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!
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