A 4am Start, A Hands-On Masterclass at CEPROC (Centre d’Excellence des Professions Culinaires)
Our day started long before sunrise, with our group waking up at 4am to be ready to leave by 5:45am. Getting to CEPROC by 7am meant navigating three different metro lines, the 13, the 8, and the 5, through the quiet early morning streets of Paris. Bleary-eyed but excited, we arrived right on time and stepped into the kitchens of CEPROC, the Centre d’Excellence des Professions Culinaires, one of Paris’s well known culinary and hospitality training centers, known for training chefs and hospitality professionals using the same rigor and standards found in top French kitchens. For our group, getting to train in a space like this, surrounded by the tools, techniques, and traditions that define French gastronomy, felt like a rare and valuable opportunity. Under the guidance of Chef Adrienne, we spent the morning working through two classic French preparations: an elegant Avocado Cocktail with marinated prawns and orange vinaigrette, and Chicken Quenelles with Morel Sauce. Chef Adrienne walked us through techniques we had only read about in textbooks, brunoise cuts for the avocado base, building a panade from scratch, and the delicate process of poaching quenelles at a precise temperature until they held their shape perfectly. He took the time to explain the reasoning behind each step, from infusing morels into chicken stock to balancing a vinaigrette with honey and citrus, and his patience made even the trickiest techniques feel approachable. Shelling and deveining the prawns, preparing the shellfish cream, and segmenting citrus for the garnish gave us a real feel for the precision that French cuisine demands, and by the end of the session our minds were buzzing with new ideas about flavor, texture, and presentation, more than enough to make up for the early wake up call.
The best part of the day came after the cooking was done. We were led to a beautifully set table, complete with crisp white linens and elegant glassware, where we got to sit down and actually enjoy the dishes we had just helped prepare. Chef Adrienne and the other chefs had arranged everything so beautifully, plated with care and finished with thoughtful touches that made our avocado cocktail and chicken quenelles look like something straight out of a fine dining restaurant. Honestly, they did the heavy lifting when it came to the final plating, but it was wonderful to see our morning’s work transformed into such a polished result. To top it all off, we each received a certificate to mark our participation in the masterclass, a small but meaningful souvenir of a morning spent learning at a school that has shaped so many careers in French hospitality. It was an experience that left all of us feeling inspired and excited to bring a little bit of French technique back home, well worth the early start.
