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Student Post: STAR EVENTS


Knife Skills Star Event


Our Practice Session in the Hotel Room
My name is Abby Bohannon and I am currently in my third year of Culinary Arts. When I first started in Culinary one of the first lessons we covered was knife skills. We had several days in lab to get a handle on the knife skills that we were asked to master. As the days went on the more confident I got with handling the knife. As I left that year of Culinary, my knife skills were not where they needed to be.
About a year and a half later, my teacher asked a few of my classmates and I be part of the Culinary team. Knowing that we were going to compete in this competition Mrs.Zellner wanted one of us to experience a Star event. I decided that I was going to compete in the star event for Culinary knife skills. At first, I thought that my knife skills were no where near what they needed to be to place in the competition. Mrs. Zellner insured me that with enough practice my knife skills would improve. The next two months I practiced every chance that I had. Every day I became more and more confident. About a week before the Star event I got in front of the whole class and pretended as if it was the real thing. This allowed me to experience what I would be like to have judges and other people that would be in the room watching me execute my cuts. While at the hotel I even practiced in the room the night before the event and go more pointers on how to succeed.

The day of the event I was not nervous, I was excited to get to have this experience no matter if I won or lost. The best advice for anyone who wants to compete would be to not focus on what everyone else is doing, but to stay focused on the three cuts you have to complete. Knife Skills like anything else takes practice. Remember there is no such thing as too much practice.

 Another major factor in the competition is sanitation. Between each vegetable I would wipe down my cutting board and knife with a prepared sanitizer. I also changed gloves each time I switched vegetables. Another tip is to place a piece of parchment on the cutting board while you peel each vegetable so you do not have to clean the peels of the board

 If I had the opportunity I would do it again. I had so much fun getting to meet other people that had the same interest in Culinary. The experience was one I would never take back.  




At the award session
How we learned she was a Finalist




Abby's Trophy
Abby's work
                           

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 10, 2016 at 6:46 PM

    Congratulations Abby! Great article and GREAT JOB with your knife skills. So true, there is no substitute for practice. So proud of your National Championship win. You ROCK!
    Randy Todd

    ReplyDelete
  2. SBFebruary 10, 2016 at 8:54 PM

    I congratulate you and Ms. Zellner for the skills and championship! Sincerely, Dr. Sue Bailey, TTU professor Emeritus

    ReplyDelete

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