Guided review week continued today, as we made Bechamel, which was later used in a Cream of Tomato Soup, Classic Tomato Sauce and French Onion Soup. We also had a knife cuts exercise and put together a Pate Brisee (savory pie dough) for use in the future.

Time constraints became more prominent today, with Chef Perez declaring that any soups presented after 10am would be marked down a grade and none would be accepted after 10:20am. I got my French Onion Soup in with two minutes to spare before 10am.

Not to worry, however, I pushed the envelope on purpose. I could have presented my soup well before then, but preferred to let it simmer and continue to develop flavor. My patience was rewarded. Really, one of the keys to a good French Onion Soup is patience. You want the onions to cook through and then carmelize, but not burn. This takes time and attention. Once you've deglazed and added the stock, you'll want to simmer it for a substantial period of time to develop a rich, deep flavor.

The same goes for the classic tomato sauce, which really should simmer for about 2 - 2.5 hours.

Once again, organization is key. Knowing how long the classic tomato sauce must simmer, it should be one of the first things you get going. The French Onion Soup also has a long simmering time, plus the initial sweating and carmelization of the onions requires fairly frequent attention (you don't want the onions to burn). You have to make a Bechamel in order to make the Cream of Tomato soup, but you can start both at the same time.

There are also equipment issues. Putting together all these soups required more pots than are readily available, or burners on the stovetops. You can't have everything going at once, there isn't room. So, you also have to take into account that, for example, when the Bechamel is done, you can transfer it to a Bain Marie, clean the pot you used to make it, and start sweating the onions for the French Onion Soup in the now clean pot.

It sounds fairly straight-forward, but there are a lot of considerations to take into account in order to maximize efficiency.

Tomorrow, for example, I forsee a difficulty with the grilled mixed vegetables. We have a distinct dearth of grilling stations. This lack of grilling stations will create a grilling bottleneck. The grills are also located away from the regular stations so that you can't really pay attention to anything else while grilling. So, if it's simply simmering away, no problem. But if you need to grill and work on a risotto at the same time, forget it.