Bermudian chef Marissa Simmons is pretty clear about her goals in life ? she wants to take the culinary world by storm.

In May the 26 year old came one step closer to her dream when she won the Bermuda?s Best Young Commis Chef competition at the Bermuda College to determine which Bermudian would represent the Island in the prestigious 2005 Concours International Des Jeunes Commis Rotisseurs (Young Commis) competition which is being held in Bermuda this year.

Competitors had to be Bermudian and under the age of 27.

She beat out four other young Bermudian chefs who all hold goals similar to her own.

?The competition was crazy,? said Miss Simmons. ?I entered it last year and I did not do as well as I would have liked. Last year they had the cameras in there. I saw the camera and I did not know what I was doing. It was stage fright, because I had been in competitions before and done well.?

After she lost the competition the first time, she went home and dreamed endlessly about winning it. She decided to stop dreaming, and do something about winning the next competition.

To better prepare for the next time she sought out a number of local experts to coach her in different areas of cooking such as pastry and food sculpture.

?I wanted to win; end of story,? she said. ?I knew the idea that I wanted to project. I did an extensive amount of reading. It was a mystery basket competition. With these things you still never know what you are going to get, but I was hoping the studying would help me.?

Meanwhile, Miss Simmons was promoted to the Seahorse Grill at Elbow Beach three weeks before the competition.

?I was in room service before,? she said. ?I am now working Garde-manger. That is a French word meaning the appetiser section. I plan to work the vegetable section and the line. So not only was I preparing for the competition, but I was also undergoing work training.?

To cope with it all, she set herself a challenging schedule. She would finish her work at 11 p.m., go home and sleep until 1.30 a.m., then wake up and practice until 4.30 a.m.

?I practised with fruits, vegetables, sauces, whatever. It was just to ensure that on the day of the competition my hard work would allow me to win,? she said.

Miss Simmons knew that she would be up against some stiff competition, but that only pushed her harder.

On the day of the competition her mystery basket contained, among other things, Dover sole, langoustine (a cross between a crayfish and a shrimp), duck, lamb saddle and crispy veal sweetbreads (an organ near the stomach).

Her winning entry consisted, in part, of a lamb saddle stuffed with duck and mango with a caramelised onion mush and a cherry au jus as the main course. For desert she did a chocolate fondant with white pepper ice cream with a vanilla tuille sugar cookie in it.

Miss Simmons has been cooking professionally for about seven years. Her first professional cooking job was at La Coquille Restaurant at the age of 15. Miss Simmons attended the Bermuda College and also the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont.

?When I was 15, the Government had an employment programme for young teenagers,? she said. ?I strayed away because I wasn?t fully aware of how the kitchen really worked. I started working at KFC.

?It was a switch from working at La Coquille to working at KFC, but I was young at that time. I have no regrets. I should have continued with it at La Coquille.

?I would have grasped a wealth of knowledge, but sometimes you get distracted. KFC helped me to pay for the New England Culinary Institute. For any career you choose school fees can be very hefty.?

She said at KFC she learned people skills, something that is necessary when working in a kitchen.

?I don?t accommodate bad behaviour whether the person is local or foreign,? she said. ?I treat people in a manner that I would like to be treated; and I would like to be treated with respect and nothing else.?

Miss Simmons said that young people just starting their careers have to understand that if they call in sick all the time or are consistently late for work, they will not move up the ladder.?

When she returned to Bermuda after graduation from the New England Culinary Institute she worked in a number of different local restaurants and also did some catering.

?I was actually groomed as a chef at Horizons and Cottages,? she said. ?Johnny Roberts took me under his wing. I asked for a job, and he gave me just that. He held back nothing. During that time I couldn?t stand him for it, but now I am very appreciative. He taught me the importance of why it has to be so detailed with the plates. He would say ?this is fine dining, this is it?. His point was when you get out there it is going to be even worse.?

Her speciality is a mixture of West Indian and Asian cooking.

?I am really good at presentations,? she said. ?But the food must have flavour as well as presentation to me. At some of these hotels or restaurants the plate looks nice but the flavour is lacking.?

For two and a half months she was sent to a hotel in Nevis to get some experience working abroad. In Nevis she worked at the Nisbet Plantation Hotel which is associated locally with the Reefs Hotel.

At the Nisbet Hotel she wasn?t learning much that was new, so on her days off she worked at another hotel, the Montpelier Plantation Inn.

?I worked there for free, just to keep myself going and to get my eyes open,? she said. ?I am not one to sit back and not do any work and say, ?oh well, I am getting paid?. That is not me. I need fresh eyes. I need to see what is going on in the culinary world.?

She said the main thing she learned on Nevis was how to do live butchery. She worked at a slaughter house for free, because she wanted to know butchery from the ground up, a skill that can be very important when you are working with different cuts of meat.

?I did sheep, cows and goats,? she said. ?I tried it in Bermuda just recently, but it is not as much here, as we were doing over there. There we were doing at least 40 of the animals a day. Because Bermuda is a small Island, we are used to things coming pre-packaged. It is important just to know where the parts of the meat come from, and why it takes different types of meat longer than others to cook.?

She said working in a slaughter house was an eye opener.

?It is not hard,? she said. ?The only hard part was that the animals were cute, but at the same time, that is how life is. I have never been one to be afraid of blood or anything like that.?

Miss Simmons has been interested in cooking since she was a child. She attended Northlands Secondary where her favourite class was always food and nutrition. ?That is one class where my grade was always great,? she said. ?I always loved anything to do with meal times. I just enjoyed it. Even when I was younger I wanted the table to look presentable. I had three women in my life. One cooked West Indian. One cooked fine dining and the other one was a combination of the two. Food was always something I enjoyed. I thought ?let me try being a chef?.?

In the distant future she aims to one day be an executive chef, and ?one of Bermuda?s finest?. Her more immediate goal is to take part in the International Jeunes Commis Rotisseurs competition scheduled for September 29 to October 2 at the Fairmont Southampton Hotel. After that she hopes to go abroad to work.

?I am getting my resumes out there,? she said. ?I really want to go to the Far East, but it is very difficult. But it might have to happen after I get where I am going. I prefer restaurants to hotels. I find with hotels it is hard to get your name out there because there are so many of you in the kitchen. You don?t want to stay in the lower ranks of a chef for a long time.?

She wants to work in a small restaurant, because there is more responsibility there, and more of an opportunity to learn about restaurant management.

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