The last 4 days of pastry school was insanely intense. We had just 3 hours to bake our danishes and tart and assemble our showpieces this morning. It was the worst 3 hours of my life. So many things went wrong during the process of putting together the showpiece, starting with broken pieces which I tried to glue back together then followed by shattered pieces of the glued together components. I had to come up with back up plan on the fly - 1 hour before the time was up I temper some chocolate to make new pieces to replace those that were unredeemingly destroyed. Chocolate is the only medium that will set fast enough yet sturdy for enough for the showpiece. And as I assembled the building more pieces broke - that's when I felt like I wanted to cry but didn't have time to cry... so get over it and move on. I did whatever repair I could, somewhat painted the building with my partner's pastry brush and glued down all the detailed pieces. All in all, it wasn't the showpiece I had designed or imagined but it held up. I had Katzie Guy-Hamilton (Top Chef Just Desserts) for my judge. She was really nice and she liked the showpiece nonetheless. She thought my opera cake and chocolate bon bons were perfect. Well, the drama is over and now I am going to put my feet up after I deal with the sugar burn which I didn't have time to attend to earlier...
Here are my few thoughts/observations after the fact (I am sure I will have more later):
1. I have a new level of admiration for people who take part in TV/Culinary competitions. The stress level is quite unimaginable, you feel all alone to fight for yourself and for one to do it day after day (i.e those TV competition like Top Chefs)... these people have skills and most of all they have great mental strengths.
2. If I ever apply for another corporate job, I can truly say - I CAN MULTI TASK and I am a tenacious individual!!!
3. I am glad that I did pastry school... and it was a great 6 months.
Yours truly,
Chef Sharon
