Basic Week Ten and Finals

Although this week was the shortest one as class hours go, it seemed like the longest and most arduous week yet.  Even now after almost two days of free time I still feel on edge as if I'm supposed to be doing something - practicing marzipan roses or rolling dough or turning vegetables.  Two months of living, breathing, and, of course, eating cuisine and pastry during most of my waking hours are hard to shake off, especially knowing that the coming week will simply be the calm before the next imminent storm.

Monday

We had two last practicums, one each for pastry and cuisine, still remaining.  Our morning began with making the Alhambra (chocolate cake) from Saturday's demonstration.  Chef Olivier (a.k.a., Chef Debbie Downer) declared at the end of class that we all would have failed the exam - we finished late, our glazing was terrible, the decorations were dismal - but by this point most people didn't care because it wasn't included in our final exam recipe list.   My rose, though slightly better than when I made the Dacquoise, still earned an eye-roll and "tsk, tsk, tsk" from Olivier.

Ugly Alhambra (but it tasted good)

At 12:30 Chef Strills led the demonstration on duck à l'orange accompanied by pike perch steak, ratatouille, waffle chips, and escargot in snail butter.  It's only natural when one is taking courses in classical French cuisine that one should expect snails, and I had braced myself for this moment.  It was actually quite tasty once I managed to put up the mental block on what I was chewing.

Duck à l'orange; pike perch steak & ratatouille; escargot in pastry shells

My main concern had been having to kill the snails myself in some style reminiscent of The Great Crab Massacre and/or pulling their slimy bodies out of the shells, but as it turns out, most snails are not prepared fresh even in fine restaurants.  The process of preparing a snail for consumption requires starving the snail for three days until it salivates out... whatever makes it slimy.  Several other steps follow, but most chefs obviously prefer to purchase the canned or flash-frozen ready-to-cook type.  [Another little piece of trivia: Hunting snails in France is illegal.]

Because Chef Strills had temporarily come out of retirement to fill in for the month of August, we begged him to give us a quick "bonus" demonstration.  We often hear stories from the chefs about certain traditional methods that are dying out with older chefs, and Strills had become a sort of legend for being the only person in the school who knew how to roll an omelet.  It didn't look that complicated - just a quick tapping on the skillet handle for a second - but then again, nothing does until I try it myself.

We went straight from the demo to our practicum to make the duck à l'orange.  It was one of the dishes on our final exam recipe list and had to be served with the gnocchi and cheese from the prior week's demonstration. Asian chef was with us for the last time before leaving for his career in a Paris restaurant (he mistakenly thought he was already done with us last week).  I hoped that I could do one dish for him that wasn't a compete mess, but while everything turned out just okay, I was stunningly late having underestimated the cooking time for everything, a bad omen for Friday's exam.

Tuesday

Tuesday contained only demonstrations in both pastry and cuisine.  Because neither one would be in practicums or exams, the dishes were complex and classy, particularly in cuisine - a "gala" menu.  Chef Vaca served up a rack of lamb with parsley crust, tiny carrots, turnips (dyed red with currants), stuffed tomatoes, and gratin potatoes.  For dessert he made baked Alaska, cutting off the lights at the end to pour flaming liquor over the top, generating squeals of delight from everyone, especially the Asians. Class ended with cheap champagne served in paper cups.  Gifting mine to a very happy classmate, I headed off to the pastry demo.

Rack of lamb; carrots & turnips; baked Alaska

Class started with the head of student services asking for a volunteer from my group (Group A) to switch pastry final exam times on Thursday from 8:30 to 3:30 in order to accommodate a student in Group C who had her OFII appointment.  After an awkward moment of silence and the threat of a "volunteer" being randomly selected, I raised my hand.  Instantly I regretted the decision - the later exam would cut into my cuisine final exam studies and I'd be working with a group with whom I was not familiar.  While you can't talk to or help classmates during the exam, you can watch what other people are doing (at least in pastry where 50% of the group would be doing the same recipe).  Our group had some of the better students, something that helps to pull up the "strugglers."

Chef Cotte proceeded to make a chocolate bergamot mousse cake with orange crisp.  The cake had about 5 principal components - the sponge "biscuit," chocolate sabayon, bergamot mousse, chocolate ganache, and orange crisp - all delicious and delightful, although I began to get lost in the directions and eventually gave up taking notes.  About half of the class was sleeping by this point and I was struggling a bit as well, but finally our last demo was over (again punctuated with champagne) and I headed home to hit the (recipe) books.

Chocolate bergamot mousse cakes with orange crisp

Wednesday

How to study for a practical exam was still somewhat of a mystery to me.  We had a list of ten possible cuisine and pastry recipes from prior practicals that we could be doing in the exam, and on the exam day we would draw one of the recipes with only the ingredients and measurements, but no instructions.  We had 2-1/2 hours to complete each exam, and for every minute over that time we would lose five points (out of a possible 100) from our grade.  For pastry we would also have to make a sweet short pastry dough and line a 20 cm ring mold with it, and in cuisine we would be poaching one egg and hard-boiling and peeling another one as the technical part of the exam.

Almost every day for over a week I had been eating poached and hard-boiled eggs for breakfast and on Wednesday I successfully lined the ring mold, but practicing all twenty recipes from home was impossible - I have no oven and only a two-top burner, and my counter space is just big enough to fit a large dinner plate. While it's true that I probably could have "borrowed" a classmate's kitchen, the cost of doing these dishes just for practice would be phenomenal (although several students did just that).  Instead I went with the "think" system - imagining myself making the food (fans of The Music Man will understand) - and typed out all of the steps into a Word document.

It was a beautiful and cool day in Paris and I thought of a couple new items that might come in handy for exams, but primarily I needed an elbow spatula because someone had stolen mine last week.  I took a break and walked to Dehillerin, thinking that the exercise would do some good. Then I walked really quickly because halfway there I remembered that they closed between 12:30 to 3:00.  I forgot my student badge that would secure a 10% discount, but the owner remembered me from a little over a week ago ("You're coming every day now?")  and he was in a hurry to get rid of me because I arrived at 12:20.  From there I visited Tati and finally bought a blanket - temperatures were already dipping down to 48 degrees at night.

Too pretty a day to stay indoors

Thursday

Because I spent most of my time on Wednesday studying for pastry, I was determined to concentrate on cuisine even though the pastry exam was at 3:30.  My resolve quickly dissolved as the exam time grew closer, though, and soon I was going through the recipes one last time.  M.J., who was in my original group (A) and already took the exam that morning, texted to say that half the group made Saint-Honoré and the other half made apple turnovers and palms with Chef Tranchant.  When I arrived at school, Nancy (one of the Americans in Group B) was just leaving her exam and said that they made the Dacquoise and Éclairs, also with Tranchant.

Fear gripped me - six recipes remained and the dreaded Moka (the one that I threw down the stairs) was among them.  But Chef Tranchant was my favorite pastry chef to work with - he at least had a calming presence as opposed to Cotte who yelled a lot or Olivier who was always telling us that we would have failed "if this were the final exam."  Outside the doors of the kitchen I joined Group C as the only non-Chinese student.  Olivier, not Tranchant, emerged and my heart sank a little more.  He had fourteen chips in an envelope, seven yellow and seven green.  Students who drew a green chip would be doing Mogador (the chocolate raspberry mousse cake), and the yellow chips would get Moka.  I reached in and drew out... a green chip.  A huge wave of relief swept over me.

Things started smoothly - I was well ahead of the six other students working on the Mogador and the first person to put my cake in the oven.  When it came time to do the mousse, though, I had a brain freeze.  I knew that I needed to whisk hot syrup into my egg yolks, whip some cream, and melt some chocolate, but couldn't remember the method for combining these three elements and nobody else had even started her mousse.  I decided to go with mixing the yolks into the cream and then mixing all of that into the chocolate, but the chocolate began clumping, making the mousse look more like cookies-and-cream than a smooth chocolate.  From my peripheral vision I could see Olivier staring at my mixing bowl with disapproval.

Having done all that I could do and not wanting to lose more time, I spread the speckled mousse on my cake and stuck it in the freezer, tossing the leftover mousse in the garbage.  Cleaning off my utensils I sliced my thumb with the cursed serrated knife, my first injury ever in pastry class.  Chef bandaged it up and I commenced with my sweet short pastry.

The dough came together well and I successfully lined the mold, but as I started on my weakest skill - crimping the edge - under the chef's ever watchful eye (I had the disadvantage of being stationed at the end of the counter right next to where he was observing), he suddenly called for the entire class to stop what they were doing and join us at the end of the counter.  In what must have been an unprecedented move - chefs aren't technically supposed to give help or instructions during exams - chef pressed out my sad pastry rim and demonstrated proper crimping to the whole class, then handed it back to me with a smirk and a side-eye.  I finished the rim, thinking that I probably need to consider reading glasses to go with my contacts.

I was still well within the time limits and ready to finish my cake when I noticed the other Mogador students filling pastry bags with chocolate mousse.  That's when I remembered that we were supposed to reserve some for decorating the finished cake.  Oops.  For the briefest moment when chef wasn't looking I considered trying to retrieve the mousse from the garbage, then I thought that maybe I could borrow some extra mousse from another student, but that might be considered cheating.  Instead I simply spread the raspberry jam over the top and placed it and my pastry mold on the presentation rack saying, "Chef, I'm ready." He looked at my cake and raised an eyebrow as if to say, "Are you sure?" but I shrugged and said, "I threw away the mousse."  He shrugged back, punched something on his tablet, and said, "You passed.  You can go."  Two firsts then occurred: I was the first person to leave the kitchen and I felt a special warmth for Chef Olivier.  A stab of pity went through me as I passed the frantic Moka students on my way out the door.

Back at the studio I recommenced the "think" system with my cuisine recipes.  The exam was scheduled for 8:30 AM and fearing that I would sleep through my alarm for the first time, I set three of them at five-minute intervals.  Sleep didn't come easily - I laid in bed rehashing in my mind cooking times and oven temperatures mostly.

Friday

The first alarm was enough to get me out of bed.  By 8:10 AM I was in my uniform and waiting by the classroom door, reviewing the recipe notes one last time.  Unlike in pastry, every cuisine student would be doing a different recipe than the other students, drawing them in a lottery fashion as we entered the room.  Although I didn't particularly want any of the recipes, I really didn't want the roast duckling or either of the two fish recipes.  The duck was a pain to clean and I am still terrible at filleting fish.  My first pull was beef stroganoff, the one demonstration and practical that I had missed for the OFII appointment, but thankfully the student services lady in charge of the "lottery" remembered my dilemma and allowed me to draw another one - sea bream fillets with fennel and a fish stock sauce.

Although I was disappointed, I breathed a little prayer of thanks that I had purchased a fish scaler and fish bone tweezers only a few days earlier, because it was the one fish that was served in the skin and that needed the pin bones removed.  When I was finally ready to fillet the fish I couldn't find the fillet knife that I had set on the counter.  Seeing one on my far left next to the girl working beside me, I picked it up and said, "This is my knife, correct?" She replied, "No, it's mine," and took it from me, setting it back on the counter.  Confused and starting to panic, I noticed the faint trace of white paint on the handle where I had once attempted to label it before it washed off.  Under less strenuous circumstances I would have been more diplomatic, but I grabbed the knife saying, "No, it's mine!  You're not even working on a fish!" (she was, in fact, trussing a chicken).  I lost about a 40 minutes just on the fish preparation - about 20 minutes too many.

The advantage to cuisine is that it doesn't need as much precision as pastry - measurements are generally subjective as is the order in which one does the various steps.  The disadvantage is that every recipe has multiple steps (e.g., clean the fish, fillet it, rinse the bones, chop and sweat the vegetables, sweat the fish, make the stock, julienne the fennel, cook the fennel, peel, seed, dice, and cook the tomatoes, chop the herbs, make the sauce), and order does make a difference in a time crunch.  Throw in the preparation of the two eggs on top of everything and my old brain starts to melt.  Although I didn't have lulls in time in which I had nothing to do, I knew that I was behind, especially when the chefs started yelling the time and I could see other students preparing their platters.  Some students had already left and the judges, made up of three chefs who do not teach at the school, were gathering in the room.

I began throwing everything together, noticing that my fish was overcooked, my chopped dill was still in the bowl and not mixed in with the fennel, and my sauce had become too runny (it was just the right consistency for once until I remembered to add the Pastis right at the end).  Because the fennel was already sandwiched between the fish fillets, I discreetly lifted the "lids" and sprinkled the dill on top of the fennel, trying to mix it in with my finger.  Even with my platter finished, the clock didn't stop until my workstation was cleared away and cleaned.  I knew that I was already late although I didn't notice the exact time that we started, but not wanting to waste more time I threw all of my dirty utensils into my knife kit and mesh bag, wiped down the oven and counter, and ran out, the second-to-last student to leave.  Only later did it strike me that I had left my recipe and magnet still stuck to the workstation and that I had forgotten to turn off the oven and possibly all four burners.

Basic cuisine and pastry were officially over and we had to empty our lockers.  Hauling back to the studio my knife kit, mesh bag, dirty uniform bag, and shoes, I threw my jacket over the top of my purse, too sweaty to put it on even though the air was still quite cool.  A few hours later after I had washed all of uniforms and dirty utensils and began to organize everything, the thought struck me that I didn't remember putting away my jacket when I got home.  Much to my dismay I realized that it had escaped from me somewhere between the school and the studio.  A quick search of the apartment stairs, courtyard, and down to the end of the block turned up nothing.

Some of the pastry students had planned a little get-together at 8:00 PM down by the Seine because a few of them would not be returning next semester for Intermediate.  The last thing that I felt like doing was making myself presentable and leaving the apartment again, but I agreed to make a cameo appearance just to say my good-byes.  I arrived fashionably late by American standards - 8:17 - and nobody was there.  Worried that I had the wrong place, I texted one of the girls, the organizer, at 8:20 asking if she was already there and she replied, "On my way."

After a few more minutes, I walked up on the beautiful Alexendre III  bridge to enjoy the view.  Much to my surprise and joy, a double rainbow that hadn't been visible from the lower level was painted across the sky.  Paris often gets rain even when it's sunny, and I will search the skies for a rainbow during these times but the buildings are too tall and close together to see anything.  The large, open area of grass-lined walkways leading to the bridge made a perfect location, though. Soon small drops of rain began to fall and the wind picked up.  I had on long sleeves but temperatures were in the low 60's and my jacket was long gone so I finally decided to call it a day with or without the final farewells.

Double rainbow atop Air France

The coming few days are something that I have looked forward to since before I even arrived in Paris - my friend is coming to visit me!  For all of my Paris trash-talk, I'm greatly anticipating introducing this beautiful and unique city to someone for the first time in addition to finally doing the "touristy things" - going inside the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, visiting a museum or two, braving restaurants, and maybe hitting a few cities on the outskirts of Paris.  Whatever we decide to do, though, just catching up with her should be the highlight of the week.