Don't even think about....

You’ve read and re-read your C-CAP application and essay.

You checked out every page on the national C-CAP web site, so you know the history and you know Richard Grausman’s background.

You’ve done as much background research about the other judges as possible during a quick Google look.

You’ve decided on a top school, and you have at least one (preferably two) others that you believe would be a good fit for you.

You know how you’ll meet travel and living expenses during the school year.

You know your GPA is high enough to get you into the school or program you’d like to be in.

You’ve thought about what, exactly, is it about the culinary world that interests you, excites your imagination, and gives you joy in the doing.

You’re all set for the next step. This is the “DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT DOING THIS” list of interview tips. So here we go.

Don’t slump. You’ve had a busy morning and not enough sleep. Welcome to the professional world. Look as if you’re ready to take on that world with energy.

Don’t mumble. You’ll appear cranky – and no one likes a crank.

Don’t use extreme slang or swear. Really. It’s not f------- sophisticated at all and will not favorably impress your interviewers.

Don’t be a know-it-all. If you knew it all, you’d already have your doctorate and your own culinary enterprise. Or more.

Don’t even think about taking your cell phone into the interview room.

Don’t answer any question with “I don’t know.” If you must, say, “I haven’t been able to think through that, but I know it’s important. I’m still looking at options and hoping to find some guidance on this.”

Don’t answer any question with only “yes” or “no.” Explain and describe as much as possible.

Don’t lie. Be truthful, candid and to the point.

Don’t insist that you deserve any particular scholarship. You don’t know the particulars of everyone’s circumstances or qualifications.

Tomorrow: Last-minute interview aid.

Think before you interview!

Passion in the kitchen!

It’s not always easy to express in words those things that are the most important to us. It can be especially difficult when we’re anxious about the outcome of a critical interview.

Add to this the fact that some people are naturally more dispassionate and unreadable to others and that you may be tired from the morning’s competition and it’s no surprise you might appear to be less than enthusiastic .

Here are a few tips to help you put into words and actions why working in the culinary and hospitality field is so very vital to you.

You’re taking the first step, by preparing yourself and practicing.

When you finally get to your interview, you’ll be ready to stay in the present, convey a positive attitude – and sit up straight. (No kidding – it’s really important to physically demonstrate that you’re actively involved in this interview.)

Use gestures as you speak to underline the impact of your words.

Tell stories that inspire you and help to illustrate the point you want to make.

Smile as you speak and look directly at the people with whom you’re speaking. Sometimes just smiling helps you feel more energetic and positive. That will help convey the joy and excitement you feel about your work.

Keep the volume of your voice up, and vary the pace and pitch of your voice. This will keep you from falling into a monotone and remind you of the importance of what you’re saying.

Finally – practice some more. Here’s one more tip: if you are practicing your cooking techniques and plating, you can run through a practice interview aloud while you do that.

Tomorrow: How to be ready and relaxed at the same time.

Outsmart your competition!

You know your recipes. You're practicing tournes with those pesky potatoes. You can whip together a silky crème patisserie in mere minutes, and you have that drip technique for your chocolate sauce perfected.

Now - are you ready for your close up? That interview following the demonstration of your kitchen skills can be the big key you need for a major scholarship. Here's how to prepare.

First, review your application one more time.

Your interviewers will have a copy of your application. If there is a blank, or an unclear answer, they may well have a question for you. They’ll also have a copy of your essay as they interview you.

If you’ve reviewed your application, you’ll know what to expect.

If you’ve reviewed your essay, you’ll remember what you wrote – and be able to think about why you wrote it.

Because the judges want to match your dreams with the dollars they have to award, expect to be asked if you’ve had a chance to consider more than one school.

You may be asked if you’ve toured specific schools, and you will definitely be asked if you’ve thought about how you will live while you’re in school.

If you’re thinking about Johnson and Wales, for instance, they may want to know how you plan to travel to school.

How will you live while you’re in school? Have you lived away from home before? Will you need a part-time job?

Do you have other financial resources? Do you need transportation? What about school supplies (not just your books)?

Your C-CAP interviewers want to know you’ve spent some time figuring out this next step in your culinary career.

Next time: how to do your best in this part of the competition.

Final practice - first notes: from the lead judge and a former contestant

Work and school schedules kept more than half of this year's C-CAP finalists from this weekend's final practice session at Arizona Culinary Institute with lead judge Chef Glenn Humphrey.

Chef Glenn gave a rapid-fire demo of the required entrée, chicken chasseur, and took time to review tourneed potatoes.

"Move the potato, not the knife," he says, "and make sure you get 'em about the same size so they cook evenly and quickly. And don't wear gloves - you're gonna cook these, you don't need to be gloved. Save the gloves for when you're working with food ready to serve."

And about those gloves…"Get some blue ones," says C-CAP graduate Justin Richardson. "If you use blue gloves, you'll know right away if you've nicked one enough to leave even a tiny piece in the food."

Chef Glenn ran through a step-by-step guide to preparing chicken chasseur (see below!) before finalists began formal practice.

As a graduate, Justin offered a few thoughts as he observed finalists at work, drawing from his own C-CAP finals as well as his work experience in the kitchens at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak.

"People need to be prepared to eat, breathe, sleep this competition for the next week, because it's the little things that trip you up and cost you points," he says.

"First, figure out your weakest point, and get busy on it. I can see hat everyone here is off to a good start, but there's a real need to buckle down and be serious. Focus on the work."

• Keep your sauce supple, not over-reduced. When you over-reduce, it gets gummy.
• Make sure your pastry cream is - well, creamy. You should not be able to taste that you used flour to thicken it!
• Keep your pastry cream creamy by placing a piece of plastic directly on top of the cream! Otherwise, it will develop a yucky-tasting 'skin,' which, by the way, Mr. Grausmann really dislikes.
• Keep your chocolate sauce away from the pilot light - you could inadvertently scorch it and - no matter what you do to recover - your final dish will retain a faint scorched sense.
• Remember: it is a chocolate sauce. If you use it primarily as garnish, at least put a few squiggles or dots directly on the crepes. (People like to taste chocolate!)
• Take along extra product, especially extra chocolate, stock, glace. Carry extra towels and gloves. (You might not need them - but what if you knock over the pot of stock?)
• Practice working in a tight (two feet by three feet or so) space - that's all the room you'll have during the finals.
• Keep moving your used equipment out of the way. By the time you're ready to plate, you should have a nearly empty work space to use.
• Use the photos on the C-CAP web site to come up with a plan for presentation. You don't need to be overly creative - make it appealing and neat and step away from the plate!

Justin has one final bit of advice: "You need to focus. It can be $80,000. Think how much winning this scholarship could change your life. I know it's possible," he says.

"It changed mine."

How to compete like a pro

There are only two more formal practice sessions left before the 2012 C-CAP Arizona culinary finals.

So, roughly, 15 days during which you will have ample opportunity to either practice some more or whip yourself into a frothy panic fueled by fear and increasing evidence that you need additional time to practice.

Let's focus on the first.

That's because this year's competition shows all indications of being extremely - uh, competitive. That is to say, skill levels among contestants are roughly par, with some having a critical academic advantage.

So, here's what we're gonna do this week - we're gonna go back in time, and give you a few more keys.

These particular keys are from Chef Francine Marz. Chef Marz, a major competition veteran now with The Art Institute of Phoenix, provided a major guide to improved competition performance.

Today - a focus on food and plating.

In this contest, the chicken comes before the egg

Supreme poulet chasseur avec pommes chateau (Hunter’s chicken with turned, sauteed potatoes)

· Make sure your chicken breast is about the right size for a serving. If it’s too large, cut it.

· Stock needs to be perfectly clear, with a good taste.

· To help sweeten the stock, add more onion.

· Be careful with the glace. Even a small burned bit in your saucepan will give it a bitter,

· burned taste. (Butter will help take care of lingering bitterness.)

· Don’t leave tomatoes or potatoes sitting in an ice bath.

· Remember to season the potatoes.

· Let the potatoes get just a little color in the saute pan.

· Be careful how you slice the chicken for plating your chicken; don’t fan it out too much (it will cool too quickly).

· Have some sauce under the chicken and some sauce or garnish on top.

· Create a presentation with a delicate look to it; if you use a parsley or herb garnish, mince finely and don’t let it clump. Also, it belongs on the food, not the plate.

How to make, fill and fold a crepe

· Timing, timing, timing. If you make your pastry cream first, drop a sheet of plastic wrap right on top and keep it in an ice bath at your station.

· Make sure your eggs aren’t curdling; keep stirring!

· Keep your pastry cream smooth and as light (thin) as possible.

· Keep your crepes as thin as possible.

· Make sure your crepes are the right color.

· Practice folding your crepes.

· Play with the presentation before you get to competition, to give yourself a plan and options in plating.

· Be careful about your chocolate sauce, and how you pipe it onto the crepes and plate.

· Chocolate piping doesn’t need to be too glitzy!

· Finally – don’t forget to taste! The pastry cream should taste sweet enough, with a whisper of vanilla.

NEXT up:

Chef Marz had plenty more to say about competitions. You'll flip your tocque over her suggestions for getting your game together so that it's really on.

And the finalists are….

Just 30 students from across Arizona will compete in the 2012 Careers in Culinary Arts Program scholarship competition finals this March.

Judges at the preliminaries noted that many of the students in competition demonstrated good knife skills; several judges noted that organization and learning how to season appropriately should be priorities as they prepare for finals.

(Check this blog over the next weeks. There will be continuing updates from judges' notes and more as the date for finals approaches!)

Here are the students who will be competing (save time! It's in alphabetical order, high school following name, divided between juniors and seniors):

Seniors

Christopher Andrade, Valley Vista/West MEC

Jeremy Ballester, Casa Grande

Francis Balmes, Casa Grande

Carrie Beletz, Moon Valley/West MEC

Jessica Beekman, Flagstaff

Wye Eun Chung, EVIT/Corona del Sol

Daniel Clark, Moon Valley/West MEC

Alejandro Cuevas, Metro Tech/Camelback

Sabrina Denney, Canyon del Oro

Jeremy Dichoso, Vista Grande

Rebecca Eltringham, Chino Valley

Kristina Emmett, Cactus/West MEC

Alyssa Falshaw, Flagstaff

Petra Fierro Acosta, Metro Tech/Alhambra

Danielle Flanery, RS Kellis/West MEC

Chelsey Hacker, EVIT/Apache Junction

Alexandria Martinez, Maricopa

Govanny Murillo, Wickenburg/West MEC

Mason Nelson, Casa Grande

Roczanne Orr, Blue Ridge

Brandy Pennnick, EVIT/Apache Junction

Jack Quijada, Metro Tech

Crystae Rohman, Basha

Oscar Sanchez, Metro Tech

Royce Schittenhart, Canyon del Oro

Crystal Sellers, Santa Rita

Calena Srutowski, EVIT/homeschool

Patrick Tribbett, Kingman

Emery Van Gilder, Catalina Magnet

Samuel White, EVIT/Dobson

Juniors

Gustaco Alegria, North

Taylor Bergant, Maricopa

Nichole Carpenter, Canyon del Oro

Courtney Clardy, EVIT/homeschool

Elizabeth Cuka, Chino Valley

Christopher Owens, North Canyon

Autumn Parrish,Payson

Kanisha Twitty, Poston Butte

Kate Watson, Liberty

Kenny Wietholter, Vista Grande

One word

If there's one word the 2012 C-CAP judges would like student competitors to recall first as they prep for this coming Saturday's competitions, the word would be taste.

Chef Jared Porter, The Parlor, says, "Season up! Salt! Ramp up your salt!"

It's important to learn how to almost intuit how much salt is needed, he explains, suggesting that students practice by making several plates of scrambled eggs with different levels of salt.

"Measure it, and put it in your hand so you learn how any given amounts looks and feels in your hand," he says.

And taste as you go. That means, taste the vinaigrette at each step. Then taste as you add each vegetable and adjust the seasoning to accommodate each ingredient.

"You want to learn how to balance the flavors (in the vinaigrette," suggests another judge.

Getting the recipes right, getting the timing down, knowing how to plate and present a dish takes a lot of practice.

Chef Glenn Humphrey, Arizona Culinary Institute, couldn't agree more.

"It's a lot of effort, and you've invested time and energy," he admits. And practice is…well, practice.

"Repetition's part of the business," he adds. "You make the same dish the same way night after night - that's the business.

NOTE: more tips and notes from judges: click through on the "older posts" note towards the end of the blog page!

Like getting to Carnegie Hall…

True story!  You get to top spots in the C-CAP scholarship competition darn near exactly the same way you reach Carnegie Hall!

That's right.  The answer is - you can recite this in unison, students! - Yes! Practice. Practice. Practice.

This year, according to C-CAP Arizona's director Jill Smith, early competition practices show that many students planning to compete need to improve their knife skills significantly.

"Their cuts show a real lack of practiced skills," she notes.  That indicates a need for both individual and directed practice with all types of cuts, from mince to batons.

Remember, practice doing your cuts slowly, using the best knife you have (that is, right size, sharpened, right weight), and measure your cuts if you aren't certain.  Don't worry about speed - you'll develop it as you gain confidence.

Jill also notes that it's clear students have been practicing making omelets.   Students need to remember that omelets for competition can be either two or three eggs, depending upon the size of the pan.

Omelets can be "shaped up" after they're on the plate, as long as hands are gloved.

A few other tips: 

·       Organize. 

·       Wipe your board clean after each task, but do not sanitize with each wipe.  If you do, your food will taste like sanitizer.

·       Have one tool and only one vegetable (or food product) on your board at any time.

·       Taste!  Taste your food, taste your friend's food - taste as you go and taste as you complete a dish!

·       Make sure your presentation is neat, clean and not sloppy in any way.  This means you must check every part of your plate and food!

Finally, remember, cooking in this competition is a combination of both passion and technique.  It really shows in your completed dish when you believe cooking is fun!

2012 Preliminary Competition Suggested Equipment List

Sanitation

Sanitation bucket or spray bottle (sanitizer solution will be provided at competition site)

Classic French Omelet

Stainless steel bowl for mixing eggs

Whisk or fork

non-stick sauté pan (preferably for a 3-egg omelet)

Heatproof spatula

C-CAP Salad

Cutting board

Rubberized mat (or use wet paper towels) to prevent cutting board slipping

Chef knife

Paring knife

Measuring spoons

Peeler

Whisk

Large stainless steel slotted spoon

Small pot for boiling water for tomato concasse

Stainless steel bowl for ice bath

Stainless steel bowl for vinaigrette

Stainless steel or plastic container for trash

Ring mold (2 inches high by 3 inches wide)

Mesh strainer

Cheesecloth

Gloves

Tasting Spoons

Kitchen Uniform – Mandatory for all C-CAP Competitions

Chef coat

Hat (no baseball caps)

Black or checkered pants (no jeans)

Neckerchief

Kitchen – type shoes (closed-toe, non-skid soles) – absolutely no tennis shoes

No jewelry, nail polish, fake nails

All hair must be under hat

2012 C-CAP PRELIMINARY COMPETITION TIPS AND SUGGESTIONS

Suggested Order of Preparing Competition Salad

1 . Core, score, blanch and shock tomato – leave in ice bath only until cool, put back on mise en place tray

2. Make vinaigrette, taste, adjust seasonings and put on ice bath

3. Peel and cut jicama (small dice – ¼ inch by ¼ inch) – add to vinaigrette

4. Cut bell peppers into small dice – add to vinaigrette

5. Cut onion into small dice – add to vinaigrette

6. Peel, seed and cut tomato into small dice – add to vinaigrette

7. Cut cucumber slices for ring mold

8. Plate cucumber slices in ring mold

9. Peel, seed, and cut remaining cucumber into small dice – add to vinaigrette

10. Taste and adjust seasonings

11. Strain all vinaigrette from diced vegetables

12. Put strained vegetables into ring mold

13. Clean plate

Suggestions

1. Have only one tool and one food product on cutting board at one time

2. Wipe cutting board and knife with clean side towel (not sanitizer) between each vegetable preparation– sanitize only when needed

3. Fill ring mold with diced vegetables to the top of the cucumbers – do not overfill or underfill

4. Cut only the amount of vegetable as needed – this shows good time management and good product management (use all bell pepper and tomato given- other vegetables can be cut as needed)

5. Put all usable food product back on mise en plus tray – not in trash container

6. Use chef knife to make all small dices and to cut cucumber slices

7. Line cucumber slices on the top of the cutting board as sliced off of the cucumber– this method keeps the slices in order, makes plating easier, and saves time

8. Practice to the 35 minute mark, time deductions will be taken for every minute salad is late

9. Wear gloves while making and plating salad, no bare hands on ready-to-eat food

10. Wet paper towels or rubberized mats only under cutting board (no side towels under cutting board)

11. Practice, practice, practice!