If you had asked me this question a few days ago, I would have said that there is no need to go any deeper in what you have already learned in class for the past two years. Today, I realize that going deeper is experimenting, learning, creating and improving.
Experimenting: for you are pushed out of your comfort zone looking for new challenges to overcome. This might come from one of the chefs or it can come from that fire that is inside of me. For example, I was instructed by my Chef to come up with a dessert including two ingredients, olive oil and basil. As a sweet chef apprentice this jumps to savory, nothing to do with pastry, outside of my area of expertise. Thinking of what I could do, I started to think of flavors that would go well with the instructed ingredients; olive oil can replace the fat of a cake mixture and in order to improve the flavor of it, is the fat of almonds. So there you go; one ingredient is done: olive oil almond cake. What to do with basil now and ice cream or sauce? Thinking of the balance in flavors, I decided to go with a sauce and imagining the plated dessert, more flavors came to mind. In a few hours, experimenting with already known flavors, I'd accomplished a completely different idea of sweets.
Learning: this is the main reason I am here. I am a student, proud to say from JWU, who is determined to make as many mistakes as I can to learn, grow, and teach others from them. Most Chefs see mistakes as problems, but for me they are opportunities to reach for a solution that might work or not, proving my understanding of the course. If I make these mistakes and then share them between friends, classmates, and Chefs, it's a way of helping in the learning process of everybody. Classmates won't follow the same path as I did to avoid making the same error as me and help the instructor by knowing how to handle the situation and prevent it from happening in the future. For example, the miscommunication between my group and I. For our practical, we were instructed to make sour bread, which called for a prefement made the day before. We accomplished this step, but we forgot to take it out of the fridge, letting the culture ferment over night and be ready to work with the dough the next day. I told my group what had happened, their faces changed. Determined to find a solution, I walked towards Chef and told him what had happened and asked what we could do. In a second he came up with an idea, and instantly I knew what to do: create a new culture that day containing hot water to accelerate the fermentation process, as well to leaving it to ferment in a warm environment. From this experiment, which neither the Chef nor I had tried before, came a complete success and the dough was ready to work the next day for the practical. From this initial problem a solution came creating a good dough to handle and taste. Sooner or later, this would have happened maybe outside of the school and in that situation, who knows what I would have done? So I am glad that I made a mistake that I am sure will help me out in the real world.
Creating: for most of the time, it's caused by a simple mistake that turns into an experiment that can evolve to become something completely new, original, and unique for everybody. This is the main element that differentiates each chef in the same field. Going out of the standard walls, as revolutionary as it sounds breaking the rules. For example, if you know that the desired temperature of a bread is around 75-78F and the fermentation time is for an 1h30min but you only have 1h, what would you do? A professional Chef won't sell low quality bread, so you have to alter the recipe, creating something unique. This small detail may end up changing a lot of the traditional bread: flavor, color, texture, size, and more. For this reason, even though your neighbor is selling the same kind of bread, you know yours is different because you took the traditional formula, changed it, and made it your own. Creation not only comes from mistakes, but it can come from the desire to make something new. In my class of plated desserts I had the same ingredients as everybody else, and heard the same lectures, but I believed I was looking for something new. Every time I plated, I wanted something modern, something outside from what everybody was making in class; for this reason, I went online to look for ideas. Once I liked an idea I started working from there. I used it as a base and incorporated what I had learned in class plus other ideas from other plates that I had either seen or worked in. Every time I came with a total different design for the desired dessert, setting even higher my standards, pushing myself to try something new. Every class I had come with a total different design, creating something unique that differentciated me from the rest of my classmates. When we talked about each plated dessert, one could tell that I made it myself. This is a wonderful thing because I am slowly creating my signature as a chef.
Improving: as a student, I am constantly learning day and night, being pushed out of my comfort zone, bullying my head with questions that go beyond the lectures, looking for reasons why it has to be done in that way and not the others improving my knowledge and the understanding of what this career will be like in a future. Every day experiences just being in class or attending any of the clubs I am member of, help me grow as a professional chef and as a human being. For example, my work at the club Peace, Bread and Love, gives me the opportunity to practice my bread baking skills and at the same time feed people in need. Another example would be my volunteer work as an assistant in demos. Helping other Chefs set for demos in the DVC is unique, for you are learning from someone other than the instructors of the school, having a casual conversation of their life and why they followed this career or just by following the procedure of their recipes. This improves my development in the kitchen, by providing different methods of how to achieve the same or similar final product.
So, answering the question of the P-4, it's simple: I want to grow as a Chef. I want to continue learning what needs to be taught and pushing me to my next level, taking advantage of every given opportunity.
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