Basic Week Four

It's another cold and rainy Sunday afternoon here in Paris.  I enjoy Sunday afternoons in this city, though - it sort of forces people to take a day of rest because apart from restaurants, almost all businesses are closed.  The streets are quieter in the less-touristy areas such as mine, particularly when I'm boarding the Metro to head to church at 9:30 AM, and I can read in peace for the half-hour ride to Saint-Denis... except between the stops where a "musician" decides  to hop the train.  At least the one today was singing a cappella rather than hauling an accordion, loud speakers, and a CD Walkman with him.

I learned a few new things about this city as well this week.

• Grilling is forbidden by law.  That made me a little sad because I had high hopes of getting a little grill for the terrace.  Actually, all fires in Paris are forbidden, even in homes with functioning fireplaces.  Something about fires potentially destroying the city and killing hundreds, blah, blah, blah...
• If you serve a meat with sauce in France, the sauce can go either on the plate first with the meat on top, or it can be served on the side.  Sauce is not allowed to be served on top of the meat... again by law (I assume that they don't monitor this practice in homes, though).
• Paris residents are required to clean up after their dogs, but nobody does it, or at least I've witnessed it happening only twice.

Monday

The week began with a 12:30 AM patisserie demonstration led by the formidable Chef Quéré who shall henceforth be called Chef Pascal, because that is how he is better known (also formerly referred to as “the mean one”).  He was working on choux pastries again, this time delving into the world of such heavenly creations as éclairs and cream puffs.

The many faces of choux pastries: Salambos, cream puffs, acorns, éclairs, and chouquettes

Pascal was in rare form that day, or maybe it’s his regular form and the angry chef that we witnessed on our first day with him was just his special way of laying down the law… or he’s schizophrenic.  Whatever the reason, he was teasing the translator and cracking jokes while former students and chefs sporadically dropped into the demonstration simply to give him a handshake or hug and yuck it up in French, like one of their weird variety shows.  I began to think that if so many people like him then he might not be half as bad as we initially thought.

From that class we moved into Chef Bogen’s demonstration on soups, focusing on cream soups, veloutés, bisques, and consommé.  It was a roller-coaster ride of techniques that left a good majority of the class walking out with a “What just happened?” expression and a few choice words.  Chef had four different preparations going at once and at one point I counted about ten pots on the stove.  He’d jump from describing cuts of beef to preparing a chicken to cooking crabs to cutting vegetables (each soup had its own cut) to proper consistency.  Keeping up with which step went with which recipe became almost impossible, but questions ceased when he answered one student with, “I already answered that.  Only good questions, please!”

Asparagus velouté, cream of cauliflower soup, and crab bisque

Tuesday

Walking into the cuisine practicum Tuesday morning we were greeted by Chef Caals (or as one of my classmates calls him, “the fit one” – the one every girl has a crush on) who told us to commence with our puff pastry dough, and then he left the room.  In an unusual turn of events, I was the only student not taken off guard.  I had actually noticed that we would be making the dough again in class even though it wasn’t covered in the last demonstration, and I brought the recipe from Lesson 5 along with the soup recipe.  Much to everyone’s relief, chef remained out of the room while I managed to shout ingredients and instructions to the rest of the group.  Our doughs were completed by the time that he returned.

Our next task was to prepare the crab bisque; thus began the horror.  I enjoy most shellfish as long as it’s been removed from the shell and prepared in some unrecognizable form from when it was alive, so while after the demo I had come to terms with the fact that we would have to chop up some crabs, the cry from one girl of “They’re alive!” froze me in my tracks.  Sure enough, the large pile of crabs before us was moving, and Caals was yelling, “Hurry up and divide the crabs among seven people!  Use them all!  Vite! Vite!”

While the rest of us stood aside grimacing, one brave student grabbed seven bowls and boldly stepped forward to begin plucking out the crabs, quickly withdrawing his hand with an “Ouch!” each time one would pinch his fingers.  In another unusual moment of clarity, I grabbed two large slotted spoons and handing one to him, we began to scoop them out, counting about ten crabs per person.

In demonstration, Bogen had quickly chopped each crab into four parts, telling us that we would be doing the same in practicum although seasoned chefs used faster methods.  Watching the braver students hacking their crabs to death made me a little nauseated, but Caals stopped us short and said to use the faster method and put them in the heated oil whole.  While I was relieved that now I wouldn’t have to touch any of them, watching them slowly fry to death was equally disturbing, so I frantically kept stirring the pot to move the living crabs on top down to the bottom and speed up their death, whispering, "I'm sorry!" with each turn.

After all of the crabs appeared to be dead and were nicely “risoled” (red), we took wooden rolling pins and began violently to smash the crabs in order to release the meat.  My uniform was spattered and I could feel pieces of crab hitting me in the face, but it finally ended and I was able to add the vegetables and cover up the carnage in liquid before bringing it to a boil.

The frustrating part of this demonstration was that I actually felt ahead of the game, or at least I was keeping up with my classmates up to this point, but as my soup completed its 40 minutes of simmering I noticed that everyone else had already strained and reduced theirs, and soon Caals was tapping his watch-less wrist shouting, “Hurry up, Kerry!”  I rushed through the last preparations, not allowing it to reduce as much as it should because Caals told us to stop.  When he tested my bisque he said, “Not enough crab flavor – you probably didn’t risoler the crabs long enough.  And you need to watch the time.”  I didn’t point out that it was still half an hour before the “official” end of class, nor did I sneak in a remark about being the only student who came prepared for the puff pastry dough.

We had about four hours to kill before our pastry practicum, so I went home to clean the crab off of my face and unwind from the morning’s trauma, recognizing that it could have been worse and most likely will be eventually (the stories about rabbit preparation have already begun).  When I returned at 3:30 PM we had our first practicum with Chef Mahut.  He’s another good chef for the slow ones among us because he prefers to work together on each stage.  Unfortunately, his English is also very limited.  He insisted that we measure out our choux pastry ingredients and then wait for him to make a batch before we began ours, an instruction that got lost in translation on a few students and resulted in a somewhat irate chef.

To make matters worse, because I was standing next to Mahut he asked me to measure out his ingredients along with mine, although I misunderstood his instructions and measured out only mine.  God bless my classmates – after he pointed out my error and said that I had five minutes to get his ingredients, three of the girls close by began measuring things out for me and we finished well within his time frame.

My biggest hurdle in the pastry classes has been mastering the piping bags.  Besides a severe lack of artistic skill, my coordination is terrible (although the two are probably related) – it’s the reason that I was always a benchwarmer in sports and eventually quit participating.  Each baking sheet was to be shared by two students, and I ended up with Chris, a super-nice Japanese kid who, after watching me try to pipe my éclairs before scraping them back off the sheet and starting over, showed me how to hold the bag.  Then showed me again.  Then again. Around the third time it finally clicked, and if I ever succeed in a patisserie career I will forever accredit it to that boy.

As the éclairs baked we piped our chouquettes, a much easier task with my new-found mastery, then whipped up the chocolate cream to fill the éclairs.  The last step was to dip them in chocolate fondant.  I missed the part where we were supposed to stir the fondant quickly between each dip to remove the top film, so the only éclair that turned out pretty was the one that chef did for me after he watched me struggle through the first five.

My sad éclairs and okay chouquettes

At some point in the middle of class I also “lost” my plastic scraper which meant that I had to buy another one from the school.  In truth, someone took my scraper, a frequent problem even in small classes if you don’t keep tabs on all of your items or label them well (I had to buy new magnets the week before).  Overall, though, I really like my classmates and we’re forming a good bond, not the “I like you so I’ll kill you last” kind of bond but the kind where we’re quick to help each other out and offer words of encouragement or praise.

Wednesday

I had the glorious privilege of sleeping in on Wednesday because the first patisserie demonstration didn’t begin until 12:30 PM, although a nine-hour block of classes awaited me.  Chef Tranchant showed us petits-fours meringues and biscuits (or as we in America call them, cookies).  My fear over piped pastries had greatly decreased over the last 24 hours and I was actually looking forward to the prospect of making them.

Macarons, raisin biscuits, "cigarettes," and Marshal's batons

From there we went to a cuisine demonstration with Chef Lesourd, a funny and friendly little man that bares an amazing resemblance to Mr. Bean.  Although it was my first class with him, I recognized him from practicums where he would pop into class and walk around the room, asking students from where they came or making little jokes about what they were doing.  He kept the atmosphere lively as he showed us how to make a Marseillaise fish soup and clarify the consommé from Monday’s demonstration for use in such wonderful things as French onion soup.  His demonstration was less tense and much easier to follow than Bogen’s, but I was grateful to know that we wouldn’t be making the fish soup in our practicum.  It involved too much familiarity with several kinds of fish, and although not as intimidating live crabs, I decided that tasting eel was preferable to cutting it up.

Consommé with vegetable brunoise, French onion soup, and Fish soup

We went straight from the demonstration to the practicum with the Filipino-looking chef (I’ll just refer to him as Chef Phil until I can figure out his real name).  I wasn’t sure what I thought about Chef Phil up to this point because I had very little interaction with him during our egg poaching practicum – mostly the chef-in-training had helped me.  He’s extremely quiet and reserved and unwilling to do demonstration classes because he doesn’t like standing in front of a room full of students.  By the end of class, though, I decided that I liked him.  He didn’t try to make us laugh, but it was kind of nice being able to make him laugh occasionally, and once the boys got him talking about the World Cup he almost became animated.

We finished our puff pastry dough from Tuesday morning in order to make cheese straws with them at the end of class, then went to work on the consommé clarification.  Although the brunoise cut of my vegetables was too big and they weren’t cooked quite well enough, I finished in a timely manner and we were able to get out shortly before 9:00 PM.

Boxing up my consommé to take home and freeze for some possible future use (or for the garbage when I move out) and wrapping up the cheese straws because I didn't think to bring another container for them, I went outside to be greeted by cold rain and wind.  My purse was strapped across my shoulder, I had a bag of dirty uniform parts and my umbrella on one arm, and in the other arm I carried my loosely wrapped pile of cheese straws atop a giant box of hot consommé.  The walk home is about 15 minutes, and about five minutes into it I began to notice cheese straws slipping loose from the foil as I kept shifting the box of consommé into a more “comfortable” position.  By the time I got home I had a very happy trail of pigeons following me.

"Feed the birds. Tuppence a bag..."

Thursday

Although he seemed to have lightened up a little, the appearance of Chef Pascal in our 8:30 AM patisserie practicum still brought slight groans and nervous glances among the students.  We cranked out our raisin biscuits and Marshal’s batons with very little yelling though, and even the students who had to start the meringue batter over for the latter because they over-beat their ingredients were treated fairly respectably.  I got another c’est bien on my work and we were done with the school day by 10:30 AM.

The school had scheduled a student party for that evening at a place called the Jane Club, but for one thing I’m not a “clubber” and for another thing, even if it had been anywhere else, the prospect of having to wash and fix my hair that afternoon and change into something dressy for a cold, rainy evening sucked out any vestige of desire in me.  Yes, I am that pathetic.

Instead I picked up some Chinese food from a place that I passed daily and that caused me to stare wistfully in the windows as I breathed in the aromas.  The egg rolls were good as was the rice, but the chicken left much to be desired (read about Friday to find out why).  Then I spent most of the rest of the day trying to fix an issue with an application that I had installed to allow me to access American websites where I could finally do such things as listen to Pandora or watch shows like Endeavour or The Incredible Hulk (circa 1978 – I had almost forgotten how bad the special effects were).

[The American shows part is important only because I started back on T-Tapp exercises, which are sustainable only if I have something to keep from dying of boredom in the process.]

Friday

I had been looking forward to this day ever since we got our school schedule four weeks ago.  There weren’t any classes, but instead the morning began with a market tour led by Chef Poupard and his translator.  Poupard took us to some of his favorite locations, telling us to be sure that we greeted each shop owner with “Bonjour,” that we keep a smile on our face, and that we never touch anything.  The “Bonjour” I knew about and the "no touching" was a given, but the smile was a new concept.  He explained that Paris isn’t known for hospitality, but he thinks that cordiality should be universal.  I like Poupard.

We arrived at the boucherie first just as they were opening and had a quick lesson on how to identify good butchers and cuts of meat.  Next came the fromagerie, where my piping bag hero, Chris, stood back with his nose pinched and declared that he hated all cheese (watching the Asians react to cheese and sweets is often entertaining), so chef purchased a large quantity of several types of cheese and made Chris carry the bag.

Charcuterie, poissonerie, and fromagerie

The poissonerie that chef chose was an outdoor stand with more types of fish than I ever realized existed (at least for eating), all displayed neatly across mounds of ice.  Poupard gave us the fish quality test – clear eyes, red gills, and a non-fishy smell are three signs of a good fish.  He purchased some ready-to-eat shrimp and prawns before we proceeded to the charcuterie which carried all sorts of questionable animal parts, the boulangerie where chef bought several types of bread including an amazing brioche and a cheese bread, a goat cheese stand for more cheese, a patisserie, a vegetable stand where we purchased nothing (of course), and finally back to the boucherie for chef to make another large quantity of purchases.  We made it back to the school by 11:00 AM and took our purchases up to a practicum classroom for the tasting.

Long ago when I first decided to come to Le Cordon Bleu, I made the decision that I could never turn up my nose to any food.  I wasn't a very picky eater to begin with, but there were certain foods that I had avoided my whole life.  A few of those foods had already crossed my palate since my arrival (e.g., anchovies), and several more were spread out before me at that moment.  Blood sausage, foie gras, terrine, animelles, and stinky cheese covered in ash would have given me pause in my past, but as a testament to my developing taste buds I tried everything and in most cases, actually enjoyed it (I can do without the blood sausage and animelles, though).  And if you ever have the opportunity to try foie gras terrine with gingerbread, don’t hesitate – just eat it.  You will never regret that decision.

Cheese, more cheese, terrines, blood sausage, and so much more

From there we rushed over to the Eiffel Tower to join the rest of the basic cuisine and patisserie students on a boat cruise on the Seine for a lunch that the school was hosting.  I had not thought to bring a change of clothes because I thought that I would have time to change after the market tour, although I wore what seemed to be an “appropriate” outfit for the lunch just in case (the directions specified only that we weren't to wear jeans or tennis shoes).  Everyone was dressed to the nines, with several men in sports jackets and women in shiny patent leather heels and formal dresses.  I had on navy capris, a gray t-shirt, a casual cardigan, and grey dock shoes.  I searched for someone – anyone – equally dressed down as I was but to no avail.  C’est Paris.

I tucked myself as inconspicuously as possible into the far end of a table with some of my fellow patisserie students.  Free champagne and wine were flowing all around, but not being a drinker I just enjoyed a wonderful meal of foie gras de canard with truffle sauce and asparagus, veal with au jus sauce and buttery mashed potatoes, and pavlova, a sort of vanilla and strawberry ice cream on top of a meringue and covered in whipped cream.  Having already made a huge faux pas, I decided that asking the waiter for butter to go with my dinner roll wouldn’t hurt.  He replied that butter was for breakfast, then grudgingly brought me some saying, “It’s fat!  Lots of fat!”

Foie gras, potatoes, veal, butter!, and pavlova

My table mates on either side of me were feeling the effects of the alcohol a little more quickly than others, and soon the Russian was talking about how she wanted to kiss someone and the American was relaying her life story in tears.  Across from us sat another American and Russian and a woman from Egypt.  We began swapping stories about how we came to Le Cordon Bleu which now had the American on my left crying more and the Russian on my right exclaiming how wonderful it all was.  That part of the conversation was actually quite lovely, though – it revealed a common thread among us that is lacking from the younger students whose parents are footing the bill and who are simply there as an extension of their education.  We each knew and understood the sacrifice, hard work, and inner desire that brought us there.

The "old women" table

I opted to walk back home after lunch rather than take the Metro in order to work off some portion of the food that I had consumed that day.  When I reached my street, I decided for the first time to stop in a few shops to look for some skirts or dresses, feeling the need to prepare for such future lunches and other events.  Every store was having a sale – French law dictates when sales can occur and this one was lasting from mid-June until the end of July.  In true American form, I purchased two skirts at the Gap for a great price by Paris standards – it was the cheapest store on the street and they took my American credit card.

That evening I kicked back on the terrace with my leftover Chinese food from Thursday night.  It was only then that I realized why the chicken wasn't very good… because it was actually fish.  Sometimes I worry about my career in the culinary field.  Of course, I didn’t say that my taste buds were fully developed yet – just getting there.

Saturday

Chef Caals led Saturday morning’s cuisine demonstration on omelets and roasted chicken.  The omelet was more of a side note – something to occupy our time while the chicken was roasting.  We once again learned to truss a chicken, although this one was different in that it was only a month old and had tender bones, so it had to be handled more carefully.  We finally delved into the world of side dishes as well, and Caals turned an artichoke for us before combining it with cooked carrots, green beans, daikon radish, and celery root, all cut into perfectly uniform sticks.

Herb omelet and chicken (served on top of sauce) with a turned artichoke and garden vegetables

I love artichokes, but I had never actually worked with one and I knew that it could cause me trouble in Tuesday’s practicum.  I also had a lot of time on my hands with no classes again until that Tuesday, so I stopped by the grocer’s on the way home and picked up the vegetable ingredients along with some really wonderful peaches.  I even considered buying a chicken to roast until I remembered that I had no oven.  My final product turned out okay for a first try, and I had the added benefit of eating a good portion of vegetables for the first time in weeks.

Sunday

Because I was getting to know a few of the folks in church a little better, I took the opportunity this Sunday to bring one of the American families a bag of leftover Marshal’s batons with the promise of many, many more pastries to come.  Maybe I will get through this experience without gaining 100 pounds after all!  A French girl in the church also invited me to hang out after she returned from vacation next week.  We know just enough of each other’s language to get by, and I can look forward to practicing my French in addition to making new friends.