Sunday afternoon, Désirée and I went to Le Réfectoire ( 80, blvd Richard Lenoir), a restaurant with an old school cafeteria feel. The decor is cute - you sit in school chairs surrounded by children's drawings and the enthusiastic staff brings you water in Kool-Aid colored pitchers and updated and more funky cafeteria style food. On Sundays, you have the choice of brunch (a school tray loaded with several dishes - it looks so cute!) or you can order from the rather precise menu, which we did. Both of us had been craving salads so I ordered one with warm goat cheese on toast and Désirée ordered one with seafood; the portions are very generous by French standards. The desserts are updated classics that often include special touches to remind patrons of childhood favorites such as mousse made with Carambar candy, something that piqued our interest. We found the praline cake with cassis ice cream and the Carambar mousse with Bailey's deliciously interesting. If you do make it to Le Réfectoire, make sure you check out the bathroom.
Cafeteria style
Salad with warm goat cheese on toast
Carambar mousse with Bailey's
Praline cake with cassis ice cream
After a fun lunch, I went to visit Laura to catch up on life and help her with interview questions. She went back to the States yesterday to interview for a highly coveted teaching position in San Francisco and won't be back until the end of April :( ...my dance partner won't be here during vacation, prime time for dancing since I don't have to wake up at 6am. We promised to go out dancing when she gets back - hopefully it will be a celebratory night!
We spent Monday making a French classic in pastry, the Opera cake. We worked in teams of two to make the various components of the cake (Joconde, ganache, coffee buttercream) before layering it together. Mondays in the pastry kitchen are kind of funny- it's usually the day where things go wrong consistently and you chalk up your tiredness, lack of patience, and slowness to the fact that...it's Monday. Luckily, this Monday wasn't too bad and Désirée I managed to make our Opéra without any major snafus...phew.
I was filled with child-like excitement this morning because for the first time, we were having cuisine class. Yes, I love pastry but it was nice to change our routine for a day. Our chef for the day, Chef Schaefer, actually helped start the French Culinary Institute in NYC which is modeled after my school. He also happens to be an excellent photographer, poet, and flower arranger on top of being a talented chef. One of my classmates and I were discussing how every chef we have the privilege of working with is not only an amazing chef, but a talented artist who can either paint, draw, take beautiful photographs, or even fashion perfect pigs out of almond paste...crazy!
Today wasn't about following recipes or measuring out ingredients, but about using the food we had been given to make a simple yet tasty buffet. We were each given ingredients to work with and through the chefs guidance and suggestions plus our own intuition and inventiveness, we made a beautiful buffet lunch. One thing we're not accustomed to as pastry chefs is tasting everything along the way; we rarely taste a product before it's finished. When you're working in the kitchen, you always have to taste so you can balance the flavors and adjust the seasoning, something Chef Schaefer mentioned to us when we sat down to lunch. Our lunch menu:
- Eggs pickled in saffron and beets
- Braised baby carrots, turnips, and artichokes
- Thin sliced raw asparagus with vinaigrette and oven roasted tomatoes
- White asparagus with red pepper vinaigrette and crispy ham,
- A terrine of asparagus, zucchini, eggplant, basil, and salmon
- Salmon tartare
- Raw tomato soup
- Eggplant caviar
- Chicken with zucchini
- Puff pastry straws sprinkled with sesame seeds, piment d'espelette, and paprika
- Pears poached with honey, beets, and rose buds
- Strawberries in a raspberry vinegar syrup accompanied by raspberry/piment d'espelette tuiles in the shape of cherry blossoms
Eating a healthy and fresh lunch that we made was a nice change from lunch in the cafeteria, almost wish we could make lunch every day.
Most of my classmates and I are headed off to be French television stars tonight:) We're going to be in the audience of a show called Ce soir (ou jamais!) and will have the chance to see world-renowned chef of El Bulli, Ferran Adrìa, a molecular gastronomist. Can't wait!
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