassee one tomato
Fine chop parsley
Small dice one onion
Mince 1 shallot
Mince 6-8 cloves garlic

Because I am not at the CIA, if I cut myself, we call time out, am bandaged up, squirted with water, given a quick shoulder massage to stay loose, then sent back into the ring. I’ve heard rumors that some schools fail you if you cut yourself or go over the time limit.

I’ve been practicing, and am confident in my orange segmenting (that is down to 2 minutes), my batonneting (also two minutes, faster if I could peel that damn potato with out it popping out of my hands every 10 seconds). I have got concassee down pat, just needing to mind the cooking time (they only need a few seconds), my mincing skills are posh, but parsley is a time whore, at least 5 minutes. My biggest fear is the bourniose. Half of a carrot 1/8th by 1/8th by 1/8th. Not only is my sizing off, but I cannot square off a carrot to save a life. Somehow (I blame the knife!) I always end up a little slanted to the outside. My planks are sloppy, and I’d be lucky to get those little suckers into their proper dimensions.

I do curse these cuts, always muttering under my breath when I am to fine dice 10 pounds of celery, or brunoise 5 pounds mushrooms, but heaven strike me now If I don’t nit pick when where I’m eating doesn’t do it right.
“You are not a small dice,” I challenge the cubes of carrot in my stew.
“You call that a julienne, ha!” I sneer at a pair of criss-crossed peppers garnishing a side of rice.
“Chiffonade basil? Please, you’re nothing more than disregarded Christmas ribbon.” I yell at my pizza. This all happens in my head of course. Sometimes aloud if I’m at home, alone.

“Remember, if people are paying $40 for a plate of food, then they deserve perfect cuts,” has become my pep talk when I start to purposely cut an extra 1/32nd of an inch, or leave that seed in the concasse, just to rebel, just to put my stamp on it. But this quickly comes to an end as not only will my finish product be picked through for precision, but my rubbish as well, to ensure that I have not wasted too much. So say a little somethin’ somethin’ to the kitchen gods this week for me, I need it.