#67 - (Not) Graduation and variations on a theme

The variations are not on a theme by Paganini.  It's more a theme by Le Cordon Bleu London - that is to say, hygiene.  Kind of.  Sort of.  What can I say, it's more laundry.  But as usual, I've begun in the middle so must loop back to the beginning.

Good bye Dinner
On Thursday night I had dinner with a friend of one of my brothers (they of the walk in the countryside and trip on canal boat fame) - she and her partner took me to a lovely restaurant called Alba near the Barbican - really good Italian food - definitely comfort food.  I took a photo of the dessert as research.  As delicious as my vegetable soup and slow cooked lamb were, they weren't something I might put in an exam.  Probably not the pear either, but it was good for taste, texture and potential ideas (the marscapone cream was really good - definitely on the list for a future dessert).  The Alba is a family owned and operated establishment and my hostess had been going there for years.  I must say that I will definitely go back - what's not to like?  Small but thoughtful menu with something available for the carnivore, the vegetarian and the pescatarian (they're the ones who eat fish but not meat, right?).  I was tempted to get the set menu which had a truffle dish on it, but couldn't go past the lamb.

Graduation Lunch
As of Friday, 16 December 2011, the term has officially ended for my fellows in Superior Cuisine and Patisserie - they are now chefs, some of them entitled to wear the toque at least for the last few minutes of the graduation ceremony.  Today was graduation day for most of those who began this long quest to learn how to cook, improve technique and to share our love of all things food.  The party was at the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane.  Much better food than what I remember being served when we had our graduation from Basic.  This is the final graduating batch of Superior students from 114 Marylebone Lane.  From next year, students will be taking classes in Bloomsbury Square.

It was nice to see everyone dressed up and out of their school uniforms.  It appears that people dress up more for the Superior Graduation - not that I remember much from when I was in Basic (and I wasn't here for the Intermediate one) but I have to admit people cleaned up very well.

Everyone had put their best shod foot forward and you could feel the palpable air of relief, excitement and (possibly it's my imagination, but who knows?) the need to catch up on just a little more sleep after the marathon Patisserie exam a couple of days ago.  Some of people said that a few problems had occurred in one of the exams and sometimes it was little but important things which just went wrong on the day.  I think it's always frustrating when you have an element which normally is not a trouble maker all of a sudden causing problems on the day because it tends to throw you off your stride.

The Dorchester was very pretty - a little OTT perhaps, but then again, this was a big occasion for everyone - a culmination of a lot of work and in many cases, some blood, lots of sweat and a lot of tears.  Possibly also some grumpy moments, loss of sleep and monumental self control when something didn't go right in class and continued not to go right.  Yes, it is personal experience talking...

Having had so much time in class, I have to say I cast an eye over our lunch as though we were having it presented to us for tasting and judgment.  Maybe not Iron Chef - but definitely consideration on a couple of levels:  the first being, could I do this?  (Sometimes yes, sometimes maybe...) - and the second one being, what might the chefs say if this was a dish that we were presenting to them.

So I do not have a 3 Michelin star palate - even after al this time and the incredible ingredients we used in class, I still do not like foie gras (although today I hated it less than usual).  The toasted brioche was a nice touch although I observed a demonstration of someone's objection to it which is that you get this large slab of foie gras but only a little bit of bread and salad.

The menu said cannon of lamb.  I thought the cannon was part of the leg but this looked more like a steak-ish type of cut.  Also, it didn't taste particularly lamb-y, but maybe the tastebuds were confused by the foie gras and a piece of the toasted brioche (yummy, by the way) which had preceded it.  Again, left the sweetbreads behind.  I think they are considered a delicacy nowadays - certainly they seem to be trendy at the moment, both as part of the head-to-tail philosophy of using every part of the animal and as part of the offal-is-trendy-because-it-sounds-kind-of-weird-and-no-one-knows-what-it-is.

Dessert was a mocha and something-or-other parfait, macadamia nut brittle, coconut ice cream (milk ice cream?) and sauce.  This one got particular scrutiny as there were several patisserie students at my table from all the levels as well as our head Patisserie chef.  The students looked at it from the view of a plated dessert and Chef JW looked at it, comparing it to what had been served during the tasting (when they chose the menu) as well as technical points.  The only really technical point is that a parfait is frozen, which these weren't.  I thought the mousse might have been a tad heavy on the gelatine, but that might just have been me.

There was some discussion as to how well the chocolate was tempered, some people at the table having had rather recent and harrowing experience with uncooperative chocolate.  Split verdict - I thought it was fine, someone else thought not and Chef JW did not weigh in with her opinion.  She did observe that there are two LCB graduates who worked in the pastry team of the Dorchester and at least one of them had worked on these desserts.  In any event, it tasted good and was quite pretty.  They stuck the tuile and chocolate in the dome though, so I'm not sure what Chef GB thought of that - he told us particularly not to do that to our plated desserts.

I also found out one of the girls who just completed Basic Patisserie has been reading this blog - rather a compliment.  I asked her how she had found it and she said it was because she had been searching for photos of the dishes we had been making in class.

Chefs!
Anyway - they made it and have the medals, papers (lots of papers) and the hats to show it.

Well done chefs!

As for my graduation, hopefully I will be able to time my finals with the next batch of graduating Superior students.  This was supposed to be a year of food, but it's turning out to be a bit longer.  It's been more of a year of building character - in which food played a large role.  I will know more once I hear back from the Academic committe but for now, there will be photos of practice sessions (once my hand is back in shape), possibly some bitching and moaning and now I have a great excuse to eat a lot of things at a lot of places.  After all, it's a chance to collect ideas for finals without trying to get too clever.  It wasn't far to find a very large silver lining (a break to reorganize, get warm at home for the holidays with family and friends and a chance to see the new school).

So until next time, happy holidays - may your year end as positively as mine bids to do.

#47 - The nightmare before the Student Event (and brrr!!!!)

(Note:  This was written over a course of several days so the change in tenses is entirely accurate, even if possibly grammatically incorrect.

Teamwork
Part of the Superior Cuisine course is to put on a Student Event dinner - I think I may have mentioned this before...

As much as the event is about the food, it is also about our ability to work as a team.  (Personally I have a suspicion that it's also a clever piece of marketing for those students who haven't yet decided whether they will continue on to Superior Cuisine...)  It's a fast sell out -where else can you have a multi - course meal for £15, which includes canapes, a cocktail (champagne?), a glass of red and white wine each and petit fours?

There are 2 dinner events each term - one by the 2 groups containing the Grand Diplome students ("GDs") (and a few other students to round out the complement, if there are fewer than 20 Grand Diplomes, as in our case), the other dinner by the remaining groups of students in Superior Cuisine.  There is a rivalry which becomes apparent during the discussion over the breads and dessert planning session, mainly because the GDs want to take advantage of having learned more complicated things in Patisserie than the desserts taught in the Cuisine courses.  We will see on Thursday night whether we over reached or whether we calculated our abilities well.

On Wednesday morning we will start our mise en place, then we cook from 12noon on Thursday until 6pm (or so says our schedule).  Given that dinner starts at 7:30pm, we will be plating / serving our desserts around 9 / 9:30pm.  Then there's clean down, possibly a mini-debrief (I've forgotten, it's somewhere on the schedule) then people will retire to the pub for a drink or ten.

***After the event...***
Our group is lucky - we don't have class until noon tomorrow(although we started Thursday with a demonstration).  The other group has their first planning class for their entremets (the design your own dessert) which we had a the Saturday before last.  It has definitely put a damper on their anticipation for drinks at the pub as they will need to be awake quite early.  The school's rationale is that this is a small taste of what it might be like to work in a restaurant.  According to Chef FJ, the day we did lobster was a small taste as well.  Someone tole me we finished an hour late.  Time flies when you're having fun, I guess.  I thought we finished an hour earlier - so much for thinking we had been more organized than the other groups.  There has been some consideration as to whether they remove one of the dishes from that particular class.  I seem to remember that when we were in basic, the Superior group ran quite late - and the reason I remember this is because it was a day when we had to do puff pastry (Day 1 of the allumettes de fromage, I think).  Hmmm, same kitchen as well, now that I think of it.

The weekend just past

Trying out various ways
to plate dessert

So the whole point of this narrative safari is:  we spent the weekend playing with food.  Perhaps it doesn't sound serious when I say play, but that's what it felt like.  Saturday started quite late - we had all had a fairly big week and we had to try out a couple of things.  We had a few ingredients we didn't have enough of and we couldn't find it at the store, so we had to make a substitution.  It never occurred to us that we wouldn't be able to find more icing sugar (aka confectioners sugar aka powdered sugar) when there were 3 stores within walking distance.  So my friands (aka finaciers) seemed a bit odd - not what we remembered.  Then TN tried her hand at them since she is slated to make them on Thursday.  One of the guys who came a bit later brought the correct sugar, but there was still something not quite right.  My suggestion was that it might be a result of us not using the correct moulds because we don't have them.  Hopefully that is the case because we are running out of time.

We also had a try at the tea-scented macaroons.  Um, no - they didn't work.  Something wasn't quite right, so we ended up scrapping that idea and doing a variation of it (I think the tea is going to go into the filling, rather than the biscuit part).  See right for practice photos.

Sadler Wells
The baby pears were poached and prepared for the next day.  I'm not sure what else we did, besides discuss, plan, bake (a bit) - I had to go because I had plans to go see the Birmingham Royal Ballet at Sadler Wells Theatre.  The Sadler Wells had been on my list - part of the whole ballet revival in the UK and all that.

I went with one of the girls from my group, AM (from Argentina).  She had been to see Swan Lake (Royal Ballet?) before, so hadn't had much exposure to ballet.  This was one I hadn't seen before:  La Fille Mal Gardee.  It's a light, fluffy, old-fashioned ballet - the story is quite clear from the dancing.  It's a problem I find with more modern ballets - quite often they don't have a story, in which case a person who hasn't had enough exposure to see and appreciate the nuances in technique might find it boring.

The Sadler Wells is quite a different atmosphere from Covent Garden.  For one thing, it's not as opulent - to be expected, I think.  In some ways it's a smaller and more intimate space - closer in terms of width and you end up looking down at the stage so that you can see the patterns much more easily.  The company has its own orchestra who tours with them.  The conductor (leader?) was sensitive to the dancers and could cue the music accurately enough to have the orchestra end with the dancer's last flourish after a variation - something which can lend a bit to the performance and sometimes help to disguise timing that is slightly off.

It was quite sweet to have the couple on my left discussing the performance between themselves.  AM enjoyed herself as well and after the fiasco of getting to the theatre (she had a problem with the trains so we watched the first act on the screen, by the bar) it was pretty much smooth sailing for the rest of the night.  We went for a late dinner down by Tottenham Court Road on a little street whose name I always forget.  Then it was home to bed.  She was ready to go out for a little boogie, but I had to meet my group on Sunday.  We were going to try the plated dessert as well as have another run at the macaroons and GL had a couple of things he wanted to try with the bread.

I overslept and got there a bit late, but I arrived with supplies.  The others got the bread started, I wrote down a couple of recipes and I can't remember what else I did.  Is it possible I did nothing?  No...I remember being in the kitchen quite a bit.  At some point we all had to get lunch - dim sum at a place down the street...then back to cooking, although by then we were all ready just to lie down and have a nap.  I believe someone made that suggestion, only to be teased mercilessly by the rest of us for his choice of words (something about sleeping with several people).

So this was Sunday.  Again I had to leave - I was supposed to have dinner with a friend.  I'm not sure what was going on with the transportation this weekend - I arrived at her house almost an hour after I wanted to be there.  Luckily for me she had already cooked so we could just sit down, chat and eat once I had settled in.  My contribution to dinner:  roasted red, yellow and orange bell peppers, marinated in olive oil, garlic and some salt (see the last post). 

Dinner finished, LM and I had a chat about various things, then she showed me a couple of bits of a show - I think it's called Top Chef - Just Desserts - or something like that.  Then I had to go home and go to bed because I had class at 8am on Monday.

Bread, more bread and still, more bread
Monday morning almost didn't start well.  I remember waking up and thinking it odd that my alarm hadn't gone off.  Except...it had been going off for almost an hour by the time I woke up.  Somehow I managed to rush out of bed, finish packing my bag and get to school within 10 minutes or so.  Got up to the boulangerie - chef CB had started, but not by much, thank goodness.

Then it was back to business as usual.  He told us to time ourselves so that we could plan our times for the final exam.  We all forgot when we put the brioches in the ovens, but hopefully we will remember that for tomorrow.  My brioche had a few problems, but I think I know what they are.  Tuesday morning is an opportunity to try again.


Ciabatta and baguettes

Bread went on until 2pm.  We had an early break because there were things which needed to rest (like the baguette dough).  Lunch was a ciabatta roll, which was delicious.  We all ended up shaping 2 baguettes (Chef made the dough) - I gave one to Michael and Rufus, but I took the other one home and had it for my 2nd dinner with smoked salmon and cream cheese.  Yes, I said 2nd dinner - the 1st dinner was leftover risotto from last night (thanks, LM!) with some marinated roasted peppers, a little fish and some chilli.  The chilli didn't go with the risotto, so that was my bad.  I had to wake myself back up to get ready for bed - I kind of passed out for a couple of hours on the sofa right after dinner.  I really wanted to go to bed but it was something like 7pm - sad...

There was a restaurant dessert demo after breads, before I got to go home.  I wish we'd had it before our entremets class - there are so many things I could have done better but just didn't know (or rather, I'd forgotten them).  There was a fire drill right before the end of class...so I took the opportunity to take a photo of us going back to class...

Some of the
other breads
(Campagne, complet
and more brioch)

Tuesday was one of my favorite days, mainly because I looovvvveee pain au chocolat.  We had made the dough the day before and let it rest overnight.  I had mixed the flour (half soft, half strong).  Maybe we all know how to handle our dough better, maybe it's something else.  For whatever reason, everyone agreed that this was a much better tasting croissant and pain au chocolat than those that we did in Intermediate (only just over 3 months ago now...)  It's just so hard to beat the gooey, flaky goodness of a pain au chocolat fresh out of the oven.  It leaves crumbs absolutely everywhere but is completely worth the extra clean down.  Besides, it gave us something to do while we were waiting for various things (like the brioche attempt #2 to prove).

It's all fun and games until
someone loses an eye

We also finished off a couple of different types of bread, among them our hedgehog (aka Pain Surprise).

We had to cut off the top of the bread, cut out the middle in one piece, slice the piece into thin discs of bread and make them into sandwiches.  I had taken in some of my favorite sandwich fillings because I'm not a huge fan of salami (school supplied salami, ham and smoked salmon). I managed to get enough slices for 4 layers of sandwiches, then clapped the lid back on. My hedgehog supplied several people with dinner (he went to some friends the next night as dinner).


Dinner - Tuesday


I have to admit that that night I just wanted lots of salad as we had already sampled Chef CB's hedgehog in class (with a glass of wine, for those who wanted some).


Wednesday was preparation for the Superior Cuisine event - doing the preparations and such.  It was all starting to come together from the sound of things.  I had unfortunately overslept - thank goodness ML called me to see where I was.  I arrived there soon after and managed to get most of what needed to get done, done.  There was a bit of unexpected (like burning the lemon juice off altogether because I was in a hurry and turned the burner up high, then forgot about it...whoops!)



We also had a demo for class, but didn't actually end up cooking food (as opposed to dessert) so when I went home, I ended up using the rest of the puff pastry in my fridge along with the poached pears and syrup from last week.  SH, who was taking the hedgehog, loves poached pears and I needed the space in the fridge.  I used the scraps to make palmiers with some caramelized madamia nuts as well - so it worked out for everyone.  The only bad thing is that my oven is so uneven (gas flame, unevenly distributed) that it overcooked my palmiers a bit and killed the bread I was trying to bake with what was leftover from class.

The Event

Canapes

Today was the Event. I have to say that when I saw the plates, I was impressed by what everyone had achieved. I can't believe how far we have come in a few short months (and we're still just under half way through this portion of our course). I am too tired to write too much about all the food, but here are the photos. I will add what the dishes are later, but for now...


Amuse bouche

Starter - plating seared scallops

Main - Partridge 2 ways

Cheese course - brie de Meaux

Plating the dessert trio

Pear & Chestnut mousse entremet,
poached Baby Pear
and Armagnac Parfait

Petit fours: 
Lemon Butter Logs,
green Earl Grey tea Macaroons
with salted caramel
and Financiers






So this is our week so far.  Class tomorrow from 12 - 9pm, then I think I will come home and sleep a long time.  Nothing but sleep and coffee on Saturday, possibly.  Can't face being on my feet for long - didn't dare sit down after 6pm tonight for fear that if I sat, I wouldn't get back up again.  Feet are protesting the unaccustomed amount of standing, walking and running they did around the kitchens and up and down the stairs.

Any errors are entirely the result of exhaustion and being unable to see straight.  I hope you enjoyed the photos.  I definitely enjoyed the food!

So until next time, may you feel and be rested. 

#25 - Approaching the end of the beginning...

I'm not quite sure how it happened but the reality of the rapidly approaching end of Basic is finally starting to sink in. I think the email from LCB confirming the spelling of my name for the certificate did it for me. That - and everyone else panicking.  I know that it's just food, but somehow that doesn't lessen the stress.  I have had to do more homework and study for this course than I ever did for law school or any other university class and there is still a much higher chance of failure than I have ever had to face before.  Everyone is tired, sleep-deprived and it has been a hard week.  Tempers are starting to flare and there is more bitching and moaning - quite justified.  Things that no one cared about much at the beginning of the term are beginning to grate as we all buckle down to study.

I haven't looked at what we are doing for next week so have no idea if it's going to be harder, but I suspect so.  We still have our full load of classes, each practice run is currently taking 30 minutes too long and we have multiple recipes to learn for Patisserie.  If we limit practices to 2 per dish (unrealistic for patisserie) that is still a minimum of 24 hours of cooking proper, not allowing for shopping for supplies which are too copious for anyone's kitchen to accomodate.  Then there's the theory to learn and I can't say, "who cares what the coagulation temperatures for various permutations of egg are?" because the dish will turn into scrambled eggs instead of whatever it's supposed to be - unless it's supposed to be scrambled eggs, but we are finished with scrambled eggs...no nightmares about food yet, but I fear they may not be far away.

Challenge for the Grand Diplomes
The 16 of us who are preparing for both sets of exams (with corresponding theory, only some of which overlaps) have stopped smiling so much in class.  Chef N told us on Friday night, "You are allowed to smile - this is fun!"  Which it is - when impending exams are not casting a cloud over our days.  No study week, as we had at university...difficulty getting the correct ingredients (guesswork on the flour, fondant is difficult to find), the equipment (enormous mixing bowls, huge balloon wisks, substituting any size ring shape for our tarts and cakes) and finding time to practice everything...have decided to imitate a sponge for the next week.

End of seafood (for now)
Anyway - quick update:  we finished seafood this week with moules marinieres (mussels steamed with white wine and vinegar) and crabe farci (dressed crab).  I never thought it possible to hear the words "too much butter" from a French chef...until Tuesday (or...Wednesday?) afternoon.

The crab and I had a bit of a disagreement.  It wasn't really awake when I lowered it into the court bouillon (basically - stock) so that was fine.  It was the getting through the hard shell which was a bit problematic.  I'm not that tall and it wasn't really possible to get the necessary leverage so I really had to whack the knife in order to cut it up.  The bruise on my hand was much more impressive the next day.

However, I finished the dish - take that, stubborn crab!  Also - it was the first time we used our cleavers.  Not the sharp edge of the blade, but rather the flat side - to crack the bottom of the shell so that we could use it for plating.  You can't tell from the picture (and I managed to kind of hide it from the chef) but I broke part of the shell, which is why I had to put 3 lettuce leaves and tomato petals...to support the broken part of the shell and shore it up while I was stuffing it.

Incidentally, those tomato petals are an excellent way to put tomatoes in sandwiches.  I always hated how if you packed a sandwich in the morning, the tomato would make the bread soggy by lunch time, even with copious amounts of mayonnaise or avocado "to creat a barrier between the tomato and the bread".

Next week we have to make a bearnaise (hollandaise sauce with added herbs) to go with the steak.  Remember when I said that I was sure that hollandaise, in some guise, would return?  Yup...and I found out that the students doing the Cuisine stream who were doing the bearnaise on Friday night were responsible for the massive shortage of eggs.  We ran out of eggs for our patisserie class - we needed them for our cakes and for the mousses and the patisserie recipes are already reduced to the bare minimum.  The Cuisine students who messed up their sauces restarted them - but since they used 2 - 3 egg yolks per recipe (whole recipe) and they did more than one, they needed extra eggs with a corresponding shortage for those of us baking and mixing upstairs.  Maybe it's time to start putting a dozen eggs into my utensils bag...

More sponges - and gentle intro to chocolate...
Then it was on to cakes - the Gateau a la Foret Noire (Black Forest Cake) - my first flat sponge...overworked batter so it came out really dense - NOT what we were aiming for.  The chocolate work went a bit better although - you have to be fast.  Some of the stencilling didn't come off because I hadn't worked that patch while it was still warm enough.  Not great, but not horrible.  We happened to go past a pub in search of dinner after class and I didn't want to schlep the cake in the big box, so I gave it to the first person who asked.  Some man who was very excited for the cake (FYI, the box was cardboard and he couldn't see inside).  Little did he know...

The next day (Friday) was our first Charlotte au Chocolat (Chocolate Bavarois encased in light chocolate sponge).  I didn't have the right sized piping tip so any inaccuracies in piping are a lot more apparent - too thin and the cake snaps (like mine did) so you have to make a join and repair it.  Making the bavarois, which is like a mousse except you lighten it by adding whipped cream, has been added to my ever expanding list of things to practice.

For the moment I am concentrating on getting through the next 11 or so days.  We have classes straight through and next week we do truffles in Patisserie.  I forsee many, many days of laundry - cocoa powder tends to stick and chocolate spatters are a lot harder to hide on a white uniform than a dusting of flour or a deluge of milk.

Hopefully today I will make it to ballet class - adrenaline gives a boost to our days as exams approach and the amount of what we have to know sinks in more each day.  The theory is starting not to be so much fun (chocolate is more fun to play with than to learn temperatures for) and I need the activity to clear out my mind...wish me luck, it's the first class this month.  Somehow May has just whooshed by - so much so that I called to wish my niece a happy birthday earlier this week.  Except her birthday is in June!

Well-aimed kick
Tonight I have arranged for a couple of friends to come over for dinner.  Knowing that I have promised to make dinner and they have set aside time to come over is the necessary impetus to make me practice.  I have found reasons to postpone for the last couple of weeks.  Hopefully my lemon meringue and the chicken fricassee will only need one or two practice runs to get the timing right so that I can focus on the others this week.  It's so much easier to learn a recipe when you make it, rather than just sitting and rote learning it.  More delicious when it comes to tasting too...and since we have a max 2.5 hours for all the patisserie, there's also a set amount of time for the practice - going over is not an option because otherwise your kitchen chef (apparently) screams at you to get it done and if you still don't - well, basic is full for next term and visa conditions require that you remain enrolled in your course in order to remain in the country...see where this is going?

Right - must run. Time for a coffee and my grocery shop so that I have time to get set before class. Then it's cooking time - on the menu for tonight - ahi poke (if I can find acceptable fish), mixed green salad with vinaigrette, chicken fricassee with potatoes, carrots, zucchini and baby onion (and possibly rice, since this is my first mini-Hawaii Club in London dinner) and a lemon meringue tart. 

Hawaii Club in London
LM has agreed to give me feedback on the tart as she did this 3 months ag0, although she didn't get the tart on her final.  She got the choux pastry (eclairs) - and of course it was the one for which she wished she had had more practice.

MA and I have started discussions regarding the charter for our multi-national LLC (to be incorporated in Delaware).  We haven't told LM yet, but I think it should be broached after dinner - maybe over the tart.  Not sure about the IRS position, we'll need to check out non-profit status (currently considering UN model but will need to defer to MA's experience and knowledge).

Light at the end of the first tunnel
Am looking forward to the time between end of exams and graduation (22 June 2011) - haven't booked any flights yet, but hoping to get a last minute one to Manhattan to visit friends.  The Columbia alumni in Sydney are also hoping for me to go - they have a shopping list for the alumni store!

Thank you
Somehow I have found out that there are more than 8 readers, which came as a bit of a surprise and for which I am very grateful.  I trust you find the occasional flash of humor in these posts and sources for entertainment.  I am not allowed to give recipes, but if you ever have a question, please ask.  If I don't know it (and chances are that I won't, but you never know) then I know who to ask.

So until next time (which might be after exams! I have a lot of reading, studying, flashcards to do!) I wish all of you well and look forward to (hopefully) giving an account of triumph over the clock.

#24 - In which people have started to panic...

I see that my last post was almost a week ago.  It's a good thing my computer and phone keep track of what day it is - I have lost track of days and had to check with people 3 times yesterday that what day it was (Tuesday, the day that follows Monday, which was the day immediately before).  Also - thanks to those of you who have gently prodded me to get my act together and update.

Apologies as these become a bit more sporadic as a cooking frenzy takes over the next 2 weeks of my life - there will be more tarts, cakes and eclairs than I will ever want to look at again - except we will need to do them, but with much greater refinement and complexity as we progress up the levels.  I found out what the Superior Patisserie students have to do as their Practical exam last night - they have 6 hours of cooking and it incorporates everything they have learned from basic on through to where they are now - I recognized elements from our week 2 in Patisserie. 

Last week

So - recap since last post:  we had a wine technical class last Wednesday (18 May).  I tasted all 6 wines and predictably didn't like any of them.  They all made my mouth feel puckered up inside (apparently that was caused by the tannins).  I also accidentally swallowed some wine (the first Chardonnay we tried).  It's a good thing that class was scheduled for our last class that day, it would not have been good to go into a kitchen and have to cook after that.

We also had our patisserie classes - getting on to slightly more advanced cakes now.  Thursday night was the Chocolate Almond Sponge cake (aka Sachertorte) with a marzipan rose.  The masking at the end was a bit problematic on the sides of the cake, but it looks pretty from the top and according to reports, it tasted good.  I had a tiny taste from when I cut the cake into halves/quarters and gave it away to various people - I liked it, but the crumb was more than enough.

Then on Friday night we did our last potential exam dish - the Genoise Spongecake with buttercream frosting and raspberry jam.  We had to make our own jam (piece of cake!) and apparently the frosting that Michael, my partner, and I made was really good, so I feel a little more confident about trying the whole thing at home on my own.  The problem with doing things in pairs in class for something like this is that when it comes to the exam, we will have to do all the components on our own:  the batter, the jam, the soaking syrup, the frosting, cut, trim, fill, then assemble it all and complete it with piping.  I only remembered when I had to pipe the chocolate on top of the frosting piping Chef G's comment that it is easier to pipe smaller patterns because any uneveness is not quite as apparent.  Whoops.  This cake also went to other people who would be able to eat it.

We had a cuisine practical on Saturday  morning at 8am - more chicken butchery - taking apart all the pieces and skinning it.  It was Supreme of Chicken (i.e. chicken breast) stuffed with chicken mousse and herbes de Provence, poached and served with a Tomato Butter sauce (mine was too thick - more a coulis) and courgette spaghetti- zucchini sliced on a mandolin and sauteed with some garlic and butter.

Life actually
I even made it to a movie - maybe 4 weeks ago?  I'm not sure...it was the most recent Scream movie.  I should not go to those - as silly and stupid as it was, it still scared me.  Total movies seen in London:  2.  Total cultural experiences:  1 ballet (Covent Garden), 1 concert (Southbank) and...do visits to markets count?  No museums yet.  They are still on my list but are always lower on the list of priorities as the kitchen and related things take over my life.

There is a lot of ground to cover and I realize that I have forgotten to include much in the way of social life.  There hasn't been one as such, but I have managed to catch the odd dinner with friends who are not LCB related (MA, who is in town from Hawaii for work for the next 3 months or so) and JB, who is currently posted to Rome during the week (also for work), SO who has the cutest little daughter (they live in Oxford) and my dear PC who was in town over the long weekend in April.

There have been a couple of trips to Kua'Aina burger in Carnaby Street - yesterday I made a mental note of the days when they serve the Lion Vanilla Macadamia nut coffee and now have forgotten them in the exhausted haze which has dogged the last few days.  Most of my other friends are from LCB, a couple of whom have had little parties, as they had to move after the course started.  Unfortunately I didn't take many photos of the one from the week (two weeks?) before,  but here are photos from Saturday:

Recognize any of the food?

Our hosts - Pedro & Angela

 

 

I think most of the people there were from those who are enrolled to do the grand diplome.  Apparently some of the people in the other group are a bit more comptetitive - they have more people who have industry experience, whereas my group doesn't seem to have reached that stage.  Yet.  Who knows - tempers have been known to run hot in the kitchen when ingredients go missing.

The girlfriends/husbands/etc. who also came may have been a bit overwhelmed with the shop talk, but that only came later.  We were all concious of wanting to talk anything except food for the first little while.  We have spent all these weeks together, but as most conversations revolve around organizing some fun time or discussing class, people are still getting to know each other.  I am sure that lifelong friendships will be forged during the next few months, but I am equally sure that lifelong antipathy may develop as well.  There is no way that we can all spend so much time together and not get on each other's nerves and given the strong personalities and wide age ranges involved, I am sure that cliques are already starting to form.

In the meantime, the girlfriends/husbands/etc. are finally understanding what their respective other halves are talking about when it comes to a bad day or things that went wrong.  They said they can put it into context - and they have good naturedly tried to support their tired, grumpy and hungry chefs when they get home.  ("Look honey - I just spent the last 2.5 making this and this is what went wrong and...just try a bite!")  Apparently they have also started to go to the gym, if they haven't already, and those who do exercise, have to do more.

And this week...fish and seafood

8am Monday - butchering a whole Lemon Sole, including gutting, filleting and skinning...rolled with a mushroom duxelles - the one on which I cut my finger somewhere in week 3 and poached in a fish fumet (fish broth) which we had to make from the bones.  We are all hurrying more in the kitchen now and can't believe there was a time when it took us 2 1/2 hours to cut up some vegetables and make a salad with dressing.  Now we are stressing out that it took 20 minutes to take apart the stupid chicken instead of 10.

A whole fish resulted in 4 little pieces of fish (you only plate 3 because it looks better on the plate) with a piped mashed potato border and the sauce...

Yesterday morning we got to do it again, this time with a rainbow trout.  Luckily I already knew how to gut a fish, but it wasn't done in demo and they didn't mention it so I was a little unprepared to have to gut the thing at 8:15 in the morning (well, we had to scale it first).  The butchery went pretty smoothly, but after class we all got together in our little huddles and had our own little debrief.  It appears which chef you have in the kitchen also determines how you season your food.  Oh - and my hollandaise sauce split.  Whatever the reason, I'm sure we'll have to do something like it again at some stage.  So - the trout a la meuniere, which I'm sure my dad would have loved but for the very burned butter...this is what the dish looks like just before I take it to the chef for feedback.

This is what my workstation looks like in the aftermath of the flurry of plating (no time to clean!) and things haphazardly pushed wherever - after feedback.  Ugh - first time I overcooked my fish!

Tonight we have to kill a crab (yes, it has to come to us alive) and make a stuffed crab in its own shell and a dish of mussels (moules mariniere).  That is one that many of us are looking forward to, although there is one unfortunate student who is allergic to certain shellfish, mussels being one of them.  He is in the other group, so I am guessing someone will go to class prepared with a baguette and stick a bottle of white wine in the fridge for after!  Some people are not enthused with the idea of putting a live crab in boiling water - we can't freeze it because our fridges aren't cold enough (especially as they will have been opened and closed so many times during the preceding 9 hours) and we can't use our knives to kill it because we need the shell intact for the presentation.

It is a late start today - 12pm - for which I am grateful.  Some of the girls and I got together after class yesterday to practice turning our vegetables.  The ideal is a football shape (for Americans and Australians) - an oval with points on both ends and 7 even facets.  Right now the chefs are willing to settle for however many facets as long as we don't waste a lot of potato and they are all about the same size.  And now - our practice has been documented...

 






There has been a little consternation from all of us as some of the ingredients we need to practice for patisserie are not available in normal places.  No fondant in the supermarket and the plain flour doesn't indicate whether it is strong flour or soft flour - I suppose I will find out when I try to make my pastry for the lemon meringue tart.  Also - no one sells butter in anything more than 250g (8 ozs).  I bought 12 blocks last night and had to lug them home - each thing that we have to practice uses ridiculous amounts of butter and as pretty as they are to look at, I am not sure I will be able to eat many of these things ever again.

Back to life...
As for life in London - it is, despite my many hours at the school or at home, trying to organize my mind for the following day, still delightful.  We have lunch or drinks out in the sun if there is a break between classes.  The days are still lenthening, so there is light past 9pm - which is perfect for the nights when we don't finish class until then, generally Thursday and Friday nights (and tonight).  The mornings are still cold - some may say brisk, but those are the ones who like the cold more than I do.  They require a warm jacket and a brisk walk to school.

There is a lot of construction going on in London as it prepares for the 2012 Olympics.  Tube stations are being upgraded, new train line/s being put in, streets having things done to them and sounds of construction going from morning until...well, I'm not sure when they stop since I usually get home later.  Everyone generally wants to wind down from the day at the pub and I think that when the school moves to Bloomsbury Square in January, the local businesses will really notice the difference.  You can tell when there's a break between classes because the streets and cafes are suddenly awash with white jackets emblazoned with the blue LCB crest paired with crocs and houndstooth checked pants.  Starbucks gets a lot of people coming in, desperate for a coffee to keep them awake for the 3 hour lecture coming up (or in progress) after they have already had up to 6 hours of class.

Now I must once again gear up to go to class.  A demo for 2.5 hours - this is the target time for our demo chefs, but classes have been known to run over the allocated 3 hours, which can cause a bit of a scramble for the next class - then a break (nap and review of notes) before being back and ready to go in the kitchen at 6pm.

So until next time, happy resting!