Friday, March 16, 2007

remise des diplomes

Today was my graduation ceremony for Basic Cuisine and Pastry. Some people are confused why I am graduating. Well, i am in the Gran Diplome Program. Within that there are three trimesters...basic, intermediate and superior. So at the end of each I graduate and get my certificate. Once I have all three certificates I can recieve my diploma! So, i should be lucky that i have gotten this far! Anyway...it was boring as usual. I'm just posting so you can see pictures of me :) So enjoy!

Kaili Graduating

Lauren Graduating

Me kissing the chefs

Me looking at my cool pin that I got!

Me graduating (L to R: Chef Clergue-C, Chef Cotte-P, Chef Trouchant-P, and Chef Struil-C)

My friends thought it was funny that my ass was sticking out as I signed the books

very funny!

SOOOOO FUNNY!!!!!! :)

I leave for london tomorrow! Talk to you all when i get back! till then...pip pip cheerio! :)

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

patisserie examen

Well, i think it went ok. The three that we got thrown at us were puff pastry which included apple turnovers and palmiers, the mocha genoise with coffee buttercream, and the dacquoise with the marzipan rose. I got the dacquoise...the one i wanted and the easiest one! All of us got that except Melissa...but she got the genoise which was the second easiest and she rocked it out on that! Anyway...I had to make that and line a tart ring. I didn't do the best on that, but I did it! The chefs were NEVER in the room unlike cuisine where they watched you like a hawk! So i was able to talk to my friends more and ask the assistant for help. Nothing big, but small things like what the chef used to help us in class. For instance, we usually don't pour in our boiling sugar to our egg yolks, so I asked the assistant to help and she did. But everything else I did by myself. I think i did ok. We shall see.


If you get a chance...I made roses twice before this...go check them out...you can see a MAJOR difference! I got SOOOO much better since the first time i did them ;) Also on my myspace now is a slide show of ALL of the food I have made since the beginning of school! enjoy!
The other exciting news of the day is that I finally got my carte de sejour! YAH! And the other other exciting news is that I went to this AMAZING chocolatier named Jean Paul Hevin and spent WAY too much on chocolates...BUT I tried his fromage chocolat. Which means it had cheese inside! Like strong cheese...roquefort and chevre and two other kinds! They were good! They had spices like cumin and thyme in them! Yummy! overall it was a great day! bye for now :)

Monday, March 12, 2007

vacances

In the land of France they called vacations or breaks, Holidays. So technically I am on "holidays". However, tomorrow I have my last exam, and Friday I have my graduation from Basic cuisine and pastry! So since i am on break, I will cease from blogging unless something exciting happens ie; my exam and graduation. I leave Saturday the 17th for London til the 25th. I plan to keep a journal with me and blog about it when I get back. So til then, I wish you a great holiday from my blog! Update me about your life in the meantime. Thank you all for reading and be prepared for chapter two in the life of penny at culinary school! It only gets harder from here ;) Now...to study for my exam tomorrow. au revoir

ensoleille :)

What a beautiful sunny sunday! I woke up early went to the gym, came back home and got dressed and met Sarah Fritz to do a city walk. We walked the area called raspail/montparnasse. It had a great all organic street market. We also stopped at a famous brasserie called Le Select and I had a cafe au lait while Sarah had a german beer.

It was where Picasso, Matisse, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald used to go for coffee. Then we continued to walk and we got to an street art fair. So beautiful. Then we came to the famous Cimetiere du montparnasse.



A lot of famous people are buried there, but none I know :) We continued on our tour and walked through the jardin du luxembourg.

Then we decided we were close so we walked to the 4th to eat falafel since Sarah hadn't been there yet! So we sat down and ate. Then I picked up a challah for home. I got home and studied a bit, but eventually just gave up and went to bed!