As of last night, more like this morning, Somara arrived back in Austin. She graduates from culinary school tomorrow. Her 15 months of studying, cooking, testing and more cooking will finally culiminate into her degree.
She graduates with a 4.01 GPA and some certification I can’t remember how to spell, but trust me, it’s a tough test to pass. How tough? Two out of three people fail (or as some British teachers want to change it to, “two out of three have deferred success” )
Alas, Somara is back on the plane to Phoenix come Sunday. It’s great to have her home for a little while. We’ll still be having a discussion about our plans for the next several months. You will all be kept in the loop.
We call it the Gisselen test after Wayne Gisslen, who wrote “Professional Cooking.” That’s our main textbook and the copy we use includes College Text, Le Cordon Bleu techniques, and the NRAEF Workbook w/Exam. Usually it’s a 33% passing rate, but Chef Mims told me today that he recently had a class that had a 50% passing rate. Officially, it’s simply a certificate of course completion that really doesn’t apply to anything unless I’m trying to rack up points with the ACF (American Chefs Federation). Oh, and I get to wear a little LCB pin because of it. Still haven’t figured out if I get one pin for that and one for passing my Black Box exam, or if I get a pin for each lapel for passing the combination of the two. I guess I’ll find out when I see who has what tomorrow.