#93 - Finally! The wait is over...

Today was a day of tears:  tears of stress, tears of nervous anticipation, tears of worry and unalloyed terror and finally...tears of relief.


Yes, it's official - I passed both of my practical exams although the Patisserie one was a very near thing.  It wasn't anywhere near what I would have called even a good effort in terms of technique, having done every single element better previously (and actually, same for the Cuisine final) - but it was done and it was enough to get me through.  I heard someone who is progressing through the levels tell someone else that now they are nervous - well, I can't help the tears which came with the relief of finally knowing, one way or the other.


The rundown
Friday's Patisserie was a nightmare.  It started with a dream during the night in which I was already in my exams, but then I woke up and I actually had to do it.  Who knows how long the dream lasted, but I was working on my sable biscuits in it - and in that odd, dreamlike way that time passes, it seemed like it had been going for days.


It was time to get equipment and things ready for the exam room - my bag had been packed the night before and all extraneous knives had been removed from my knife kit.  Eventually found the bread knife and the cleaver I had removed for the Cuisine final - in a box with odds and ends when I tidied up my room.  See, it might look more tidy with things put away, but then I can't get my hands on things so tidy is not the same as organized.


The first 3 hours of my exam were great - the brioche was done on time and proving in the prover (although I had initially written down the wrong time, I had written the start time so it was easy to fix) and the sable dough was done.  The bain maries were set up for the chocolates, my lemons zested, juiced and on the stove, ready to start reducing when we were allowed to turn on the heat and the raspberries with the sugar on another burner, ready to go for the jelly.  They have a rule that in the 1st hour, you may not turn on your stoves.


Turned the stove on as soon as I was allowed to so that things could do what they needed to do.  I set up my tray for the truffles (paper, wire rack) and baking trays for the jaconde biscuit (the cake sponge for my dessert) and tuiles.  The brioche was chilling in the fridge so I tempered the chocolate and checked on the lemon juice and raspberries, both merrily heating but not boiling away - perfect, right?


In which the cascade starts
Somewhere in the 4th hour, things started to go wrong.  I was all of a sudden starting to get a little behind and I'm not sure why.  The melted butter for my sponge had disappeared off my stove when I wasn't looking and I thought I had messed up the sponge (no, it turned out ok) but it was time to make the mousse.  The jelly was already setting in the blast chiller and the chocolate twirls were in the fridge but all of a sudden - my lemon juice and zest for the mousse were no longer on my stove.  There was no chance of sabotage because everyone was making different desserts and I wouldn't have taken the pots to the washup because I needed them - but where was the lemon juice?  The chef went to investigate but all of a sudden my timing was off.  The sugar couldn't get started because the mousse had to set while I did the sugar and my truffles hadn't been capped - already a problem because it was so cold in the Patisserie that the chocolate was too cold when I flooded the mould and the shells were very thick - I knew they weren't going to score high...what do you do when you know that things aren't going well and you can't fix it?  You keep on going and hope that somehow it works out. Had to keep going but there were a few moments when it would have been nice to curl up in a little ball under my station and just wait to wake up so that I could do my exam for real.  Except this was real and it was starting to feel horrible.


Towards the end, I knew I wasn't going to get the biscuits done in time because I didn't have enough time to chill them down as much as I needed to - a lightning decision to salvage what was possible - take them out early (delineations of the colors got lost, lost a bunch of points for technique and presentation) and presented them less than half baked because I was already 5 minutes over (automatic 10% deduction) and didn't want to get disqualified by going over the maximum time.  There is a certain agonizing pain that comes with presenting something you know is sub-par but there was nothing to be done except hope for the best and hope it was enough.


Debrief
Waiting for the results was absolutely excruciating.  On the one hand, not knowing means that there's always a glimmer of hope - you haven't failed until they tell you that you did.  On the other hand, waiting to know one way or the other leaves you unable to think of anything else. Despite everything I could do to keep my mind off it (tons of laundry, packing and re-packing,   multiple ballet classes in the same day, going out with friends) somehow it always came back to the nauseating finale of the Patisserie.  I knew the Cuisine exam wasn't as good as the mock exam but the Patisserie - it was touch and go as to whether I had passed.  Failure meant no Patisserie Diplome, no Grand Diplome (and trust me, it's a big piece of paper) and could almost seem to be a waste of having returned to London to finish the last month of classes.  Of course there's a bright side (seeing the new school, using the new equipment, being back in London)  but the silver lining was hard to see under the doom and gloom of a possible failure.


So - how did it all go?
Cuisine:
Chef EB told me I should go to France for 5 years and eat out at restaurants more.  Yes, chef!  I think he told a lot of people that they should go to France and eat there more, though - at least 5 other people in my group were told the same thing.  Oddly enough, the dishes were better during the mock exam although the timing was definitely better for this one.  Managed to have a respectable plate although the detailed comments weren't available due to a computer glitch.  Good - I don't need to know about my hollandaise or my tartlet which I know could have been better.  I'm sure they would have said the turning could have been better, some veggies overcooked (turnips again?), some veggies undercooked (carrots?) and who knows for the rest of it?


"Congratulations - you passed."  Even though I had felt quite confident about the Cuisine final, I didn't realize how tightly I'd been strung while waiting to hear those words until the tears started.  The release of some of the tension was almost unbearable, especially as Patisserie debrief was next and the tension ratcheted back up almost immediately, even worse than before.  I exited the debriefing room for a hug from classmates who were going through the same thing.  Some concern from the others as they saw my tears - "What happened?  Did you pass?"  A sigh of relief as I nodded, then congratulations all around as we said them to each other as each person exited a debriefing room (the Cuisine and Patisserie debriefs were in adjacent rooms - I am guessing it's because a few of us had to go to both rooms).


Patisserie:
Chef CB's comment about my tuiles - "cremated".  Well, that's about right - I'm not sure what happened - the temperature in the oven at home must be a little different from the one at school - hard go gauge, I didn't use the oven thermometer at home.  Also - a tuile and the backup broke during plating so marks were deducted for the plates not being identical, although since all the elements on the plate were present, I got credit for that and the portfolio.


And then the compulsory items...brioche - a bit tasteless (needed more salt) and the head was crooked.  Otherwise, ok.

Truffles - white chocolate went out of temper (again!) and the shells were too thick, the caps uneven, but the ganache had a good texture, technique was fine and tasted very nice (yes, the extra 5 drops of Framboise helped, I think).


Sable biscuis - were not cooked, not chilled enough before cutting, etc. etc.  No points for taste because it wasn't cooked so they wouldn't have tasted the biscuits.  Evil petit fours - I saw some on a menu the other night and ended up pushing it away with a shudder, unable to think about the ones I had presented on the cakeboard.


Coulis needed more sugar, the glacage was a bit too runny, mousse was nice, jelly was too jelled and at the bottom of the mousse instead of in the middle and the sponge needed more syrup (which also had Framboise in it.  I soaked the sponge well, but maybe I should have done the sides too...)  Messy plate, messy sauces...it could have been so much better.  The white chocolate twirl was way too thick - I probably should have used the small teeth on the comb but was too nervous I'd melt through them while plating - my fingers tend to run hot which sucks when working with dough or sugar or chocolate.


Then the sugar...oh dear - let's just say it was not good - but I'm glad I managed to get it done at all and it was still standing when it got downstairs - a relief since the sugar kind of got overcooked at the initial stages.  I don't have a photo of it (for my reference only) but let's just say that it fell far short of what I had hoped to produce.


"Despite all that, you passed."  More tears, a hug and a kiss before heading downstairs to clean out my locker.  What a relief to know that it hadn't all been in vain and although the day produced a crappy performance, it was enough to get me through to the end.


Nor was I the only one to cry from the sheer relief of knowing finally - and knowing that we had done it.  There was more than one person who was still upset about the performance we had handed in on the exam days and we compared notes in terms of what we had been told - quite a few of us were told our dishes didn't taste so nice (hence the the suggestions that we live  in France and eat out more), as well as other problematic areas of our techniques and things.


I do want to re-do and try out some of the suggestions the chefs made - I'm sure I can do better than I did.  Now just to figure out a way to do it...some things are easier to try at home than others and although my sugar pretty much sucked, I am so glad I don't have to do it again.


So until next time, may you find that the effort you put in is worth the final result.

#90 - The C word...

Committing...
There it is - the "C" word...once we turn in our Patisserie portfolios, we are locked in with our desserts, decorations and plating.  I'm going to have to take in a photo of mine so that I can remember what I committed to on paper.

I spent Sunday afternoon experimenting with tuiles, puree and plating.  If there was ever a time that drove home how unartistic I am, today was it.  There was also the scientific curiosity which made me see if I could marble blackberry puree with white chocolate for a tempered decoration.  I know that a small amount of water (or other liquid) can make chocolate seize.  I just wasn't sure what the quantities were.  So the unscientific part of me didn't measure, but it doesn't matter.  The puree on chocolate was an unmitigated disaster - if the chocolate stayed tempered, you couldn't see the purple.  If you could see the coulis, it took the chocolate out of temper in a spectacularly disastrous fashion that I would be ashamed to present to the chefs at the Patisserie finals.  What to do, what to do?  I was still dithering as I fell asleep last night...plate design depends on so many factors (like, what if I accidentally overcook my coulis?  It turns out blackberries do have pectin so cooking it too long or cooling it too much will make it lumpy because it does something or other to the water.  I'd tell you more but that would require going into permutations and I'm still finishing the portfolio which just makes me want to curl up and eat Snickers bars.)  You'd think with all the chocolate, sugar, butter, milk and cream around, I'd have no problems making myself something sweet in the absence of any Snickers bars, but no - you'd be wrong.  Making any sweets would require cooking and I am pretty much through except for the exams.  As for the Snickers bar...well, I already ate it so another one would be massively naughty.  And I only had one so actually...


Anyway - the tuiles.  A slightly more successful attempt at the lattice but I am beginning to give up on it.  Part of it is that the equipment at home is a little bit different - like I don't have a blast chiller or a fridge large enough to accommodate the baking tray once I've spread the diamonds on the silmat, before I pipe the connecting batter.  The rest of it was that I was experimenting with the piping but since I didn't use a proper piping bag, the batter melted and I ended up with a closed lattice instead of an open one.


Praticing the plating took a lot of plates.  I think for some of them I tried a couple of designs on the plate.  All I have to say is thank goodness for dishwashers!  This is what the sink looked like after I had cleaned up any and all mess from the preparation and cooking part.  It's a good thing no one needed the kitchen because I had things everywhere (plating area, photography area, rubbish area, etc. etc.)  I got really lucky with accomodation in that the kitchen is actually usable for most of the practice things.


It's all starting to feel real
I have been sorting out my knife kit and Patisserie tools bag only to discover the acetate that I use to line my moulds for the dessert is not thick or strong enough to use for my chocolate twirls (I want a larger circumference on the twirl so I need a less flexible acetate strip).  Ah, the dilemmas of being in culinary school.  They're real in the sense that some people will do this for a living.  On the other hand, they (most likely) won't change the world or bring about world peace or do anything useful to better someone's life or the world so it's not as real as some other jobs I could name where every day you make a difference to someone's life.


There has been substantial panic in the kitchen as tuile paste refuses to cooperate and I keep forgetting which way I bent the tuiles.  Hopefully if it goes on backwards on the day, they won't deduct marks for getting it backwards.


The portfolio has been submitted (with literally just a few minutes, if that, to spare.  Formatting took way longer than I had wanted to spend on it but this is Patisserie - how pretty it is counts.  How pretty everything is counts.  In Cuisine, sometimes you can wing it.  As long as your techniques are good, you can always try to save it by saying it's "rustic" - unless of course, that's not what they're looking for, in which case you're just in trouble.


Must go and start mental review now of my game plan.  And do laundry.  And pack my kit for school.  And organize Patisserie tools.  And pack my bags.  So much to do, so little time.


There won't be much cooking between now and the finals but still a lot of thinking to do.  So until next time, may you have as fun a week as mine will be.

#85 - Finals Practice Day 1 - Compulsories

It's almost like the old school figure skating competitions.  We worked on our compulsory items today and tomorrow we work on our free plated dessert.


Disclaimer:  Keep in mind the following while you look at the photos:  I haven't made chocolates since October and this is my second sugar sculpture since November.  I have never before made the spiral sables (and it shows!) but I made the brioche a few times last week.  You can see what was practiced recently and what wasn't...I'd fix the formatting but it's difficult to keep my eyes open and I have an early class, so must get on with it.

Compulsories started well enough.  The first hour was a frantic rush - the brioche got made, the sables were finished and rolled and by the second hour, the chocolate shells for the truffles had set and were filled with ganache.  It all started to come apart in the third hour - my sables ended up way too big (I'll make a half recipe next time) and the brioche took twice as long as it should have to prove.


Then the truffles - the seal went on well enough, but they were really stuck when I tried to get them out at the end.  Chef asked if I had cleaned my mould well - yes I had, and I had the extra spilled over bits of chocolate which had gotten into other holds in the mould which had come out easily, all shiny and pretty.  The culprit was my white chocolate - it had gone out of temper when I brushed it onto the mould because I wanted to get a lot of definition on the white lines.  Too many brush strokes and it kills your chocolate - the truffles stick to the mould and they don't come out cleanly, if at all.  The result - broken chocolates.  Since we have to present 6 identical chocolates on the day, this is a bit of a failure unless you count the broken-ness as them being identical.  I think the chefs might consider that an identical lack of skill... 

I don't know what happened to my sugar but it was all bad.  It crystallized, which it had never done before, so it was hideous when I tried to stick things together.  Then the main piece was too top heavy (and answers the question of which way the teardrop window should face) and it broke before I managed to present it to the chef.  In the exam you have to somehow glue the pieces back together and present something because the compulsories are just that - compulsory.  Failure to present one is an automatic disqualification - i.e. you fail the exam and the course - or at least, that's how I understand it.  If you manage to stick something on a cake board, you might eke out a half point, keeping you in the game - as long as the rest of your work is good.  I think most people had a shocker of a day today, although not all.  In my case, most of the tasting seemed ok but the execution of the techniques - oh my.  I so don't want to put up photos because it was all a bit of a disaster, but the whole point of this is to share the good (sometimes) and the not-so-good (lately feels like an awful lot of the time).


The brioche wasn't so bad although the head was on crooked.  I felt so disorganized this morning - my kit and bits and pieces had all been left at home because I had taken things out of my bag or put them back in or I thought I had put them back in.  When I found I didn't have a few things, there was some mild panicking for the first hour or so.  Hopefully tomorrow will go more smoothly now that I kind of have a better idea of what I want to do and I've reviewed my knife kit / Patisserie toolbox.  It's kind of stupid - there's a rule that you can't bring in a bag other than your knife kit because people were stealing stuff from the old school.  The thing is, we need a lot of extra stuff in Patisserie so you actually do need that extra bag for things like our paint scrapers, grout spreaders (I'm not sure if that's even the right term), extra palette knife - and since there are quite a few of us who seem to want to do the same thing, I've packed my own moulds.  This way I am guaranteed to have the correct sized moulds for various things, like my chocolate and tuile decorations, as well as the actual dessert itself.


Lunch provided a sop to the OCD part of my personality -a sink right in the middle of a casual Portuguese chicken place!  No need for hand sanitizer, I could wash my hands after I paid for my food and before I sat down.  How could any germaphobe or a self-professed clean freak not be happy?


Wish us Merde - we will need it in order to survive our feedback and the subsequent change of recipes.


Until next time, may you feel more competent at whatever it is you're doing than I have felt today.

#80 - 2 pigeons, a chicken breast, a headless chicken and a mock final exam

It truly sounds like a poultry heavy beginning of a joke, doesn't it?  And it kind of was, except perhaps not in the way you might think.


Studying...kind of (and a day of non-stop eating)
Yesterday we spent getting ready for today's mock final.  Part of the preparation involved getting lunch - always an excellent idea.  Since I haven't been here for the first 8 weeks of term, I was excused (as I understood it) from attending the Patisserie tutorial sessions - there weren't any marks to discuss.  There was some discussion after class and a half-hearted study session.  As you can see, we were working super hard.


I noticed that the LCB cafe had a croquembouche on display.  It was one that had been done by one of our Patisserie chefs the day before - well, the assembly and the decorations had been done the day before.  A croquembouch basically means "break in the mouth" - a reference to the fact that the filled profiteroles are stuck together with caramel, which crunches when you eat it.  There are other variations (like filling the profiterole with ice cream and dipping it in chocolate) but then they are known as something else - I don't know what the something else is.  In this case, the actual profiteroles and the praline base had been done the week before.  So here is an example of something we might be able to do in a couple of hours, once we've had at least 15 years of experience and are talented...I know it's hard to see, but those are pulled sugar roses and sugar tendril-y things.  I tried to do something like that in class the other day when I was putting my ugly sugar sculpture together, but had to take them off because they just looked like mistakes from bad assembly.  Inspirational in the skill displayed, discouraging to know just how far we have to go to even begin to approach this kind of ease and skill.


Anyway, lunch...we went to this yummy burger place called Meat Liquor which is actually on the way home from class - a dangerous location.  I had a private giggle to myself that we spend time thinking of ways to plate fancy food pretty, but given a choice, this is what we go for.  There were a bunch of mushroom and swiss burgers, I had a bacon cheeseburger (see below) and 3 orders of chili cheese fries.  One of the guys liked his burger so much that he finished most of his girlfriend's burger, then ordered a second one.




Several beers (for them) and a coke (for me) later, people dispersed - some to go back to school for a couple of things, some to go home and work on their portfolios (basically the school making sure we prepare for our final exams - you have to write out recipes and methods) and a few of us to do other errands.  I went with a couple of guys to drop off some knives at this Japanese knife shop near the old school where they will sharpen the blades on a stone - a much better result than just using a steel before and after each class.  In fact the fellow did such a good job that I didn't even know I had nicked myself today until way later when I wondered why my finger was stinging.

Dinner in Poland and France
Then I went to meet a friend for dinner.  CL started basic at the same time I did for both cuisine and patisserie.  She decided not to continue on as she had a lot of travelling to do (I can't remember if she did Intermediate - they do say that memory is one of the first things to go with age...) so it was good to catch up and hear what was going on with her life.  We went to this Polish place (I think - she had heard about it from other people) and it was really good.  Her dish was kind of like a fancy version of what I fondly believe to be Hungarian Goulash since it was served with something that resembled spatzle (except made with veal escalopes) and I had a topside beef something-or-other braised in consomme - just what I wanted - a beef and vegetable dinner with a beefy veggie soup for dinner.



Then we had dessert at CL's favorite crepe place, almost next door to the restaurant.  I got ice cream with chocolate sauce and she got a chocolate and banana crepe.  Apparently the crepe is usually better (this one was kind of crunchy - not good).  Then I had her try the ice cream.  Also not good - there was something wrong with it, it tasted really fake and chemical-y.  A shame really - they had the right crepe pan / burner things that I've seen on the streets of Paris and it smelled pretty good.  I think they must have pre-made CL's crepe and it got dried out somehow.  As you can see, this photo was taken before either of us had tasted the ice cream.  There was an after photo as well, but I freely confess that vanity has prevented me from posting that photo.


4 hours of confusion...
Jetlag may finally be starting to abate - I slept in until 6am or something this morning - whenever it was that my alarm went off.  Of course that may have something to do with being up a little past midnight, getting ready for this morning's cuisine practical.  Rather, a double practical class - because we were running through our 4-hour final exam to see where we were in terms of timing and results.


There were 15 of us in the kitchen.  I've been in the kitchen exactly once before, so someone had to show me where the numbers were on the ovens so that I knew where I was for my station.  They staggered our start times by 10 minutes per side of kitchen so that we wouldn't all pile on top of each other while setting up.  Fine in theory, but in practice - well, there were a few things we didn't know, so we weren't as efficient as we could have been.  Or rather, I know I could have been more efficient if certain things had been clarified earlier on.  Anyway - a demoralizing morning a little bit.  I knew what had to be done with each component, but I kept losing my place and the induction burners have a few tricks with which I was unfamiliar.  This meant I had to stop a few times to regroup and try to remember where I was in relation to where I wanted to be.  I got told by a friend that sometimes it's good not to think.  


Tartlet Florentine avec Oeuf Poche et Sauce Hollandaise (Tartlet with Poached Egg, Sauteed Spinach and Hollandaise Sauce)
The starter wasn't too bad but I messed up the timing a bit.  Things actually take a little while longer in these ovens, possibly because the old ones often seemed to run super hot.  This means that the 10 minutes I allocated to the tartlet shell was insufficient and I was cutting things close so I wouldn't have to reheat - not a good idea until you know how the kitchen equipment works.  (Really - the ovens have a light, but it took a couple of tries to figure out they don't stay on if you take your finger off the button.)  Then being a bit discombobulated and not feeling really comfortable, I missed a couple of very basic things - like seasoning the Hollandaise sauce.  I tasted it, but only after I had presented the plate - ick.  It needed lots of salt and some lemon juice in the worst way.  Also, it was overcooked - I wasn't sure what that meant because it wasn't scrambled, but eventually found out that it was probably because my sauce was too thick (did I mention the lemon juice?) so it wasn't quite the right consistency.  Spinach needs a bit of work - it's the English kind so quite a bit tougher than the Popeye the Sailor Man kind.  You actually have to blanch it now instead of just sauteeing it, which is what we used to do.


Also, the eggs were old.  How do I know?  The whites just bloomed everywhere when I put in the second and third eggs.  The first one was fine - I'm normally pretty good with eggs, even the slightly old ones, but we don't have slotted spoons and I was having difficulties coaxing the whites to envelope the yolks.  I do know that if it happens in the exam, I'm going to request better eggs or something.  And perhaps take them out of the fridge a little earlier, although I think that has less to do with the whites going everywhere than the age of the eggs.


The main
Verdict: deep fried pigeon legs (instead of confit - yummy, but not what they were looking for) and the pigeon crown was woefully undercooked.  I venture to say that perhaps it was still not cooked at all?  I'm unsure whether the chef was going a little bit easy on me because he knows it's only my second day in the new cuisine kitchens - I hope not because it would suck to feel like you're on track only to find out they were easing you in.  There isn't time to be eased in!


I messed up the lettuce a little bit but I think that's an easy fix for next time.  I wasn't happy with the timing (starter was 15 minutes behind where I wanted to be, 10 minutes beyond actual service time and the main was 15 minutes behind the actual service time - a fail if it had happened in the exam).  Luckily there were a few things that did go right - both sauces (the pigeon and the lettuce glaze), the vegetables (although still need to practice turning - dratted turnips!) and the glazes...and a silly oversight - the parsley chiffonade, which is a stupid thing to lose points for in the exam.  Still a possibility of passing the final, which would make me so happy.  I got my review back - they call you out of the room to give you individual comments - I was so unhappy on the way out but it's always good to be told that it's not bad.  Especially from a chef who is as amazing as Chef EB.  I'm not sure if he ever says something is good - usually he says it's ok.  But then again, he may say that to other people - I just don't hear it and that's fine because the day that I hear that something is good is going to be a day when I skip out of school.


There is hope on the horizon and I just have a bit of focused work to do.


As much confusion as there was in my head today, there is hope that it will be so much easier next time.  Who knows, one of these days I might even figure out the induction burners without actually standing over the silly thing.


So until next time, I wish you ease of focus, clarity of mind and satisfaction in what you do.  

#78 - How many pilots does it take to fly an A380?

I was waiting to board the plane when I saw 4 men walk past in what looked like pilots' clothes.  It could be that there was a navigator or a first officer (I don't know if he does any of the flying) or a couple of co-pilots - ages ago a pilot said it took two co-captains to take the place of a captain.  Anyway, I was wondering why they needed 4.  Maybe a couple were relief crew?  It was a 7hour 55minute flight to Singapore, then a 14hour flight to London.

Safely back in London

There was a moment of panic at the airport when I said something about a visa.  Note to self:  let the immigration guy do all the talking.  We managed to get my wording sorted out and he, not wanting to look through an entire stack of documents, looked at 2 pieces of paper, then sent me on my merry way.  You can bet if I hadn't had all the other papers, he would have wanted to see them.  Oh well, better to be over-prepared...

Had to run some errands before heading back to LCB - my first time at the new campus, so my camera was charged and ready to go.  Oh, and I had to get directions.  Lots of little things to do and I saw the amount of stuff I left at my friend JB's place - goodness there's a lot!  Luckily the largest box was full of supplies and ingredients and part of the smaller box had my uniforms.


So the first class was a demo - fun demo - it was the last dish I did back in November before I burned my hand - the practical is tomorrow morning at 8am - back to fish mongery (to be precise) and killing crayfish first thing, then a champagne sauce.  The champagne sauce was good and so was the crayfish one, but the dover sole wasn't my favorite that day.  Maybe because I'd been travelling for so long it was hard to tell which way was up.


30 hours of travelling then having to stay awake for another 15 hours was enough to make anyone pass out at the oh-so-partying-hard hour of 9pm.  You'd think that would help one sleep, no?  Well yes - for three hours anyway.  I was wide awake at midnight and didn't get back to sleep until sometime between 4 - 5am, then awake again early in the morning.  I was pleased to find out the cafe at school opens at 7am...except I didn't go in the side entrance and spent several minutes fighting with the biometric scan which actually doesn't turn on until 7:15.  Yes, they have biometrics - they scan in your fingerprint which opens the gates to admit you to the locker rooms and kitchens.  Um...they have reset my fingerprints several times - index, thumb...I was tempted to give the scanner the middle except that probably wouldn't have worked.

Our new digs are in Bloomsbury Square - opposite some enormous building which looks like it could be a museum or an academic institution of some kind.  I got there early enough to see the milk and other dairy delivery.  I'm not sure if it's a daily thing, but wouldn't be surprised if it were.  I love the idea that it's cold enough that they can leave the milk outside and that it's delivered daily.  There's something so anachronistic about it.


Luckily the cafe still gave me the student discount even though my finger didn't scan - probably because no one would wear the uniform as a fashion statement.  The time difference was sufficient that I actually ate breakfast - and the croissant was still a little warm from the oven.  What can I say, coffee and croissant are definitely worth waking up early.  It's nice to have the cafe - the breads look good and I can attest that the croissant is excellent.  I haven't tried the sweets, but they resemble some of the ones we made for the Superior Tea Party so I'm not really in a hurry to try them, although some of the banana bread type things would be nice to take over to people's houses or good with tea.  Or both.  Why choose if you don't have to?

First practical
I feel like I got started on the wrong foot today.  I got caught with my coffee mug in class (although I had it more for the fact that it was a warm drink which helped with a vicious cough, rather than because I didn't care about not having a hot beverage in class).  Then a surprise:  Chef JW expected me to take part in class from 8am this morning - blown sugar and a few other things.  I was under the impression that I would be watching only (so said my schedule), which was why I didn't have my knife kit or any equipment with me other than my uniform - the uniform being required if you are going to be in the kitchen.  My mistake - I got the knife kit and participated in the second session - a run through of the sugar centrepiece for the final exam, for which I am very grateful.  Verdict:  need a lot of work, but today was the last day of my group's sugar module so I have some catching up to so.


The photos...not so good.  My notes are somewhere between London and Sydney so I had to try to remember things.  The sugar sculpture is literally 3 ingredients:  sugar, water and glucose.  I just couldn't remember exactly when the glucose was supposed to go in.  The induction stoves are amazing - they heat up really quickly.  This is both a good thing and a bad thing:  good because you don't sit there forever, waiting for the sugar to get to the right temperature.  Bad because you could turn your back for a second and the sugar is all of a sudden much too hot (about 10 degrees too hot, although somehow I managed to save it).

I thought the sugar would be ok, but...well, not so much.  I got some good feedback, constructive criticism and a few useful tips, but it just makes me realize just how much I lost by being out of it for so long.  Perhaps I should have repeated Superior after all, but I didn't have the energy to sustain such a pace nor was my hand strong enough to handle it.  But back to the sugar - it was very plain - so much so that it showed all the flaws in the piece.  There was no movement and the whole thing just didn't look very good.  You forget all these little things (like a support for the backdrop) and try new things (which resulted in not having a very good color or assembly of the sculpture in general.  Someone asked me if I had to do the sugar piece for the exam - I'm guessing they asked because of the accident last term.  I told them it wasn't optional.


My group then had a cuisine practical - I didn't go because I had missed the demo for it last week.  I suppose I could have done it but I was a bit done in and I still had to prepare for tomorrow's class.  I decided I'd give the cafe another try - lunch.  This is cream of mushroom soup with croutons.  I assume the green on top of the soup is drizzled olive oil.  The bread which came with the soup wasn't very good though, so I ended up leaving it.  Notes are done and I feel a little more organized for tomorrow morning's class.  It's now a decent hour to go to sleep, so off I go to the land of Nod.


Apologies for any errors in this post - it's late enough that jetlag is making my thoughts extremely silly and disjointed.


So until next time, may you be free from misunderstandings and miscommunication.

#58 - A day off, followed by ER (minus George Clooney, Noah Wylie et al)

Day off and confusion reigns for 10 minutes...
Monday was a day off.  I assumed it was a public holiday - it wasn't.  I called school to make sure I had read my schedule correctly - we never have a day off during the week!  Ok, we did...

So it was mostly a nice day. I'm skipping the not nice bits - because it hurts to type.  Afternoon tea in St James's Place followed by a walk to Covent Garden and the Royal Ballet.  Graduation present (belated) for LM.  Found out later it was her first ballet, so glad we did it right.  Fun girly day / night out.


ER (don't look if you are squeamish)
So yesterday was another day of sugar.  My sugar leaked a little out of piping bags...got some spectacular burns - put my hand in water / ice periodically, but wanted to finish class.  I think the smart thing would have been to go to the doctor right after, but I had another class so I stayed for that one too. Finished the centrepiece but still have a few kinks to work out for the final.  Pretty safe to say I will avoid piping sugar for the final so will need to consider alternate technique which minimizes potential to come into contact with sugar.

After class, before ER

Unsuccessful attepts to blow sugar during second session. May have had a little to do with the fact that my dominant hand was useless.  Blown sugar will break if you blew it thin enough and then don't pick it up gently enough.  Definitely no apple of discord in my batch of misshapen fruits.  Finished with a practice rose so class wouldn't feel like there was nothing to shoe for it.

Finished early so got a book and went looking for the nearest ER when my fingers started go feel numb.  Surely that can't be good...Google said there was one about 10 minutes' walk away.  Turned out it was some kind of meeting group organizing thing, which is good.  It was in a building where I expected lunatics to come barreling out from nowhere (I pressed a button to get in, the door buzzed to let me in, reception was closed and no one seemed to be around.  Just saw a lot of empty rooms...).  Eventually found someone who gave me directions to the hospital (you go along this road, then turn right).

24 hours after injury...

Temporarily crippled
Eventually got to hospital where I had to ask for directions for the entrance, then directions to the ER. When I finally saw the triage nurse, she asked why I had waited so long to come in. I told her I had class, then got lost. Eventually saw the doctor. One look at my hand and she went to get a more senior doctor. Left hospital a little after midnight with note so I can miss class while my hand regains some functionality. Hmmm, might be while, today is worse than yesterday. Can't be good when the chefs freak out after they see my hand.

Had a pretty walk to class this morning, then yummy dinner near St Paul's - Gordon Ramsay's Bread Street Kitchen - although I didn't know it was Gordon Ramsay's when I picked it or might have boycotted it (you know, general bad language, personal attacks on people, etc etc).

So food:  seared scallops with apple and bacon, short rib burger, green beans with shallots, mac 'n cheese (all of which LM and I shared);

then dessert:  pineapple upside down cake for her and another mac 'n cheese.  The waitress laughed when I ordered my dessert, then laughed a little more when I told her it was the best dessert in a while.

Took forever to wash hair with one hand unable to do anything.  Need more painkillers but afraid to take any.  Dinner was a while ago and you have to take these with food...

Have mock exams coming up but hand is out of commission for at least 7 - 10 days.  Need to do the practice but don't want to damage hand further with exams just over a week away.  Can't hold a pen or spoon, much less a knife so will have to figure something out.  Silver lining - can't fake this kind of injury.  Tiny lining, but there nonetheless.  Going to sleeep now, hopefully some healing will begin to make itself felt because it's starting to hurt a bit now.  Any mistakes are due to exhaustion and pain, but apologies anyway.

So until next time, please stay safe and may you not need to search for silver linings.

#57 - Sugar, fish, lights, action!

Long day Wednesday
Wednesday was Day 2 of sugar in Patisserie.  I got so used to Patisserie being late sessions (3 - 9pm) that I completely misread my schedule.  I want to say it was because I was on painkillers, but that would be untrue.  On the other hand, although I was still (mostly) in bed at 11:45am, that was more due to the fact that I was trying to get my back into working order.  Back spasms are kind of inconvenient when you have to push, pull and carry things.  Anyway - got a text from one of the girls in class - I was late!  Major rushing (also not good with bad back) and staggered into class.  Managed to finish the bow and ribbon, but I think I didn't pull the sugar enough.  For whatever reason, I didn't cool it enough before I put it together, so the ribbons looked ok when I put them together.  A few minutes later, however...


Then the centrepiece.  A second try - I tried out a couple of things, quite unsuccessfully.  I say unsuccessful because the second try turned out worse than my first try.  Also, I managed to drip some sugar on myself - a couple of burns on my fingers.  The blister on my middle finger burst in class on Friday morning while I was cleaning my knives.  The other one is still on my pointer finger, so we'll see how cleanly they heal.


Wednesday afternoon was the official ceremony to turn on the Christmas lights for Marylebone Village.  I was in class during the time when the street was closed off, but the lights were on when I was on my way home.  I must admit that any Grinch-like tendencies which normally want to rear their heads around this time of year have been quiescent - mainly because lights at nightime are pretty, regardless of the time of the year.  They are just more effective at the moment because the sun sets before 4:15pm so it's pretty dark by the time we get out of class and head home after 9pm.  No Christmas music yet (thank goodness) but the lights, the cold wind at night and breathing air which feels cleaner because of the drop in temperature all help alleviate any slightly depressed feelings that might otherwise make us a little more like Scrooge rather than Tiny Tim.


Cuisine Thursday...
Normally they give us a little leeway when plating now.  I took this to mean that the spinach could go the plate the way I wanted - as a swirl instead of a quenelle.  Apparently not.  I presented my plate and Chef FJ said "funny."  What do you mean?  "Funny plate, funny quenelle, funny lemon...are you feeling all right?"  When a teacher says they can tell you are tired and sore - that's not a good thing.


So the dish - halibut grilled...with Bearnaise sauce and other stuff.  I gave my fish to Chef P in the production kitchen.  I didn't give him the Bearnaise sauce because it was too light in texture (and I hadn't cooked the sabayon well enough at the beginning so I had to fix it by cooking another yolk / sabayon), but at least it tasted ok.  The potato is supposed to look like a rose but having to slice pieces that thin and long, like an apple peel, almost caused a nervous breakdown in class.  Apparently the potato rose tends to do that to people.  The potato is slippery, the peel gets oddly shaped and breaks off in short pieces which makes it hard to fasten into a rose.  Then when you cook it, it expands a bit - great if well assembled, but otherwise it falls apart or looks like mine.  It's supposed to be crispy outside and creamy/soft on the inside of the rose.  The centre was ok but something was wrong with the outside, I just can't remember what.


Then we had our wine tech class. It was the Patisserie wine tech (dessert and wine pairing), which means sweet and sticky wines. I like the flavors much better but generally this is also where we run into fortified wines. Even with the (inelegant) spitting, my ears still got really hot. Good thing it ended a little early so that I could actually get to the theatre in relatively good repair.


Chicago!
Tursday night capped off a slightly crappy practical with a show in the West End - Chicago, in case the heading to this section didn't tip give it away.  It was at the Garrick Theatre, near Leister Square.  I was expecting something like Broadway but this was almost more like off-Broadway.  Some of the singing was good and some of it mediocre (America Ferrera, of Ugly Betty fame, was Roxie Hart) - oh dear..her voice isn't bad but there were a few spots where I couldn't tell what the tune was.  She can carry a tune, but it's like she dropped it for just a couple of notes here and there.  Quite an entertaining show - I'd only seen the movie before - and the staging was great.  I loved having the characters move around the orchestra / band which was sitting up on stage, as a part of the set.


Thoroughly corrupted?
Afterwards I wanted something sweet.  Very unusual, I'm not normally a big sweets person.  My parents would be surprised by this picture.  I was a bit shocked - at the size of the ice cream thing whose name I've forgotten.  Something to do with chocolate.  Anyway, managed to get LM to have a teeny, tiny taste.  Pretty good for that time of the night, although it wasn't something that I could finish on my own.

Friday - Breakfast of champions?
We had an 8am demo on Friday morning. The practical which corresponds to this demo is our mock exam next week. Similar (but not same) conditions during the mock exam. In the meantime, Chef FJ prepared a standing rib roast, a Bordelais sauce, some mushrooms and mac 'n cheese.  Let me just say, normally I hate blue cheese. There is now an exception to this rule, which is gorgonzola in mac 'n cheese. I think they did something like this at some fancy restaurant - Ducasse? - although of course they call it by it's proper name, macaroni gratin. Anyway - wow! I don't think I can post pictures from demo because I don't have permission from the school or the chef, but I have the recipe so it's definitely on my list to make at some point in the near(ish) future.


Our dish for that day's practical was a Dover sole and crayfish timbale.  It was a fish mousse, blanched crayfish and crayfish sauce encased in a fillet of sole, served with more crayfish sauce and a champagne sauce.  Maybe it's because I don't drink, but I could really taste the champagne in the sauce so I put in butter at the end to soften the alcohol.  The result:  "too much butter".  Then Chef JB looked around and asked if he had just said there was too much butter.  We couldn't believe it - on the other hand, it wasn't that the sauce was super buttery (it kind of was, but I don't eat much butter at home either) - his objection was that he couldn't really taste the champagne.  I had put some aside to add at the end but didn't, so I added the reserved champagne and asked him to taste it again (marking was over).  Nope, still too buttery.

Then it was a bit of a hurry because I had dinner plans with MD.  We were going to meet for drinks in Gerrard Street, then head to dinner in Chinatown where her man was going to join us.  But first, the fish, mousse and crayfish needed a home.  I went to my go-to guys and even got a little cuddle.  Apologies for the school uniform - Michael had himself a little laugh but I felt so disgusting and sticky after cuisine, I couldn't bear the thought of changing into my civvies without having a shower first.  Not even the croquembouche decoration helped because it was quite a warm day so we didn't cool down much between end of cuisine and leaving school altogether.  Having seen Chef NH in action, I can only see how far we all have to go before we could even begin to look as smooth as he does when he works.

Harder than it looks (or else any monkey could do it) - aka guess the chef

It's actually like that with all the chefs.  Somehow they make it all look so easy, then we go to class and things fall to pieces.  People forget about the sugar ("Geraldine, I see blue smoke!  Who's burning the sugar?" or "The monkey used scisseaux to cut that.  I don't remember the monkey tearing the foil."  Or "I didn't say it was easy.  I didn't say a 2-year old could do it, did I?"  to which the reply was "No chef - you said a 5-year old could do it with one arm tied behind his back.")  Sometimes we forgot other things ("you can't pour the sugar on the side - you can't get it out")  In any event, it always seems that the thing which looks so easy in demo then is super fiddly in practical.  Occasionally it can make you want to throw the stupid potato across the room.

I'd write more but I have been falling asleep for the last 2 paragraphs so it's time to get some sleep.  so until next time, patience, Grasshopper!