La Tour Eiffel

You know how you have such big plans for your weekend.  You're gonna get up early, make a big breakfast. Head out to run errands or go shopping or do touristy stuff.  But then...you "somehow" sleep until 1130, and then you "somehow" stay cuddled in pjs until 330 (don't judge me).  That is how my day went. But i finally gathered the strength to leave.  After all, today I planned to visit the Eiffel Tower!

I decided to get off at a different metro stop, in order to see the Eiffel Tower from a different perspective.  I took two steps before I was approached by a "deaf" girl asking me to sign some petition and give a donation.  She was so cute, she almost got me.  But then I remembered I'm from Chicago, there is no new scam.  I kept telling her that I didn't have any change and she kept offering to give me change for my bills.  (her hand gestures were easier to understand than French!)

I was surprised there was not a flux of tourist getting off the metro stop with me.  That must have been because everyone was already in line to go up into the tower.  It was like the lines at Great America!  Tours run all day that go up opposite pillars of the tower.  The last ride up is at 11:45pm.  There is great debate about the best time to visit.  Some say day trips are better because you can see further.  Others say night is better because the tower is lit and the city is aglow.  I actually haven't been up yet, but its on the list.  Just waiting for someone to go with me...hint hint..

It was a little weird that there was hardly any grass and the little grass there was, was fenced off.  I'm guessing this is the only way to keep anything alive with the high volume of tourist throughout the year.  But I say weird because the Eiffel Tower is surrounded by a "park".  I guess here that means lots of trees, benches, and gravel.  And there was this...structure.  Half glass, half steel.  I didn't see a sign that described what it was but it said "Peace" over and over in different languages.  Very modern in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

The sun was shinning and I was so excited to be here, but slowly I began to realize how cold it actually was.  So I grabbed a hot chocolate and tried to warm up, but the charm is hard to enjoy while shivering.  I did walk down to the Quai Branly, kinda like a river walk.  But...that didn't last long.  Kind of a short trip, but I don't think the Eiffel Tower is going anywhere. I'll definitely be back!

Tartes

I think i'm a little behind in my blogging...oops.  The recipe book is too heavy to bring home and I made these tartes over 10 recipes ago.  Sooo, the details are a lil fuzzy...


Pâtisserie keeps getting better. Chocolate tarte on the same day as lemon tarte.  Soo good!  A lot of the things we do are geared toward reinforcing a recipe or a technique.  So a lot of repetition with slight variation.  Fine with me when it comes to the desserts.  


If I haven't said it, I kinda love my pâtisserie chef, Chef Antoine.  He's VERY french.  We all get a kick out of his Franglish.  When he can't think of a word, he uses hand gestures and sometimes his whole body to play charades with us, until someone shouts out the word he's trying to say.  Or he says a word that sounds like the word he wants to say, and the wrong word makes me giggle.  Example: twinkle when he meant to say sprinkle.  Or twirl when he meant to say swirl. Ha! Trust me, its funny.  


These tartes were pretty easy to make.  Warm cream (or milk, I can't remember) poured over some "special"chocolate (don't know what makes it special) and "special" sugar (don't know why this is special either).  Slowly stirred, not whipped, to avoid bubbles.  Poured into pre-baked tarte shells and chilled.  Hope you followed that.


Lemon filling: lemon juice, sugar, eggs, and milk (or was it cream?)
The lemon tarte should have been easy, but I kinda burned the filling.  These electric cooktops are no joke. I guess because the pot is in constant contact with the heat source they get hot very quickly.  So when I pressed 12, which is the max, and stopped stirring while I chatted it up with my neighbor, it took very little time to scorch the bottom.  Ha! Silly rabbit!

Anyhoo, the results were just fine for me and my partner.  Chef tasted it and said it was burnt, but this is the same man who eats soup that was just boiling, without blowing it first.  Without blowing? Come on, even kids know "Hot."  I'm just saying his taste buds are jacked.  He is always saying "More salt" when all I can taste is salt, and I love salt.  But I still love him.


P.S. My only complaint is that I "had" to eat these all by my lonesome.  It took me a little over a week, but still, I think I'm in trouble.  Send reinforcements!  A certain someone thinks I should happen upon some dry ice and mail some treats home.  Good luck with that.

1st Service

Disclaimer: Its midnight, I don't feel like proof reading. Sorry.

This week has been by far the most exhausting, stressful days of Paris to date.  Wednesday we had our first dinner service followed by lunch service on Thursday.  No, it was not all bad, but I'm sure the physical exhaustion, dehydration, and lack of sleep had a little to do with the cold I'm fighting.

So here's what happened....

Tuesday: Prep

We all went down to the economat to pick up our goods for service.   I was in the fish group, along with Alissa and Claire, responsible for this ugly fish, sole.  One weird thing was that this is a flat fish (other types are flounder and halibut) which means both beady eyes are on one side of its body.

Luckily, I did not have the messy job of scaling....no, instead I had to peel/rip the skin off both the top and the bottom of this guy and a few of his friends.  Random trivia: although it is unattractive, this fish costs about 20 euro; at todays rate that's like $26!  Anyhoo, after the de-skinning (i think that's a word) came the filleting.  I must say, I'm getting pretty good at this, just need to work on my pace.  But its kinda scary when presentation is considered.  These knifes are sharp and unforgiving.  At the disapproval of Chef Antoine, this is as far as the three of us got on our only day of prep. Ha!  I guess we all need to work on speed.

Wednesday: Mise en place and Service

Everyone getting their game face on!

The first seating for dinner was at 7:30 so we needed to be in the kitchen by 2:00.  Due to some scheduling conflict that only the French could cause, another class was just finishing their lunch service we were waiting...for like an 1hr.

So with 1hr less of prep time, we all hit the kitchen already in a hurry.  It was kinda like a black out.  I don't remember all the details of how I got from the beginning to the end, but here is a rough synopsis of our dish:

Mushrooms: sauteed in butter with shallots and garlic

Veggies: thinly sliced with a mandoline, then quickly blanched to maintain color

Sole: First flattened then scored and seasoned

Razor Clams: steamed with sauteed shallots and white wine

Sauces: reduced from the cooking liquids of the clams and the fish stock (made from the bones of the sole) with cream and lime juice.  Half was mixed with finely diced zucchini and carrots.  The other half was "foamed" for platting (which I also hate because the bubbles on last for the current platting...you have to re-foam for every order! and why? just for looks! it tastes just like the other sauce minus the diced veg--which, might I add (since I'm already complaining) take FOREVER to chop that small, brunoise its called.  i felt like i was in purgatory!)

Salad: baby arugula with olive oil and salt and pepper

Our dish was sauteed mushrooms rolled in two overlapping filet of sole, all wrapped in a spiral of slightly blanched zucchini, and orange and yellow carrots.  Platted with razor clams and mini salad.

Filet de sole aux girolles en spiral de legumes
Couteaux en mariniere

Due to the 1hr lost in the beginning, we only got a 20min dinner of cafeteria leftovers while our chefs each had a sample of each dish.  That's 6 dishes each and an appetizer!  I still have no idea how my plate taste.  But they needed to see what, if anything needed to be tweaked.

Then began service.  Basically, if you've seen "Hell's Kitchen" you can picture what it was like.  Not too many moments of yelling (at least not at me) but kinda hectic with both sides trying to send dishes out at the same time.  So all the cuisine students were split into Anglo A and Anglo B, 13 students in each, at the beginning of the program.  This was our first time in the kitchen together since then.  We had our own menu and Anglo B had their own.  

Each dish had a chef de partie, the chef in charge of that station, that dish.  The aboyeur calls out the orders for all 3 courses for each table and the chef de partie shouts "Oui Chef" to let him know they understood the order.

As waiters took the orders, customers could choose between a dish from Anlgo A or Anglo B for each course.  So if 2 people at a table of 4 ordered sole and the other 2 ordered the fish from Anglo B, all 4 had to be hot and ready at the passe (front table with heating lamps) at the same time.  

The aboyeur comes back again to "claim" the plates he said were ordered.  Which basically means, reheating or last minutes of cooking for some elements.   Timing is key; the aboyeur can either scream at you to hurry with your plates or get angry and send you back when you are too early.  So there was more screaming across the kitchen as each chef de partie tried to coordinate with the chef de partie of the corresponding dish.  

And then we had to do it all again on Thursday.

All in all, it was exciting and nerve racking at the same time.  It will probably only get more stressful, I will probably need to be chef de partie at some point. Yay! 

Kinda shaky, but here's a glimpse...

    

Génoise

Maybe you've never heard of génoise, but we've all heard of sponge cake.  Flour folded into powdered sugar and eggs, super easy.  The only hitch was more whisking.  But the payoff was I didn't have to fight with anyone to like the bowl when I was done. Ha!  The fun thing about sponge cake itself is...well...its spongy.

Though normally soaked in rum or liqueurs, we used crème anglaise, egg yolks and sugar tempered with cream infused with vanilla bean. 

And we made ice cream!  Only half of the crème anglaise was used for platting.  We all combined half of our crème to make a large enough batch of ice cream.

   Platted with a caramelized pear, fresh and pureed raspberry, and this ugly puddle of crème anglaise.