Taking a break from the regular format...so much has happened in the last week that if I try to write about all of it, this entry will be a book! So, here we go for lots of photos and snippets of life in Paris during the past week.

Last Tuesday night, most of my classmates and I were part of a French television show called Ce Soir ou Jamais.  Our school invited us to attend the show because world-renowned chef of ElBulli in Spain, Ferran Adría,  was the special guest. Ferran Adría is a molecular gastronomist who mixes cuisine and science in the kitchen of his restaurant, the main draw for the select few who enter ElBulli's doors as diners during the 7 months the restaurant is actually open. If you're interested in having the ElBulli experience, be prepared to call the restaurant on a designated day in October, the only day they take reservations, and fork over at least 300 Euros for an unforgettable meal that can contain up to 35 courses. Maybe I'll get there someday...at least I got to sit next to him on television! 

Pineapple Carpaccio 

Opera 

Olive macaron

Grignotine 

Mendiants

We had dinner service last Wednesday and even though only 7 of us were present, it was by far the smoothest and most enjoyable service we've had. Everyone pitched in since some sections were short (1 person doing plated desserts for 60 people) and despite being short-staffed, we finished early! There were compliments from our chef for working so well and compliments from the dining room...can't beat that.   

Succés

Feuilles d'automne 

Chef working on his pastillage/sugar masterpiece 

The final product 

Thursdays after restaurant service are spent finishing what we started at the beginning of the week. This week we made a Succés, hazelnut buttercream sandwiched between two almond meringue sponge cakes and Feuilles d'automne, layers of chocolate mousse and sponge cake decorated with "leaves" of chocolate. The succés was a success (haha!) and fairly easy to make while the feuilles d'automne was my worst nightmare. There's nothing like working with chocolate sheets that aren't thick enough with really hot hands. Every time I picked up the chocolate, the heat of my fingers burned a hole in it on contact leading to some very interesting leaves. 

We also watched chef do pastillage and sugar work to decorate a cake for his boss' wife. The things you can do with food are amazing! 

Baguette dough...it's alive! 

We thought the container was big enough...obviously not 

Baguettes and spring sun...what could be better? 

Bakery on Friday was complete with pain de campagne (country bread), croissants, pain au chocolat, and baguette dough with a mind of its own. We used two types of rising agents in our dough which lead to an overflowing and gooey mass that we managed to control and turn into tasty baguettes. 

Jardin d'Acclimation - Americans in Paris event 

Rick Odums dancers 

There's a really interesting event called "Americans in Paris" going on at the Jardin d'Acclimation until May. Booths with American food, books, etc. plus American police cars, schools buses and SUVs are scattered throughout the park thoroughfare with various sporting events (dunking contests, baseball games, golf) and performances (music and dancing) taking place. A little piece of America right in Paris...

The person who truly sparked my interest in French culture and provided me with a solid foundation of French was in Paris this week...craziness! Mr. Langa, my high school French teacher, was here with some Beaumont students doing a one week trip through France and Spain and thanks to some haphazard planning, we met up on Saturday. About 10 years ago (I'm getting so old) I was sitting in his classroom daydreaming about visiting all the places in Paris he taught us about and drooling over the pastries in the photos he taunted us with and now, I'm here, living that daydream and making those pastries. Thank you Mr. Langa for planting the seed ;) 

I spent my first weekend of vacation grooving to kompa and reggae at two concerts I went to at La Villette, a huge park in the north of Paris. I can't get over how much there is to do in Paris; I love this city and I might just need another year here to explore all this city has to offer. 

So close, I can taste it...

Restaurant service on Wednesday, pastry on Thursday, and bakery on Friday are the only thing standing between me and a much awaited vacation. We've been working hard for the past 2 months and I'm pretty sure that we're all ready to relax a bit. We start our one week of Easter vacation on Friday after boulangerie and while I'm excited for Friday to come so I can spend a week exploring Paris, this week in school is turning out to be rather interesting. But, before I get to that, rewind to the weekend. 

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! 

Chocolate!

I've always wondered why chocolate shops in Europe charge astronomical prices for chocolates. If you walk into Jean-Paul Hévin, Pierre Hérme, Marcolini, Rochoux, Génin, etc. you'll see chocolate is anywhere from 75-100 Euros a kilo, sometimes more. This week in class, I found out exactly why chocolate is expensive...it's really time consuming and finicky! 

We started off the week making various fillings for our chocolates including praline, pistachio/almond paste, and ganache. Making praline was the most intensive as you have to stand over a copper bowl of almonds, hazelnuts, sugar, and water until they are transformed into the most delicious roasted caramel concoction you have ever tasted, seriously. Chef stirred the mixture for at least 30 minutes until the almonds started "singing" which meant the center was finally roasting and the whole mixture was caramelized. He put the mixture on baking sheets to cool (Warning - don't ever put freshly made praline into your mouth, caramel is more than 300 degrees!) and then the snacking began. We could not stop eating the praline! I'm pretty sure that we ate at least half a kilo of praline while we were waiting for it to cool so we could grind it into a paste. Every time chef saw us sneaking a few delectable carmelized almonds and hazelnuts off the tray and into our mouths he would say "Stop, we need those!" After promising ourselves multiple times that this handful would be our last, we did finally stop. 

Making praline

Praline!

We had prepared most of the fillings (almond/pistachio paste, hazelnut paste, coffee/hazelnut paste, whisky ganache, basil/lemon ganache, anise/cinnamon ganache, passionfruit/apricot pate de fruit, cointreau/hazelnut paste) and mastered the art of crystalizing chocolate(hopefully) by Wednesday and were ready to assemble the final products. We had to cut several of the now hardened fillings into squares and rectangles using a machine called a "guitar" and Thursday we spent about 7 hours hand-dipping 9 types of chocolate...Quel travail! 

Passionfruit/apricot gélée with hazelnut cream

Felt like I was in an episode of I Love Lucy

Hand-dipping chocolates is a pretty intensive process that includes managing your chocolate so that it stays shiny and workable (the temp has to be 31 degrees Celsius) and mastering the proper dipping technique so the chocolates have a thin shiny shell without feet instead of having a thick coating that is dull or swirled that looks more like a baseball cap. 

Chocolate with a foot - looks like a cap

The most dangerous part of making chocolate is trying not to eat them while you're making them. If some of the fillings are too small/big or deformed, they can easily find their way into your mouth. As a chef you're supposed to taste EVERYTHING you make anyway...right? ;)

My chocolates

We were allowed to pack up some of the chocolates we made on Thursday to give out to friends and family which worked out perfectly because Mrs. Darkes had flown into Paris that day and was able to take some chocolate home for herself and my mom. After a week of chocolate, I think I can abstain from it for awhile.

Truffles

Palet Or - filled with coffee-flavored ganache

Aladin - filled with almond/pistachio paste and kirsch

On Friday, we had bakery with a new chef because our regular chef, Monsieur Maurice was in Finland learning about Finnish bread. Chef Gillet taught us all about baking croissants, pain au chocolats, brioche feuilleté, and fougasse. For most of us, this was the first time we had made two of the most popular pastries in France (croissant and pain au chocolat) and we watched the chef with rapt attention. After seeing how much butter goes into these pastries, I understand exactly why they taste so good. 

Croissants

Pain au chocolat

My very first croissants and pain au chocolats

On Friday, Désirée and I found one of our new favorite restaurants in Paris, Cuisine de Bar (8, rue du Cherche-Midi), a perfect place for lunch. Their specialty is tartines (open-faced sandwiches) made on famous Poîlane bread. They have a fabulous lunch formule that includes a salad (the vinaigrette is to die for!), a tartine, a glass of wine, and coffee for only 14 Euros...pretty good deal. I had the Tartine Tapenade - Poîlane bread topped with olive tapenade, fresh tomatoes, and basil - delicious. We both agreed that this will be the perfect place to go in the summer because the food is very light. I'm off to meet Désirée for lunch at Le Réfectoire, a restaurant decorated like an old school lunchroom that a fellow classmate recommended...A plus! 

Tartine Tapenade

Cuisine de Bar