For better or for worse...
Cuisine final is over and I am still recovering. 15 of us going into the kitchen - they had people going in 2 by 2 (opposite sides of the kitchen) and I was second to last - had to wait almost an hour before I got to go in and set up my station. There was last minute panic in the hallway, a few questions for the Patisserie chefs who were walking past as they set up for their tasting from Group C and a few nervous trips to the bathroom. At least it was before and not during the exam...
There have been sporadic instances this week where I just wanted to curl up in a little ball on the floor and have a nervous breakdown. But we don't do that - we're chefs and we deal with it. Or as one of my friends told me when I told her I just wanted to die, "do it after the exam." As you can tell, we're a sympathetic lot. The bright side is that the feeling does go away - eventually - and there are 4 of us from my cuisine group who will be repeating this experience on Friday morning in staggered starts. The enthusiasm with which we look forward to Friday is as palpable as that which might accompany a doctor's appointment which involves taking off your clothes and being put in positions you normally wouldn't engage in with someone who isn't your spouse / lover / [insert word of your choice here]. It has also reduced even those of us with pretty extensive vocabularies to mostly 4-letter words which you wouldn't say in front of the very young or the extremely elderly, especially when something boils away. You will note that I have not said "boiled over" - I stopped doing that last Thursday.
The exam...
I didn't take in my time plan because I figured if I had to check it too often I'd been in deep s#$* and looking at it wouldn't fix matters whereas looking at my mise en place told me where to go next. It was a busy but not horrific 4 hours and if it hadn't been for the couple of things which went wrong (and if I had had another couple of pots and burners) I think I could have done it in a little less time.
Things were pretty on track in terms of timing right up until I had to plate my starter. Of course that's when things start to go pear shaped. I recovered from burning my carrots (had to scoop out a couple more, but luckily I had a whole extra carrot so that was no drama) and burning away my wine (for the Hollandaise) twice. Then...as I was starting plating, disaster struck - my egg broke and the backup wasn't usable because it looked awful. So I had to poach another egg. This then threw off my hollandaise schedule a little bit and it was cold by the time I had to plate it - so I tried to recover it with a little hot water - hopefully it didn't split but it started to look thin although it went over the egg fine. This time I remembered the lemon and the salt so although the tartlet didn't look as pretty as during the mock exam (and I didn't make a spare) hopefully it will taste better. Also - I presented 2 minutes early! I suppose I could have used those 2 minutes to try to fix the hollandaise a bit more, but really, I wasn't in the mood to mess with it any more than I already had.
Then the main...everything on track again except for a minor hiccup with the mousse which I will tell you about after the debrief on Monday. I also dropped the bowl which had my pigeon legs marinating in it, so I had to clean up the floor and wash the legs (I was going to do that anyway). I don't know how that affects the hygiene marks - I didn't have any spare pigeons and I had to make the legs so since they were going to cook in gently boiling oil for about an hour or so, I figured any bugs would be long since cooked away. The dish ended up looking quite nice - I think everything was there, including the parsley chiffonade. And finally the pigeon was cooked, but it's possible one of them was slightly over - ugh, will it never go right??? Time - 2 minutes over because I had to clear my station down so that I could plate - and there were a lot of components: glazed vegetables, cutting the bottom off the braised and stuffed lettuce, the sauce, the chiffonade, the potatos fondant, the confit pigeon legs where we have to debone the thigh, then pan fry to get the skin crispy (and which took forever), the glaze for the stuffed/braised lettuce and the sauce. Think one pot or something similar for each of those things which then has to go on 2 very hot plates.
My station was a shambles. It seemed like crap was proliferating everywhere, but never the stuff I needed. Another small pot would have been nice (we had an extra one during the mock exam so it was a real nuisance not to have one today). Also, they said we could trade our used pots for clean ones, but there weren't any in the washup area for the first hour of my time so I either washed my own or I had to do other stuff while waiting for my pots to get cleaned - I can tell you where my 2 minutes went. In the meantime, there was quite a bit of "hot pan!" and "mind your backs" but otherwise, it was intensely quiet in the kitchen except for the sound of pots going on stoves and oven doors opening. Oh, ridiculous - I couldn't open my oven unless I used both hands, which meant a little bit of juggling. Small in the grand scheme of things, but awful when seconds count.
Good night...
The next time you hear from me, hopefully the Patisserie will also be finished and I will be able to tell you that it felt good. Until then, may you have enough pots and pans (or whatever) to do what you need to do. And may you beat the clock...
Showing posts with label pigeon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pigeon. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
#84 - Sebastian the Lobster, Interactive dining and the Little Mermaid
But first - a lobster, half a beetroot and some ratatouille
Friday was our lobster and ratatouille practical. For some reason, people seem to dislike beetroot, sometimes before they've even tried it. I was guilty of this particular dislike until a few years ago. I had always been put off by the color and the fact that beetroot seems to stain everything it touches so I'm not sure what possessed me to try it that nameless day sometime in the distant past, but try it I did. It was love at first bite. It has a firm, but soft texture if that's possible, similar to eating a skillfully cooked turnip but much sweeter.
So the dish was a pan fried lobster, but only at the last minute. We had to (mostly) cook it in the shell so that we could remove the shell first, to use to make something almost like a bisque - cooking off the shells and making a bouillon, then clarifying it with beets and egg whites. Somehow getting the lobster out of its shell was a lot harder than I remember and this one had a ton of eggs. It was actually kind of disgusting because they got everywhere and I kept having to clean my board, knives and work surface. Plus I accidentally cut through the meat on one of the claws and completely mashed the other one. Sebastian (yes, I know it's a boy's name) got some of her own back when one of her knuckles twisted in my hand while I was deshelling her - so there is a puncture on my left thumb and a slice on my right thumb (no idea how I got it).
I have yet to have a practical class in Cuisine where I haven't boiled something over - on Friday, it was the court bouillon to cook the lobster. The clarification was quite nice although I had to discard some egg white part way through because it looked like there was too much egg. Not enough sauce left to make an emulsion foam at the end, but the dish finished on time and the beetroot consomme was surprisingly good. The ratatouille was pretty yummy, but we ran out of olive oil so I thought it was missing something. I tried it at home after adding a little olive oil and it made a huge difference - part of the reason why I don't cook with extra virgin olive oil unless I am looking for the flavor. It also took a little while longer than I would have liked to cut all the vegetables because I had to spend so much time trimming. It's easier to get even cuts if you cut off the top and the bottom of the bell peppers and since none of the veggies had flat sides, you had to trim off and discard quite a bit. Chef EB didn't say anything about them but I bet if I hadn't gotten them pretty similar sized, he would have noticed and said something. As it was, he could tell I hadn't added the basil chiffonade at the right time.
Lobster was followed by a trek down to the pub, a fine after-class tradition which is not quite as regular as back when we were in Marylebone Lane. A definite must though, after a Friday class.
Minor rejoicing
And finally, the biometric scan for my finger works! I've forgotten, but one of the gates works to let me in and a different one (and those ones only) work to let me out when I scan my finger. Suffice it to say that the working finger is not the middle one. And it finally worked at the cafe so my prediction that the scanner will never work during my time at LCB will not stay true. The new ID card is a different story and I'm still not sure that I will learn everyone's name in my group before the exams. We're still working on remembering who's actually in the group.
Practicing...and bloody pigeons
I hate pigeon - the meat actually smells kind of vile. After we thought it was cooked, I poked the meat when we roasted the crown and one felt pretty close to medium while the other one still felt really rare. When I carved my pigeons, the parts that felt medium were medium, but the part close to the bone was still not cooked and even though it didn't bleed (much) when I carved it, blood got in the sauce when I put the sauce on the plate. I'm not sure how I'll get the whole pigeon crown to medium at this stage because it looks like if the part by the bone is cooked, the rest of the breast might be overdone. It's not quite as serious to be slightly under with the pigeon as it is with chicken (they want the pigeon medium, chicken has to be cooked through) but it can't be good if I can't roast the stupid thing.
We did manage to get the braising liquid from the lettuce sufficiently reduced to get a glaze and plate most of 2 plates. No second lettuce and we skipped the chicken mousse because it's a component which is hard to mess up once you learn the tricks of the trade. However, not particularly happy with the result of our practice and have to remind myself that conditions at home are very different from te ones at school. For one thing, I'm not sure anyone has 7 pots at home and we spent part of our 4 hours washing up. We did mark time for when we expected to be doing other elements during the exam (i.e. the chicken mousse for the lettuce, the poached eggs, spinach and Hollandaise sauce) but all in all it didn't turn out too badly, other than the pigeon which is still causing me problems. Perhaps a longer sear - I'll have to ask the chef because the whole bleeding on the plate thing doesn't work for me. The picture on the right above looks like one of those find the difference games they have for you when you're a child, the purpose being that the plates presented during the exam ought to be identical. JE was unhappy with the sauce but I thought it was pretty good, taking into account we used the wrong stock (we didn't have veal and I haven't been able to find it) and the wrong wine (we didn't want to open a nice bottle of red wine and we had only gotten white wine from when we did the Hollandaise earlier in the week.
Friday was our lobster and ratatouille practical. For some reason, people seem to dislike beetroot, sometimes before they've even tried it. I was guilty of this particular dislike until a few years ago. I had always been put off by the color and the fact that beetroot seems to stain everything it touches so I'm not sure what possessed me to try it that nameless day sometime in the distant past, but try it I did. It was love at first bite. It has a firm, but soft texture if that's possible, similar to eating a skillfully cooked turnip but much sweeter.
So the dish was a pan fried lobster, but only at the last minute. We had to (mostly) cook it in the shell so that we could remove the shell first, to use to make something almost like a bisque - cooking off the shells and making a bouillon, then clarifying it with beets and egg whites. Somehow getting the lobster out of its shell was a lot harder than I remember and this one had a ton of eggs. It was actually kind of disgusting because they got everywhere and I kept having to clean my board, knives and work surface. Plus I accidentally cut through the meat on one of the claws and completely mashed the other one. Sebastian (yes, I know it's a boy's name) got some of her own back when one of her knuckles twisted in my hand while I was deshelling her - so there is a puncture on my left thumb and a slice on my right thumb (no idea how I got it).I have yet to have a practical class in Cuisine where I haven't boiled something over - on Friday, it was the court bouillon to cook the lobster. The clarification was quite nice although I had to discard some egg white part way through because it looked like there was too much egg. Not enough sauce left to make an emulsion foam at the end, but the dish finished on time and the beetroot consomme was surprisingly good. The ratatouille was pretty yummy, but we ran out of olive oil so I thought it was missing something. I tried it at home after adding a little olive oil and it made a huge difference - part of the reason why I don't cook with extra virgin olive oil unless I am looking for the flavor. It also took a little while longer than I would have liked to cut all the vegetables because I had to spend so much time trimming. It's easier to get even cuts if you cut off the top and the bottom of the bell peppers and since none of the veggies had flat sides, you had to trim off and discard quite a bit. Chef EB didn't say anything about them but I bet if I hadn't gotten them pretty similar sized, he would have noticed and said something. As it was, he could tell I hadn't added the basil chiffonade at the right time.
Lobster was followed by a trek down to the pub, a fine after-class tradition which is not quite as regular as back when we were in Marylebone Lane. A definite must though, after a Friday class.
Minor rejoicing
And finally, the biometric scan for my finger works! I've forgotten, but one of the gates works to let me in and a different one (and those ones only) work to let me out when I scan my finger. Suffice it to say that the working finger is not the middle one. And it finally worked at the cafe so my prediction that the scanner will never work during my time at LCB will not stay true. The new ID card is a different story and I'm still not sure that I will learn everyone's name in my group before the exams. We're still working on remembering who's actually in the group.
Practicing...and bloody pigeons
Saturday was a practice session with JE. We met at Borough Market because we needed some ingredients (pigeons, baby onions, a few other bits and pieces). And of course, we both got a delicious toasted cheese sandwich. JE was actually going to get something else, but a look at the steam rising in the air from a bitten corner of the sandwich and a tiny little bite convinced her that she wanted one of her own. I remember ages ago when LM and I went to get one, we shared it and I thought it was so delicious that I could eat a whole one by myself. Well, no, as it turns out. I got most of the way through but the cheese was so rich (and I'm pretty sure there were lashings of butter on it) that I was defeated before I got to the end.
Spent part of the time practicing turning turnips. I remembered that I wasted a little time during the mock exam doing extra ones (obviously losing some time there) but reminded myself that there would only be a couple of backups during the actual exam so some time should get picked up there, as well as the vegetable cooking.
I hate pigeon - the meat actually smells kind of vile. After we thought it was cooked, I poked the meat when we roasted the crown and one felt pretty close to medium while the other one still felt really rare. When I carved my pigeons, the parts that felt medium were medium, but the part close to the bone was still not cooked and even though it didn't bleed (much) when I carved it, blood got in the sauce when I put the sauce on the plate. I'm not sure how I'll get the whole pigeon crown to medium at this stage because it looks like if the part by the bone is cooked, the rest of the breast might be overdone. It's not quite as serious to be slightly under with the pigeon as it is with chicken (they want the pigeon medium, chicken has to be cooked through) but it can't be good if I can't roast the stupid thing.
We did manage to get the braising liquid from the lettuce sufficiently reduced to get a glaze and plate most of 2 plates. No second lettuce and we skipped the chicken mousse because it's a component which is hard to mess up once you learn the tricks of the trade. However, not particularly happy with the result of our practice and have to remind myself that conditions at home are very different from te ones at school. For one thing, I'm not sure anyone has 7 pots at home and we spent part of our 4 hours washing up. We did mark time for when we expected to be doing other elements during the exam (i.e. the chicken mousse for the lettuce, the poached eggs, spinach and Hollandaise sauce) but all in all it didn't turn out too badly, other than the pigeon which is still causing me problems. Perhaps a longer sear - I'll have to ask the chef because the whole bleeding on the plate thing doesn't work for me. The picture on the right above looks like one of those find the difference games they have for you when you're a child, the purpose being that the plates presented during the exam ought to be identical. JE was unhappy with the sauce but I thought it was pretty good, taking into account we used the wrong stock (we didn't have veal and I haven't been able to find it) and the wrong wine (we didn't want to open a nice bottle of red wine and we had only gotten white wine from when we did the Hollandaise earlier in the week.
Made the tartlet but not the eggs, spinach or the Hollandaise. For one thing, we ran out of pots and pans - they were all in use for the various components of the pigeon dish. For another, JE had a little trouble with her dough and we don't know why. And the moulds we used yesterday were a bit bigger than the ones we use for the exam so this was actually meant for practice lining and baking the tartlets anyway. Not necessarily perfect (we don't know why the potatoes tasted better the last time we did them) but we learned quite a bit so it was definitely not a wasted day.
Dinner
There's this restaurant on Regent Street that I've passed by quite a few times and each time it seemed like one I would like to try. Luckily one of my friends here had heard from someone that it was good so he booked 4 of us in. It had interactive tables so we all had fun playing with it - it's pretty much like having a video screen of a computer screen on your table via projector and you can order food, drinks, ask for service, there's a Chef Cam which I thought was really cool (a bit blurry but watching the kitchen was kind of fun), each pair sitting across from each other played Battleship, you can flag down a waiter and change the decor on your table, to name just a few highlights. I was going to take photos but the boys pooh-poohed the idea. Well, they said boys don't take photos and I didn't want to embarrass them. Food on the whole was good but my miso fish wasn't - couldn't taste the miso if there was any (really - but there was plenty of Thai sweet red chili sauce) and it was dry and super overcooked, so a little disappointing. The fun factor pretty much made up for it though and we had a lot of laughs discussing whether it was a good idea or a bad one for a first date - consensus being it could be either one, depending on the date.
The restaurant had been described as a "funky Asian fusion" place so I put on pretty shoes to go out. They were fine when I first put them on, but have come to the conclusion that they are more of the "sit there and look pretty" variety than "run down the street in high heels" kind. We stopped by a bar on the way home, saw some wild gyrating in the direction of a hen's night (bachelorette party, for those of us not from the UK or Australia), then walked home. By the time we got home, my feet were hurting. Maybe it's just being out of practice walking in heels, but I suspect not. I did think that perhaps this was the Little Mermaid's problem (the Hans Christian Andersen version, not the Disney one - where the price for being human was the loss of her voice and feeling like she was walking on knives while she followed her heart to her Prince and her death) - I bet she was wearing pretty but uncomfortable shoes.
Next on the agenda - writing out my recipes for the Patisserie exam runs this week and working on the portfolio. I wanted to go to ballet this morning but am not sure whether my feet have forgiven me for subjecting them to high heels for an entire evening after weeks of sneakers, soft boots and kitchen shoes.
So until next time may your endeavors be more successful than our adventures have been thus far.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
#81 - Practice, practice, practice...
Hopefully not where they shop...
Yesterday I was meeting a friend to go make a practice schedule for our exam dishes. While I was waiting, I happened to notice one of the ubiquitous sights we all take for granted. However, the noticing ended up in a rather icky place - the street pigeon was just strutting his stuff on the sidewalks of Sloane Square. Which is fine, except I was thinking of the cuisine final, saw this thing walking around and had the horrified hope that this was not where they source our pigeons!Sunday dinner
The main and starter had nothing to do with exam dishes for anywhere. It was freezing today so a nice Sunday roast seemed to be in order. Then because it was a birthday and I wanted to make sure there were some veggies in evidence, I ended up making a starter. Good thing I had a couple of different kinds because one of the people isn't a huge fan of smoked salmon. I've come around gradually to the cold smoked one but I agree with her - the flavor and texture isn't the nicest if you're not a fish person. I am, but I still prefer the smokiness of hot smoked salmon. Luckily I had enough greens to make more salad so everyone got to eat something they liked.
Then it was on to the mains. I bought the beef at the farmer's market this morning from one of the butcher guys there - I think they had 3 or 4 guys. Anyway - this was a nice, dry aged (29 days, I think) beef, still on the bone. They had taken the fat rind off, which was a bit of a shame, but it still turned out ok. I also did roasted vegetables - personally I'd rather have my roast beef with rice but I'm in the UK so I did as they do here. The butcher had given me some meat trimmings because he didn't have any good bones and he couldn't sell the pieces he gave me. Nice jus although it was a bit heavy - I didn't have veal stock so I tried a beef one instead. It came out tasting kind of strong, but still good. The meat was rested while we had our starter so even though it was cooked to about medium, I would describe it in the photo as closer to medium well. Drat, missed the cooking point!
Playing with dessert
Not a happy camper - I couldn't do a joconde for various reasons and the genoise recipe is not meant for this. Even worse, I hadn't thought it through very well and let me tell you, genoise doesn't seem quite appropriate for this dessert. I didn't spread it well and it overcooked so it was hard to make it line up enough when I lined the moulds. Had a bit of a problem with the which chocolate mousse when the chocolate hadn't melted enough by the time I needed to mix it with the angalise for the mousse so I had to warm it carefully so that I wouldn't kill the gelatine.
The end result: white chocolate mousse (needs flavors adjusted), red wine and blackberry jelly and a raspberry sauce which should have been a glaze. Need more jelly for the balance of the dessert and I'll need to rethink the glaze because it currently looks like something is bleeding onto my mousse. So much to do, so little time.
So until next time, happy cooking.
The main and starter had nothing to do with exam dishes for anywhere. It was freezing today so a nice Sunday roast seemed to be in order. Then because it was a birthday and I wanted to make sure there were some veggies in evidence, I ended up making a starter. Good thing I had a couple of different kinds because one of the people isn't a huge fan of smoked salmon. I've come around gradually to the cold smoked one but I agree with her - the flavor and texture isn't the nicest if you're not a fish person. I am, but I still prefer the smokiness of hot smoked salmon. Luckily I had enough greens to make more salad so everyone got to eat something they liked.
Then it was on to the mains. I bought the beef at the farmer's market this morning from one of the butcher guys there - I think they had 3 or 4 guys. Anyway - this was a nice, dry aged (29 days, I think) beef, still on the bone. They had taken the fat rind off, which was a bit of a shame, but it still turned out ok. I also did roasted vegetables - personally I'd rather have my roast beef with rice but I'm in the UK so I did as they do here. The butcher had given me some meat trimmings because he didn't have any good bones and he couldn't sell the pieces he gave me. Nice jus although it was a bit heavy - I didn't have veal stock so I tried a beef one instead. It came out tasting kind of strong, but still good. The meat was rested while we had our starter so even though it was cooked to about medium, I would describe it in the photo as closer to medium well. Drat, missed the cooking point!Playing with dessert
Not a happy camper - I couldn't do a joconde for various reasons and the genoise recipe is not meant for this. Even worse, I hadn't thought it through very well and let me tell you, genoise doesn't seem quite appropriate for this dessert. I didn't spread it well and it overcooked so it was hard to make it line up enough when I lined the moulds. Had a bit of a problem with the which chocolate mousse when the chocolate hadn't melted enough by the time I needed to mix it with the angalise for the mousse so I had to warm it carefully so that I wouldn't kill the gelatine.The end result: white chocolate mousse (needs flavors adjusted), red wine and blackberry jelly and a raspberry sauce which should have been a glaze. Need more jelly for the balance of the dessert and I'll need to rethink the glaze because it currently looks like something is bleeding onto my mousse. So much to do, so little time.
So until next time, happy cooking.
Friday, March 2, 2012
#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.
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.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
#76 - Substitution please!
No pigeons
I forgot pigeons are out of season for another little while. Luckily there's a rather good butcher (reflected in the prices) just up the street. They were kind enough to order in some large quail - I figured it would be kind of similar to pigeon in size (although I didn't have to look for birdshot so hopefully that won't affect the timing during the Cuisine final). The options were to get smaller quails (6 in a packet) or the larger ones (the 4 in the packet below).
So you may ask how it went and the answer is...gloves are the answer. They keep the blood from sticking to your fingers and any worries about anything yuck being stuck under your nails - it still feels like there's crap under the nails even after scrubbing under them several times with a nail brush. Ugh. I'm ashamed to say that there was a little bit of distressed squealing when the tube-y things in the quail wouldn't come out easily and there had to be some yanking and pulling to get it out.
Anyway - there's a bit of an ick factor because you have to get all the spongy bits out of the ribs and things so that they don't cloud the sauce and make it taste yuck. The wine tonight is from a drier year - about twice the alcohol content of the one from last night, although it's the same grape and the same vineyard.
Ok - enough bitching and moaning. Back to the quails...the lucky (?) guinea pigs are my neighbors downstairs. They both had plans Friday night bu the quails had to be cooked so the plan is to have the plates and dinner the next night... the good butchers also had some duck fat - very nice, very clean - and expensive, of course. Luckily you can reuse the fat as long as you clean it so the plan is to filter it through coffee filters (I can't find the muslin cloth), then store it in the refrigerator. It's a pretty good incentive to make confit anything when you have the right fat.
It was kind of a tight fit to get the 8 legs into the pot but everything eventually settled down and the confit smelled quite nice, especially considering that I don't think quail tastes that nice.
Forgetting almost everything
So I had to check cooking times again because it's been so long since I cooked anything. The timing is for pigeon, so I have a feeling the legs are a bit over - the meat was kind of falling off the bone, which isn't quite the aim. Soft, but not falling apart...so will have to rethink the timing again. On the other hand, the rest of it seems to be on track. Somehow it's a lot harder to focus at home - so many distractions (laundry, dinner...Harry Potter and a quiddich match, etc. etc.)
Bloodless dinner
Given the blood from the quails (and having to clean out the spongy bits from inside) dinner was perch, hapa rice and broccoli. In case you didn't know, hapa rice is what my sister and I (I think we got it from in-laws) call the white rice/brown rice mix. The white rice is because it tastes better, the brown rice is a nod towards being healthy. I'm not sure how effective it actually is, but it doesn't feel so much like the husks from the brown rice get stuck in your teeth and it cooks faster.
I promised my friend JB that I would cook for him a while ago. It's taken us a little while but we finally managed to get ourselves organized. He tends to eat quite healthy so I had to think a little bit about what to make which would fit in the healthy, not too heavy (it was a hot afternoon) and edible meal. He said he would be happy with whatever I cooked, but since we both ended up laughing at the possibility of my making him beans on toast, a decision was made to have something that required just a little bit of technique. We ended up with stuffed mushrooms and garlic shrimp (prawn) starter, sauteed zucchini and pan fried salmon main and a burnt fig and caramel ice cream with mango for dessert. I didn't make the ice cream but I did play with it a little...
There was a moment of panic when the acetate wouldn't come out of the mould with the ice cream and I could see the ice cream slowly starting to ooze. Luckily we got it out and took off the acetate (I remembered this time). Normally I don't like mango, but it went surprisingly well with the ice cream and the mint.
We ate on the balcony, looking down to the water - sorry, somehow I didn't manage to get a photo but a lot of sailboats were out. The sun has since moved on and the clouds have rolled in. Perhaps the forecasted rain will still arrive.
Dinner
It seems the reheating can take quite a while - the fondant potatoes were giving me conniptions. It seemed to take at least another 15 minutes longer than I expected. The guinea pigs (AC and VB) were good choices - as they are both familiar with French food, I got a nice comment that it tasted like France. There was a bit of panic over the confit legs because the flesh kept falling apart so that I had difficulty getting a nice piece for presentation. Baby onions weren't available so I didn't plate them (or the green - parsley? - garnish) and I forgot to buy green olives so it wasn't an olive sauce. So far it seems like the dish will be ok - except the timing needs a bit of tightening up. Or a lot of tightening up...
I'm not sure if you've ever smelled duck fat. If you haven't, let me just say that it's quite a strong smell - so much so that before I was even finished cooking, I didn't feel like eating much. The result - some vegetables, confit potato (turned for mine) and a quail leg - for a taste. Actually it tasted quite nice, but I still didn't want anything heavier. Lucky for me, AC made a delicious salad and I ended up eating most of that instead. Then grapes for dessert - I think such heavy scents made the salad and fruit seem much more appealing because they are so much lighter.
Verdict - could be better, could be worse. Timing needs a bit of work and a few details need to be refined. Hopefully it will be a smooth run for the mock exam.
So until next time - may you be able to enjoy the meals you prepare with your friends and loved ones (instead of just meal times).
I forgot pigeons are out of season for another little while. Luckily there's a rather good butcher (reflected in the prices) just up the street. They were kind enough to order in some large quail - I figured it would be kind of similar to pigeon in size (although I didn't have to look for birdshot so hopefully that won't affect the timing during the Cuisine final). The options were to get smaller quails (6 in a packet) or the larger ones (the 4 in the packet below).
So you may ask how it went and the answer is...gloves are the answer. They keep the blood from sticking to your fingers and any worries about anything yuck being stuck under your nails - it still feels like there's crap under the nails even after scrubbing under them several times with a nail brush. Ugh. I'm ashamed to say that there was a little bit of distressed squealing when the tube-y things in the quail wouldn't come out easily and there had to be some yanking and pulling to get it out.Anyway - there's a bit of an ick factor because you have to get all the spongy bits out of the ribs and things so that they don't cloud the sauce and make it taste yuck. The wine tonight is from a drier year - about twice the alcohol content of the one from last night, although it's the same grape and the same vineyard.
Ok - enough bitching and moaning. Back to the quails...the lucky (?) guinea pigs are my neighbors downstairs. They both had plans Friday night bu the quails had to be cooked so the plan is to have the plates and dinner the next night... the good butchers also had some duck fat - very nice, very clean - and expensive, of course. Luckily you can reuse the fat as long as you clean it so the plan is to filter it through coffee filters (I can't find the muslin cloth), then store it in the refrigerator. It's a pretty good incentive to make confit anything when you have the right fat.It was kind of a tight fit to get the 8 legs into the pot but everything eventually settled down and the confit smelled quite nice, especially considering that I don't think quail tastes that nice.
Forgetting almost everything
So I had to check cooking times again because it's been so long since I cooked anything. The timing is for pigeon, so I have a feeling the legs are a bit over - the meat was kind of falling off the bone, which isn't quite the aim. Soft, but not falling apart...so will have to rethink the timing again. On the other hand, the rest of it seems to be on track. Somehow it's a lot harder to focus at home - so many distractions (laundry, dinner...Harry Potter and a quiddich match, etc. etc.)
Bloodless dinner
Given the blood from the quails (and having to clean out the spongy bits from inside) dinner was perch, hapa rice and broccoli. In case you didn't know, hapa rice is what my sister and I (I think we got it from in-laws) call the white rice/brown rice mix. The white rice is because it tastes better, the brown rice is a nod towards being healthy. I'm not sure how effective it actually is, but it doesn't feel so much like the husks from the brown rice get stuck in your teeth and it cooks faster.
A Saturday Lunch
I promised my friend JB that I would cook for him a while ago. It's taken us a little while but we finally managed to get ourselves organized. He tends to eat quite healthy so I had to think a little bit about what to make which would fit in the healthy, not too heavy (it was a hot afternoon) and edible meal. He said he would be happy with whatever I cooked, but since we both ended up laughing at the possibility of my making him beans on toast, a decision was made to have something that required just a little bit of technique. We ended up with stuffed mushrooms and garlic shrimp (prawn) starter, sauteed zucchini and pan fried salmon main and a burnt fig and caramel ice cream with mango for dessert. I didn't make the ice cream but I did play with it a little...
There was a moment of panic when the acetate wouldn't come out of the mould with the ice cream and I could see the ice cream slowly starting to ooze. Luckily we got it out and took off the acetate (I remembered this time). Normally I don't like mango, but it went surprisingly well with the ice cream and the mint.
We ate on the balcony, looking down to the water - sorry, somehow I didn't manage to get a photo but a lot of sailboats were out. The sun has since moved on and the clouds have rolled in. Perhaps the forecasted rain will still arrive.
Dinner
It seems the reheating can take quite a while - the fondant potatoes were giving me conniptions. It seemed to take at least another 15 minutes longer than I expected. The guinea pigs (AC and VB) were good choices - as they are both familiar with French food, I got a nice comment that it tasted like France. There was a bit of panic over the confit legs because the flesh kept falling apart so that I had difficulty getting a nice piece for presentation. Baby onions weren't available so I didn't plate them (or the green - parsley? - garnish) and I forgot to buy green olives so it wasn't an olive sauce. So far it seems like the dish will be ok - except the timing needs a bit of tightening up. Or a lot of tightening up...
I'm not sure if you've ever smelled duck fat. If you haven't, let me just say that it's quite a strong smell - so much so that before I was even finished cooking, I didn't feel like eating much. The result - some vegetables, confit potato (turned for mine) and a quail leg - for a taste. Actually it tasted quite nice, but I still didn't want anything heavier. Lucky for me, AC made a delicious salad and I ended up eating most of that instead. Then grapes for dessert - I think such heavy scents made the salad and fruit seem much more appealing because they are so much lighter.Verdict - could be better, could be worse. Timing needs a bit of work and a few details need to be refined. Hopefully it will be a smooth run for the mock exam.
So until next time - may you be able to enjoy the meals you prepare with your friends and loved ones (instead of just meal times).
Thursday, November 10, 2011
#53 - Tea Party (then pigeons)
Or - In which more dramas ensue but no one killed anyone else (we left our knives back in our lockers)
Too tired for much commentary. Long day yesterday (but not as long as scheduled). We started early in the morning - everything was more or less made so it was a matter of getting the decorations done (and in my case, cutting straight). Occasionally felt like too many cooks in the kitchen. I suppose that's bound to happen when you have almost 30 people (including our teaching chefs) crammed into a couple of kitchens normally meant to hold 11.
A friend from Masters (law school) days in town for work - got to come to the Tea Party (yippee!) and his office was very glad for the goody box he got to take with him. We caught up for dinner after all the cleaning up at school - and his office got more treats because they needed homes. After all the sugar, butter, flour and chocolate, was a relief to have savory food - really yummy Indian food down near the egg-shaped faceted thing somewhere near Bank / Leadenhall. May have finally found the time to take up the standing invitation to visit Cologne to see him and meet his family, of whom I have heard so much but never met.
So - photos...done fighting with the formatting...
Pigeons
We then had an 8am practical on the following morning. Pigeon wrapped in cabbage (breasts), stuffed legs and a mushroom tartelette. I am not a big fan of the whole butchering small birds (or anything, actually) first thing in the morning. The thing about the pigeon is that it has a strong smell, the skin doesn't come off as easily as with quail or chicken and it has a lot of gross things inside. Like the heart. And the liver (maybe I should have cooked its liver too!) and various other spongy bits and pieces. I forgot to put on gloves - don't think I'll forget again. Yes, I should be used to it by now. Is it indicative that I'm not yet used to having blood and guts on my hands first thing in the morning?
Anyway - long practical. Tomorrow morning at 8am: St Pierre en Croute de Chorizo, Mille-Feuille de Grenouilles aux Amandes (John Dory with chorizo crust, frog legs mille feuille with almonds). Photos then.
We had our cheese lecture today after a demo for tomorrow. It is late and I have to review my notes, so must go.
Until next time - good night, sleep tight.
Too tired for much commentary. Long day yesterday (but not as long as scheduled). We started early in the morning - everything was more or less made so it was a matter of getting the decorations done (and in my case, cutting straight). Occasionally felt like too many cooks in the kitchen. I suppose that's bound to happen when you have almost 30 people (including our teaching chefs) crammed into a couple of kitchens normally meant to hold 11.
A friend from Masters (law school) days in town for work - got to come to the Tea Party (yippee!) and his office was very glad for the goody box he got to take with him. We caught up for dinner after all the cleaning up at school - and his office got more treats because they needed homes. After all the sugar, butter, flour and chocolate, was a relief to have savory food - really yummy Indian food down near the egg-shaped faceted thing somewhere near Bank / Leadenhall. May have finally found the time to take up the standing invitation to visit Cologne to see him and meet his family, of whom I have heard so much but never met.So - photos...done fighting with the formatting...
Pigeons
We then had an 8am practical on the following morning. Pigeon wrapped in cabbage (breasts), stuffed legs and a mushroom tartelette. I am not a big fan of the whole butchering small birds (or anything, actually) first thing in the morning. The thing about the pigeon is that it has a strong smell, the skin doesn't come off as easily as with quail or chicken and it has a lot of gross things inside. Like the heart. And the liver (maybe I should have cooked its liver too!) and various other spongy bits and pieces. I forgot to put on gloves - don't think I'll forget again. Yes, I should be used to it by now. Is it indicative that I'm not yet used to having blood and guts on my hands first thing in the morning?
Anyway - long practical. Tomorrow morning at 8am: St Pierre en Croute de Chorizo, Mille-Feuille de Grenouilles aux Amandes (John Dory with chorizo crust, frog legs mille feuille with almonds). Photos then.
We had our cheese lecture today after a demo for tomorrow. It is late and I have to review my notes, so must go.
Until next time - good night, sleep tight.
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