Tartine bread

I am going to be out of commission for another few days (as I have been, regrettably) as I finish up school. I'm scouring for things to keep me going. 

 

This absolutely fit the bill. 

 

Mind blowing.

 

If you have not flipped through the Tartine bread book, I don't know how you get through every day. The photography alone is so romantic. The recipes and methods are nothing short of totally inspiring. Two dudes totally committed to bread. It's a beautiful thing. 

I finish up this week. My practical exam is next Tuesday. I miss it here. I will be so happy to write again and to get back into the narrative of life. Instead of simply pouring myself wine. Not that I'm complaining. First world problems.

I want this to be my life. The community of food. 

 

Watch the movie. Get up and do a dance. Possibly pontificate about how much you love bread. Repeat. 

Hello Stranger.

Hi, my name's Bri. Maybe you've heard of me. I bump around here sometimes. I make promises of dedication that I don't follow through on. Join me on my culinary journey. You will question my sanity and my photography style on a daily basis. That would be if I posted on a daily basis.

I've missed you. But I haven't been able to talk about school. Because it makes me tired. And as the photos that I will share with you today will attest, it has not all been experiences of grandeur.

I like his face. And his BEARD!

I wanted first and foremost to share what the Moozh has been up to. His first fun week was amuse bouche. The amuse bouche is the course before the appetizer. Not all restaurants do it but what it is meant to do is to stimulate your palate and prepare you for the meal to come; 'amuse the mouth', as it were.

Duck Carpaccio (or green pepper) with Cassis pearls

Salt-crust toasted beets and pickled walnuts on Belgian endive with lemongrass creme fraiche
caramelized orange rind and edible flowers. 

Shave smoked scallop and pear, with pomegranate and black garlic on goat's cheese crostini

For his fourth amuse, he did a dashi broth duck breast but he didn't get a picture of that one. Sometimes things just get too crazy and something's got to give. Moozh has such a creative mind though, especially when it comes the pairing of flavours and the melding of textures. I am so blown away. His technical proficiency has totally exploded since he got into advanced. It was good in basic but really being able to apply it in advanced and incorporate it into presentation, he has gotten so much better. And with the duck carpaccio as an example, he is extremely mindful to vegetarians, always having an option available. I am his blessing and his curse.

This week he's on appetizers.

Rainbow Salad

Beef Tartar

Tonight he's doing Pork Belly and I can't wait to see what it looks like. Moozh LOVES pork belly. Like it probably goes, "Jesus, Me, Pork Belly." Sugar puts up some seriously fight for a top spot in the trinity but pork belly does have a lot of uniqueness going for it.

Moozh and I are currently working through the Intermediate WSET Wine course at school. This past weekend, Moozh cooked for the courses on Saturday and he made the most amazing Thai Noodle salad. The salad itself was simple but then the dressing was so amazingly complex. He sweat lemongrass in sesame oil. He added red chiles turmeric, galangal, ginger, garlic. There was mirin, and rice wine vinegar. I said numerous times during the night that I wanted him to make me that salad for the remainder of our marriage. Numerous times.

Our wine class is fantastically fun. The sommelier at the school is such a wealth of knowledge in wine but also extremely accessible in the tasting of wine and the development of palate when it comes to wine. The above picture was from our red flight, including Pinot Noirs, Grenache, Merlot, Cab Sauv, and Shiraz. We also get to taste from the taller wine glasses that you can see behind, which are 'varietal specific' glasses. Each glass, designed by Riedel, presents the wine in the best way on the nose and on the palate. I know it sounds like bullshit, but it works. Works for $45 a stem? If you have the money yes. But you can enjoy wine just as well out of your run-of-the-mill, Ikea stems.

And now for my turn. I really have run the gamut these past weeks. I'm nothing if not versatile.

My first successful macaron, pistachio creme.

This was my dessert today. Lavender Lemon Posset, Chamomile madeleine, and a cherry mint galette.

Posset is the most amazing thing. I answered the question, "What's a posset?" probably a dozen times today and I didn't even have to deal with customers. Posset has only three ingredients. Lemon juice and sugar, which are combined and brought to a boil, and heavy cream, which is also brought to a boil but separately. The liquids are then combined, portioned into their serving containers and chilled. The lemon juice and cream react and 'set' the posset into almost a curd or pudding-like consistency. It is ethereal. Like a lemon curd but oh so creamy. If you are ever short on a dessert and you don't know what to do, make posset. It has to set for a minimum of two hours but it can set overnight for a really creamy texture that is more stable.  It is so simple and fresh and EEEEEASY. But we know how I feel about lemon.

I saved these pictures for last because this day will live in my memory for a long time.

Bad cupcake day.

Now I attend a culinary school that trains in the French style. Let's just say, we don't really 'DO' cupcakes. We make numerous varieties of 'gateaus' which is a layered cake. We make pate a choux (cream puffs, eclairs, etc). We do butter sauces and plate using classic French decor involved lattice work and filigree. Fancy muffins aren't really in the French repertoire.

But cupcakes. Are. Easy. You find a cake batter of which you are fond. You scoop it into muffin tins. You slater it in buttercream. You box it up. It sells. Always. Without fail. Even in Vancouver where cupcake shops are the new Starbucks. They are friggin' everywhere.

So when we got a special order for forty cupcakes, twenty chocolate, twenty vanilla, we were not concerned. I was not concerned. That was my station and I was responsible for making sure that most of it was prepped and ready to go. The request on the order was for 'garden cupcakes' so we were going to decorate them with coloured buttercream in a variety of different flowers. We have girls in our class who have taken cake decorating courses before and some even work at a grocery store in the cake decorating department. They had the decorating part down pat. Now I had to hold up my end. Simple.

Didn't end up being so simple.

Y'all I don't even know how it happened. Danielle in my class, (SHOUT OUT) said they were 'apocalypse cupcakes' and honestly that is the only description that feels appropriate. It looks like mummification. And it was a CIA recipe!! The CIA (Culinary Institute of America) publishes all of their textbooks and recipes. They are extensively tested. They are to be trusted. SUPPOSEDLY. It was a cake recipe and I am racking my brain trying to come up with a solution for why they did what they did. I followed the recipe. I did it twice! The pan turned out like this TWICE.

They souffléd (meaning they puffed up in the oven). They also souffléd ALL OVER everything. But just as a soufflé, when we opened the door to check if they were done, they collapsed….into that. And I ended up with the worst burn of the program that is easily two and a half inches long on my forearm. I'm not bent out of shape about the burn but my conscience as a writer knows that it needs to be included to somehow communicate how bullshit the day was. So bullshit, that's how.

After the second batch, I was NOT doing the recipe again. Not even my respect for and belief in the CIA's recipe practices could make me do it a third time. DEvil's food it was. And they turned pretty good.

You see those leaves? Those were my doing. And the chocolate icing underneath the flowers. But the roses, gardenias, plumeria and daisies had nary a whiff of me near them. How beautiful are those?! The girls did a mega job on them. And we boxed those babies up and sent them away. I don't even care if they lady liked them.

And the moral of this story is not to avoid CIA recipes. Just when you are making their High Ratio Chocolate Cake, have your whits about you.

There is a Food and Wine Writer's conference in the Okanagan in the middle of June that I want to go to so bad. But it ends the same day as my written final. School is a buzz kill once again. But there's also an event at the UBC farm called "The Joy of Eating" or something like that going on pretty soon that I am GOING TO BE AT.  So help me God.
(Please help me.)

Find a recipe you like. Make it. Feel like a boss. Cover it in cream cheese icing but it makes everything better. Repeat.

Touché, toffee pudding

 I was beaten by a sticky toffee pudding. Powerless against a sticky toffee pudding. 

I feel like I have been on a marathon of dessert service lately. Broken up only by two days of production where I glazed two consecutive cakes that fell apart due to assembly-related errors. I also made some of the most hideous happy birthday signs and one "congratulations on thirty years with Shelfspace Mark." In my opinion, if you have text that you want on a cake, it's like twitter. You have only so much you are allowed to say. 

So then today. I was not totally excited to serve but I was excited to try out something different. To do something fresh and springy, something maybe a bit more palatable than a chocolate are with curry spices. I don't know if I isn't don't have the skill but today was not an exercise in mainstream dessert experimentation. 

 

I stumbled upon (and yet I did so without StumbleUpon) a video on CHOW by Mindy Segal. CHOW does these cool video segments called "Go-To dish". For some people, like Molly Ringwald, it's a roasted chicken recipe that they always use. It could be a cocktail, a soup, bread, anything really. CHOW introduced me to Mindy Segal and I fell in LOVE with her. She's a James Beard nominated chef, which means she's talented 'fer realz', and she owns a restaurant put of Chicago called Hot Chocolate. *Check it. They have marshmallows on their menu*. I am absolutely prepared to monologue  and dictate the entire video but you should just go watch it because it's awesome. But what I found so fascinating in the video was the sense of creativity and potential. Flavors that are exciting. Textures. So she makes a fruit consommé. When I showed Matt the first thing out of his mouth was "that's not a real consommé' and it's not but we pastry chefs...sometimes we just don't understand. We play with concepts and sometimes we play with concepts A LOT. *Notice how I said 'we pastry chefs' as if I am one. Self-talk. Self-talk.* 

 A fruit consommé, or more prosaically, a fruit soup had been on my mind since I saw the video. Every time it has come around to coming up with a dessert, I have thought 'should I do it today'? Every time I have ended up with a 'no' based on the fact that no one would order it. Making a dessert that doesn't sell can be deflating, even if you really like it. But today I bit the bullet and I indulged my soup-lust.

I started with a strawberry purée, which has such a phenomenal strawberry flavor and then I simmered it with some dried lavender, some sweet ginger (that pink stuff you put on sushi), some black pepper, and a squeeze of lemon. I thinned it out a bit with some water so it didn't taste just like purée. I spent so much time in the culinary dry storage picking out spices for the components of my dish. I felt like Baba Yaga, eye of newt and that kind of stuff. each time I walked past the culinary pastry station where sticky toffee pudding was being prepped. Take my 'Creme brûlée rant' and sub in 'sticky toffee puding' and you've got my inner monologue. "Ooooh sticky toffee pudding. Be still my beating heart." With gusto, of course, 

I was reading through Michel Roux's dessert book the other day and he had a recipe for apple gelees. They were these gorgeous champagne-colored cubes, clear and flawless and he said he often uses them either as a component to his dish or as a garnish. I was going to do an angel food cake, because of its light texture and great crust, but I knew that it was going to get hella soggy in the soup without a bottom. With this in my mind, I grabbed some apple juice and infused it with some fresh tarragon. Tarragon, you say? I have the greatest chef for me. Blessed in basic training and blessed in advanced. My Chef in advanced seems to understand how to motivate me. She also understands my palate and how, therefore, to intrigue me. I love strawberries and balsamic vinegar. It is a slam dunk in my book. Macerate some strawberries in some balsamic vinegar and some sugar over night, you have the best topper for ice cream ever. Ever. Chef suggested the quality of tarragon, being anise-y, citrusy and slightly herbaceous, as another great foil for strawberries. My palate was going crazy today. Total sensory overload but it was wonderful. I even took a core out of the angel food and filled it with some vanilla chantilly cream with sme minced tarragon in it to tie things all together.

So I have all of my components together and for the very first time I have having a very relaxed time of dessert service. I realize, in retrospect, that I COMPLETELY forgot about the customers. I was just having fun playing in the kitchen. Then I had to go get changed into my serving jacket. I come back and I have this moment. No one is going to want this. Everyone in my class was clamorous to try it. The strawberry soup was so fragrant. The angel food had great lift (and consequently a great collapse). The gelee providing one hell of a great snack. I candied some slivered hazelnuts for a bit of crunch on top. It was going to be a thing of beauty.

I sold four. Count 'em. Not a huge hit. The sticky toffee pudding sold out. My pride was wounded, I will admit. Wounded in the best way possible but still a crushing blow to the ego.

After dessert service closed, however, the masses descended and my classmates got their taste. All comments tasted together, gelee, soup and angel food with the chantilly. It was just a mouthful of flavor. So despite my loss in the dessert service race, I still think I made one hell of a dessert, one I would love to make again. My plating was not thought through. The gelee screwed up the soup decor every time. The plate didn't have enough color in my opinion. The cake needed some TLC in the worst way. All good things to think on. 

And it's still better than sticky toffee pudding, I swear to God!

It is Easter. Go find a sunset. Drink some wine, eat some cheese, watch it set. Repeat. Easter Peeps optional. 

Can't I just put butter on it? Butter makes everything better.

 Not gonna lie, I'm kind of tired of being in the kitchen. Thank God it's not the 50's. 

It's been a full day dry run of my midterm today. I know that it doesn't sound like a very successful dry run. 'Bri', you say, 'don't you only have four hours for your midterm? And today took you ten?' 

*In my head you sound like a Precious Moment when you talk.

But yes you would be absolutely right. I only have four hours to do everything that I took all day to do today. And there are even things that I will have to do on Wednesday that I didn't even DO today. Self-sabotage? Perhaps. My life resembled a bit of a science experiment today. I had my projections of what my midterm should look like, my HYPOTHESIS if you will -(guaranteed I just lost a couple of readers)- and compared it to what I felt I was capable of against what I was able to actually pull off. 

To my surprise -probably an hour added up throughout the day was made up of me congratulating myself on being realistic about my abilities and that I was 'going to be just fine at the midterm'- everything went fairly smoothly.  

Now being in pastry school has been an exercise in managed expectations. Anything you do at school -ANYTHING- that you choose to try and replicate at home, you will likely be disappointed. Professional kitchens are laid out with a certain modicum of premeditation. Ergonomics. "Flow". And you have a $1000 knife kit at your disposal. Your tuition has paid to enable anything you could want to put your hand to to be at your fingertips. Your apartment kitchen was made with the premeditation of "We were just going to put in a hot plate and a plug-in for a microwave but the building next door just put in new faucets and privacy film on the bathroom windows. So we have to at least make room for a full-size refrigerator." So any moments of Sound of Music-style spinning that was possible at school is only possible OUTSIDE your apartment. I don't remember my kitchen being inadequate before I went to pastry school. This is why you don't sleep around with other kitchens. Hindsight and all that.

So you get home. And you realize that you have a cloth piping bag that smells like morning breath (It DOESN'T dry well OKAY!?), you have a dough scraper that was obviously designed by someone who had never made bread before and purchased by someone (me) who hadn't a clue either, and your spatula has chunks missing along the side due to it being left on hot surfaces unattended. And then you feel sad. 

But then. You look back at your recipe. You remember the glory of school days recently passed. You conjure up your best show stopping dish. Commence dancing and inspired chanting at the glory of your semolina bread and how it's going to bring all the boys to the yard. 

Fast forward fifteen minutes: "Bah! This thing doesn't work AT ALL!"

Inspired chanting is replaced by swearing under one's breath. You make concessions for your recipe not shaping up like you had hoped. You pass the buck to the (now) broken spatula. You say that "It's just not for the home baker". And then you feel ashamed because you promised yourself that you would be better than that. Whatever you were making comes to a relative state of completion and you eat it with your eyes closed trying to resuscitate the previous beacon of talent and unchallenged winning. 

I have done this before if you couldn't tell. 

But today went well. I tried my best to preempt any tool-related shortages and use what I had at my disposal for it's intended purpose. I know you say, "Just take your knife kit home." But I would probably just say -and probably not very nicely- that it is simply not that simple. I don't know if you have ever been in the charge of a toddler or related small human before but there is this inevitable moment where you realized that they blew a shoe, or their pacifier or their blanket at all Hell breaks loose when they are without it. You search and retrace your steps. "You just had it. I don't understand." This life is my life. Everything I have is on an idiot -ahem, tether- when we go to the airport.  So two days before my midterm I am not going to lose my shoe THANK YOU VERY MUCH. 

I documented my truffle making process today because... I am a product of my generation and I have this insatiable desire to take pictures of my life on my phone using unnecessary photo sharing apps. Mae culpa, mea culpa. I worked with milk chocolate today whereas I've only worked with dark chocolate before. This made for a learning experience I probably could have saved for AFTER my midterm. Because dark chocolate has more cocoa solids in it, its sets up faster and requires less work to create the proper crystallization. The milk chocolate ganache is quite soft but it has bourbon in it so it can't be THAT bad right?

Including the Saran wrap and Archimedes the napkin holder seemed necessary. Or I just didn't realize I hadn't moved them until after. Our glass table isn't a marble and therefore will never be as great as marble but it definitely served its purpose well today. 

I also practiced my pate a choux paste today. I made eclairs, with drive me crazy but are on my exam, and then some profiteroles, which are much easier to work with and therefore more gratifying. I practiced some lemon curd today as well so instead of pastry cream I crammed the profiteroles full of lemon curd and left the finicky eclairs without any filling. That'll teach them right? Lie to me. 

 Tomorrow I have time to further finesse my agenda because I am the queen of over planning. A third of my class has already done their midterm. I want to ask them, ya know, pick their brain and TOTALLY obsess. But I know it is a short distance for me right now to go from there to rocking back and forth whispering, "I'll never teeeeeell." Best if I just keep to myself until Wednesday morning. 

Moozh did his this morning. The culinary students weren't told ahead of time what would be on their exam so Moozh went in blind. His chef told him that all of his stuff was cooked perfectly and that he did very well. And after six years of education and a master's program, Moozh still considered this midterm the most stressful exam he's ever written. I concur. Already. 

One more day to overprepare. 

Find a cookie. No, two. Find some ice cream. Make a sandwich. CUZ WHO DOESN'T LIKE AN ICE CREAM SANDWICH? Repeat. 

Friday, March 9, 2012

SWISS MERINGUE!!?? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

It's 10 am. Guess where I am? IN MY PYJAMAS!

No I didn't get kicked out of school. I kicked school out of the…park.
I think I got my metaphors confused.
But anyway. My midterm is done and gone with a 97% scribbled in nearly legible writing! Boo-friggin-yah man! Going into my exam this morning, I was coaching myself, "It's not about the grade. The grade you get doesn't matter. Trust your abilities." And then I found out my mark. Suddenly, it IS about the mark.

And of course, it being the Pacific Northwest, I walked to school in the rain, wrote my test so fast that my clothes were still wet when I walked home in them. But suddenly you are in your pyjamas, drinking the first cup of coffee you've had all week, sitting down in a comfy chair and catching up on blogs as if this is your life.

All kidding aside, my practical is on Wednesday and that's the one that really counts. When I was in school for writing, it was all conceptual knowledge. In the 'real world' as a writer, you would sit in your pyjamas in a public place and look like you were doing nothing so book knowledge did matter. As a baker or pastry chef, you will NEVER be sitting as a part of your job. Being able to hustle, do rosettes double time, whisk-whisk-whisk are all the pieces that make the man. (Isn't that a reference to a suit? Metaphors. Not my thing today. My writer-self is ashamed of my baking-self right now.)

And academia is a totally different world. You take your exam in a gym or a huge lecture hall with three hundred other people. The teacher sits at the front and plays Angry Birds or talks to some brown-noser TA. In pastry, there is absolutely nothing standardized about it. The Chef looms and looks over your shoulder to tell you that the answer you just wrote is wrong.

Moozh walks into his exam in a couple hours. He'll kill it too. He has so much discipline when it comes to studying. I'll have all of my books spread out around me and yet still be on my computer looking at Pinterest. He's constantly writing, printing off worksheets and diagrams. He always draws sunglasses on the diagrams of the animals on his butchery worksheets.

Yesterday he made Foie Gras, which is a fatted duck liver,

And Braised short ribs to finish off his journey in Foundations. He won't be eating a three course meal at 730 at night anymore once he gets in Advanced. Which I think he'll be just fine with.

Five days until my Practical. Having another go at eclairs and truffles on the weekend. I'm gonna SLEEP IN. I may or may not make myself a Rocky montage. And then Wednesday comes. And I RUN.

Find yourself a crossword. (Or a sudoku, word search, or a word scramble.) Whether you finish or not, reward yourself. (Hot chocolate, wine and/or cake acceptable.) Repeat.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

The Man Bakes

Moozh has been baking!!

In their last week in Foundations, the culinary students had their pastry unit. They learned to make basic breads, tarts and sweet soufflés. I am so glad there was no vice versa where we had to learn culinary things. Because I don't have the patience for that crap at this point.

I'm so proud of him because it all looks gorgeous!
Lemon Meringue tarts are just really effective when it comes to presentation. The torched meringue is so eye catching.

Vanilla cream soufflé.

Baguettes and Pain Epi.

Fruit tart. 

They also made burgers! Which looked so tasty! Handmade bun and everything.

Here's a rant. Cuz I need it.
Some of the culinary punks -I mean, students- in the AM class were dishing out as we were leaving the other day. We were looking at their lemon meringue tarts. We were being supportive. Telling them they looked nice. Asking for their 'numba'. And then they said, 'Not bad for culinary kids, hey?' We said yes. Maybe that's where it all started. We kept on walking -because stroking someone's ego is hard on my hand. And I was tired. Then they say, "We're totally as good as Pastry students." Maybe it was my sensitivity (and territorial nature) when it comes to pastry and my abilities. Maybe it was my MISPLACED sensitivity and territorial nature. Or maybe I just needed a nap. Either way, I am not kidding you when I tell you I ranted the whole way home.
Some of the things that came out of my mouth were:

• "Oh yeah. Well you're bread looks like a potato. And your Beef Bourginon the other night? It smelled like socks. COME AT ME BRO!"
• "You know why they give you lemon meringue tarts? Because they're EASY! You know what's NOT EASY?! Sponge cakes, tabling chocolate, sugar work. Are you doing any of that?! No. Cuz you're in CULINARY."
• "Rah!"

I don't know if you're picturing this but the picture in your mind is probably accurate. I looked like a well dressed crazy person. Not super articulate either. We should be nice to them though. They will be cooking our staff meal as of next week. Their meringue tarts did look nice. I SAID THAT.

I'm really asking to not be held accountable for many of my actions right now. It's allergy season, so I look like Mickey Rourke right now. (And not 9 1/2 weeks Mickey Rouke. Weird-face, Iron Man Mickey Rourke). Talk about PUFF. And I have a "nose situation".  I'm talking about first world problems.

You know what's not a first world problem. KONY2012. If you haven't caught the wave of this thing in the past couple days, check it out. Very worthwhile. I caught a good point from my cousin while I was on FB today. Invisible Children is not the only organization trying to do something about Kony or about child soldiers, or about conflict in central Africa. But they are a great organization and they've got LOTS of people's attention right now. The goal of the campaign is to spread awareness about who Kony is and why he has to be stopped. The night of April 20th, the idea is to take the campaign material and cover EVERY AVAILABLE SURFACE with it. The reality of our society now is we are products of unconscious advertising. And that's part of the idea of the campaign. Stick a tic in people's brains. Get it in their faces visually.
What is just as effective as covering your local downtown core with posters and flags and lawn signs about KONY2012 is to write to your representative. The great piece about a representative democracy is they will listen if the voice is big enough. Our Prime Minister is on the targeted list of policy makers. You have municipal, provincial and federal resources at your disposal. And you are FREE. As a citizen of an empowered democracy, you have a vote that counts. Let's HASSLE SOME FEDS.

Two rants in one post. Wicked. Pretty pictures to come, I swear.

Acquire yourself a evening snack. Give someone a high five (With your free hand). Educate yourself. Repeat.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

"Why can't you wear black shoes like the other mothers?"

I was completely blown away by how NOT into chocolate I was today. Our entire day today was a demo day where Chef demo'd how to properly temper chocolate using two different methods. We had what in my opinion (being presently jaded -just for a day) was an excessively long lecture about the origin of chocolate, the fermentation process, drying and processing. We tried different kinds of chocolate, which varying degrees of cocoa butter, cocoa solids, sugar, from different companies, origins. It really just left me confused. Then the tempering came and I am going to be SOAKED in chocolate tomorrow. I got my jacket dirty today and I didn't even DO  anything. I am going to wear the dirty one tomorrow because then I still have something to wear on Friday.

And today was Ash Wednesday so my typical catharsis method of swearing my face off is officially out the window.

I'll just do my best to channel Vianne tomorrow. Chocolat is one of my favourite movies, there is something intoxicating about it. Vianne is so whimsical. Perhaps it is chocolate's role in her life, maybe not. Maybe it's the red shoes. I wonder if Chef would let me wear red heels tomorrow. That would really help my frame of mind. But my Chef pants are pegged and everyone knows you don't wear heels with pegged pants. Unless you want to look like an extra from Dynasty.

There's a quote in the movie, "Don't worry so much about supposed to." That is going to be my mantra tomorrow. I get too caught up in frustration when I make mistakes, I miss the opportunity to learn. And we will be making a passionfruit ganache for our truffles tomorrow. Anything with passionfruit is a win.

Here are the cakes we finished yesterday!

We did a sachertorte, which actually comes with quite the history. The Viennesse do not joke about their pastry. There was a lawsuit fought for years over who could claim the 'Original Sacher Torte". Doesn't matter to me because it tastes good. It's a dense chocolate sponge cake, almost like a brownie texture. It's split and filled with traditionally apricot preserves (duh-lish) but we used raspberry jam and then glazed with a chocolate ganache. As you can see, I was SHAKY when it came to writing on the surface. That is a skill that will come with time.

We also did a lemon blackberry mousse cake, similar to the raspberry one we did  a couple of days ago but using lemon curd, one of my top seven favourite things. We had to use the walk in freezer for our two mousse cakes and both of mine came out looking a little worse for wear. The glaze didn't set evenly and the outer edge got a little mangled but this cake is seriously SO GOOD. I find the assembly of modern cakes (mousse, ganache, etc) very meditative. You've got to have everything together but once you do you can knock off so many. Bodes well.

We did last a Bavarian Charlotte which is a vanilla cream filled cake with lady fingers around the outer edge. It made it out of the freezer a little more mangled but it still tasted good and when you pile some fresh fruit on top, it never looks all that bad.

The cross section shows the inserts. A lemon cremeux and a blackberry fruit gelee.

We glazed the top with the same glaze as the mousse cake, which is not traditional, to cover up some of the tears. The cremeux layer is WAY too thick even for a lemon lover like me. The gelee is bent but overall the layering is not too bad for a first time attempt hey?

Today Moozh made rabbit confit, which is rabbit cooked in it's own fat! Whose idea was that because I think they need a prize.

Yesterday, Moozh made a chicken roulade (which means a rolled thing) which a prawn filling.

Less than three weeks until our midterm. Then it's advanced. Then it's real. No red shoes in advanced.

Find some red shoes. Wear them in bed while you eat some chocolate. Consider yourself a rebel. Repeat.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Don't listen to anything I say. Basically.

Heyo! So we're doing our best to get back on the once a day track for posting. Otherwise, there are simply too many pictures. And pushing 'email photo' on my iPhone more than three times in a row is just exhausting.

Today was a hard Monday. I'm not gonna lie. All day I was just wishing for a stat holiday, or even (in my silent, inside voice) for something contagious. I was somewhat consoled by the fact that I wasn't the only one that stared at myself in the mirror this morning and contemplated calling in a sick day.  But eight hours a day, five days a week is pretty good training for real life. Except real life won't be like an Italian spa.

Today had a good clip though. There wasn't a ton of 'viamo guys!' going on. As long as you nestled your head firmly in the group and put one foot ahead of the other, you looked pretty ridiculous but two o'clock arrived with everything done. Tomorrow is our last day of cakes which will involve another mousse cake (yay) and infinite glazing, which is not so much 'yeah' and more so 'nononononono not like that'. All good.

The cake we glazed today is a cake custom to the school called a 'Pasuwa'. It consists of a chocolate sponge base, chocolate mousse, chocolate chips, cheesecake chunks, another sponge layer, more chocolate mousse and cheesecake chunks and then chocolate ganache, aka Boom. I brought it home, had a little chat with my digestive system and then went and made friends with my neighbours. The conversation that begins with 'Do you guys want some cake?" really only ever goes one way.

But Moozh had a good day today. Let me preface this by explaining that my husband has what could be described as a charismatic experience every time he eats Indian food. Something about the flavours, the textures, being able to eat it with your hands…something. It just speaks to him. So when he texted me this with the caption, "Indian Buffet", I knew he was going to be a very happy man when he got home, which a little bit of a kick in his step.

I feel personally blessed that Moozh has learned to make Indian. Especially such a spread. I am going to request an instant replay of this meal complete with everything you see represented here and I will dangle WHATEVER CARROT I HAVE TO in order to get. You have no idea how seriously a white kid can take Indian food.

Moozh also made quite the spread last night for our small group. Nothing is better than having people you love to pieces over for delicious food and wine. Nothing.

Rack of lamb, cumin rice pilaf, garam masala bean medley, roasted asparagus, and roasted veggie tower with a raspberry vinaigrette-pearl onion compote.

Not bad right?! My life, I tell ya. The man does me right.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Moozh doesn't get a lot of air time here. He's the talker in the relationship. I'm the typer.

I ate (and/or gave away -I swear) all of my creme brûlée and thus have no documentation. We made a million and the ramekins we needed for our creme caramel. So we shared them with the rest of the school for the staff meal. I had to run to advanced pastry to grab something and on my way back I heard one of the advanced pastry kids bitching, "Just throw them out. They're not even done properly." So. Maybe not as successful an outing as I convinced myself it was.

 We made chocolate pots du creme which is akin to a custardy hot chocolate. Aka holy delicious.

We finished with creme caramel. My most dominant memory of this dessert is how hard it was to clean the caramel that didn't form a sauce from the bottom of the ramekin.

There was a rather rapid 'turning out' of the creme caramel. They were set and cooled but creme caramel (an really anything baked in a ramekin) is not really transportation friendly. We had to scoop them out into a container to take home. So it looks like salad dressing. Custardy, vanilla salad dressing.

But Moozh has done fun stuff! He did butchery all last week and then aced his butchery exam this week. Mucho proud wifey.

Moozh beat me to both creme caramel AND soufflé. I thought that pastry would have the market on that but turns out I have competition from someone who can hack through a pig carcass and balance our check book all in one day. I need more skills. We do soufflé on Monday, I remind myself.

Moozh told me an interesting story about sablefish (below). Turns out that the sablefish you are dying to try on the menu is the same Black Cod that you could have taken or left. It's a beautiful example of the role marketing plays in food culture. When the fish was under the name Black Cod, it couldn't compete with Atlantic Cod, Halibut and a lot of the other more familiar fish that are used for Fish and Chips, seafood chowders and other classic fish dishes. So someone decided to instead call them 'sablefish'. This bumped them up to an entirely different category because we all know that sable is so much better than black. More exotic. And quality obviously.

Yesterday they made scallops. My favourite part of getting pictures from Moozh is the plating. Plating is one thing that pastry only learns late in the program. You have to know it before you get into Advanced but it simply does not factor into any of your learning for the first month and a half.
Look at those scallops!

And notice the tourneed vegetables. Even though I bet learning that was really frustrating, it's good to know because after the first week, it's in EVERYTHING.

Each day, the foundation culinary students make a three piece meal for themselves.
An appetizer:

And entree:

Flank steak and grilled zucchini.
And a dessert:

I don't know what this is. I should because it's a dessert. But it does not look like anything I have seen before. I will reread this passage with egg all over my face one day when I say "Oh THAT'S what that was. Ooooh……."
Moozh has come home with an angry stomach everyday this week. It's a wonder French people are so chill and skinny. Because their contribution to the culinary world has been bereft of anything easy to digest.

So tomorrow is Savoury Day for us Pastry folk. We're making spanikopita (or Spank-i-topia, as Lex calls it), tortiere, which is a ground beef pie with chunks of potatoes and yummy spices. There's sausage rolls, empanadas, samosas, an onion tart, and a tomato-ricotta tart. We  also get out knife skills tomorrow. *Saying it like that makes it sound like they come in a box or something.* No, we have our knife skills class tomorrow. The first day of the pastry class having to use their knives, two of us cut our fingers in a major way (I wasn't one of them -go figure!). So some of us got indignant (that may or may not have been me) and demanded that our ineptitude be rectified by a knife skills class. So one of the VERY FRENCH teachers is coming in tomorrow to help us work out way around the sharpest knives I have ever been around. On the day where we will be slicing more onions than most of us have probably ever seen. (C'mon, it's Greek food. Super smelly but smelly in the best way.)I feel like I have a leg up because Moozh sat me down and showed me all of the slicing methods he was learning the first week. I sliced an onion in class today and I didn't even cry. These are the big things of life, let's be honest.

Next week we start cakes, which basically means we enter one of the seven circles of hell. Chef has straight up told us that if we were deluding ourselves that anything up to this point was hard, we may as well just sign our careers away because cakes take it all (just about said, 'takes the cake' but I restrained myself…kind of). But of course, Chef says that about everything. That is the Italian Pep Talk.

Find some veggies. Slice 'em fancy. (Strips are fancy) Put some parsley on top. Top it with a steak. Feel like a genius. Repeat.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Cute

So my whole rationale about the 'cute' thing. Not totally wrong. But kind of wrong. 

First text I get from Moozh tonight: "Look at the cute little pear guy I made." 

Totally cute pear guy. With a leaf carved right into the skin.

Then there was a fruit salad for the appie. Oranges, melon, tomatoes, and cucumber with zest. Good palate cleanser/amuse-bouche.

Apparently a raspberry vinaigrette was part of the theme for today.

So the veal was served with a raspberry vinaigrette reduction and later the dessert was poached in the same raspberry vinaigrette.

I'm so impressed by the plating that Moozh is learning. I know that we will likely learn plating once we get to advanced but I kind of wish we were focussing on presentation more now. In pastry we learn a lot of the technical stuff so maybe that's why we're not learning presentation yet. Figure it out first, THEN you can make it look pretty. 

Really though, my most stressful day is simply an exercise for someone in culinary. We will be the enigmatic pastry person huddled in a cranny in some restaurant somewhere fixing a tart tatin or something custom for dessert while everyone else in the kitchen scurries like mad people. They are preparing us for our future dynamic. 

Make something pretty and purely ornamental to go on your plate. It will make you feel like a chef. 

About Me

Name: Bri

This is where I (Bri -writer and pastry novice) and my husband (Moozh -theologian and culinarian) document our journey through academia into the culinary world and back again.

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Previous Posts

• Song for Rome Pt 1
• The Pizza Quest and Gelateria del Teatro
• Song for Venice
• Da Vinci, Shylock and a 24 hr pizza chain
• Song for Prague
• Alfons Mucha, The Green Fairy, and Fried Cheese Sa...
• Song for Berlin
• Gorky, Stalin and Hitler. Are there sausages?
• Song for Provence - Minor Swing from Chocolat
• Cezanne, Sextius and Calisson d'Aix

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