In my practical class (I'm group A) there are some fantastic people. Together we represent the US, Italy, Thailand, and Korea. The practical class is only taught in French, so we only understand half of what the chef is saying. But we get the gist through gestures and demonstrations.

We take out our knives - specially created for us and extra, extra sharp. The chefs keep reminding us to be very careful. The first part of the class is dedicated to chopping the vegetables for the soup. I think we're all a bit nervous, so the room in dead quiet. Finally someone breaks the silence, and we begin laughing and talking.

But this is not your ordinary type of chopping. No, this is perfect chopping. Special attention has to be paid to each knife stroke so each piece looks exactly like the last. Of course the chefs don't expect us to be perfect right now, but I bet that will be a different story next week. He'll probably measure our chopping with a ruler.

The soup comes together fairly easily with vegetables, bacon (and what isn't good with bacon?), and water. That's it. I'm quite skeptical that plain tap water can be transformed into something wonderfully aromatic and wonderful. But I am mistaken. The soup is fabulous. Gee, if vegetable soup tasted like this in the States, maybe I would have eaten more of it! I'm very excited that something this simple can taste so good.

So I did it! I made it through the first practical. Sigh.

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