Bags and Vegetable Soup

Great news, my bags arrived!!!! I had a morning intro session where we got our binders full of recipes, went over the rules (again! we get it, be on time) and went through other housekeeping items. I ran home in between that and demo to see if my bags had come (I got the call last night); when I didn't see them in the atrium I went upstairs feeling very deflated. Once I arrived in the apartment VOILA les bagages! I took them right upstairs, ransacked them (hugged blanky) and ran off to second session...our first demo.

I got there a bit early to avoid the traffic in the locker room which proved to be inevitable. It is literally like oragami in there. Picture 100 ish women trying to get dressed, wrangle knife kits, binders, jackets, scarves, purses, uniforms etc in a teeny tiny little room. I banged my head on the top locker once, got in my uniform and went to sit in winter garden. After finding my seat in class (there is not ONE left handers desk...) Chef Strill came in to begin our demonstration. He showed us how to tie our neckties and then went in to vegetable soup. He was very jovial and friendly, but I have to say that I really didn't like our translator today- she kept messing up and would skip over a bunch of stuff. I'm lucky that I can understand the actual French, there were many people scratching their heads.

He began by doing his prep work. Putting a towel under his board, then explaining to us that we use 1 board for our practical. We must keep our areas clean at all times. He also told us how we're to NEVER (jamais) place vegetables on our board that have not been cleaned, or as he said "no earth on the board". We're to use a big steel tub to put all dirty veggies and peels, and we have a big bowl of water to wash them in. Now we get to work.

1. trim leeks, remove outer layer and take a paring knife to cut a + sign into the top, soak in water
2. peel potato, take out the eyes, soak in H2o
3. trim and soak carrots
4. trim, peel and soak radish
5. trim and soak celery (making sure to remove all the fibers)
6. trim and soak cabbage leaves
7. top and tail haricots verts, waste NOTHING
8. remove peas from pods

Now we clean and chop the veggies into a paysanne cut (very small, thin triangles). Once the vegetables are chopped, we use a plastic scraper that we MUST keep in our pants pocket AT ALL TIMES to put into a clean bowl.

Then the actual cooking begins! It seems like a relatively simple recipe but at free moments, Chef showed us the different cuts we'll need to master. He showed us the Mirepoix, Julienne, Brunoise, and then taught us how to chop an onion with the heart in it, without the heart and also a shallot. Then he'd go back to the soup, then he showed us the bouquet garnis- where you tie herbs with string with a leek paper wrapped around it. Back to the soup, chopping garlic, season the soup, taste the soup, talk about herbs, show us our knives, etc.

When he was done, he let us take pictures and taste the soup. It was great, but to me could have used a little more salt! It's probably my untrained palate.

All said and done it was 3 hours of feverishly writing everything you saw and everything he said. I'm exhausted, and have 6 pages of notes. In practical, you're only allowed to bring 1 piece of paper in to the kitchen, so I need to re-write all my notes. People in class ask the DUMBEST questions and when they ask, it screws up the Chef's train of thought and we're all left going "what was that?" I'm all for asking questions, but some people really asked dumb ones.

I just got home and am going to re-write my recipe for tomorrow's practical and remove all the sleeves for my knives, label them and get everything ready.

I definitely made a friend today! Anthony is great, he is from Salt Lake City and is really nice. I'm excited to get to know him better. I also finally chatted with Melissa (who found this very blog and wrote me!) she found an apt in the 12th and lived in Sonoma and Petaluma working on a farm that supplied Chez Pannisse! Very cool.

I am LOVING Paris, and really feeling like I'm getting the hang of things. It's so beautiful and very clean, and it snowed today. It was so incredible looking out of the apartment and seeing snow falling on the Eiffel Tower...does life get any better? There are no windows at school, so I have to get my looks in when I'm traveling to and from. Tonight- I'm going to get steak frites with Zu who introduced me to the friends in her section. I felt really cool knowing someone in intermediate :) People at school are from every place you can imagine, I'm so lucky to be here and meeting these people that will surely go on and change the world!

I'm going to re-do my notes and UNPACK!

A Bientot!

ps. I have my blanky wrapped around my neck right now...I missed it SO much!

My internet here is spotty, so I'll upload the pictures from class today later



Chef Stril's soup: