Skip to main content

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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yeast Bread Mixing Methods

Yeast Bread Mixing Methods Straight Dough Method is a one step mixing method in which all the dry ingredients such as flour, sugar, salt and yeast are mixed, and then wet ingredients such water and eggs are added. All the ingredients are then mixed straight to dough. It is the easiest of all yeast bread mixing methods. Sponge and dough is a two-step bread mixing process. The first step in this method is making the sponge which consists of a certain amount of flour, yeast and water. This mixture is allowed to ferment. The second step is adding the sponge to the rest of the ingredients to form the final dough. Old Dough Leavening aka Mother Dough or Preferments is exactly what it sounds like, a piece dough from a previous batch of dough is held back and used to help leaven the new loaf. This type of leavening with give more complex flavors because the old dough has been developing stronger fermenting flavors. Sourdough (Preferment) is a “natural leavener” it is made...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kneading!!!

Kneading Techniques “Working the Dough” Kneading is one of the most known terms in baking, but do you really understand its importance.  Could you recognize if you have a well kneaded product? Do you know the different kneading techniques? Do you know how to test if you have kneaded well enough? When I set out to create my lesson plans over baking, I could answer a few of those questions listed above. I had an idea about what I was looking for, but I did not know half of the information that I kneaded to know. So as I researched, I found information that I think all teachers, students, and aspiring bakers need to know.  Why Knead Kneading develops a gluten network (net) As flour is hydrated gluten strengthens and adds to the structure of the dough. Gluten helps to bind the dough together and helps it keep from falling apart during baking Gluten creates a net in the bread product that captures carbon dioxide produced by yeast. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Baking

Baking Bread At this point in the bread making process you have mixed, kneaded, fermented, portioned, rounded, shaped, rested, and tested your final proof. NOW you are ready for the oven!!! Hold on!!!! Let’s discuss a few things before our products gets into the oven. Number 1: Make sure your oven is preheated . Yeast reacts to heat. If your oven is cool when your product goes in you will not get the oven spring reaction that you would like. Number 2: “ GLAZING OR WASHING” is the process of brushing your product with a number of ingredients to get a desired color and texture. Whole  Egg Wash Brushed over bread product to promote browning and create a glossy shine. The egg is mixed with water and or milk. It can be used whole, just yolk, or just white. It can also be mixed with a little salt. Will be added before baking Milk Wash Makes a golden crust, but is not very shiny. Only use this before baking not after. Salt Water Wash Makes for a ch...
Post a Comment
Read more