I Learn Knife Skills

     I took the plunge and signed up for a year’s enrollment at Rouxbe. For my $99  

I get full access to their website. Lots of instructional videos, practice exercises, quizzes, recipes, and blogs with the instructors and other students. A number of videos and recipes are available without signing up - take a look at rouxbe.com..

     I started out with the knife skill lessons. I was shocked to learn that I’ve been holding my knife incorrectly all these years. I have always rested my index finger on top of the blade, figuring that I was stabilizing it. Wrong - that actually unbalances the knife!   The next part of the video illustrated the “rolling” method of slicing. As I practiced this method and became more and more proficient, I came to realize how dull my prized chefs knife actually was. How I could expect otherwise I don’t know, since its never been sharpened. I don’t think a dull blade can ever be successfully re-sharpened, so I

immediately logged on to Amazon to buy a new knife and sharpener ($45 for both items). Bringing my cooking school expenses thus far to $144. 

     I watched more of the knife skill videos, and have been cutting up lots of celery and carrots - dice, mince, chop, slice, brunoise, chiffonade. Only one chunk of fingernail is missing. Pretty good. So I decided I was ready for my first quiz. Can you believe I got test anxiety. Pathetic, isn’t it. It’s just a computer for god’s sake!! Having realized that, I decided it would be okay to cheat. When I didn’t know the answer to a question I went back and watched that portion of the video lesson. Lo and behold, I got !00%. Pathetic, too, that that made me feel good. The tests are pretty well put together, using photos and videos as part of the multiple choice selections. Some of the questions are pretty lame, though, and some are ambiguous. Not much different from real-life school. I went ahead and took the second quiz, continuing my cheating method (my rationale is that its useful to view the videos several times). To my surprise, I came up with one wrong answer. I hadn’t been paying close enough attention and marked the wrong box even though I knew the correct response. Since your total test score shows up on your rouxbe home page, hopefully this will serve as a reminder for me to be more careful.

     I’ve enjoyed the experience so far, I love learning new things. If you’re an “ignorance is bliss” kind of person though, this wouldn’t be for you. Oh, I have to add the $3 I spent on practice vegetables - $147.