Advanced: Week Ten

Our tenth week in the Advanced Culinary Arts program at PICA marked the beginning of our program's culmination, kicking off with a comprehensive final written theory exam that covered all the key principles we had learned. Next were the impactful chef presentations, where classmates shared the stories of culinary figures who profoundly influenced them, highlighting the diverse and personal paths to success in the industry.

The week then shifted into intensive preparations for the final practical exam. We meticulously practiced each course: a choux pastry dessert, airline chicken breast main, and a trout meunière first course, along with all their components. We sharpened our foundational butchery skills by processing a whole chicken and filleting a whole trout. This week reinforced the need for our best effort: intense focus and a final, strong push, as a significant portion of our program's grading depended on these performances.