Basic Week Three

Last week I promised to come up with some more "Paris Pros" to counteract last week's negativity, or as I like to call it, "constructive criticism" (because really, if they would only try real bacon then Parisians might finally be willing to admit that they got something wrong).

• Flowers.  They seem so much bigger and heartier and more colorful here, possibly because of a good amount of rainfall and lower summer temperatures.

Hydrangeas on steroids

• Bugs, or the lack thereof.  The French inability to understand window screens is forgivable because I can leave my windows open all day or night and although I occasionally get a fly, I don't have to worry about Palmetto bugs, wasps, or spiders invading everything (pigeons, on the other hand...).  My only run-in with creepy-crawlies was on Thursday when I swept leaves off of the drain on the terrace and several beetles of some sort began spewing forth like a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, but they seemed content to stay near the drain and all was well.  Even mosquitoes aren't bad -- I had my first and only bite of the summer yesterday.  I do, however, miss lightning bugs.
• Weather.  Since I arrived here a month ago, the temperatures have exceeded 80 degrees maybe five days.  As someone who hates to sweat, the small amount of air conditioning in Paris had me greatly concerned, but so far I haven't even bothered to buy a fan.  I hear that August can be a bit toasty, but Paris "toasty" and South Carolina "toasty" are two entirely different concepts.

Forecast for the 2nd week of July

• Stuff like this:

Handicap parking sign: "Save - If you take my place, take my disability."

• Clothing.  While not everyone dresses up in Paris, the only yoga pants or running shoes that you'll ever find are on people who are actually in the act of doing yoga or running.  Just to take the ten-minute walk down to my old studio to clean it before check-out tomorrow, I felt obligated to change out of my exercise capris and t-shirt (although if I had run the entire way to and from the studio it would have been okay). Children are especially well-dressed and coiffed, with little girls usually in dresses and little boys sporting neatly pressed shorts and polo shirts.  There's just something refreshing about going into a grocery store and not seeing children in their fresh-out-of-bed hair and pajamas (or adults, for that matter).
• Butter.  Seriously - how has America missed the boat on this one??  I no longer buy butter as a condiment to my bread; I buy bread as a vessel for my butter.

Like I said, it's a love-hate relationship that I have with the city.  In spite of the occasional or even frequent annoyances, I'm finding more things that I will likely miss when I return to the states (though not enough to stay in Paris).  Nine months still remain to swing the opinion pendulum, of course.

Monday

The week started off bright and early in the pastry kitchen making fruit pound cakes and the popular French madeleines from Saturday's demonstration.  Because our last pastry practical class was with the infamous Chef Quéré, the sweet grandfatherly Chef Daniel who led this class was like a breath of fresh air.  As we wrapped things up I whispered to another American student, "I kind of want to go hug him before we leave.  Is that wrong?"

My final product was only so-so.  Pound cakes are difficult to mess up, but a well-made madeleine should have a high lump in its center when it finishes baking, and mine were relatively flat.  Chef said that I probably didn't measure my ingredients correctly and gave me a seven on my evaluation, the first grade that I had seen in any of my classes.  I could only assume that we're being measured on a scale of one to ten, and although 70% would have sent my life spiraling out of control in college, the knowledge that our final grade at Le Cordon Bleu needs only to be above 50% in order to receive the basic certificate tempered the situation.  "Lowered expectations" has become a major theme of this journey.

My fruit pound cakes and flat madeleines

After class ended I had about three hours to kill so I ran back to the old studio to wash the dirty laundry I had left behind and to give the place a good cleaning even though my official check-out date wasn't for another week.  The laundry would need to air dry, so I wasn't completely ready to be eternally rid of the studio yet.

This post was supposed to focus on the positive side of Paris, but they really do have the worst washers and dryers in the world.  The reason detergents here have such a strong odor is because they need to mask the smell of laundry that never truly gets clean.  For example, I can throw a folded sheet into the wash and it will come out still folded.  Some washers, like the one in the old studio, also serve as a dryer, but using that function would be comparable to putting the clothes into an oven set on 100 degrees.

After finishing the cleaning, hanging two loads of wash, and leaving a third one running in the machine, I headed back to the afternoon demonstration on savory puff pastries and quiches.  The only puff pastries that I had ever "made" before came with a Pillsbury label, so I was particularly excited about learning this new skill.

Wild mushroom quiche and quiche lorraine

The puff pastry process involves folding a large square of butter into a large square of dough, and then rolling it flat into a rectangle, tri-folding the dough, rolling it into a rectangle again, and repeating a total of five or six times.  It's not particularly difficult except that the dough and butter both need to be cold and the same relative temperature.  Simple enough, right?

That evening after class I decided to give the Monoprix on my street one more chance to provide me with a pillow after dropping in on the old studio to hang the last load of laundry.  I began my aimless wandering through the store, knowing full well that no sales associate would be available to help me and growing increasingly irritated at the paltry selection of groceries, when suddenly I noticed people descending a staircase.  The store had second floor!

I found the "up" escalator and pushed my way past the lazy "standers" to find a whole new world waiting for me at the top.  Aisles of food spread out in every direction and beyond the food were the household goods.  Sure enough, there appeared before me the rectangular pillows - and I had two kinds from which to choose!  My prize in hand, I headed back towards the registers when there on the shelf before me sat a whole selection of blow dryers!  My ecstasy was overwhelming, so much so that I bought a Monoprix shopping bag and started referring to them as "my" Monoprix.

Tuesday

The only class of the day didn't begin until 6:30 PM, so after piddling around the apartment and, of course, ironing the now-dry parts of my uniform, I headed to school.  The Asian chef (whose name still eludes me) set us to working on our puff pastries immediately.  They weren't quite as easy as I had imagined.  For one thing, I used two eggs instead of one, ruining the dough and forcing me to start over - never a good idea for the slow one in the class.  On top of that, the room was incredibly warm and the butter was growing soft and starting to break through the dough, which can ruin the batch entirely.  The only solution is to chill the dough between turns, but when we have only about an hour to complete that portion of the class even that option isn't always viable.

We weren't using the puff pastries until the next practical class, so we stowed them in the refrigerator and commenced with the quiche lorraine.  The crust was relatively simple but as usual I slaughtered the edge, and after blind baking the shell and pouring in my egg mixture, chef walked by and simply pointed to it while saying, "Not baked enough."  Unable to do anything about it, I shoved the quiche in the oven, suddenly remembering that I forgot to do an egg wash on the crust bottom and bake it again and praying that he didn't notice.

Two other students were sharing the oven that I had preheated (there are enough ovens for everyone but students forget to preheat theirs), so bake time was greatly slowed.  After what seemed like an excruciatingly long time and most of the other students had departed, chef declared that my quiche was finished and we removed it from the oven and from its mold.  He slid it onto a wire rack and lifted it up to check the bottom - too little blind baking had resulted in several raw crusts that evening - and said it looked... just right.  He fingered the top of the quiche and said it looked good, too.

Chef Daniel, the sweet grandfatherly chef, popped into the room from next door and Asian chef pointed out my quiche to him as they discussed it in French.  Chef Daniel ooh'ed and ah'ed before putting his arm around my shoulders and congratulating me on a job well done.  Embarrassed, I tried to say something in French about always being the slow one, but he patted my back and replied with something that I couldn't completely understand but that I knew must be incredibly wise and kind, so I just thanked him and left the room, holding my quiche like a trophy.  In all honesty, my crust probably would have been raw if the bake time had been faster, but I wasn't going to point that out to either chef.

Miracle quiche

Wednesday

One benefit of doing both cuisine and pastry at the same time is that sometimes the lessons overlap and we can learn a skill twice and come into class with a slight edge over the students who are seeing something for the first time... not that this a competition, of course.

Wednesday's pastry class was on sweet puff pastries, which are the exact same dough and process as savory puff pastries except for the filling.  Chef Tranchant used the dough to make apple turnover, palms, raspberry haystacks, and a lovely twist on an apple pie that gave me some ideas for Thanksgiving.  I think that I'm falling in love with puff pastries.

Apple turnovers and Palms

My group headed straight to practical when class dismissed, thinking that we would get Chef Tranchant in there as well.  It's no wonder then that I knew as soon as I started hearing the murmur of curse words from the students around me that Evil Chef Quéré was coming around the corner.  Our faces blanched as the icy grip of death seized our hearts.  You may think that I'm exaggerating, and actually I am, but we were terrified for sure. He yelled out the rules as he entered the classroom ahead of us, "No talking! You measure puff pastry ingredients first!  Then you make dough! Then you put in fridge!  Then you prepare apples!..."

The class filed quietly into the room, nobody daring to talk or make eye contact with anyone else.  We worked like robots, waiting for chef to look away or leave the room before we'd whisper such questions as, "Do you know where the eggs are?"

The one good thing about Chef Quéré is that even the slow ones among us don't get too far behind because he likes the group to work in the different stages together, so the faster students end up trying to look busy while they wait for Chef to give the go-ahead for the next steps.  Of course, when he's ready to move onto the next stage and he starts yelling, "You have five minutes to have the palms cut and on the baking sheet!" then things get a little tense.

When we finally had all of our turnovers and palms in the oven baking and our stations were clean, Chef Quéré, apparently satisfied that we met his deadlines, launched into a speech about what made him a great chef and instructor.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that he became conversational because it was fairly one-sided, but it was without any tension and students were feeding his ego by agreeing profusely with him.  At times he even seemed to have a sense of humor.  For example, when he asked a student to get some cooling racks for the baking sheets as he pulled them from the oven, he yelled, "Take your time!  Go slower!  These aren't very hot!" which of course sent the poor kid running.

My turnovers and palms were mediocre - not the best but not the worst - but the chef's quick glimpse and simple evaluation of, "C'est bien" ("It's good"), felt like a great compliment coming from him, even though he was shooing me away with his free hand as I stood stupidly in front of him waiting for any additional feedback.

Palms and apple turnovers - C'est bien

Thursday

The cuisine demonstration and practical classes for the day were centered on using the puff pastry dough that we made in class Tuesday evening.  Chef Vaca showed us how to roll the dough and cut it into shapes to bake and fill with leeks, poached eggs, and a creamy sauce. Using the extra dough he whipped up a few peach and apricot tarts with almond cream.

Puffed pastries with leeks and poached eggs and a peach tart

Choosing the right seat in a demonstration class is incredibly important.  Early on I gave up vying for a front-row seat because I'm not competitive enough, but choosing the people whom I sit next to it also detrimental.  On this day I made the mistake of sitting next to the Brazilian girls.  They talk constantly, and the one sitting next to me was carrying on a conversation on her phone for about half of the class (she was short and able to hunker down enough to keep out of the chef and translator's view).

As if that weren't distracting enough, I suddenly noticed the chef's assistant (usually a superior-level student in charge of such things as keeping the chef's station clean and preparing his ingredients).  She was standing to the side, stuffing entire leftover peach halves into her mouth like a squirrel or a two-year-old child.  I tried to avert my eyes but instead watched in fascination and horror as she would insert one peach half, then grab another one before the first one was chewed and jam it into her mouth, using her index finger to force it all the way in.  After the first couple of peaches she removed the bowl up onto a shelf, thought about it, took the bowl back down, and stuffed in a few more peaches.  How I longed for the opportunity to shout out, "Hey, assistant!  The orchard called.  They're running out of peaches!"

That evening in the pastry class we had two chefs supervising us - one chef apparently training under the other one.  The pastry shells turned out okay, but then I browned my leeks instead of sweating them, we ran out of chicken stock for the sauce and I over-compensated with cream, and I was falling behind on poaching the eggs.  Chef-in-training was a little too helpful and ended up poaching all four of my eggs for me.  When it came time to assemble our final dish, he chose the "best" egg to top my pastry.  The chef doing the evaluation came to my dish and pointed out that apart from the brown leeks and sauce with too much cream, my egg wasn't cooked enough.  I wasn't sure if I should blame the Brazilians, the chef-in-training, or the girl with the peaches.

Fail

Friday

Independence Day consisted only of a 3:30 PM pastry demonstration class on Gâteau Basque (cream-filled butter cake) and Diplomat Pudding (bread pudding with candied fruit).  This particular class seemed to move incredibly slow without much activity besides dough-rolling, but I sat next to an American from Texas - a fifty-year-old woman with two grown children out of the home, a husband who left her last year, and a big, black cat.  Yes, she was also a talker.

For the past couple of weeks I had been stating how every pastry that we made would be better with ice cream, so much to my delight the chef, running ahead of schedule, whipped up some vanilla ice cream to go with the pudding.  He made the mistake of allowing us to serve ourselves, though, so by the time that the first four rows of Asians were finished I was able to get only about half of a spoonful.

Diplomat Pudding and Gâteau Basque

It was the first time since Monday that I was out of classes before 9:30 PM, so I went home and changed into some blue pants, a red, white, and blue-striped shirt, and red flats before heading out to the 11th arrondissement to meet up with Gretchen for a 4th of July dinner to compensate for all of the cookouts that we were missing out on.  She found a barbecue place that claimed to be "authentic American," Blue's Bar-B-Q. Although I expected some French-ified version, possibly nothing more than ham sandwiches, I was pleasantly surprised.  The meat and sauce were good, the sides were decent, and the service was 100% Parisian - the only barbecue place in the universe where you would expect to wait over an hour for a pulled pork sandwich.

After our 10:00 PM dinner, Gretchen introduced me to the Place des Vosges, built in the early 1600's by Henry IV and the oldest and one of the nicest planned squares in Paris.  Although the shops were all closed, we walked around the entire square, peaking through windows into rooms full of fine art, jewelry, perfumes, teas, chocolates, and other amazing items, all set in ancient backdrops.  As soon as I am able to visit it during the day I will likely be adding it to my list of Paris Pros.

Saturday

Saturday morning was my first time to attempt doing laundry in the new studio. In the old studio I was able to find a manual online for the washer and finally figured it out after some trial and error, but the only manuals that I could find online for this washer required payment of some sort.  Thank you, Whirlpool.

Too stubborn and cheap to buy a manual, I decided just to use good ol' common sense to figure it out.  I was washing sheets and towels only - nothing that needed special care - so I turned the knob to the temperature indicated on the tags and pushed the "Départ" button (I learned that from the microwave).

After a few minutes I realized that the washer had stopped running.  A red light was flashing next to "Arrivée d'eau" - something about the arrival of water.  After struggling and failing to open the lid that was locked tighter than a drum and pondering the situation a moment, I pressed the green light flashing by "Départ" again, the only button that seemed to produce a response.  The washer started up, but as I listened closely it didn't sound like any water was sloshing around inside.  Scrambling through some drawers I finally found a manual in French and managed to deduce that a water valve next to the washer had to be opened, or I was taking dry cleaning to a whole new level.  Voilà.

In our 3:30 class we made the Gâteau Basque with Chef Caals, who doubles as both a pastry and cuisine chef.  This cake was strange in that the dough was more like a batter, so rolling it out and lining the cake mold required chilling the dough and then working very quickly with it, sometimes stopping in between steps to put the dough back in the fridge.  Seeing my opportunity not to be last, I decided to skip the second or third refrigeration and began pressing my dough into the mold.  It reminded me a little of Clouseau's nose during the laughing gas scene in The Pink Panther Strikes Again.  The cake turned out okay but the general consensus that it wasn't that great of a recipe to begin with.  Not all French pastries have to be amazing.

Sunday

I rounded out the week with the church in Saint Denis where a Bob Jones University chorale led by Dr. Bill McCauley was performing a few special numbers.  A young team member preached a message on Philippians 4:6-8, a good reminder that not only should we put off worrying, but that we can't do it in our own strength - we must instead put on prayer and supplication with thanksgiving and the peace of God will replace the worry.  Celebrating communion with other believers was an additional blessing and a reminder that no matter how far we are from home, the message of the gospel is universal and uniting.