#118 - Happy New Year!

Cuckoo for coco puffs
I had my first coco puff a few nights ago.  They're from Liliha Bakery which is known for several things, this being one of them.  (My friends wanted to know how I had grown up here and never had one of these.)  My favorite part was the pudding inside - it's one of the few things I have always liked.  Unfortunately the climate here (and possibly the moisture in the filling) means that the pastry was not crispy like it is when you have a croquembouche.  Trying to figure out how to make some at home is part of the fun when you eat something and you think of things people like (or don't like, as the case may be).

In which certain traditions are upheld
I'm not sure when a tradition becomes a tradition - is it the number of years or the number of occasions in which a certain thing is done?  Or do I go with the lawyer answer of "it depends..."?

In this case, it has been a tradition (both by reference to the number of years and the number of occurrences) that I stop by my friend SM's house on New Year's Eve if we are both home for the holidays.

It is a newer tradition that he makes truffles as his contribution to the festivities.  And because he loves chocolate and I just love to talk about cooking and the fun things you can do with food, of course we always talk about food in between our catch ups over what has happened with each other's lives over the intervening year.

Last year, still relatively fresh out of cooking school, I happened to mention something about tempering chocolate and we shook on it.  Well we followed through this year but because I forgot my truffle moulds in Sydney (aw shucks) we decided to do something a little different.  That is, I had my first coco puff from Liliha Bakery only 3 nights ago - something local people know about but which I had not had until now because I refused to eat desserts or sugary things until just a couple of years ago.

Coco puffs were something with which I was relatively unfamiliar and it took a little while to settle on the filling.  Pudding might have been a better idea but we thought we'd go with ganache because SM was going to make some anyway.

A walk down memory lane
In addition to not having my truffle moulds, I couldn't remember what equipment I had left here and what now resides in Sydney so there was some digging through my bags/closet and the kitchen.

Equipment and recipe in hand, it was time to make choux pastry.  So...a couple of years makes a very big difference because I couldn't remember how long I used to cook out the panade (the dough ball).  Then I had to add an extra egg to get the right consistency because I had cooked the panade a little too long.  And then the piping...uneven and...let's just say that you find out how much you need to practice when you start doing things again, even things which used to be second nature.

We used mystery flour - that is, it was in the fridge in the ziplock bag and I was really hoping it wasn't self-rising flour.  We baked the choux pastry in batches, experimenting with the timing because we guessimated / approximated the temperature setting.  (190 - 200 C for 20 - 25 minutes translated to about 380F for 20 - 22 minutes).  The optimum time for us seemed to be 21 minutes...

Then the truffles...there was one made with the cream infused with genmai cha and another which had plain cream but parmesan mixed through it after it the ganache cooled, for the sweet/salty combo that SM likes.  I'm not usually a huge fan of the sweet/salty but I have to say this was pretty good.  The genmai cha infused truffle was rolled in kinako powder (from soy beans) and the other truffles were dipped in tempered chocolate.

Do what you're afraid to do (again) - aka cooking nerd speak / skip to Nerdy Portion Over (below)
One of the things they used to tell us is that you have a couple of degrees' leeway to bring the chocolate back up to temperature after you melt it and cool it.  The thing is, we always used Callebaut at LCB (it's what I have in my kitchen) but SM bought Valrohna because that's what he could find.  A very good chocolate but I remember the chefs telling us you have to be very precise when you work with it because it has a smaller range of temperatures for it to stay in temper.

Until I took my Patisserie finals, I felt pretty confident about tempering chocolate, once I got the hang of it.  On the day of the final, I remember the kitchen was freezing and my chocolate got too cold, too fast and I had bad truffles.  I hadn't tempered chocolate since and all of a sudden I was going to temper chocolate - with a brand that was too expensive to mess up (especially since I hadn't bought it!) - talk about performance anxiety.

Luckily, I seem to have this perverse quirk of personality where the more stressed another person gets (SM was upset he couldn't find the right butter) the calmer I get.  He thought he messed up his chocolate for the ganache - he didn't (we split it into two separate bowls for the different flavors).

Look Mom, No hands!  (The tea infused truffles)
We had a little bit of a thing because he didn't want to roll the ganache for truffles (his hands melt it) and my melon baller was too small.  So I quenelled the ganache then he rolled it around in the kinako powder and patted it into the shape he wanted with spoons.

Assembly required (The truffles with cheese)
This one did require us to get our hands dirty.  Well, chocolate-y, anyway.

The ganache had set quite hard so we had to dig it out to roll it, but then since the chocolate had passed the test (small amount on knife blade or parchment paper, it should cloud over relatively quickly and set) we had to dip the truffles.  I did not think this through - I think next time we should skip the wire rack - you get feet on the truffles but you don't lose the bottom of the shell when it gets stuck to the rack.  Oh well, you learn (or re-learn) and mistakes help consolidate the lesson.  Of course I told people to keep it refrigerated because of the cream, and to eat it within a couple of days (because the shell wasn't intact).

Nerdy portion over
So the final results of our efforts:  a plate of truffles and a plate of "coco puffs" with ganache instead of chocolate pudding filling and no "chantilly" which is some sort of frosting they put on the coco puffs.  You can see the inside of our coco puffs below...

Not perfect, but actually quite a successful experiment.

So until next time (and for the rest of this new year) - Happy New Year and may all your experiments and forays into the unknown / slightly intimidating be as happy as our was yesterday.

#113 - Therapy...

Every once in a while I get seized by an inexplicable attack of insomnia - which is ironic since it's usually the opposite problem.  Luckily, "therapy" consists of (almost) instant gratification.  Normally my parents hear "I didn't sleep well, I'm cooking tonight" but since I'm not home, the guinea pigs - um, I mean, beneficiaries - of my cooking adventures are now drawn from my circle of friends.

The most recent foray was for the Opera cake - yes, Intermediate patisserie strikes again!  I remember being so excited when I found out we were going to make it because I've always loved this cake - there's just something about the coffee and the chocolate combination...

I also found out that my oven needs a lot of time to warm up and it cooks unevenly.  And the oven makes my kitchen nice and warm - no heater needed, even on a cold, winter night.  Actually, winter is best because I could open the windows and let the fresh air in to cool the place as well as speed up the cooling of my ganache.

There were a few mishaps (like taking the sugar for the buttercream too high and having to fix the syrup) - you lose the touch so very quickly.  Anyway -the end result (and morning tea) - the big cake for the office and the little mini-cakes for friends who work nearby.

Coincidentally, it was also the last day for someone in our office, but I want to emphasize, it was not for the actual going away.

My perfectionist side was a bit annoyed by some things (uneven layers, forgetting the melted butter in the joconde...don't tell, but it turned out ok!) and some pathetic piping.  An ok effort but needs work.  However, it was shared and enjoyed by friends so a happy outcome.

So until next time - enjoy sharing what you love with those you love!

#88 - Final practical class

Seen and heard
So I got asked if my duck was spam.  Um, no.  Although I can see from the photo how it might be mistaken for spam, seeing as how perfectly it was cooked, rested and sliced.  Well, I'm going to tell myself that instead of it being understandable because there's still fat under the skin.  Also seen, which was really disturbing:  leather hotpants with sheer pantyhose.  Really? I mean, c'mon, be considerate of people's eyes even if you are a fashion victim and don't care how you look!  Those shorts would have been short on my 4 year old niece.  And given the cold weather, I've seen far too many (super) short skirts and cankles.  You may wonder what cankles are - they are, apparently, when the leg fails to taper from the calf to the ankle and makes the abrupt transition from calf to ankle - hence the name.  I didn't use to notice them much until someone mentioned them the other day. Suddenly it seems I see an awful lot of them.  Or perhaps I'm just obsessed with legs since I started going to ballet again.


A confession
I've been having chocolate cravings, which is highly unusual.  If my parents read that last sentence, I'm sure they're going to wonder if they wandered onto the wrong blog.  Anyway - the danger of having food ingredients around and doing Patisserie is that you have - yes, you guessed it - chocolate!  The other night was disgusting enough when I ate the white chocolate straight out of the bowl, but tonight has been even more classy - eating my dark couverture chocolate chips by the handful.  Mind you, these are the ones we have to temper for truffles so I could always try to convince you it's all about quality control, but really, who are we fooling?


Sleeping in

Preparing for the last practical - and
having a Croque Cordon Bleu at the Cafe

The morning started perfectly.  I had already taken my written exam so after my alarm went off this morning, I went back to sleep instead of hitting snooze.  Or maybe I hit snooze once before I went back to sleep.  Whatever - the point is, I got to sleep until the luxurious time of 9am or so.  Then I finished printing out and making last little tweaks to the Cuisine portfolio.  I think it  due at 5pm and I had it printed out and ready to go at about noon - so energizing.  And then at some point my get up and go got up and went - without me.  If it hadn't been for the fact that I had to turn in the portfolio, there's a chance that I might not have gone to the practical, even though I hate missing class.  However...


Queue de lotte poele, encornets farci avec risotto avec langoustines et coriandre - Pan fried monkfish tail, squid stuffed with langoustine and coriander risotto)
Tonight was our last practical class.  Ever.   So off I toddled, clean uniform and portfolio in my bag, ready to take on the stupid monkfish.  I am not a fan of monkfish - the fish itself is nice - white, kind of firm, not fishy at all.  But skinning the thing - ugh - it has a layer of slimy skin that comes off easily but underneath it is a layer of silver skin that you also have to take off.  If you don't take it off, it either turns gray or makes the fish curl up.  Or both.  There's a way that you can kind of skin off the silver skin the way you take the skin off a fillet of fish, but it still leaves bits and pieces on.  Not to mention, if you accidentally cut through the silver skin on the fillet like I did on my first fillet, you have to do it the long and annoying way.


FYI, coriander and cilantro are the same thing, just different languages (I forget which is what).  We didn't have coriander so I ended up chopping up some dill for the risotto - it could probably have used a bit more dill but still tasted pretty good.

So it was supposed to be a fast and easy practical except the monkfish's silver skin was annoying me.  Then we had to brunoise some carrot, celery and onion.  Which is fine except I didn't think the celery through and I got a very nice, fine julienne which I then couldn't use for my brunoise - which I needed for my risotto.  Finally got a good risotto!  It was a little dry looking on the plate but apparently it tasted good and it was cooked the way chef wanted it.  A little too much flour on my monkfish and squid (I patted it off, I did!) but the sauce was good - langoustine-y, saffron-y and buttery (but my sauce split at the end because my plate was too hot).  I got a very encouraging comment - Chef JB told me to cook like this during the exam and I would be fine.


It was also a fun time because no one was taking it seriously.  There was a lot of laughing as we made fun of each other and some of the students who usually don't talk ended up participating as they channeled different chefs from the school.


After class...
My classmates and I went to the pub in the courtyard after class.  Knowing that I wasn't going home soon and that the food wouldn't be nice later, I gave it to one of the guys at the front desk.  By the time I got home, it was too late to buy groceries at Waitrose so I went to Tesco instead.  It's true what they say about not doing grocery shopping when you're hungry - I caught myself looking at things I normally wouldn't - Doritos and Pringles especially.  Managed to stifle those urges but I ended up buying a packet of mac 'n cheese, then some baby salad leaves, baby beetroots and tomatoes to make a salad with goat's cheese I had in the fridge.  Only thing is, I got home and remembered that I still had 2-minute ramen noodles in the cupboard which have to be eaten before I leave London.  Well 2-minute noodles aren't that nutritious and I really wanted some vegetables.  Luckily I had lugged home my knife kit so julienning some veggies took very little time.  I wanted some protein, so a scrambled egg later and having drained the noodles, I put everything together and got this.  I'm not sure if it's blasphemous to the cooking gods, if they exist, for me to put my skills  to fancying up instant noodles.  Whatever - it tasted good and I probably got my day's serving of vegetables in the dinner.


It's too soon after dinner but I am too sleepy to be able to stay up much longer.  Until next time, may you have unbroken and satisfying sleep.

#86 - Finals Practice Day 2 - Free Interpretation Plated Dessert

Well, it's Day 2 of the finals practice runs and there is some recipe rewriting to be done.  It seems everyone else is finished with their portfolio but I was stuck in a quandary of where to start.  I think it's one of those things that was so overwhelming that only the impetus of knowing I had to execute today made me rewrite today's recipes on my computer rather than having scraps of recipes and various different versions in my notebooks (sometimes starting from the back).

Compulsory Elements

Certain elements are required but we get to choose between options for those elements.  However, other requirements (i.e. the dessert has to be at least 50% encased in something) do mean that our desserts are going to have certain things in common.  I think a lot of people are encasing in oval or round cylinders, although I saw a lovely elliptical one with pointy ends (ladies - think Marquis cut).  They all have to have a jelly in the middle (you can see it in the cross section after it got destroyed in the tasting).  It has to have a glacage that's a different flavor from the jelly in the middle of the mousse/bavarois/chibouste (basically the filling has to have some sort of whipped cream mixture component).  We all have to have tuiles, although my poppyseeds got somewhat lost and a tempered chocolate decoration and a couple of sauces, one of which I managed to get completely lumpy.  It's not supposed to be.

I had done components of the dessert, but not all of them together so today was an interesting run through.  It's amazing how much you forget in a short period of time so thank goodness I wrote my notes with a view to what I might need to know a few years from now.  They don't need to be as detailed when you do it for so many days on end but it's inconvenient when your brain prunes various neurons which encode the information you deem vital but they think are superfluous.  I suppose knowing what the joconde biscuit ought to look like isn't a survival imperative, but it is if you want to pass Patisserie!

The last 3 hours of our final

Anyway - so it kind of seemed like things were on track and then it kind of felt like they weren't.  For instance, I didn't make back ups of my piped chocolate decorations so when I knocked one over, that kind of sucked.  Luckily I had enough time and I still had chocolate in my bowls, so I quickly warmed up the chocolate and piped it again.

We were meant to keep track of how long it took to do what, but other than things like baking times, I didn't do a very good job of it at all.  I wrote the times of a couple of things, then got lost in just making stuff.  There was a little bit of "and then what?" going on, but I think I'm just going to do a big checklist on the day so that I can cross things off my list as I do them.

Chef GB didn't like the decorations because he said they were too fussy (below left) and the hearts were too old fashioned (he didn't say that to the other person who had hearts on her plate - what's up with that?).  Something was wrong with my coulis so it messed up his plating (below centre).  I'm still fighting with knowing that my plating is not pretty and since I don't have a Kitchen Aid at home (nor the right puree) I don't intend to try this again before the exam.  Perhaps you can weigh in with your preferences or any suggestions you may have:

It was so hot in the kitchen that I came home with a migraine for the second day in a row.  I'm not sure how we ever made it in the kitchens at the old school.  I heard a couple of girls in the locker room complaining about the heat and thought, "They have no idea."  Our kitchens are air conditiioned!  Made it to the osteo who put me to rights (to the accompaniment of cracks and winces) and finally it's to bed and getting ready for tomorrow.  I'm still waiting to hear whether I have to take the theory exams again (please no!  I already took them and I don't have my notes anymore) - the trouble is the first theory exam is tomorrow so if I find out that I do have to take the exam, it will be with just a couple of hours' notice.  It almost seems premature - perhaps they ought to wait until 5 minutes before the exam.

On the other hand, if they let me know earlier, maybe I can take a dance class in the afternoon to make up for eating the white chocolate after I piped a message to V...because after dinner, just for fun and to make up for that bleeding raspberry white chocolate mousse from last Sunday, I decided to have a little piping practice...

Tomorrow is another day and as always, there's a ton of stuff to be done.  It's getting close to my bed time so I will say good night for now.  And until next time, may your dreams be sweet but not filled with white chocolate mousse.

#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.

#75 - Preparations for finals (again)

So handy...
I have evidence of having assisted in putting together a bookshelf.  The assistance was mainly of the moral support variety although I did hold some of the pieces together while putting them together...as you can see.  It looks so simple, but somehow it always takes longer to put furniture together.  Such was the case here.



Then I got spoiled - friends made me lunch.  It's something that you always appreciate and I agree with others that somehow it always tastes better when someone else cooks.  It must be the TLC because I have had meals at restaurants that I hated, but on the whole, food made by friends (or family) just tastes better.  Sometimes people apologize for something being "really simple" but I don't think they realize that what we cook isn't necessarily something we want to eat.  I think even Jamie Oliver says in his shows that what he cooks at home wasn't what he made when he worked in restaurants.  I'm not sure anyone could possibly eat those quantities of butter, cream, sugar, white flour, etc. etc. on any kind of frequent basis and be able to adhere to any kind of healthy eating plan.


Another High Tea

Went to High Tea again over the weekend - one of the girls organized it and I went - for research purposes, of course.  An observation was made the other day that I seem to love High Tea.  Well, kind of - I like the little sandwiches.  Generally the sweets aren't my thing, although the past year has been more of an exercise of tasting.  There was a certain amount of critiquing based on what I am hoping to turn out for the exams.  Not these...these weren't shiny and the white chocolate was pretty thick on the shell.  I didn't taste the filling that much because I didn't like them, so couldn't tell you what they were.

The chocolate centrepiece was quite pretty - someone saw me taking a photo and when I told her I thought it was chocolate, she touched it.  Apparently it was.  Anyway - I liked the bending of the sculpture and the twigs they made out of it.  The rose isn't as pretty as the one Chef NH does in Patisserie, but it was still pretty.  I couldn't tell if it was marzipan or something else.


Exam Prep
Got my emails from LCB - I got the finals papers and plane tickets are booked - after several emails.


How do you make sables again?
Have started preparations for exams.  I don't have all my equipment here so the practice is limited - that, and the fact that once again, I am London bound in the not-too-distant future.  The only thing is, I seem to have forgotten how to cook.  Oh dear...

I haven't figured out why these cracked - maybe I should have turned on the fan in the oven.  Something to do for next time.  Also - the scales must be off a bit - the weight of salt looked like a lot and the biscuits actually tasted quite salty.  Amazing when you consider that it's only 2g compared to the 100g of sugar.

They are still nice and crunchy - but a bit on the salty side.  Panic has started to set in as it appears that things I thought I had worked out are now having problems.  They're not kidding -  you need to do this several times to get it down.  Oh well - if we haven't gotten things worked out, hopefully I'll find out during the skills tests in 3 weeks.

So until next time - happy Valentine's Day for those of you who celebrate / observe it.  And happy Un-Valentine's Day for those of you who refuse to put pressure on yourselves and your significant others by letting Hallmark and commercial hype dictate when you should be loving to each other.  After all - a just-because present is better than one that is given because an occasion dictates it.

#74 - Getting back into it...

I forgot I had gone on a tour of a cocoa plantation (a very small one) as part of a chocolate festival.  Apologies in advance regarding the formatting - it tends to look different on my screen than it does when it posts and I don't know how to fix it.

But first - breakfast by the water...
They were doing yoga and big surfboards (left).  Kite surfing on the right.  Unfortunately I didn't get a shot of the guy who went airborne with a big gust of wind...

   

I had the small omelette.  A friend had the poached eggs (the sauce was a bit split - rats, I see my sister's point about how it could spoil their fun a little when I apply school's criteria to food when we eat out.)

The Chocolate Festival was a bit disappointing.  I suppose given the name, I thought there would be more booths or something.  They were at the end of the Haleiwa Farmers' Market (pronounced Ha-lay-ee-va for those of you not from the Islands).  It seemed like there were only two producers, although I may be mistaken.  I remember the Wailua Estate and one from Manoa - ok, but not something I would go out of my way to buy, unless as a way to supporting the local economy.  It may be that my palate is not sufficiently developed to appreciate all the bits and pieces that our guide (yes, we did a tour) said had won rave reviews in London for a Chocolate Festival (or something like that) from critics.  So that was that for the chocolate tour, tasting and education.

Am now  back in Sydney, once again unpacking only to start packing again.  Have received exam dates for my finals - and a date for the Mock exam, which happens to be quite a bit before the exam.  Great, except I had already booked my plane tickets before I knew about the mock exam date.  Whoops, once again a little bit of procrastination might have helped.  Have started reviewing recipes again and found out to my horror that I have forgotten quite a bit - especially in relation to the main plate (pigeon - haven't seen it anywhere, must ask the butcher), so study will once again commence.  Commence panicking now.

So until next time, may your organization be less stressful and more enjoyable than mine is.

#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.