A Beginner Again
There were nine students in my class at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa.
Most of them knew what they were doing.
Some had graduated from culinary schools. One had already spent eight years working in kitchens. Others had travelled from India and Africa to continue their training. There was also a recently retired elementary school principal who, at least, had spent years cooking and baking at home.
And then there was me.
For nearly thirty years, my professional life had revolved around coaching and education. During most of that time, I barely entered a kitchen. I could make instant noodles, fry an egg and, when absolutely necessary, keep myself alive. That was about it.
Then the pandemic changed the arrangement.
Living in the mountains, with restaurants no longer part of everyday life, I had to cook. I followed videos, experimented, miscalculated flour, got temperatures wrong and repeatedly failed to produce a respectable cake. I eventually gave up on cakes and tried other desserts, with equally inconsistent results.
There is a Cantonese expression, laa sau m4 sing sai—roughly, being so flustered that your hands cannot quite keep up with what needs to be done.
That was me in the kitchen.
I could teach a room full of people without losing my composure. Put a frying pan in front of me and suddenly patience became a much more theoretical concept.
But cooking began to show me things I had never noticed before.
A meal that appears effortlessly on a table has already required planning, preparation, timing and a surprising number of small decisions. I began thinking about my mother. There were five children in our family, along with older relatives, and somehow she produced different meals day after day.
She used to complain while cooking, “I’m never doing this again.”
As a child, I concluded that cooking must simply be a terrible nuisance.
Only years later, after spending enough time in the kitchen myself, did another possibility occur to me: perhaps she never had enough time or space to enjoy it. Feeding a family is very different from cooking when you feel like it.
That realization stayed with me.
By then I had also become curious about professional kitchens. I wanted to know what happened behind the food I had spent so many years happily eating and occasionally criticizing. How does a chef work in heat, noise and pressure without allowing a bad mood to reach the plate? How does an executive chef lead a kitchen team? What sort of discipline does it take to reproduce the same standard again and again?
I was not particularly interested in becoming a chef.
I wanted to know how chefs trained themselves.
So I went back to school.
The welcome at Le Cordon Bleu was simple and serious. We met the instructors and administrators, learned the rules, heard about examinations and attendance, and received our knives. The knives came with repeated warnings: they were extremely sharp, so please try not to remove any fingers.
We also needed industrial safety shoes. Black only. No fashion decisions required.
Classes started on time. We had to arrive fifteen minutes early. Phones were not allowed. Neither were recordings. Notes had to be written by hand. Miss five classes and you failed.
The longer I listened, the more familiar all of this began to sound.
For decades, I had been the one setting standards, asking students to be present, practise, pay attention and take responsibility for their own learning.
Now I was sitting on the other side.
The first day cured me of any romantic ideas I might have had about culinary school.
Classes ran one after another, with barely enough time to think about lunch. After two sessions, we went directly into the kitchen and spent three hours standing and practising knife skills. I had to learn French culinary terms while also deciphering English delivered in a strong French accent.
By the end of the day, I was exhausted.
The walk back to my hotel took about ten minutes. It felt considerably longer. When I finally reached the room, I collapsed on the bed with the feeling that if the world ended at that particular moment, someone else would have to deal with it.
The next morning, I went back.
Slowly, something changed.
I discovered that I liked cutting vegetables.
French cooking has precise names and dimensions for different cuts. A vegetable was not simply “cut small.” It had a particular size, shape and purpose. In one soup, every type of vegetable had to be cut uniformly.
For someone who had spent decades working mostly with words, people and ideas, there was something wonderfully uncomplicated about this.
The knife was in my hand. The vegetable was on the board. The next cut was either accurate or it wasn’t.
I began to think of it as meditation with a knife.
When my attention wandered, the result showed immediately. When I rushed, my hands became clumsy. When I was completely present, the knife, the food and the movement seemed to fall into the same rhythm.
Cooking itself remained much harder for me. Heat, oil and seasoning required judgment, and my instincts were not particularly French. I naturally used very little salt and oil, which in classical French cooking could result in food of impressive virtue and very little flavour.
So I practised.
Our instructor, who had been teaching at Le Cordon Bleu for fifteen years, repeated the same sentence again and again:
“There is no secret. All it takes is practice.”
I had said versions of the same thing to students for most of my professional life.
It was rather different hearing it while holding a knife.
Two weeks into the course, I had settled into the rhythm of being a student. I woke at 5:30 in the morning, packed my bag and water bottle, ate breakfast and walked happily to school. The streets were almost empty except for squirrels and rabbits apparently beginning their day at the same time.
At school I changed into my uniform, watched demonstrations, took notes and then went into the kitchen to try to reproduce what I had seen.
The practical sessions still made me nervous.
But I was beginning to enjoy being nervous.
There is a particular freedom in being a beginner. No one expects mastery from you. Failure is not a fall from anywhere; it is simply information about what to practise next.
That was something I had almost forgotten.
Thirty years earlier, my life had taken me into coaching. Over time I became the person at the front of the room, the one expected to know something, to observe, to distinguish, to teach.
Now a badly cut carrot could put me firmly back in my place.
I liked that.
The kitchen also changed the way I ate.
Years ago, my husband and I had gone to an elaborate French dinner in Paris. I dressed for the occasion. Each course seemed to consist of one beautiful mouthful, followed by a very long wait before the next. Wine appeared constantly; since I do not drink, I had little to occupy myself with between courses and was almost falling asleep by the end. Dinner lasted three hours.
At the time, I saw the meal entirely from the dining room.
At Le Cordon Bleu, I began to see the other side of the door.
Every precise cut, every sauce, every temperature, every plate arriving at the right moment involved work I had never thought about. I had spent years judging restaurants by the food, the service and the room without understanding how much discipline was hidden behind what appeared on the table.
Once you have stood in a professional kitchen, even briefly, it becomes harder to complain quite so casually.
I went to culinary school thinking I wanted to understand chefs.
I ended up understanding a little more about my mother, about patience, about practice—and about what it feels like to know almost nothing again.
Perhaps that was what I had really gone there to learn.
廚房菜鳥・重回校園
網站修訂版
渥太華藍帶學校位於一座傳統古建築內。三個月基礎課程開始前，校方為我們舉行開學禮。
這一班一共有九名學生，只有三名女士。大部分人都有經驗，有人畢業於廚藝學校，有人在廚房工作了八年，也有同學從非洲和印度遠道而來進修。另一位沒有專業廚房經驗的，是一名剛退休的小學校長，不過她平日也會烤焗下廚。
相比之下，我名副其實是一隻廚房菜鳥。
三十年前開始以教練作為終生事業之後，我幾乎再也沒有踏足廚房。偶爾煮碗方便麵、煎隻蛋，僅此而已。更多時候外出用膳、周遊列國，灶頭早就發霉，雪櫃也經常空空如也。
如果不是疫情把我困在山中，我大概不會走進廚房。
為了解決一日兩餐，只好自己開火，跟著網上各門各派的烹飪影片學習。結果一路烹調，一路烏龍百出。不是麵粉份量算錯，就是焗爐溫度有問題，總之做不出一個像樣的蛋糕。既然如此，就放棄蛋糕，轉攻其他甜點，誰知道砵仔糕做了幾次，仍然以失敗告終。
我還試過花三個小時煮一道菜。
廣東話有一句「揦手唔成勢」，大概就是形容當時的我。直到今天，我在廚房裡仍然比在教室裡緊張。
不過，一路笨手笨腳，也一路有新的發現。
原來一頓看起來簡單的飯，背後有那麼多事情：要想菜單、準備材料、安排先後次序、掌握時間。
小時候家裡有五個孩子，還有長輩。我以前從來沒有想過，母親到底是怎樣每天打理一家人的三餐，還可以變出不同花樣。
她煮飯時常常嘮叨：「以後不煮了。」
所以在我小時候的印象裡，煮飯就是一件麻煩事。
自己真正進了廚房之後，才發現我其實是個沒有耐性的人。教了幾十年學生，我對「人」很有耐性︔面對食物，卻完全不是那回事。
也是到了這個時候，我才開始從另一個角度理解母親。替一大家人張羅三餐，和有時間、有心情地做一道自己想做的菜，根本是兩回事。也許她不是不喜歡煮，只是沒有多少餘裕可以享受。
煮著煮著，我開始對另一件事產生好奇。
一名專業廚師究竟是怎樣鍊成的︖
餐廳的總廚怎樣帶領一個團隊︖而一個廚師又怎樣帶領自己︖廚房裡有高溫、有噪音、有時間壓力，一道菜做錯了，下一道還是要繼續。心情不好，也不能把壞心情煮進客人的盤子裡。
我真正想看的，是他們怎樣工作，也怎樣鍛鍊自己。
於是，我去了藍帶。
不是為了轉行做廚師，也不只是為了學法國菜。
開學禮簡單而嚴肅。介紹完老師和行政人員，接著就是學校規矩、考試制度，然後分發私人刀具。老師一再提醒我們：刀很鋒利，小心，不要切到自己的手。
還要另外買工業安全鞋，顏色只能是黑色，連款式也不用費心挑。
上課必須提前十五分鐘到︔不能用電話，不能錄影︔只准手寫筆記︔缺席五次，就不合格。
我聽著聽著，忽然有種似曾相識的感覺。
過去三十年，我一直是站在教室前面的人。
現在，輪到我做學生。
第一天上課，就把所有浪漫想像打回原形。
早上七時半到校準備，八時正式上課。老師先講解、示範，短暫休息之後，學生立即進廚房實習。兩堂課之後，我們站了整整三個小時練刀法，還要一邊記法文詞彙，一邊適應老師帶著濃厚法國又音的英文。
放學走回旅館其實只需十分鐘，我卻覺得那條路特別漫長。
一進房間，整個人攤在床上。
那一刻如果天塌下來，大概也只好讓別人處理。
第二天，還是照樣回去。
兩個星期之後，我慢慢進入了做學生的節奏。
每天早上五時半起床，梳洗、整理書包和水瓶、吃早餐，然後高高興興上學。清晨街上沒有多少行人，倒是常常遇到松鼠和兔子，它們好像也剛起床，忙著找早餐。
到了學校，換制服，看老師示範，抄筆記，再進廚房做一次。
實習仍然是最緊張的部分。
法國菜連切蔬菜都有規格，不是「切細一點」就算了。不同切法有自己的尺寸和形狀，做一鍋蔬菜湯，各種蔬菜甚至要切得大小一致。
我反而很享受切菜。
刀拿在手上，一刀一刀切下去，尺寸對不對，眼前馬上知道。分神，手就亂︔一急，動作也跟著亂。
我把切菜當成另一種冥想。
真正令我頭痛的是下鍋。
火候、油、鹽，都要靠判斷。我一向少鹽少油，以法國菜的標準來說，做出來的東西往往太淡。課堂做不好，回去繼續練。
班主任在藍帶教了十五年，常常對我們說：
“There is no secret. All it takes is practice.”
沒有秘密，就是練習。
這句話，我其實聽得非常熟悉。
過去三十年，我不知道用多少不同的方式對學生說過類似的話。
只是現在，說這句話的人不是我。
我手上拿著刀，站在學生的位置聽。
在藍帶，很多事情我都不懂。失敗的次數遠遠多過成功，有時候好不容易做得比較像樣一點，已經高興得不得了。
重新做學生有一樣好處：不知道就是不知道，做錯了就再練。
這種感覺，我已經很久沒有過。
三十年前，我走進教練的世界，慢慢變成站在前面的人。大家期待我觀察、區分、教導，也期待我知道一些甚麼。
現在，一根切得不整齊的紅蘿蔔，就足以提醒我：
還有很多東西，我甚麼都不知道。
我很喜歡這種提醒。
廚房也慢慢改變了我坐在餐桌前的眼光。
三十年前，我和肥豬曾經在巴黎吃過一頓高級法式料理。為了隆重其事，我還穿了低胸晚禮服。每道菜只有一小又，兩道菜之間卻等很久︔餐廳不停奉上各種美酒，可惜我不喝酒，只能乾等，最後幾乎睡著。
整頓飯吃了三個小時。
那時候坐在餐廳裡，我只知道一道菜好不好吃，服務好不好，環境喜不喜歡。
到了藍帶之後，我開始看到餐桌的另一面。
一道菜上桌以前，有多少準備、刀工、火候、時間和細節︔看起來輕輕鬆鬆的一個盤子，背後可能已經有人忙了很久。
從前我只知道吃。
現在至少知道，門的另一邊發生過甚麼。
所以後來再去餐廳，我仍然會分好吃不好吃，也仍然會挑剔。
只是挑剔之前，多了一點理解。
我原本去藍帶，是想看看廚師怎樣鍛鍊自己。
結果重新做了一次學生，也重新認識了母親、耐性、練習，還有那種甚麼都不太懂的感覺。
原來離開教室很多年之後，我還是很喜歡學習。
尤其是從頭再來。