Not so baked

For the sake of remembering my time here in Paris, aside from school and tourism, this blog is dedicated to the "life experiences" I had while here. In the 3 1/2 months I have been here thus far, I have:

-Learned how to open a bank account in French

-Learned how to write a check in the European format

-Learned how to open a cell phone account in French

-Learned how to rent an apartment and put in a notice for relocation

-Been assaulted 5 times

-Been mugged 1 time

-Learned how to talk to doctors in broken French and English

-Learned that one only needs a passport to be admitted to the ER at 4 am

-Realized that the French definition of strong mustard is a big understatement

-Learned how to make chocolate chip cookies in Paris, aka making my own brown sugar and chopping chocolate because of the lack of chips sold in Paris

-Realized that the French actually use a system of price comparison throughout the cities for their baguettes and croissants/pain au chocolate

-How to "convert" everything from temperature, weight, and length, to money and verbs

This all being said, I must say, if all of this had not happened, especially in the course of 3 1/2 months, living alone and separated from all of my family and friends, I know I would not be at the level I am now, and I would not be able to consider myself the person I am today. Without coming to Paris and not only learning more about traditional baking and pastry techniques than I could have ever imagined, and going through this seemingly endless list of experiences that build my character, I would be so much closer to my...slightly naive and inexperienced 19 year old student self. Of course being 20, living in Paris, having the ability to enjoy a nice Cabernet and talk in broken French with friends, and realizing that my last 3 months of existence been a complete roller coaster, I am certainly not an experienced adult. I would never even consider trading my experiences, both good and bad, for anything. I suppose what this has all taught me in a retrospective sort of way, is that I cannot really ever think "it's done" when it comes to challenges and hurdles in my routine, but rather, I can be more prepared, and know how to avoid a whole list of already experienced challenges. Now, time for some milk off the shelf and a plate of Pim's...

April

Well, I know I have been negligent with my posts, but I have been busy with school, so I suppose I have an excuse, right? This past week was all about ice creams and sorbets. We learned everything from composition of ice creams to using a refractometer for sorbet. What I did not expect was to learn how to make all sorts of traditional ice cream desserts I had never even heard of. We made ice cream cakes, but these were much different, in that they used items such as meringue shells, layers of different flavor combinations, and more. We made some fun things also, like lady bugs that were almond cake bottoms, with a dome of pistachio ice cream covered with a layer of fresh raspberry sorbet, then decorations. They were so awesome!

Back to the beginning of the month, we have also been doing more technical work with things like doing Croissants, Pain au Chocolate, and more practice on the French Baguette. Aside from class, we took a trip to a flour mill outside of Paris, in the countryside. It was pretty interesting, but the best part was definitely when we went to a second flour mill, that was much older, and was situated in a small village, right on a brook with green fields and old cottages. The owners served us an amazing lunch on the patio by the grass which included fresh baguette made with their own fresh, ground flour, served with brie, quiche, and a whole assortment of traditional French food.

Since the field trip, I was supposed to travel to Milan and Rome last week with a friend from class, but the morning of our trip, it was canceled due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland. We were pretty bummed out, considering we had a 9 day vacation and no place to go. So, being in Paris, I made the best of it and became a tourist. My friend Amy from Jenks, studying in Madrid at the time, came and visited for a couple of days, and we had a great time just being tourists in Europe as opposed to students. We went to everything from the Louvre, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame and Tour Eiffel, to the Pantheon and shops along the Seine river. On Saturday her flight was in the evening, and I was lucky enough to have even more fun to come, in that I was asked to come stay a night in Versailles with my friends, Karen Bentley and her family. They were traveling back to their home in Vienna from the states, after visiting their previous home in Tulsa. We had a wonderful time, and I highly recommend going to Versailles. It was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places I have been in Europe. The gardens in the Chateau of Versailles were unbelievable, and the fountains just made it even more amazing. We didn't tour the inside of the Chateau, but that is, for me, good, because I know more people will be coming to visit, and I only live 30 minutes from Versailles, so it's a great afternoon destination.

The remainder of school is less than half, and I am really trying to learn as much as possible. It is so incredible being here in Paris for school, and I can't imagine having a better program for learning SO much in such a condensed amount of time for this vast subject. The internship is drawing nearer, and I am quite curious as to see where I will be in 3 months.

This week, our teacher decided to have us cover a larger spectrum of baked goods as a class, and individually. Thus, he had us cover an entire section of our book this week, which included:

16 Types of Macarons

25 Types of Petit-fours (demi-sec; aka cookies, etc...)

15 Types of Voyage Cakes (trip cakes: pound cakes, fruit cakes, etc...)

We were able to make so many because each person was assigned two or three desserts each class, and the class as a whole covered all of them, and we would then compare all of them at the end of the class, set up as a display for everyone, and talk about what each person did. In this, we were able to cover a lot, and I was able to talk to each person and ask them what they had difficulty with, what they would change, etc... It was great, because I now have a recipe book not only filled with one of a kind recipes written by my teacher, but all with star ratings and changes to them, made by me. As most Americans don't like fruit cake, I simply don't fit the category, and we began making that Wednesday, and it will be done on Tuesday. That is something that everyone had to make, and I'm very glad, because it is SO good! Lemon Pound cake was incredible, as well as the "Weekend" cake, which, in reality was just a delicious pound cake with a thin layer of liquid fondant icing and apricot glaze. Talk about having a stash of goods to provide me for coffee and tea in the evening. The crazy part is the shelf life...a lot of them, un-cut, and un covered, had a 2-3 month shelf life. It's all the sugar, sadly, but I like to think it's because they all had some special characteristic which prevented time from destroying them. haha. Anyway, the Macarons were...incredible to say in the least. I had been waiting all semester to make them, and they were so fun! I was assigned Salted Caramel Milk Chocolate Macarons. The first batch of biscuit cookies for the shell didn't turn out, and the teacher said it must have been the caramel, so we re-wrote it and they were awesome. Our class made:

Pistachio

Salted Caramel Milk Chocolate

Coffee

Olive Oil

Amber Citrus

Raspberry

Passionfruit

Raspberry and Rose

Matcha (green tea)

Strawberry Vinaigrette

Chocolate

Chocolate Cherry

Lemon

Coffee Caramel

Mint

I feel like I'm forgetting some, but I think that is everything our class made. The other group made some of these, and a few others, including Cassis, Coconut, and Lavender. If I could have brought boxes and boxes home for the rest of the year, I would have, because they are about 1.50 a piece in Paris, and they are about an inch in diameter...I brought 25 home, and could have brought more, but the darn freezer is SO tiny! Haha. Ah well, I guess...better for me in the long run. Anyway, I will be loading pictures to Facebook on Tuesday or Wednesday. I edited them already, but forgot my recipe book at school...and although I TRY to remember everything, I simply cannot remember ALL of the names of the desserts from this week.

In and out of class

Within the walls of my "classroom" and hardly the city limits of Paris, the exposure to the fundamentals of pastry and boulangerie have been coming in all forms. In class we have continued to build our skills of basic pastry knowledge and execution with puff pastry, pate a choux, and pastry cream, in multiple forms, such as: Religeous, Paris Brest, Eclairs, and more. Interestingly, in the United States, Paris Brest was one of my least favorite pastries, but it has been by far one of my favorites here. The taste of the praline pastry cream and powdered sugar covered pate a choux is just so...simply delicious.

On another note, I have had a recommendation to also write about my out of class experiences, and what better than last weekend at Europain. Europain is something I had never heard of before, but my classmates informed me that we were all welcome to go, for 20 Euros of course, but OH such a small price to pay for the incredible experience. It is, in my opinion, the BEST way to single handedly form opinions of multiple companies within a single space and time frame. I now KNOW a few chocolate companies that I prefer for only dark chocolate, or only milk chocolate, and why. Samples, explanations, packets, and did I mention samples? Bleh, I felt so sick at the end of the day I had to go home and workout just to even begin thinking I wasn't going to lapse into a sugar coma.

Other small expeditions have included my friends Stephanie and Patrizia going to the Champs Elysees for coffee and browsing. Buying? Haha funny. China town is very fun, and I highly recommend it for Sunday. Everything in Paris is closed on Sunday except the movie theater and China town shops. I had the best, and probably the only real Thai food today with my friend Nam. I thought I was confused going to Brasseries here? Man oh man. In China town you must either speak French or Chinese/Thai/etc...So, the menu is translated from Thai to French. Wonderful. Haha. This is why we make friends.

Who knew it would be so easy to buy things like aged Camembert cheese in my local market, but toilet paper is NOT to be had in Paris. I guess they just don't believe in it here? The strangest thing...I had to go to 8 different stores before I finally found some, and of course it was colored and scented. I kinda liked that...haha. Along the lines of strange grocery shopping, milk: 89 cents for a Liter, not so bad, Bread: practically free; seriously...50 cents for a 30 inch loaf? And ah yes, a cucumber: 6 dollars....wow. I was...confused? I mean, almost 5 Euros for a mid-sized cucumber, seriously? What is going ON? I simply cut particular vegetables out of the diet I guess.

If you ever move to Paris, you MUST learn how to push: elbow, shove, and...hm, spacially abuse one another? Haha. For anyone who knows me, space is a bit of an issue, and going to school in a metro car containing 50+ people in a 25 person space is...interesting. Who knew the elderly could throw such blows with no remorse? The key: .....J'ne sais pas... :/ Haha.

On a last note, I would have to say I love the French and almost everything about them. There has never been a time in my life where I thought everyone around me was dressing to impress someone, looking focused, and yes, enjoying things in life that I aspire to create, aka delicious foods and pastries. Aside from the lack of general organization when it comes to customer service, the actual civilians themselves are more welcoming than I ever could have hoped for.

Au revoir a la prochaine, Tanner

Puff Pastry Week

Keeping up with the notion that the French like vacations, this past week my class, Anglo group A, had the Chef of Anglo group B as a teacher for the week. The differences in teaching styles were fascinating and really helped students in the class to realize that there are many ways to convey information and technical skills. The main focus of the week was learning to make Puff Pastry dough. On Monday and Tuesday we each made 5-7 separate batches of Puff Pastry dough, and used 2 of the styles of folding techniques on various batches. The differences were that we learned how to properly roll out and fold dough with butter inside, and vice versa. It was interesting how after the third time making the dough we all pretty much just started making the dough for memory. I think that is so important to be able to do. Puff pastry has SO many different applications, and this last week we just touched on a few. We made "cakes" which consisted of puff pastry and were filled with Frangipane, an almond filling. They were very good, and after making them realized they are pretty similar to a traditional King Cake of Mardi Gras. The other applications included making Chaussons, meaning slipper, which were individual bun sized puff pastries with various fillings and designs. The last application we made using puff pastry was the Mille Feuille, which I figured out after the description, is what many Americans refer to as a Napoleon. It is layers of puff pastry and pastry cream, with a liquid fondant and dark chocolate topping. It was very delicious, but quite sweet.

On Friday, our class got to set up a large table presentation of all of the various pastries we had all made from the entire week, and the other group, Anglo B, got to come view it, in addition to the colleagues of my teachers. The best part was when the teacher said "everyone, take as much as you want." Haha. I have never seen adults so eager to fill bags with pastries and boxes with tartes, then again, I haven't been in any situation where that was possible, and free.

The other group, Anglo B, took a Cuisine Catering class last week. That is what I will be taking this coming week. The teacher is very well versed in what he does, and it showed in their work. We went to view their setup, as they did ours, and they had made so many traditional French Cuisines I couldn't even imagine the amount of work that went into them. Everyone reading this will get to hear in depth about what the Cuisine entails, because I will be making it starting Monday. I'll update everyone Friday!

P.S. If you can, go to my Facebook page to view my latest photos from class. I just uploaded about 35 from this week.

Week 2

The second week had more to offer in different forms than I expected. What a relief! Not only are we (my other 9 classmates) and I taking French language and Pastry classes, we are also taking sparsely spread Bread workshops, Catering, Cuisine, Wine, Art study, and Food Technology. I am just amazed at how much the teachers know here. I have not had a teacher yet who has not taught at Ferrandi for at least 15 years, and that is so impressive and such a relief. Friday would have to have been my favorite day of classes this week. The whole week we had classes spread from 8am to around 5 everyday, but on Friday we had one class; Bread workshop from 1:30pm to 7:30pm. It felt strange waking up and running errands and then going to school, but class was amazing...The teacher was so knowledgeable and so good at conveying a lot of information in a respectable manner. We learned how to make traditional French bread, and what the guidelines are to make bread to actually be able to call it French bread. It was SO good. I have not eaten that much bread since I arrived, or ever for that matter. Chef Maurice was quite impressive. Next week we start off at 8am again, but we have catering all week. It's going to be all new classes again!

Wednesday: Day 3 of School

So, we learned a few things today. First, we learned how to make a basic dough for tart shells. It was an interesting method of mixing, but I was thoroughly impressed with the direction the Chef gave us and the final product. We will be rolling and forming the shells tomorrow. The cleaning standards in the school are absolutely impeccable! I cannot BELIEVE how clean we are asked to keep everything, but that is so impressive to me. Prior to even getting ingredients we sanitized all work surfaces, and when we were done, we HOSED down the entire kitchen, granite counters, fridges, floors, and all, and squeegied it all dry! I'm very inspired to achieve a whole new level of cleanliness. I so look forward to wine tasting class on Friday! We also took a short placement exam today for French lessons, so I am very excited to learn the French language of the kitchen. Fellow classmates and I share such a passion; it is interesting how everyone is SO different, has different aspirations, different pasts, and different personalities, but we are ALL there for the same reason: we want to become better pastry chefs. I really think this next 5 months will go by too fast with how much I am already loving class and my classmates. I am in the process of planning a Valentine's Day dinner and movie for Sunday, so I am very excited to have not only patisserie students, but cuisine students as well visit the apartment and go out into the city and get to know one another. Well, I'll update on the wine class. Can't wait!