Graduation!

Me, my graduating class, and our chefs!

I graduated yesterday! I'm lucky, the FCI is changing their graduations to have one large ceremony a year for all the students who graduated in the 12 months prior. However, for now they are still holding small ceremonies for each individual class. I think the mass graduation is nice in theory, but small ones are so lovely and personal. Our three main chefs--Chef Mark, Chef Toni, and Chef Kir--were there and each of them gave a little speech. Chef Toni even made my mom cry, granted that's not very hard.

My chefs (from left to right: Chef Kir,
Chef Mark, Chef Toni, and Chef Tom)

They give a number of awards at graduation. I did not win the perfect attendance award (I missed two classes--one of which was to attend the James Beard gala and auction for free, so I don't regret missing that one at all.) I won the service award. I have to say I'm surprised I'm the only person who won it--you self-identify that you have done enough community (meaning the school and culinary community at large) service work and you get the award--in theory that means everyone in the class could get it.

I got my diploma and my toque!

I graduated with distinction, again I was the only person, which again surprised me. Distinction is based on GPA, so I would have expected at least one or two more classmates to have over a 95%. Since no one did, there wasn't much suspense about who would be top of the class--in fact they just announced them at the same time. This made it all the more surprising for me that I got it, I really hadn't expected to be top--even if a couple of my classmates told me they were expecting that I would be (thank you guys, you're very sweet!)

Getting my engraved "Top of Class" pastry scraper!

They make the person who is top of the class give a speech. They don't tell you in advance--instead when you go up to shake hands and receive the award they whisper in your ear "we're going to ask you to say a few words." Yikes! I was going to rattle on and thank everyone from the chefs (I couldn't have do it if they hadn't been so great) to my mom (for eating everything I brought home) to my classmates (for being there for me). In the end, I didn't want to make people sit through me rambling on and on so I said a few words to thank my classmates for being so supportive and fun to be around. I figured I could thank my chefs in person, but I'd extend a kind word--that I really did mean--to the people who were all probably a little upset or at least mildly disappointed that I'd just beaten them.

Getting the pastry projects award from Chef Toni!

Lastly they announced the award for best pastry projects--this is for the top average grade for four projects. I think the projects are the wedding cake, the menu project, the chocolate showpiece, and the pastillage cake stand. I could be wrong though. At this point it wasn't terribly shocking that I won it. But honestly I'm most proud of this award. The overall high GPA could have been attributed to my test taking skills--painstakingly honed over my four years at Barnard, not to mention 12 years of grade school--and the fact that I only did miss two classes (every absence counts against your grade), not to mention that I always participated and almost always volunteered for extra tasks. But the best overall grade for these four projects means that I am actually a good pastry chef! By the way, the prize for this is a signed copy of Jacques Torres' Dessert Circus at Home, which is the only Jacques Torres cookbook I don't own...so that worked out nicely!