Yes I say aspiring because I am no where near being a full fledged chef. ACF registration and a couple of years under my belt mean nothing.

The culinary team tryouts were held just recently (last Friday to be exact), and although I did not make it onto the team by one position, I feel I learned a lot from the experience. And although I do not agree with the judges ruling due to several aspects (from my almost perfect knife cuts to the amazing flavors and the person who beat me's dish), I do respect their decision.

We had to fabricate a chicken (cut off thighs, legs, wing tips, and airline style breasts), cut brunoise, julienne, fine dice,rondelle, chopped parsley, tournee and make tomato concasse. This all had to be done within an hour which was no problem, but I do recommend that if you have to do 2oz of brunoise celery, to definitely make some time to do it within because that's a ton of 3x3x3mm cubes.

The second portion was a one hour cook-off basically. We had to create our own dish (2 plates of the same item) and present it to the judges. I chose to do an Asian style plate.I made lemongrass chicken with a kimchi, butternut squash, and potato fritter.It all came out very well. I will add pictures if I can get a hold of them.

Any way for my critiquing:

I made the mistake of adding all of my vegetable to my starch. A good plate should have a distinct protein, starch, and vegetable. I thought the sweet peas and butternut squash would enhance the kimchi fritter, but it should have been visible and separate.

The fritter was actually a potato pancake (mashed potatoes and egg) with thinly sliced kimchi in it. This is actually a fairly traditional dish. I have a Japanese friend who eats this all the time too, and its awesomely tasty. I do recommend making your own kimchi and add apple to make it sweeter. make sure to add some salt and white pepper to the potato. I shaped it like a hockey puck by flouring a sheet pan a circle ring cutter and a flat glass and cutting the batter and then pressing it into shape with the cup. The flower gives it good color and helps bind everything together since there is also some egg.

The sauce was a little salty because I used chicken base to make the stock and then reduced by a lot, and I put ridiccio under the dish. Big mistake! Although it looked very nice as a base, the plate burnt it, and it turned brown before I even got it out to the judges. So if your going to warm your plates and add a leaf as a base, you better make sure its WARM not HOT.

I may add a few more notes from other students' dishes that i had taken in a later journal because there are some fairly valuable points and concepts, but for now, Im going to wrap this up since this journal has turned into a small essay.

Congrats to the five that made it on the team and good luck. I'll be rooting you all on.