Ouch.

Remember when I thought I burned myself before? I outdid myself today. I had 4 classes in a row and did the following mid way through the first practical. I'm happy to report that I managed to finish and complete the second practical, but boy does my hand hurt!

Stranded in Paris

I never thought that being stranded in Paris would be something that annoyed me, however here I am stranded and I'm most certainly annoyed!

I was supposed to head to Spain VERY early this morning to spend the weekend with the Weber's- who are great friends of my parents. My mom also was meeting me in Spain- which was SO exciting. Thanks to Iceland and their stupid volcano, I'm stuck here. No Tapas, No Paella and most importantly, No Mom. :(

Gill is stuck in Ireland, Anthony and Bruna's trip to Lisbon was canceled, Lauren and her mom's trip to Milan is canceled, Lara's boyfriend can't get to Paris- we've all gotten stuck! There is a silver lining however- this weekend is E'Lane's birthday and we can all spend it with her!!! Another silver lining is that Derek and Lizzie who are honeymooning here are most likely stuck and unable to get to St. Tropez. It KIND of reminds me of a snow day in Buffalo. Where Kerry and Cate would be stuck in the city and we'd all get to play. Too bad it's bright and sunny out with no signs of Volcanic Ash!

Maybe I'll go to a pastry demo this afternoon?

A Bientot!

Forget Stella, how Peeps got her groove back!

I'm BACK!!!!!

After a not so easy beginning to intermediate- I feel like I've gotten in my groove again. Friday- my fish wasn't cooked enough, yesterday my jus was (and I'm quoting the Chef) "fucking perfect!", and today was "c'est magnifique!" according to Chef Caals.

Friday we had Tivet. He says NOTHING during practical- in fact, I think that he's playing tetris on his little palm pilot the whole time. Everything was great except my fish hadn't cooked through properly...oops. I felt like crap after leaving that practical- was I still in basic? Who doesn't cook daurade enough?



Saturday I went to meet Teeter at Cafe de Flore. Teeter (Carolyn Mucci) is a great friend of our family's and her husband Gary is my godfather. They and their 2 kids are in Paris for Spring Break. We had a great day and I went back to see the apt that they had rented in the 6th. GORGEOUS!

They invited me to brunch on Easter Sunday at Laduree, which is a famous restaurant/bakery in Paris. It was so much fun to be with them- especially since I had been so homesick last week. After brunch and in the spirit of Easter...Anthony, E'Lane, Lauren and I decided to cook a lamb. Not just a rack of lamb, or a piece of lamb, but an entire LEG of lamb. It took about 40 minutes just to trim the stinking thing, let alone butterfly it, season it, truss it and roast it! Anthony made a homemade mint jelly and we put a mint crust on it...it was DELISH. E'Lane was the pastry master and made a cake filled with strawberry and raspberry cream with frosting and pralines, Lauren made a delicious, fresh salad and it was just amazing. The perfect cure for being away from home over a holiday.

Monday I got up early and met the Mucci's at St. Germain Des Pres to take the train to CHAMPAGNE!!!!!! A very uneventful trip to Epernay and we were at Moet et Chandon, taking a tour of 750 meters of over 18 miles of their caves. It was so much fun and I learned a TON. I knew essentially nothing about the bubbly, but what I DO know is that the smaller the bubbles, the better the Champagne!



Tuesday we had back to back demo/practical and we made duck with french gnocchi (polenta) with a visiting Chef (the one who said the f word every other word) and I felt like I was really getting back into the swing of things, and not freaking out during practical.

Yesterday we had Caals for demo- where he told us that we needed to do our guinea fowl pie in 2 hours. It was a WHIRLWIND- make dough, roll it out, line mold, make au gratin potatoes, de-bone the guinea fowl- giving chef the leg meat to grind for the stuffing, searing livers and guinea fowl breasts, building the pie and getting it into the oven. It was a sprint. I've never been on autopilot like that before. We were like little robots. After the pie was in the oven, we needed to just reduce our sauce- so we were a little bored, I even helped Chef prepare for today's demo. Lara, Bruna, Anthony and I KILLED it. We were all within the 2 hour limit and well ahead of everyone else in class. He loved it- my first perfect from Caals. I am still on cloud 9!

Tomorrow we have another duck dish practical, then demo and practical until 9:30pm (we're making lobster!!!!!)

A bientot!

French Sounds

The French are known for many things, but one thing I've now discovered are their unique sounds. The Chefs during demo and practical make the silliest noises that I've only heard since being here. When you're demonstrating how to cut something, they use the word 'tac'. It's commonly used in succession while making several cuts 'tac tac tac'. When removing the wishbone of some sort of bird- you run your knife down either side of the bone and at the end you need to make a sharp movement to make sure the ends are cut- that's a 'CLACK'. Chef Lesourd is the king of the CLACK (pronounced somewhere between clock and clack) There's also the recent discovery of Chef Clergue (who is perfect) who says 'hupp' when lifting something heavy, or just generally moving around the kitchen. I'd think these words were unique to the Chef that says them except that I've heard all of the Chefs at one point or another use one or more of those French sounds. Caals today in our demo kept saying 'hupp' so either they have a conference about it in their locker room or they are very typical French words.

We had our first Caals practical yesterday afternoon. Anthony and I are assistants together which adds another level of stress onto everything. Sprinting up 3 flights of stairs several times within a 2.5 hour period isn't easy or fun when you have a sauce to strain, or a bird roasting in the oven. Our recipe was a roasted chicken cut into 8 pieces that we haven't done before, potato pancakes and an herb salad. I ended up doing well, receiving a tres bien from Caals- but I felt really stressed the whole time. I feel like I did at the beginning of basic- constantly stress, running around the entire time and leaving completely drenched in sweat. I lack the confidence that I gained at the end of basic- where I knew that I knew what I was doing, and that I could fix any mistake. I freak out, I stress and the Chef was watching me the whole time (or so it seemed to me). We had to rip the achilles tendons out of the chickens and like I thought I would, I nearly gagged all over the darn thing. When Chef watched me, I just took the tendons in a hook on the end of a ladle, twisted and YANKED- but on the inside my stomach was completely turned. I know it was dead, and I know it couldn't feel it- but I felt awful doing that to an animal! I'm fine chopping off heads and removing gills for fish (not quite there yet with popping out eyeballs, but getting there) but this was TORTURE! I'm excited to get my confidence back, I'm excited to walk into the kitchen and KNOW what I'm supposed to do at any given time, I'm just not there yet in intermediate. As Allison told me last night "they wouldn't call it intermediate if it were the same as basic", and I need to remember that. I've passed basic, I'm getting better and soon will be a Chef myself, but I just want to feel good about myself in the kitchen again.

We had 8:30 demo and Caals was in good shape today. He was on top of his game and ripped through the recipes. The entree was fantastic, so I came right home and tried to re-create it. I failed at my first attempt at homemade mayo and had to eat crow and walk to franpriz to buy hellman's, but the chicken salad was fantastic. I poached the chicken in veal stock instead of chicken stock and it tasted great, the chiffonade of my greens was beautiful and my julienne of apples were works of art, but I can't get past that my mayonnaise was a failure! Oh well, better luck next time?

I'm really wanting to make lamb this weekend in honor of Easter and want to make a mint crust to go over it...if anyone has any recipes- let me know! We learned rack of lamb with a parsley crust in basic, I bet I can use the same technique with mint, no?

A Bientot!