I remember watching the first episode of Season Five, Top Chef: New York. They all flew to Newark Airport and were driven to some outdoor spot, overlooking the Manhattan skyline. There were about a dozen apples on each contestant's table and unusually, there were three rounds to the first Quickfire challenge: 1) Peel the apples on your table using a paring knife; 2) brunoise the apples; 3) cook something that would persuade the judges that they deserve to stay in the competition. For each round, the first half to finish was safe but it was frantic; someone cut himself and got blood on some apple bits. If the judges found a bit of peel on the apple, they needed to keep peeling; if the brunoise bits were too big, they'd have to cut them down. Yikes. Thank goodness I'm not on Top Chef; that second round would have eliminated me for sure.
As I may have mentioned, I am a bit "particular" about cutting food into same size pieces - not crazy-the-same-size but it makes food cook more evenly and look nicer on the plate, especially if you don't include those scrappy bits that aren't square. I've often come across words like "dice" "brunoise" "julienne" and wondered exactly how big those cuts are supposed to be. The most common cuts are all shown here on About.com but they don't give dimensions unless you click to each separate page - annoying! So, I made a visual chart for myself, with names and sizes - purposely NOT aligned! Hope this helps you get your OCD Chef on!