Basic Week Six

This week was the fullest one by far as class schedules go, so I'll just dive right into it:

Monday

It felt a bit like a holiday with only one class at 3:30 in the afternoon.  We rounded out last week's lessons on forcemeat by making stuffed chicken breasts au jus with turned mushrooms.  Stuffing chicken with chicken feels a bit presumptuous, but after pureeing the latter chicken with eggs and cream it created quite the tasty concoction.  Mushroom turning was disastrous (apparently mastering the technique requires more than watching a YouTube video or observing Asian chef), my chicken was slightly under-cooked, and, as usual, my sauce needed more reduction.

Tuesday

The morning began with Chef Pascal whipping up several types of tartelettes, little pies that can be filled with all sorts of goodness from fruits to creams to chocolate and everything in between.  Lemon was my favorite, tasting almost like a lemon meringue pie, but I couldn't complain about the other varieties.

Lemon, orange, apricot, chocolate,
almond cream, and pear tartelettes

After a brief break we went straight to our cuisine demonstration on rabbits and led by Chef Lesourd.  Our expressions must have revealed the slight horror that accompanies cutting up rabbits, particularly when the heads are still on (rabbit meat must be sold with the head to verify that it is indeed a rabbit as opposed to, say, a cat).  The fact that they were already skinned with the ears chopped off took away from the cuteness factor, but they had incredibly large, terrifying eyes.

Lesourd took a moment to explain that as heads of the food chain (as he put it), we shouldn't shy away from any meat.  Some animals are raised solely for consumption and would not have existed otherwise.  Rabbit farms provide a way of living for a lot of people, and even the controversial method of making foie gras keeps an entire village in business.  His speech didn't make the prospect of cutting up a rabbit any more appealing, but at least it removed some of the guilt factor.  For kicks he threw in a few flavored custards that, sadly, we ran out of time to sample.

Rabbit with potatoes and mustard sauce, mixed
vegetables, and custard with Lesourd's "personal touch"

The strangest element of the demonstration was the translator.  He was the only male one that we had ever had, and he hailed from Great Britain.  He said "wabbit" instead of "rabbit" all during class.  At first I felt sorry for him, thinking that it was a speech impediment until I noticed that he didn't have trouble with any other "r" words; after that it was just annoying.  He also seemed to have some form of Tourettes that caused him to shout out quotes from movies in really bad impersonations.

Our cuisine practicum immediately followed the demonstration, and Chef Lesourd was in charge of our group.  Cutting the rabbit was surprisingly simple as if its body were made for meat cuts, but somewhere along the way I still fell behind everyone but one other girl.  Then I proceeded to make a near-fatal error.

The class shared one blender that chef wanted us to use for finishing the sauce, so when the other six students ahead of me finished with it I began to move my ingredients - the reduced rabbit stock, mustard, and whipped cream - toward the blender.  Forgetting something, I left the station for a minute and then returned and dumped everything into the canister.  The eighth student suddenly popped up by my side asking, "What are you doing?!?"  When I had turned away she had poured her rabbit stock into the blender before going to get her other ingredients, but because the canister was already dirty from previous uses, I never even noticed that it wasn't empty.

For a brief moment we just stared at each other, dumbfounded, before I began profusely to apologize.  She tried to be cool about it although I could sense her irritation, and I couldn't blame her.  Finally I told her just to dump the rest of her ingredients in with mine.  The final result was far too runny; whether my stock or her stock was the culprit hardly mattered.  Chef had warned us against reducing the sauce after it was mixed because mustard shouldn't be boiled, but we had no other choice.

I split the sauce into multiple pots to speed up the reduction because now we were really far behind, and when one of them began to boil she took it to her own stove to complete.  Chef reprimanded us for boiling the mustard as he walked by our stoves and pointed out the time again saying, "You're behind!  Your plate had better be very, very good!"

Finally I got the meal plated, centering the prettiest cut of rabbit in a neat circle of sautéed potatoes and spooning the sauce around it.  Lesourd tested the potatoes and said that they were good, then said that the rabbit was good, and even the rabbit gizzards skewered on a rosemary twig that I remembered to cook at the last second were done well.  Finally he took a spoon and tested the sauce directly from the pot.  He said, "Did you taste your sauce?"  I thought I had, so I feebly replied, "Yes?" and he said, "And what did you think?"  I took my spoon and took another taste before responding, "Not bad... Too salty?"

Chef slapped me on the shoulder and said, "No, it's very good!"  Then he announced to the class, "THIS is what the sauce should taste like!  Come try it so that you will know next time," and the whole class filed by my station to taste my sauce.  He praised the other girl's sauce as well so that in the end her annoyance with me was replaced with a high-five and "Way to go!  We did it!"

Not to toot my own horn because it was all completely a fluke or a miracle, but Chef said that you can know a great sauce when you see the customer using his bread to mop up the rest.  I have been buying baguettes to eat with the leftover rabbit solely for that purpose (eating sauce with a spoon or licking the plate feels inappropriate).

Backing up a little, one sad note to the week occurred at the start of our cuisine demonstration.  A Student Services representative interrupted the class to notify us that one of the demonstration assistants, a Chinese girl who just graduated last semester, was killed on Wednesday when a Metro train hit her after she slipped and fell onto the tracks.  I didn't know the girl personally and had seen her only in two or three demos, but the news shook up everyone in the room.

For the rest of the week I thought about that girl - about how she, like most students, probably had big plans for her future with a prestigious diploma fresh in hand.  As I age I become more aware of my own mortality, far more when I was in my teens and twenties, and yet I still fall into the trap of assuming that I have at least x amount of time to live.

Yes, I should still work towards future goals, but how much more should I work towards making each present moment count towards eternity?  Martin Luther said, "Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree," but he also stated that,"There are two days in my calendar: This day and that Day," the latter referring to the day that we will all stand before God.

Wednesday

It was the first 12-hour class day for the Grand Diplome students - two three-hour demonstrations sandwiched between two three-hour practicums.  Our second such day would occur on Friday.  We remind ourselves often that if we were working in a restaurant we would expect just as many hours and much harder work, although I'm not sure that it makes us feel any better.

Chef Tranchant was waiting for us bright and early in the morning to begin our tartelettes.  We were making only two types, the orange and chocolate ganache, and we were to do the latter recipe in pairs of two.  It was the first "team effort" recipe, and I was happy to end up with M.J., a woman from New York who is close to my age and who works at about my same level and pace, if you know what I mean.

Although I had rolled out my dough too thickly and broke one of my shells, the tartelettes turned out quite tasty and M.J. and I worked well together.  I did learn that if you ever have to flamber (torch) anything, such as the top of an orange tartelette in order to caramelize the sugar, you shouldn't do it on top of parchment paper.  Fortunately I managed to snuff out the flames and dispose of the paper while the chef's back was turned and before any smoke alarms went off.

Five of my tartelettes (fortunately the presentation
board didn't hold room for #6).

A pastry theory class followed the practicum at 12:30, and Chef Pascal taught us everything that we could possibly ever hope or want to know about flour and yeast.  He mercifully finished in 90 minutes, leaving enough time before our next class for some people to run out and grab a late lunch.  I decided that it wasn't worth the effort to change out of my uniform and instead read a Kindle book until our 3:30 class.  Have I mentioned my love for modern technology - how I can at any given time pull my phone out of my pocket and have a library book right at my fingertips?

Chef Lesourd walked the cuisine students through fish poaching, hollandaise sauce, and "cocquette" turned vegetables.  "Fish" and "turning" are two words that now make me cringe, and I'm coming to the point where I almost hate fish.  Aside from an unsatisfying flavor, the splinter-like bones that I am never able to remove entirely are quite upsetting.  I have flashbacks to my life in Cyprus when Loula, my landlady/housemate, would boil fish at least once a week.  The effort to eat an entire fish involved pulverizing each bite inside of my mouth with my tongue for several minutes before swallowing to ensure that I wouldn't catch a splinter in my throat.  Some folks say that I tend to eat quickly (or everyone else just eats really slowly), so fish night was particularly maddening.

Hake steak with Hollandaise sauce
and turned vegetables; grilled trout

Filipino chef led our practicum after the demo and my food was just okay.  I tried some of it myself and agreed, ruefully pulling a bone from my mouth.  Batter-dipped deep-fried fish, though - now THAT is something that I could get excited about.

Thursday

After the prior full day, Thursday was quite relaxed with only a demonstration in the morning.  Chef Pascal made caramelized pear and almond tarts with a meringue top, and he used the rest of of the dough to make little "boats" filled with caramel and almonds.

Pear tart; Caramel-almond boats

Although the latter dessert looked pretty nice, the thought struck me that I never see pecans in French pastries - almonds are almost always the go-to nut.  Finally I decided to ask chef the reason and he explained that it's simply a matter of cost - pecans are considered a "high" nut and would be used only in fancy or expensive pastries.  Right then and there I knew why I could never live in France permanently: How could I even consider moving away from my hometown where pecans are so abundant that they lie rotting in the streets?  What would life be without pecan pie, butter pecan ice cream, pecan pancakes, pecan pralines...

The only event scheduled for the afternoon was a mid-term update of our grades for Basic Patisserie.  Two of the groups were in this time slot for a total of 28 students, and we each waited in the winter garden as one student at a time was summoned upstairs to meet with Chef Pascal and a translator to go over the results.  The names were in alphabetical order by first names which meant that most of the Asians were last because their names tend to start with either X, Y, or Z.  K got me fourth place in line.  I wasn't exactly nervous, although the four flights of stairs to the unairconditioned meeting room left me breathless and sweaty.

Pascal slipped the paper in front of me showing that I had a 3.359 out of 5 possible points.  2.5 is passing, so I might have been a little less deflated if the class average weren't 3.459.  Below average... What a daunting thought.  The next paper showed the evaluation grade for each practicum, and as I suspected, the infamous Moka was my downfall (no pun intended), with a grade of only 2 but a weight above several other practicums. In an effort to make me feel better, chef said that we had an exceptional group because the other class averages were around 3.1.  In other words, I would be at the top of the class in the more deplorable groups.  He threw in one last kind word, though, saying that for all of the classes in which he had worked with me, he thought that I was doing a very good job.  Pascal has really grown on me.

That afternoon I visited Bouygues, the telecom store from which I bought my six-month prepaid phone card, to find out why my card had expired after only one month.  My natural guilt complex made me fairly certain that I had done something wrong and that I would have to throw out another large sum of money to fix it.  The first guy discussed it with another guy who discussed it with some woman who appeared to be their manager.  They finally all agreed that I ran out of minutes.

"No," I explained again in my best French, "I received a message saying that my account would expire on the 22nd.  I had €38 left on my account until the 23rd, and then it dropped to €0."

Girl: "Yes, if you used all of your minutes then it would expire."  [She walks away.]

Me to guy still standing there: "But I didn't use them. It expired first; then my balance dropped to zero" [showing him my text message warning stating the expiration date].

Guy: "Did you use the rest of your minutes?  That would make it expire."

Me:  "No.  I had a €38 balance remaining until 11:59 PM on the 22nd.  At 12:00 AM on the 23rd I had €0.  I didn't use all €38 in that time."

Just at the point where I was fairly certain that I had lost the battle, they suddenly began communicating with me in English, and finally the guy got on the phone with their customer service.  I sat reading my Kindle book for half an hour while he listened to hold music.  Finally, a voice came on the other line, they exchanged a few words, and just like that my minutes returned.  Being good French people they never actually apologized or stated that it was their error, but I was so happy that I thanked them profusely (and probably apologized to them).

Upon returning to my apartment and looking up my account online, I saw that the expiration date had been pushed to... October 21, only four months from the time that I purchased the card rather than six months, but I figured that one battle per day was all that I could handle for now (plus there's a good possibility that I'll use up my minutes before then anyhow).

Friday

This 12-hour class day consisted of two practicums sandwiched between two demonstrations.  The first demonstration was a sort of continuation of the theme from Tuesday, with Chef Bogen showing us three new fish preparations.  Like one of our earliest practicums, we would be filleting a flat fish in addition to turning more potatoes.  Hooray.

Brill fillet with turned potatoes and lemon sauce; salmon; sole

After a brief lunch break we headed into our pastry practicum with Chef Olivier (formerly referred to as Chef Mahut) to make the caramelized pear tarts.  Except for in the first couple of practicums where chefs were trying to learn our names, we don't have assigned stations in the kitchen.  After the first few classes students tend to pick out their permanent spots, though, kind of like a church pew, so you can imagine the tension when the Ukrainian girl found an Asian girl in "her spot" across from me that afternoon.

My guess is that after the Asian girl (AG) got her evaluation grade, she thought that a more ideal location in the kitchen might help improve her performance.  The Ukrainian girl (UG) said, "This is my spot!" to which AG replied, "I here now."  Nonplussed, UG responded with, "But I have been here all the time! After five week you move into my spot?" AG, without breaking stride in her preparation, just repeated, "I here now."  UG stood blinking at her for a moment before taking up the now vacant location next to me.

Despite the turf wars, the class went well and Olivier praised us for good organization and teamwork (apparently he missed the little quibble at the beginning).  Because we finished relatively early, he gathered us around to talk about the final exam.  We'll all have to make the same pastry tart recipe, and in addition to that we will be drawing one of ten possible recipes from previous practicums right before the exam.  It will consist only of the ingredients, so we must pull the method of preparation from our memory.  The more worrisome part is finishing in under 2.5 hours - every minute over the time limit is a two-point deduction (the final is 100 points).

Lots o' tarts

We jumped straight from the pastry practicum to the cuisine practicum with a visiting chef who works at Le Cordon Bleu in Istanbul.  Many of the chefs are taking a three to four-week vacation in August with the rest of Paris, meaning that we will be seeing some new faces around the school.  This chef was on the slightly scary side, but I kind of liked him. He would roll his eyes and yell a lot, and he chewed up and spit out one of the younger boys who has trouble controlling his tongue and attitude, but he was very blunt in a helpful sort of way.

The miracle in this class occurred when I was one of the first people to finish my plate, but instead of feeling excited I kept wondering what important thing I had forgotten.  It apparently came as a shock to other students as well.  Luis, who usually finishes first or second, thought I was just getting a plate out and offered to help.  I said, "No thanks, I already presented." "You're done?" "Yes." "You already showed the chef?" "Yes."  "You mean you presented?" "YES!"

As it turns out, I remembered everything; however, my fish filleting was terrible, which I already knew right from the start when chef pointed it out.  The fillets turned out too tiny and ended up over-baking.  The sauce at least was good, but that only prompted a "Too bad" from the chef.

Turkish chef also pulled us up after class to talk about the cuisine final exam.  Like the pastry final, each student will pull one of ten recipes from a hat to prepare within 2.5 hours.  One interesting difference is that we can't present our plate any more than five minutes early - even if we were to finish in two hours we would have to wait 25 minutes to present, which could cause problems in keeping the food warm.  We aren't allowed to talk to other students during the exam and we can't ask the supervising chef any questions, nor can we bring any notes with us.  To say that I'm a little more concerned about this exam than the pastry one would be an understatement.

The day ended in a cuisine demonstration with Chef Vaca. It started late because of some confusion over which floor we were supposed to be on, and Vaca, who's usually pretty good-natured, was anything but happy.  The translator even came out into the hallway before letting us enter the class to say that we all needed to enter quietly and be on our best behavior.  "It's for your own good," she warned.  The mood lightened up considerably as class got underway, though, and we were treated to some of the tastiest food yet in a cuisine demonstration.  

Braised veal with croutons and a fried egg;
Jumbo fried shrimp; Cherry cake

By the time that I arrived back at the apartment it was almost 10:00 PM.  Even though my next class wasn't until 12:30 on Saturday, I felt so tired that I set my alarm for 10:00 AM as a precaution and crashed into bed after a quick shower.

Saturday

About 15 minutes before my alarm went off I woke up after having slept almost ten hours.  It felt so good.  Back at the school we made jumbo fried shrimp, tartar sauce from homemade mayonnaise, and egg soufflé from a demonstration several weeks ago.  This practicum was unusually relaxed and even enjoyable, probably because both recipes were fairly simple and we had the little Korean lady as our chef.  By the end of class we were just standing around waiting for our soufflés to finish baking as we chatted about different cuisines from our home countries. The Argentinian and Spaniard were expounding the virtues of chipotle peppers which our chef had never heard of.  As if the scarcity of pecans weren't bad enough, the French don't understand chipotle??

Late in the afternoon I met up with Samia, a French lady from my church who lives in Saint-Denis, after some confusion over metro stops due to manifestations (unlawful protests) shutting several down.  Heavily armed policeman were at ever station and lining the streets, but the Parisians hardly gave them a second glance. She gave me a brief little Paris tour to such places as the Église St Paul and a lot of other spots that I was too tired to remember before we stopped for banana and Nutella crepes.  Although Samia knows some English, she stuck to French in an effort to help me learn it better.  I appreciated the effort, although three hours of listening to and talking in French can be mentally exhausting.

St Paul

Sunday

After church I came home and unwittingly took a long nap, a more and more common occurrence these days whenever I sit down.  It was, indeed, a day of rest.

I'll end this post by sharing something that struck a chord with me this past week.  Often I've heard people say that they don't enjoy reading through the bible or that they don't see the value in it when compared to more selective reading, with I and II Chronicles being two books that they most often site as less important because of the genealogies.  But I think that these people are missing some important nuggets of learning hidden in those passages.

Take, for example, something I read in II Chronicles 16 a few days ago.  The story is about a great and godly king in Judah, Asa, who was more zealous for the Lord than many of his forefathers, and the Lord rewarded him richly for his faith.  In his later years, however, he forgot the Lord's past faithfulness and deliverance, and his decision to rely on his own wisdom and the king of Syria rather than on the Lord to deliver him from a difficult situation was his downfall. When a prophet points out his error, Asa just gets angry and locks him in prison.  Finally, he develops a disease in his feet, but "even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from physicians."

This passage highlighted again for me the the importance of constantly reminding myself of God's faithfulness by reflecting on His word and on my own past experiences.  The danger of forgetting happens when we become complacent.  It's often gradual, like I'll be on a spiritual "high" for a while, then it gradually fades, and suddenly I look back with some shock and pinpoint dozens of situations where I cut the Lord out entirely from my decisions.

So going forward this week, I want to remember the Lord's faithfulness.  I don't want to bring in the Lord as an afterthought when I've exhausted all other efforts first.  I don't want to get stressed or anxious over any situation, regardless of the size.  I want every event in my life to be preceded by seeking the Lord's face first so that in every outcome I can recognize His hand.

Basic Week FIve

This week I thought that I could start off by sharing some useful words/phrases for anyone considering French culinary school:

• "Terroriste": Same meaning as the English word "terrorist" but usually used as a lighthearted insult.  For example, at the end of a chaotic practicum, the chef will usually dismiss us with, "Go home, terroristes!" and we all laugh.
• "Tok, tok, tok": I can't think of a good English equivalent and I'm not even sure if it's spelled correctly, but the French use "tok" to accompany quick, multi-step actions (but usually done in sets of three).  For example, when showing how to frost the sides of a cake, the act of wiping the frosting off of the spatula onto a cake gets one "tok," the act of sliding the spatula down to smooth the frosting gets a second "tok," and the act of wiping the spatula off on the rim of a bowl gets a third "tok."
• "Oui, Chef": The equivalent "Yes, Chef," probably also applies in any English-speaking culinary school or fine restaurant, but if your chef ever gives an order or offers advice or says your name or asks a yes/no question, "Oui, Chef" is the only appropriate response.  "Yes," "Okay," "Sorry," or simply no response at all is unacceptable.  Even "No, Chef," should be avoided, because there's a good chance that you need to make happen whatever is not happening.  For example, if chef asks, "Are your refrigerators empty?" you respond with "Oui, Chef!" as you immediately empty out your refrigerator.
• "Vite!": "Hurry up!"  Yeah, I hear that... a lot.

It's hard to believe that I'm halfway through my semester in Basic Cuisine and Patisserie - I have only four full weeks of classes remaining followed by a partial week of classes and exams, and then I receive my first certificate (assuming that I pass).

Days are often so full of activity that I will find myself in a 6:30 PM pastry practicum recalling some event from an 8:30 AM cuisine practicum but thinking that it happened a day or two prior rather than just that morning, and yet the weeks are flying by.  Compare this phenomenon to my days in an office job where I would be asking, "Is it Friday yet?" by Tuesday afternoon.  I take this flight of time as a good sign - not that I want time to pass by more quickly, but that I'm no longer staring at the clock or counting down the hours and days until the weekend or my next vacation.

Monday

Bastille Day!  All of Paris was joyously celebrating as crowds clamored to reserve the best seats for fireworks, with many people arriving seven or more hours in advance.  It was also the first holiday of the semester at Le Cordon Bleu and in true old fuddy-duddy fashion, I used my new-found freedom to stay in the studio all day.  I haven't been interested in firework shows for the last few years and I haven't been interested in massive crowds... ever.  My 8:30 AM class on Tuesday was also a good motivation not to stay up all night.

My holiday reclusiveness didn't save me from trouble, though, because a very loud and large party lasted in the courtyard below my building from about 7:00 PM until 2:00 AM.  Even with my windows closed I could make out the words to every song, and the heavy bass beat had every wall and pane of glass vibrating.  At 11:00 PM until midnight when the fireworks began, I was fairly certain that my building was being carpet-bombed, but all that I could see in the patch of sky visible from my terrace were flashes of light similar to heat lightning.  But sleep did finally come.

Tuesday

Each week the school assigns two students from each practical class to be the assistants.  The assistants' responsibilities are to arrive in class twenty minutes early, to get the food supplies from the basement kitchen, and (in the case of cuisine) to make sure that each student's work area is set up with a cutting board and any other items that might be needed but that aren't readily accessible in the classroom.  This week was my first turn as an assistant in our cuisine group and I was a little terrified - as if I don't risk enough deductions in each practicum evaluation, poor preparation can count against the assistants.

Neither I nor the other assistant knew how to work the dumb waiter to get the food from the basement kitchen to the classroom, so we fell behind on the setup and consequently on our practicum.  As soon as we finished I set to work on trussing a chicken, and in my hurry I poked a hole in my left palm with the chef's knife.  Washing my hand and grabbing a band-aid but ignoring the pesky rubber glove, I continued working, immediately poking a hole in my left index finger with the trussing needle.  Two band-aids and now a rubber glove later, I moved on to turning the artichoke which I had practiced at home on Saturday.  I immediately tore up the knuckles on my right hand with the sharp leaves but decided to hide the bleeding from the chef with a paper towel (chefs frown on bleeding on food).

Although I was the last person to finish (again) after my series of unfortunate events, Asian chef said that my final product - roasted chicken au jus and turned artichokes with garden-style vegetables - was good (the veggies were a a little too crisp for his liking but for once I got the quantity of seasoning correct).

That afternoon I returned to the school for a demonstration on meringues led by Chef Tranchant.  Meringues are generally just a mixture of egg whites and sugar, but they are quite a popular item in French patisseries.  We learned that there are three types - French, Swiss, and Italian - differing primarily by the temperature of the sugar or eggs when whisking.  They also serve as a base for many other pastries, often used in cake batters (e.g., German chocolate cake) and buttercream frosting.

Variations of meringues and a Dacquoise cake

We had our pastry practicum immediately following the demonstration, where we learned that meringues also require whisking - lots and lots of whisking.  Even though I had in the past made meringues at home using an electric hand or stand mixer, I had no idea how hard it would be without those heaven-sent inventions.  I at least felt good about my time and organization, and I ended up finishing the cake batter quickly.

Chef Pascal (formerly Mean Chef) was feeling incredibly generous that evening.  He actually praised my cake batter beyond the standard "C'est bien," telling me that it was very nice with a good texture, and then he made some comment to the effect that I should be proud of myself (I think that's what he was trying to convey).  It was kind even though it had the undertone of a parent praising his idiot child for not screwing something up ("Kerry - You didn't stick any crayons up your nose today!  Good job!").

The buttercream frosting was also a success, although by now my whisking arm was shot and the heartier, younger students had pulled ahead, leaving me once more straggling in the rear.  My piping bag skills had improved even more and I was able to decorate the cake fairly quickly until it came time to make marzipan roses.  I cringe whenever the chefs introduce us to a new decorating technique, and combined with the wilting heat in the classroom my flower merited a "Go study some real roses" suggestion from the chef.

My Dacquoise (yes, the white thing is a rose)

Wednesday

Chef Caals started our morning with mustard-crusted pork tenderloins, grilled salmon, potatoes, and ice cream with chocolate sauce and Chantilly cream.  Although the cuisine courses are growing in intensity, I appreciate the fact that we're starting to do more well-balanced meals (of course ice cream is a part of a well-balanced diet).  The addition of side dishes to the leftovers that I bring home is particularly nice (we don't usually make the desserts in our actual cuisine practicum, but I think that I'm covered).

We had an hour lunch break before the cuisine practicum which allowed the other assistant and me plenty of time to prepare for class, and our newly acquired experience with the dumb waiter got us off to a much faster start.  It was our first practicum with this chef (I really need to start finding out their names), an older man who had little to say.  We were making only the grilled salmon, spinach, and potatoes, but we had two sauces to prepare as well - a lemon-butter sauce for the fish and a mornay sauce for the potatoes - and I was confusing the ingredients between the two as well as what went into the puréed potatoes.  Fortunately my error caused me only to double the eggs in the mornay, but as far as I could tell the chef didn't notice.

What he probably did notice, though, was that I was still cooking my potatoes long after most of the class had already puréed theirs.  In demonstration Chef Caals boiled the potatoes whole for 50 minutes, but apparently I was the only person in the class who didn't hear him tell us to cut up our potatoes in practicum for faster cooking.  Actually, I thought that he told us just the opposite because they would absorb too much water.  I had probably even written somewhere in my copious notes, "Do NOT cut up the potatoes."  So when Jade, the girl from the UK, walked by my stove and gasped ominously, "Oh, you didn't cut your potatoes!" only after they were almost finished cooking, the mystery of why I was behind this time became clear (and in case you're wondering why I didn't question the other eight students cutting up their potatoes, it's because I didn't actually witness it - as the assistant I was out of the room getting something that the chef requested).

To add to the confusion and frenetic chaos of the class, I was sweating profusely with all four of my stove-tops in action along with the grill for the salmon.  The weather had also taken a much warmer turn that day from the cooler, milder temperatures during the prior few weeks, and the air conditioning was quickly losing it's cooling abilities.  Profuse sweating makes me extremely agitated.

I managed to catch up to the slower two or three students in the class (there were enough things to keep me occupied while waiting for the potatoes to boil), and Chef of Few Words actually liked my salmon and slow-cooked potatoes with the over-eggy mornay sauce. My sautéed spinach was fine as well, but the lemon-butter sauce was, in his words, "terrible" - too heavy on the lemon and too light on the salt.  Most of the rest of the class received a similar critique, though, because we had simply used the amount of lemon juice for which the recipe called.  Therein lies the difference between cuisine and pastry - the latter is always precise while the former relies very little on measurement and very much on on the five senses (although I personally liked the lemon flavor on my fish).

At least it made for a good lunch!

Despite feeling like I had just been scalded by the steam from a train engine right before it ran over me, I was actually quite excited as I left the practicum at 3:30 PM.  Our next class wasn't until Friday morning, and I was mulling over ideas of what I would do with the first non-Bastille Day, non-Sunday day off in almost five weeks.  Then, as I passed by a demonstration room to return some items to the basement kitchen, Chef Pascal suddenly popped out of the doorway shouting my name.  I turned around, wondering if I had done something wrong, but he was smiling and waving and yelling something unintelligible (i.e., in French) and then asked, "Is better now?"  I'll never know what he was talking about, but I was happy to see that we were now "buddies" so I just smiled and waved back and replied, "Oui, Chef!  Merci!"

After chucking every part of my uniform from the socks up to my hat into the wash when I got home, I pulled up FaceTime to chat with my mom.  Much to my surprise and joy, my sweet little nephew Declan, who turned four that day, was at my parents' house with my niece Briannah.  Wishing him a happy birthday "face to face" and having a delightful conversation with the kids made me feel a bit like crying.  If my joy weren't full enough, my Aunt Mary arrived at the house with her two grandsons and two of my sister's boys who were visiting from Georgia.  It was only in the last couple of weeks that I figured out that I could still FaceTime with my iPhone as long as I had WiFi, and it was the first conversation with any family besides my parents in over six weeks.  Thank the Lord for modern technology!

That evening I began researching ideas for a day trip, even considering Disneyland Paris, when suddenly I remembered the one thing that my mom and I had talked about wanting to do for years: visit Claude Monet's home and gardens.  A quick search on Google maps showed me that it was only an hour away (for some reason I thought that it was much farther).  Even the discomfort of trying to drift off to sleep in a stuffy, hot room that night could do little to dampen my spirits.

Thursday

In order to reach Monet's house, my best option was to take the Metro to the Saint-Lazare train station in Paris, buy a ticket to Vernon, and take a bus from Vernon to Giverny.  On the bus to Giverny I noticed how charming the landscape was and decided that I would have to ditch the bus on the way back to Vernon and walk the 2.5 miles if I wanted to take in all of it.

The sun was in full force and the heat wave was on the rise, sitting at around 85 degrees by the time that I got into the hour-long line to the house with very little shade.  Tourists were everywhere like swarms of flies, but once I finally made it to the garden it hardly mattered. I had imagined something like the Biltmore House gardens with vast expanses of neatly arranged flowerbeds, but it was more like a very large yard with random scatterings of flower - dozens and dozens of every kind of flower imaginable in one location.  I rushed through it a bit, because it was lacking any shade and I had reached the "profusely sweating" stage.

Monet's Garden from an upstairs house window

Following the signs to the Lily Pond, though, I came upon what is the most breathtaking part of the estate.  Little bridges and walkways led around a narrow stream to a Japanese bridge facing a vast pond covered in pink and white-flowered lily pads and shaded by giant weeping willow trees.  Monet created a collection of around 250 paintings of this pond in his lifetime, and many other artists have also attempted to capture its beauty.  I felt a little nostalgic and teary-eyed wishing that my mom were standing next to me.  Such experiences are always better shared, particularly with someone who could appreciate it as much (if not more) than me.

Upon entering the pathway to the Lily Pond I had to laugh, though.  An American woman in front of me was exclaiming to her husband how they were standing on a famous bridge depicted in hundreds of paintings while he was snapping photos... except that it was only a little unassuming footbridge near the entrance before the pond actually became visible.  I'm sure that they eventually figured it out.

Lily Pond and THE famous bridge

More painting subjects 

Monet's house was, of course, crowded and hot, so I did a quick run-through, taking in the brightly-painted rooms and the bizarre wall-to-wall collections of Japanese (mostly Geisha girl) drawings.  From there I exited to the gift shop, grabbed up a few souvenirs and postcards, and headed to the Impressionism museum just a short distance down the road. I took my time wandering from room to room, enjoying the art and most importantly, the air conditioning. Only one of Monet's paintings is contained in this museum, but its lower level features a collection of paintings of his garden and lily pond as portrayed by other artists.

The time had come to begin my trek back towards Vernon.  From reading the website about Monet's house I knew that there was a pedestrian-friendly route back; I just hadn't bothered to find it.  My Garmin was set to pedestrian mode, though, and the journey started out okay.  I stopped occasionally to snap some photos of Monet's burial site as well as some charming little French homes and hotels along the way.  Soon, though, rue Claude Monet ended and I found myself on a highway of sorts - nothing resembling a pedestrian path - with my diabolical Garmin instructing me to continue walking two more miles. So I did.

The shoulder of the road that I was walking on was knee-high with weeds and bordered by acres of farmland, separated by a large ditch.  My one little bottle of water that I had been carrying all day was almost dry (I was desperately trying to conserve it like a person staggering across the desert with only one canteen) and I dropped my flimsy bag of souvenirs at one point, scattering postcards down the ditch incline.

My relief upon seeing some houses and gravelly walkways crop up on the other side of the road was lessened when one of the residents pulled up in front of his home and started asking me something that I couldn't quite understand, so I smiled and said, "Non."  His reply was something to the effect of, "But my house is right here," as he swept out his arm towards it in a welcoming gesture, which made me think that he was either inviting me inside or offering me water.  As tempted as I was to find out if it was the latter, self-preservation made me reply with, "I don't speak French."  He simply snapped his fingers in the universal "too bad" motion and went inside.

During this awkward conversation I noticed bicycles passing behind his house on some pathway through the trees, and a little farther up the road I finally found an entrance to this path - the non-auto road that I should have been walking.  I finished the journey back to Vernon, stopping at a little shop to get an ice cream cone and resisting the urge to rub it all over my face.  Proceeding to the station, I boarded the train and struggled to stay awake for the 45-minute ride to Paris.

Ancient bridge and house in Vernon

Unable to face another night of sleeping in the heat, I stopped off at Monoprix to buy a table fan for the studio which was about 85 degrees inside by the time that I arrived home.  Much to my chagrin, the fan was broken when I opened the box to assemble it and I spent another uncomfortable evening trying to make as little contact between my skin and the bed as possible, but my exhaustion eventually won out over the discomfort.

Friday

The day's forecast called for temperatures in the low- to mid-nineties, but we were at least spared any practicums - the day held only pastry and cuisine demonstrations.  Chef Pascal made the famous French Moka, a coffee-flavored cake that would again require a lot of hand-whipping for both the batter and the buttercream frosting in addition to some serious decorating skills, but it was not a complex cake.

Chef Pascal's Mokas - the man has skills

I used the four-hour break between the morning and afternoon demonstrations to exchange the fan.  Even more than then irritation of walking the big, bulky box the quarter-mile between my studio and Monoprix in the blazing heat and humidity was the fear that they wouldn't allow me to return or exchange it and I wouldn't have the ability to intelligently debate them en français.  Much to my surprise, the sales clerk was unusually nice about it and I soon had a new big, bulky box with a fan to lug back home.

That afternoon we had our first lesson on forcemeat stuffing.  Chef Poupard made some fabulous paupiettes (veal rolls stuffed with forcemeat) with baby onions and turned carrots, and he began a foie gras terrine (although after hearing the explanation of how foie gras is made, I think that I might now be morally opposed to it).  Chef Poupard is known as the "Map Chef" because he likes to talk about where all French food originated, often pulling out a map as a visual aid.

Paupiettes with glazed onions and turned carrots

Saturday

We had our first female chef in practicum Saturday morning - a Korean woman whose diminutive size and youthful appearance didn't make her any less tough than her male peers.  She was very helpful, though - I burned my finger badly on the oven and she made me stop to put cream on it after running it under cold water for two minutes, and when I returned to my station she was peeling all of my baby onions for me.  She did not, unfortunately, turn my carrots.  I'd like to blame my blistered middle finger for the woeful job that I did turning them, but the more likely explanation is that I had no idea what I was doing.  Rather than having the "barrel" shape when I finished, they kind of looked like I had just gnawed them down to size.  On my way home for my break before the 3:30 PM class, I stopped off at the epicerie and bought a lot of carrots in preparation for some weekend fun.

Good paupiettes, bad carrots

For the afternoon cuisine demonstration, Chef Bogen was finishing the foie gras terrine from Friday in addition to making forcemeat-stuffed chicken breasts and turned mushrooms.  My feelings for turned vegetables are at least shared - when chef mentioned the word "turned," a collective groan went up from the room.  So much work just for appearance...

Forcemeat stuffed chicken with turned mushrooms; Foie gras

Before class began, the translator made a PSA that all translators would be cracking down on talking in class from that point forward - the first person talking would be sent out of the room for five minutes, and anyone talking after that would be dismissed from the rest of the class period.  It seemed an effective warning at first, but the Brazilians were soon chatting away with no reprimand except from the group of girls who sit together up front and say, "Shh!" a lot.

A student from Jordan approached the translator and asked if he could keep his phone out during class to take any calls from his family due to the ongoing Middle East crisis.  The translator asked the chef who simply replied, "No," and then the chef and translator began a sort of debate.  Turning back to the student, the translator said, "Chef says he's sorry, but you need to put your phone away.  What you are doing here is more important."  Walking back to his seat, the student called out loudly over his shoulder, "Okay, but I don't agree with the chef!"  Oh, boy...

Chef Bogen launched into a speech about being adults and learning self-discipline and about how we need to focus on what we're studying - to concentrate on why we're at the school and not on things that we can't do anything about.  We received the "Oui, Chef" reminder again and a warning never, ever, under any circumstance, to contradict or talk back to a chef either at the school or in any future career.  Twenty minutes later he began our demonstration.  At first it sounded harsh, but he made sense to me even though I'm not sure that his lecture clicked in the minds of the younger students who needed to hear it the most.

We finished late and the Grand Diplome group rushed off to our pastry practicum to join the other students who had already started their Mokas.  I whipped up my cake batter rather quickly and started on my buttercream frosting.  Apart from the flavoring, it was identical to the frosting for the Dacquoise which I had managed quite well, but something went terribly wrong this evening.

Chef Mahut often insists on checking certain stages of our recipes before allowing us to proceed to the next step, and in this instance he wanted to check our frosting before we added the butter and then again before we frosted our cakes.  He gave me the go-ahead for the butter and I whisked my arm off until the frosting appeared to be a good consistency, but Mahut stopped me short of frosting the cake.  He worked with the frosting for a while, and when I asked what the problem was he said, "I don't know."  He handed it back to me and said to whisk it over an ice bath again.  By the time that he came back to my station, everyone else was halfway through icing their cakes and he allowed me to begin mine.  The frosting wouldn't firm up, though, making it impossible to smooth the surface.  By now students were starting their piping decorations, but chef stuck my cake in the freezer and told me to whisk my frosting again on an ice bath.

The end of class was fast approaching and chef was throwing out warnings about giving everyone who was late a zero.  I'm not sure if that included me, but I finally began my piping decorations with frosting that had the consistency of softened butter.  When it came time to have him evaluate my cake, Chef Stater of the Obvious simply said, "If this were the final exam, that frosting would have made you fail."  Good to know.

Boxing up my sad cake, I began my trudge down the stairs when my greasy-bottomed shoes slipped out from under me and I took the next four or five steps down on my rear while my cake box tumbled to the bottom, noisily bouncing across every step on the way.  Fortunately, about four students were behind me to witness the humiliation and offer up, "Are you okay?" as I brushed off my bruised tailbone and picked up the blasted Moka which at least had the grace to stay contained in the box through the entire ordeal.  To console myself I went home and had a 10:00 PM dinner consisting only of the rest of the Dacquoise cake and a big blob of Moka.

Before and after the fall

Sunday

A youth group from Friendship Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC visited the church that morning and their leader delivered the sermon in English with a French translator.  As the pastor stated, "We're getting all of the Carolinas here!" (Foreigners have trouble differentiating between North Carolina and South Carolina.  I try not to get offended.)

After church I came home and spent a good portion of my afternoon turning carrots and practicing paper cornets.  Though still not perfect, it began to feel at least a little more natural.  I wanted to turn some mushrooms as well, but of course no stores that sell mushrooms were open anywhere near me.  The weather had cooled considerably, though - into the low 70's - and I was able to unwind from a rather hectic week without even turning on my new fan.

Practice makes perfect... I hope.

I'm not going to lie - things will be heating up next week at school with 42 hours of classes and what I believe is a mid-semester advisory meeting, and I'm just a little concerned about my progress or lack thereof.  Sometimes I wish that I could have a one-on-one personal trainer who would just spend a few days intensely developing my weak areas, a sort chef version of Mr. Miyagi (and no, that would not be the equivalent of Arnold from Happy Days).  For now, though, I'm going to find some mushrooms.

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.