April 6, 2007

This morning I got to wake up an hr later and I went to the gym and listened to two more french lessons!. I came home ate, showered, and relaxed before heading to school for my 12:30 class. We had a CD. We learned a chicken salad with walnuts, apples, and endives (really tasty!), sea bream fillets, stuffed and wrapped in lettuce, and a yeast cake with creme anglaise and candied almonds. It was all ok. Then after class I went to run errands that can't be posted incase Kaili reads this :) It was for her bday gift! Then I came home at 6 pm, ate dinner, and cleaned my room. After I did homework and caught up on emails and stuff. And I'm done with this blog so bye for now. (if you are wondering why i am so lame today it's because i have school tomorrow at 8:30 am!)

April 5, 2007

Today was a very long day! At 8:30 I had a PD. We learned the Fraisier which is what I am making later. So i'll describe it then :) Then during lunch I ate my matzoh and went for cafe with my friends. Then at 12:30 we made the duck and gnocchi. And today's fun was...during class once a trimester they do a test fire drill for the basic students just to warn them incase one happens. So my chef has been teaching at the school since 1989 and the person in charge of the drill had to come into our room twice to tell us to leave because he insisted on showing us how to truss a duck and not leave the room. He said "what are we basic students? I'm trying to teach my class!" all in french of course. So he actually finished showing us and we were the last class out of the building. When we got outside he started cussing. Then the alarm stopped practically as we walked out and we got to walk back in. We just laughed. I mean what if there was a real fire. It was funny stuff though! Anyway...chef said my duck was cooked perfectly, and my jus was good. However my gnocchi needed more salt. I told him I wasn't allowed to eat flour so I didn't taste it. He said he understood and forgave me. (oh yah right!) Anyway...I was not pleased with my dish today. Chef made us remove ALL of the skin from the duck. Who deskins a duck?!?!? He was concerned with the cholesterol and he said that too! THIS IS FRENCH COOKING! and what french chef says that! It was so time consuming! Anyway...here is my french blah that I made.

Then after class I had a break so I ran to the gym. Well not ran...but at the gym I did that and listened to two more french lesson. Then I came home and showered, ate, and went right back to school! At 6:30 we had a PP. We made the fraisier. It's a strawberry cake with a genoise soaked in a kirsch syrup, with a mousseline and lots of strawberries and italian meringue on the top. It was a good practical for me. We had another new chef. Where do they come from?!?!?! Anyway...i spoke a lot of french in the class. He actually thought I spoke french. I told him no, I was just learning. Anyway...he said my cake was great. I was not pleased with my meringue and how i spread it out...but it was the chefs fault cause he cut my cake too low on the top which inturn made it crumb when i started to spread the meringue. Oh well. It looks fine.

After school I came home and did some homework then crashed!

April 4, 2007

It was so nice today not having to be at class at 8:30!!!!!! However I did wake up at 8 and go to the gym (and listened to 2 french lessons)! Then Kaili came over and we had mid morning tea :) Then we left for school early and ran some errands! At 12:30 we had CD. We learned Squab (which is pigeon), Duck with potato gnocchi and then a riccota cheese filled roll with mandarines. The squab and duck were outstanding! I love game! It's a thrill to eat foods that are exotic and i don't get to eat daily! Then right after that we had PP. We made the Jamaica. Now I didn't explain it. Easy explaination...a chocolate joconde (biscuit sponge), coconut mousse, pineapple, and a mango passion fruit mousse...in other words...HEAVEN! So good. Then on top was a netural glaze with passion fruit. We had a new chef today...so he wasn't very fun. However...another chef came in while I wasn't looking and I came to my station and I saw a bowl sitting there and i was like what's this...so i removed it and under it was a live crawfish and i jumped and screamed and then started laughing cause I thought it was hilarious! I went to find that chef and i just laughed so hard! good joke! anyway...chef didn't say anything about the cake except I worked clean and well today. He said that all 4 of ours (me, kaili, katie and melissa's) decorations looked alike. Blah blah blah!

After school I went with my friends for a beer. Then I went kosher for passover shopping/produce shopping. Came home and made myself a nice salad and procrastinated for WAY too long. Then did some homework and eventually went to bed!

April 3, 2007

What a day! At 8:30 we had CD. We learned this NASTY fish which you will get the joy of seeing and reading about later (and i promise you will get a good laugh), a terrine with langoustines and lamb sweetbreads (do you know what sweetbreads are?!?!?!---they are the neck glands...like the thalamus), and then a poached pear with chopped fruit and a tuile. Hey...the dessert was good :) So after class we went for coffee and I just chatted today while I munched on matzoh and butter! Then at 12:30 we had a PD. We learned a cake called the Jamaica. It's really amazing! But you'll get details tomorrow when i make it!!!! Then at 3:30 we had a break. i hate breaks in the middle of the day! I ran some errands then came home to eat dinner. Then back to school. Ok so at 6:30 we had CD. We made red mullet with an olive tapenade and a star anise and fennel sauce and an onion custard. All of it...NASTY! But please...take a look at the red mullet and how we had to cut them :) If you all know me and my mind...maybe you will be thinking what i thought in class. If you don't know...feel free to contact me. Enough said.

This class consisted of a lot of working together. So we made the sauce and the tapenade together. Plus we cooked our fish on the same baking sheet. So class went VERY quickly. We were done by 8:30. Not to mention chef said everything was good on all of our plates :) haha. That's it. He said everything was great. These are the pictures AFTER it was cooked...and it still looks nasty.


After class I waited for Kaili since she was assistant. Then I walked home, blogged, going to do some homework then bed!
P.S. Happy Birthday Jon!!!

April 2, 2007

So class today at 8:30 was a demo. We learned roasted lamb which you will read about in the next paragraph, monkfish salad, and a lame ass cake that isn't worth talking about! Overall a pretty bland day in demo...but I really like the lamb! Then we went for coffee as usual and I had a tea. Then at 12:30 we had CP and we made the Lamb chops with a herb and mustard crust and gratin dauphinois potatoes. I got done very quickly today. But my jus...HORRIBLE! however...when chef tried it...hahahaha...he said, oh very good. But if you would have tasted kaili's...you would have been amazed how good hers was! Mine was horrible and he still liked it. I think he has fake taste buds! Anyway, he said my lamb was cooked perfectly, and my endive was cooked perfectly, and everything had good seasoning including the crust. He said I worked very well today! Oh and my potatoes were good too!

At 3:30 I had PP and we made the passion fruit and raspberry tart. This was the last thing i could eat before passover began (happy passover!) so I was excited. It's so good! anyway...class was fine. Boring. Lots of waiting for things to cool and set. So i had fun with my passion fruit case. You can see in the pic! Nothing special happened in this class. But the tart came out beautiful. Chef said my decoration was very pretty except a little big for the tart. If the tart was bigger it would have been fine. Next time, just cut it down a little. I understand that. Chef liked it anyway cause he ate almost half of it! The other half i saved for Trephene and 1/4 of it i ate myself ;) It was amazing!

After school my roomate was going to the gym and so was I...SO we went together. We stopped at the natural store so i could pick up some vitamins and then to the gym! Then we came home and i made matzoh pizza! YUMMERS! I should be a chef ;) hahaha. Then I showered and then lauren came over to pick up her bag. Then I went to bed. Oh yah...i listened to 3 french lessons today! go me :)

Poisson D'Avril

Yes...the fish of April...it's april fools in french. it's a pretty funny story if you get a chance to google it ;) Anyway...today I spent some more time doing online stuff, learned another french lesson!!! and then Sarah and I went on a walk! A creepy one at that. This is a shoutout to the 4 people who told me the catacombs were beautiful....YOU LIED! I was completely freaked out. i NEVER wanna step foot there again in my life! it was morbid and i will be lucky if i fall asleep tonite. as a matter of fact i have to stop talking about it! Sorry. But i'm glad i went and looked. if you have no clue what i'm talking about...research it. i can't think about them. Then we proceeded to walk and we saw this beautiful street! here is the picture.

Then we walked more and stopped to have a drink. I had this juice that had banana, pineapple, and strawberry juices in it. It was outstanding! Then we walked to this new pastry shop that lauren and i had found the previous day. Then i went home, ate some dinner, and looked for places to travel online (and I also played a nasty april fools joke on kaili and lauren...but it sure was funny!!!). Before I knew it, it was 9:30 and about time for me to get ready for bed! Bonne Nuit

March 31, 2007

Well it was a joyous day after i finally got my internet fixed. Long story short...i spent...pardon me...lauren and i spent almost 2 hrs on the phone with france telecom and finally it worked. Then lauren, kaili and I went to this place called Fajitas for some mexican food! It was really good. btw...this was at 3 pm because the internet thing took so long! Then we went to BHV and were mobbed by the crowd. Got what we needed and LEFT! They took the metro home while I walked and shopped some more. Bought myself some self teaching french lessons! Then I got home at like 8 pm and ate something and decided to stay in and do some things on the computer that i hadn't been able to do the past 3 days and learn some french! A tout a l'heure!