August 27, 2010
Culinary Competition I
Weekly Reflection 1

Coming into Culinary Competition with Chef Alan Tsuchiyama was pretty exciting. The whole idea of competing, being at the center of attention, crowds, judges, and medals are pretty exciting. But in all honesty, the thought of all that gives me a little anxiety attack. But, after taking a breath, it’s of course all still pretty exciting. But none of those “wow” factors come without sacrifice and a lot of hard work. So, ultimately I came into Culinary Competition to humbly research this idea of culinary competition.

I all honestly wouldn’t have registered for the culinary competition class if it weren’t for the encouragement of Chef Frank Leake, and the befriending of Chef Lance Nitahara. Maybe these chefs recognized my appreciation of high standards, maybe it was my belief that your only as good as your fundamental skills, or maybe God’s giving me an opportunity. Whatever the end outcome is of this next fifteen weeks, I’m here to see where this boat takes me.

This week we got a sneak peak at what an ACF salon is like, what caliber of personal skill you should attain for, and what is required of a team like this. The American Culinary Federation’s Skills Salon has several components to it, but this week we naturally started out with knife skills – julienne 4 ounces of potato, small dice an onion, tournée eight carrots, and concassé two tomatoes. I’m always my worst critic, and I think that’s good – it just pushes me to better myself – but my few performances frustrates me. Although I sometimes improved a little after each trial, I was still frustrated because I know it’s those little fractions of a point, one goal, a few seconds, or a few millimeters is what some teams loose to. At the moment it’s hard to find that balance of patience (allowing time to practice and develop) and having that feeling of “yes! I got it!” But, as Chef Alan says, “Only perfect practice makes perfect.”

I think that some of things that I should take advantage of while practicing my cuts is to utilize my ruler. All this week I insisted on not using my ruler because I stubbornly wanted to “get it” on my own. But, to my frustration, I was always a few millimeters off. So, I should probably back up, use my ruler while I can, and retrain myself how to gauge a true 2 inches, ¼ inche, and 1/8 inche. And even though I may be able to get away with it in a competition, why settle for mediocre? And just as Chef Alan mentioned, the KCC team always strives for the highest standard possible.

At the end of this first week we watched the movie Miracle’s – a movie about the USA hockey team that won the Olympics in 1980 against the dominate Russian team. This movie really made me think about the sacrifices made to attain something you want badly. Not only that, but also the importance of communicating your goals to receive the support that’s needed. The movie showed me that a great team isn’t just made of individual talent, but of talented individuals that are homogonous, they are able to ebb and flow, they push each other as well as carry each other, and they share a common goal – that makes up a great team.

Week one has gone by fairly quickly, but there’s a lot to learn in the next seven weeks, and skills to continue to develope I look forward to the next week as my team mates Eddie Mafnas, Brad Nagasako, and Brandee Meinell develop our Escoffier menu, learn how to work with each other, and find that ebb and flow.