In Good Measure

I had the privilege of studying the art of cuisine at the Le Cordon Bleu School in Paris. An institution that has the distinction of being the premier cooking school in the world.

The journey into the kitchen was exciting and exhilarating and at times fraught with peril. I learnt that danger lurks in every corner of the kitchen. You are constantly surrounded by fire and burning hot ovens and 128217;8217;-long razor sharp knife blades and, let8217;s not forget, frisky French chefs. I learnt to deal with each of these in turn during my 8216;stage8217; a fancy French word for an internship at a two Michelin star restaurant, La Terrasse, in a charming little seaside town called Juan Les Pins it8217;s famous for its annual jazz festival in the south of France.

Many of the ex-students of Le Cordon Bleu had warned me about the kitchen. I8217;d heard stories of girls being locked into walk-in refrigerators and asked to perform sexual favours if they wanted to get out. No one I knew had actually managed to last the three months of the 8216;stage8217;. If the chefs didn8217;t drive students out, the-15 hour working days did.

I had to prove to myself that I was tough enough and strong enough to survive just about anything.

My day typically started at 6 am when, bleary-eyed, I would walk to the kitchen from my room above the hotel garage, to make myself a cup of tea and have the fresh croissants that were being made. It was the only time in the day when I was allowed to watch an English channel in the kitchen. I8217;ve never seen so much of BBC in my life!

I would then take a shower in one of the two showers that 16 of us trainees shared. Then I started with the 8216;rolling of the balls8217;8212;another fancy term for shaping bread rolls8212;in the bakery. The morning mise en place pre-preparation started at around 8.30 am and service began at noon. Every day was different. There were days when I did nothing but clean calamari for three hours at a stretch. There were days when we made paper-thin disks of potatoes arranged to look like fish scales.

I did peel a lot of asparagus and within a week, I was a self-proclaimed asparagus peeling champ, who had been taught by the famous chef Christian Morisset himself! However, what really left an impression on me was the level of perfection that was required. Every pea was peeled, every portion of risotto was weighed to the last gram.

The service was a well-oiled machine. The chef would announce the orders8212;in French with a strong southern accent, of course8212;and they were diligently carried out by the rest of the staff. Although it took me about a week to understand even a word of what he was mumbling through his thick moustache, I was eventually part of that machine.

With just a two-hour break in the afternoon, there was really very little we could do except head out to the beach, swim in the azure-blue Mediterranean sea and try to get a few minutes of sleep on the sun-warmed sand.

The evening was slightly less hectic than the morning, but ended with all of us staying back for an extra hour to clean the kitchen.

Then the best part of the day would begin. We8217;d head to town to get a hot steak sandwich in a fresh baguette with fresh French fries and spicy harissa. The beer was chilled, and the beach was still warm from the sun.

I don8217;t think any of us slept for more than five hours a day but we never complained and somehow never felt tired. I8217;ve never worked harder in my life, but I8217;d never been happier working!

Despite all the cuts, burns and sexual innuendos, there8217;s never been anything like that summer at Juan Les Pins.

The writer8217;s company, HECI, recruits student chefs for Le Cordon Bleu Worldwide