Final Exam!!

Just a quick update: The exam went great!! I have passed and the chef complimented me on my dish so I’m really happy. Here’s the photos from the exam plus the other dishes that other people served:

My exam dish and the action during the exam

Other exam dishes (Pastry and Cusine)

Just a little note: The superior pastry exam was a sugar sculpture and the cuisine exam was to come up with an original dish that had at least one sauce, a composed vegetable, a stuffed vegetable, a simple vegetable, an amuse bouche and serve 4 plates. We also had to use lamb, foie gras, cauliflower, artichokes, red pepper, and peas.

My dish was lamb stuffed with foie gras and chicken mousse served with a lamb jus, pea gnocchi in a roasted red pepper basil sauce, zucchini stuffed with an artichoke and cauliflower gratin, turned glazed carrots, and my amuse was white asparagus and cauliflower puree.

Night Before My Final

It’s the night before my final exam, the culinary culmination of my time here in Paris. I found myself awake, thinking about the time I’ve spent here. I’ve seen the seasons change, seen Paris go from being dark and rainy, to eternally light out and beautiful, stocked with flowers and perfectly manicured parks. I’ve been lonely in my studio apartment, eating éclairs and wishing I was home, to spending evenings in my kitchen with my two best girl friends, all of us cooking in a space no bigger than a closet. I’ve seen countless museums and walked through so much of this city. I went from being a nervous wreck on my first day of class, to confident halfway through, and now, on my last day of school, so very aware of how far I’ve come and how far I still have to go.

Paris was so very romanticized in my mind before I came here, and that fantasy was in a two dream pileup with the idea that I would come home fluent in French. This experience was not easy and in the early months it was far from ideal. There were many days, usually marked by rain, knife wounds, or lack or internet service or, let’s face it, an apartment, where I hated Paris, well I’m glad I stayed until spring. Spring in Paris isn’t necessarily the most beautiful time of the year, it’s just the first time anyone in Paris actually feels like leaving the apartment. It’s finally light out, and the rain becomes less and less frequent (why is it that everyone knows that Seattle is rainy all the time but the rain in Paris is kept secret??). The most important part of Paris for me, besides the education, is the friendships I’ve gained. I really tried not to make friends, not because I’m mean or a loner, but because I didn’t think with only a few months here, that it would really make sense to become close to anyone. Well, I’m glad that didn’t work out. My friends are amazing. Dinner parties, museum trips, lunches, parties, nights at each others apartments after the parties, walks around the city with no plans in mind, my friends have made Paris so much better than that silly romanticized version I had in my head as I stepped on the airplane in Connecticut. I can’t thank them enough for changing my life for the better here in Paris.

Some day, I hope to have become much more fluent in French (apparently osmosis coupled with software is not the best way to learn a language) and come back here, and then I fear, Paris will once again have a standard to live up to. The standard I set for it by embracing my days off and visiting every possible tourist attraction, and every hole in the wall that tourists don’t know about, the standard that my friends help set for it by giving me such wonderful memories, and  the standard Le Cordon Bleu set for it by giving me wonderful skills, and even more wonderful food to enjoy while I was here. I can’t believe that my time here is running out (only 5 days left) and while I’m excited to come home and curious about my future, I have another, less expected feeling…sadness. Tomorrow is the last day I will wear my uniform and cook in the little school on rue leon delhomme. Tomorrow is the last time my friends and I will go the bar near school after an exam and question what we could have done better. The next five days are full of lasts and I’m sad about that, but I couldn’t be happier that I made the decision to come and that even on the bad days, this experience was well worth it. I can only hope my next stage in life will be anywhere near as fulfilling.

All New Photos!!!

So, clearly it’s been awhile since I posted anything, and I plan on finishing writing up the days but that’s the easy part, the hard part is getting photos up. Well, it took the entire day but here are all of my unposted photos. Make it last! It’s like Christmas morning, if you open all of your presents at once, you’re gonna be really jealous of Jon who always takes a really long time opening his presents and acts all smug about it, but then Matt shows why he’s the oldest when he pulls out a present for himself that he hid under the couch and well there you go, Christmas at the Aubin House. This is of course after we make each other breakfast and sing carols

March 25-27 Random Pics from Corey’s Visit

April 8-9

April 11-15

April 15 Every Time I Die Show

April 17 International Food Festival

April 19-30

May 5-12

May 13: Rungis

Flowers Part 1

Flowers Part 2

Fruits and Vegetables Part 1

Fruits and Vegetables Part 2

Cheeses

Everything/Everybody Else:

May 16 & 17 Korean Dinner and Day out with Merrie

Greatest Hits of the Last Few Weeks

April 11: Student Dinner

Tonight was the student dinner.  We went to LeDoyen which has 3 Michelin stars, which basically means it’s one of the best restaurants in Paris, which is a big deal.  The restaurant is located right on the Champs Elysee between Place de Concorde and where the real commercial part starts.  It looks like a beautiful house in the middle of the woods, pretty cool considering that two blocks either way and you’re hit with some of the busiest most touristy parts of the city.  Dinner was amazing.  It started with an open bar and hot passed hors d’oeuvres.  My favorite were these little tiny vegetarian egg rolls.  They were absolutely amazing and I’m actually doing a play on them during my second do what you want workshop, but I haven’t even talked about my first one yet so I’ll explain later.  The pre-appetizer was a white asparagus puree with a parmasean crisp, creme fraiche, and black truffles.  Again, amazing.  I actually used the asparagus puree in my first do anything workshop.  Apparently I’m quite the copycat.  This dish was probably my favorite thing we were served, not that everything else wasn’t wonderful, but this dish was just perfectly put together.  The next dish, the appetizer, was foie gras with a passion fruit gel followed by our main dish of filet mignon wrapped in duxelles and puff pastry served with a red wine truffle sauce.  The predessert was this incredibly rich coffee mousse with a coffee gel and a coffee bean crisp.  It was good but man was it strong!  The main dessert was a dice of pineapple with coconut foam, a sugar crisp, and banana sorbet.  It was yummy but by that point I could barely eat any more…although if it were anything chocolate I probably would have managed.  I ended up just eating the pineapple and giving my banana sorbet away to a friend who loved it.  You would think dinner would be over at this point but no, we still have post dessert and espresso.  The post dessert was an array of mini desserts, lemon macaroons, chocolate tarts, and pound cake.  I ended up going home right after dinner so I could get some sleep before my parents came in the next day.

April 12: My Parents Come to Paris

I picked my parents up in the morning and brought them in to Paris on the train.  About halfway through the ride, my Dad ended up getting his camera out of his luggage and started taking photos of the trains and yards we passed on the way in.  Here’s a little glimpse of what my parents did during their stay: Eiffel tower, Louvre, Orsay, Luxembourg gardens, Cosi, mussels and wine at a cafe (Mom w/ me), Versailles, trainwatching (Dad), shopping at Galleries Lafayette (Mom w/ me), Marmottan museum, Carnavalet museum, falafels in the Marais, Sacre Coeur/Montmartre, walkingwalkingwalking, Notre Dame, Berthillion, Pierre Hermes (Mom w/ me), Poilane (Mom w/ me), Rue Cler, Invalides, view of Eiffel tower from Trocadero, Champs-Elysee, Jardin des Plantes (Dad), a trip to the open air market on Convention (which my Dad is still talking about) and they also sat in on one of my demo classes.

April 15: Mom and Dad sit in on demo/ Every Time I Die concert

Today my parents came to my demo class.  Chef Poupard made ceviche of cod with guacamole, stuffed veal with foie gras and stuffed tomatoes, and stuffed dates wrapped in phyllo dough with saffron ice cream.  They loved the class and my mom practically bought out the school store.  My Dad was so excited that the chef made ice cream that he didn’t even balk at the egg yolks or saffron flavor that was in it.  Like a good daughter, I gave him my portion and got him some extra from the leftovers.  I made the veal the next day and luckily I have some good friends that gave me their veal so we had plenty to eat.

That night I went to the Every Time I Die concert with Merrie and Carter.  The concert was at a little venue in Parc de la Villette which I believe was created to confuse people.  The parc is giant with all of these red weird looking buildings and they are all concert venues. They aren’t just similar looking, they are also set inside foliage so you kind of see a red building, walk all the way over there, and then it’s the wrong one.  Anyway, we found the place and we got there during the second band but were still able to get all the way to the front.  The show was awesome except for the point at which Merrie and Carter were assaulted by two kids that the idiotic security guard pushed from the stage into them.  You can check it out here.   I also put up my videos from the show you can see them here.  At the end of the show the guys in the band started pulling up fans (something they’ve done a lot and had some trouble with too) but they started with me and then I grabbed Merrie and Carter.  Carter was booted off by the security guard so Merrie and I dodged him and ran toward the back of the stage near the drums and danced together away from the rest of the kids onstage who were doing their crazy windmills and kicks and punches.  You can see video of that here.  All in all it was a fun show and later that night Merrie and Carter and I went out for drinks.

April 17: Parents at the Orsay, Me at the International Festival

While my parents went to the Orsay museum, I went to an international festival with Priska, Morgan, and Bruno.  I only went because I really wanted to get out of my apartment but it ended up being awesome.  There was tons of free food and drinks and music.  The highlight though may have been the Miller Lite I had at the USA tent, hilarious.  I brought back lots of food and desserts for my parents, it looked like a box of powdered sugar exploded in my purse!

Alright, I’m taking a break I’ll do another update later with the rest of the hits and with photos!

 

 

Weekend Update with Liz

My friend Morgan’s boyfriend is in professional pastry right now. It’s a continuation of the diploma program and his first task was to make 8 cakes in one week. So on Saturday a bunch of us got together at Bruno’s apartment and tasted lots and lots of cakes. There are photos below.  There were so many I couldn’t remember the names of a few and keep in mind, these cakes traveled the metro system so they used to be prettier.

Sunday was amazing because…it snowed! It was snowing pretty hard for about 4 hours last night and it was beautiful. I felt compelled to have hot cocoa and try to take pictures of the snow as it fell.

Today we made red mullet (it’s a fish) with potato scales (you’ll understand when you see the photo), broccoli flan, an orange beurre blanc sauce, and fresh veggies. It was pretty tasty and mine came out pretty well. The chef said my fish needed a little more time to cook but hey to me that’s a lot better than being overcooked.

Check out the photos:

Goodbye to Corey

I had class the same day on March 31st that we came back from London. I was supposed to have demo at 3:30 and practical at 6:30 until 9:30 but it was Corey’s last night so I skipped practical and Corey and I went out to dinner in St. Germaine one last time. The next morning I took him to the train station and said goodbye. He’s at home now, eating subway and working out.

After leaving Corey, I met up with Hannah and Merrie to go to this convention for cooking professionals. There were a bunch of free food samples but even more free drink samples and by the end of the day we were a little tipsy. We were even given 2 small bottles of Cognac to take home.

On Wednesday, I had demo at 12:30 where we were shown braised asparagus in a cream sauce with shellfish, fillet of beef cooked in consommé with horseradish sauce, and an apple cinnamon and mascarpone parfait with a sugar design on top.

Thursday morning, bright and early I made the same dish. It wasn’t hard but the chef said my meat was over cooked which, it was and my sauce was a little thick, which was also true, though it was also very tasty. Pictures of both my dish and the chef’s dishes below.

Thursday was also the first really beautiful day we’ve had here in Paris in a long time. The sun was shining through my windows and heating my entire apartment. It was lovely. I couldn’t possibly stay inside so I went to the park where they were implanting already bloomed flowers on the inside track of the park. I finally got to the bottom of Paris’s ability to have beautiful flowers blooming in winter. I hope the sun is shining wherever you are reading this from, soon enough we’ll be wearing flip flops and sunglasses and complaining that it’s too hot. I can’t wait!

Friday we made sweatbreads which if you don’t know what they are you should look them up, don’t go by the name.  They came out pretty well but I had chef Thivet and he says everything is parfait so who knows.  Here are some pictures:

London Trip Part 2 (March 30/31)

Sunday we thought we were getting up early, around 9, but apparently in London day light savings time happens between Saturday and Sunday not Sunday and Monday so it was actually an hour later than we thought it was. Incidentally, we didn’t realize this until much later in the day.

We started off the day by having brick oven pizza for breakfast. By that point it was actually 11:30 which I deem a totally acceptable hour for pizza. After brunch, we walked to the British Museum where we saw the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon. After the British Museum we continued our walk to the British Library which is a huge building with a small room housing incredibly important documents. We saw the Magna Carta, Shakespeare’s First Folio, Beatles memorabilia (including hand-written lyrics), the Gutenberg Bible, notebooks from da Vinci and Newton, and a Beowulf manuscript to name just a few items. A lot of the presentations were interactive which is always more fun than the alternative.

After the British Library, the three of us took the tube to the Bank station and walked to see St. Paul’s Cathedral. We were planning on going on the London Eye (which didn’t end up happening) s owe decided not to go up to the dome (I found out later that it isn’t even open on Sundays). We walked from St. Paul’s across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern museum. The Tate had a lot of really cool art, some of my favorites being the social commentaries of the 20/21st centuries. There was also a substantial amount of big names like Monet, Braque, Picasso, Pollock, and Rothko. It was a lot easier to appreciate modern art at this museum where all the titles and explanations were in English as opposed to Pomidou where everything was in French.

When we finished with the Tate we headed to Harris’s area to have some Indian food. I had a samosa and butter chicken and corey had chicken biryani and something else that I can’t remember the name of. It was the best Indian food I’ve had (I’m no expert though) but I’m still not sure whether I actually like Indian food. After dinner Corey’s diet coke addiction kicked in so we stopped at a store for some diet coke for him and chocolate for me. Instead of walking straight back to the dorm, Harris took us on an LSE campus tour where we took some photos of the LSE animal statues and library. We ended up at the dormto take a quick nap and watch some more basketball.

By the time Corey and I were hungry again, Harris informed us that everything was probably closed. A quick walk around his neighborhood proved it to be true so feeling desperate we stopped in the first open restaurant, Burger King. While we were there we checked out the map and decided to walk to Leicester Square because it wasn’t far and we wanted to see London one last time. Well, when we got there, we kicked ourselves because everything was open.

On the way home, we stopped at a local pub for some Guinness extra cold. When we got back to Harris’s we packed and watched live American baseball on the BBC. Apparently they play American sports on one channel really late at night which I think is really cool, but I don’t have a t.v. here anyway. We headed to the bus stop around 3:30am which took us to the airport and back to Paris.

Here are some pictures in two parts from our trip:

London Trip Part 1 (March 28/29)

March 28/29

Since Corey came to Paris, we’ve been on a very good schedule…A very good U.S. schedule that is. Weve been going to bed and waking up late, late, late. Well, the 29th was our trip to London and around 3:3am when we were about to go to sleep for about an hour before waking to catch the metro to get to the train station to take us to the airport (confusing I know) I realized the metro might not be running. After checking online, I was unfortunately correct so we got ready to go and started walking to our nearest RER (train) station which is about 45 minutes away. We must have been walking a little too leisurely because we almost didn’t make the train. Corey ad I ran into the station, bought tickets, ran down the huge flight of stairs with a big suitcase just as our train was pulling in. What a relief! We got super lucky.

After finally arriving at the airport, Corey and I boarded our plane and both fell asleep immediately, not waking until the plane was landing in London. We headed from the airport to central London via the Tube (the London Subway) on the Piccadilly line where we waited to meet Harris (Corey’s friend/house mate from UPenn) at a local coffee shop. Because we were running on an hour of airplane sleep, we decided to get coffee and having lived in Paris for awhile now and having become accustomed to small portion sizes I ordered a large and it was HUGE and not very expensive even with the pound conversion. I immediately liked London. Corey and I had just sat down to drink our coffee when Harris walked in. We sat and chatted at the coffee shop for awhile before heading to his dorm/flat to drop off our bag.

Our introduction to London began with a walk around Harris’s neighborhood. We walked from the London School of Economics (LSE where Harris is pursuing his masters) to Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, to the Thames river where we saw Big Ben, Parliament, and the London Eye. Our first actual stop was Westminster Abbey.

My first reaction to Westminster Abbey was, “You have to pay to get in?” In Paris, almost all of the churches are free to enter and tour and the museums have a fee to enter. However in London, the big museums were donation only and the churches cost money to enter. Westminster Abbey was really beautiful and impressively large. Unlike most of the very open churches in Paris, Westminster Abbey was labyrinth like in its layout. I think my new favorite facts from Westminster Abbey is that Darwin is buried there and there is also someone who couldn’t afford a large plot so he was given a very small square plot and is buried standing up.

After Westminster Abbey we headed to a pub for lunch were I had a BLT, Corey had Indian chicken madras, and Harris had fish and chips. From there we went to the Cabinet War Rooms which lie just on the edge of St. James park. The Cabinet War Rooms are a series of rooms, apartments, offices, etc, where Winston Churchill made his decisions during WWII. They are either in their exact same state or a recreation of their state while the war was going on. It was really interesting to say the least and one of my favorite parts was the large room that now serves as an interactive Churchill museum. I could have spent a loooong time there but we were pretty tired and had more to see so we cut our trip short.

After the war rooms, we headed out to St. James park where we took some photos before heading back to Trafalgar Square where we went to the National Gallery. Harris took us to the National Gallery because he wanted to show us a couple of Van Gogh’s paintings. When Corey and I looked at a map, we saw that they had a lot of paintings that we had both studied in art history like da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks, Botticelli Venus and Mars, The Arnolfini Wedding, and the Ambassadors to name a few.

After the National Gallery, Corey, Harris, and I headed back to the dorm for a quick nap before heading to a pub for dinner. Corey and Harris had the same chicken sandwich and I had Guinness battered fish and chips, mmmm. We got gelao for dessert before heading back to the dorm to watch March Madness (all number 1 seeds for the first time in the final four, WOW, the ugly stepsisters win this time) and got to sleep.

Here are some picture from the 28/29

Superior, Eiffel Tower, Dillinger Show, Holocaust Memorial, Louvre, London

Hello all! It’s the start of Superior and boy has it been a busy week. Corey and I have been trying to get as much Paris sightseeing in as possible because he’s leaving on Tuesday and we’re going to London tomorrow so we don’t really have much time left at all .

On Tuesday I started Superior cuisine and boy was it a lot tougher than I thought. The cooking wasn’t that hard, just more things to do in the same short amount of time. The real difficulty lies in comprehension of the chef. Now that I’m in Superior, there is no translator so I’m left trying to decipher my chef’s French and trying to speak to him in my very broken French, it’s painful. Hopefully though, it will improve my French through immersion.

After class on Tuesday, Corey and I headed to the Eiffel Tower to go all the way to the top (both of us had never been). We decided to save some pennies and walk up the first two levels. The walk is a little over 700 stairs but it’s not that physically taxing it’s more fear inducing. I’m not big on heights so while Corey was bounding up the stairs, I was clinging to the railing for dear life. After much histrionics on my part, we were finally able to take the imposing elevator to the tip top. Once I was on the elevator and it started moving, I felt alright. The view is really beautiful and we took some video and pictures from the top. We even met another couple who took a picture of the both of us on the top of the tower. After coming back to Earth, Corey bought me a hot cocoa and a crepe and we headed back home.

Wednesday was my day off and Corey and I decided to head to the Jewish art and history museum, the Holocaust Memorial, lunch in the Marais, and the Louvre. We started by going to lunch at the delicious kosher pizza place and then headed to the Holocaust Memorial. The memorial is fairly new (it opened in 2005) and it is the largest Holocaust awareness center in Europe. It was a beautiful memorial to the 6 million Jewish men, women, and children from who were killed in the Holocaust. We then tried to go to the Jewish art and history museum but we got there too late, it was closed.

From the Marais, we wandered through Les Halles to the free night at the Louvre where we explored the Richelieu wing (the wing without the Mona Lisa/Venus di Milo etc). There is currently a contemporary art installation there that Corey and I took pictures of because it was so interesting. After the Louvre, we ended our night with pancakes and French toast at Breakfast in America!

Thursday in class I made lamb chops with artichoke chips and green beans wrapped in bacon. I hurried home from class to meet Corey because we went to a Dillinger Escape Plan show. Here’s information about the show from Corey’s site: ShowMeTheSetList . For those of you who don’t know, this show marks the fifth time Corey and I have seen them and we’re always right up front. The first time we saw them was in New Haven and the lead singer, Greg handed me a torch which he used to breathe fire. The second show was in Philly where Greg recognized us from the previous show, let Corey sing some lyrics (clearly he doesn’t about Corey’s lack of musical ability lol) kissed me on the cheek as he left the stage, and chatted with us afterward. The third show was an AFI tour where they were the supporting band so we couldn’t get up that close and we left right after they played. The fourth show was in New York and after the show Greg came up to us and asked us where we were from because he’s seen us in 4 different states. Corey and I didn’t really expect that he would recognize us in Paris because of the location, but he did! We chatted after the show and explained why we were in Paris and he mentioned that he had been looking out for us when he toured the Northeast but we weren’t there. Dillinger shows are always super entertaining, but it’s really nice to have a personal connection too. And on a side note, there is much less pushing and shoving at the shows in Paris. I had full room to jump up and down as I pleased whereas in the US I’m usually pressed up against a bar with some giant guy’s elbow in my back.

Today I had another day of class and we made squab (aka pigeon) with a meat stuffing, foie gras, and a wild mushroom tart. It was very tasty, but I think Corey will be happy to be home and eating normal food like Subway for awhile after all my exotic cooking.

Tomorrow we’re going to London so I won’t be able to post for a couple of days. Here are the pictures from the last week, captions are coming soon (no time right now).  Videos of the Eiffel Tower will be loaded soon. Cheerio!

Luxembourg, Saint Sulpice, Sainte Chappelle, Disneyland

Corey and I finally decided to go to Luxembourg gardens on Saturday. I packed up a picnic of chicken sandwiches on baguettes and we headed to Luxembourg gardens. The weather was chilly but sunny when we got there and sitting in the sun it almost felt like spring. The flowers are starting to bloom everywhere, my favorites were the pink tulips in the photograph below.

After lunch and walking around the park, we headed to Saint Sulpice, this giant church right near the gardens (some of you may also know of it from the DaVinci Code). The church had murals by Delacroix and a giant organ, which apparently has concerts every Sunday.

When we had finished touring the church, we were going to go to the Pompidou center, which is a little bit of a walk from Saint Sulpice, when it started to hail!  Corey and I found shelter in a creperie where we also ate some delicious dessert crepes.  Instead of going to Pompidou in the bad weather, we decided to stop at the market and buy supplies for dinner for the next two nights and head home.

On Easter Sunday, Corey and I ended up going to a church, Sainte Chappelle, the stained glass church.  We forgot our camera but here’s a picture from when I went earlier this year.

After Sainte Chappelle, Corey and I headed to the Concierge next door, which is the prison where Marie Antoinette was kept before her beheading.  We wandered around the city a bit before coming home where I made rack of lamb and potatoes for dinner, tasty, but I missed my Mom’s lemon meringue pie.

Today we decided to go to Disneyland Paris because it’s the off season and the tickets were really affordable.  For those of you who don’t know, my first trip to Disney World was last year for Corey’s birthday and we had an amazing time.  Well, this time it was a bit…colder.  We were practically jogging from one ride to the next just to stay warm.  We rode Space Mountain 2, Star Tours, Indiana Jones, Big Thunder Mountain RR, Phantom Manor, Rock and Roller Coaster, and Armageddon and saw the Lion King show.  All in all the rides were pretty similar but it lacked much of what makes Disney World so special…plus it was cold.  As we were deciding whether to stay for some more rides or go home, it started to snow!! The first snow I’ve seen yet in Paris on the day we’re outside at Disneyland!!!  We decided to call it a night and headed home for some crepes and rest.

Superior classes start tomorrow, it’s all in French, wish me luck!