May 11, 2007

And yet another long day! at 8:30 this morning I made white bean stew. This is what the "cassoule" consisted of...white beans, lamb, duck confit, garlic sausage, toulouse sausage, tomate concasse, and bacon. Sounds appetizing for a jew like me. This one did NOT come home with me. Although the beans were tasty :) Anyway...it was an annoying practical for a few reasons. 1) we did a lot of waiting around and 2) it was "bon travail" chef...so even though I didn't feel like my dish was very good...he thought it all was good. Blah.

Then we went for coffee..and i had a coffee today! Boy did i need it! Then at 12:30 we had PD. We learned a chestnut barquette and a chestnut mousse cake. Fun looking cake and tons o rum, so not bad tasting either :) I make that tomorrow. Yes you heard me correctly...i have class on saturday! yuck! Then we had CD. We learned a langoustine with seaweed and veggies, monkfish wrapped in bacon with artichokes, cauliflower gratin and a plum flan. All very tasty. I love monkfish. One of my favorite fishes. Then after class I came home and fought online with an ex boyfriend. Not my choice of an evening...but amusing nonetheless :) About to go study then go to bed so I'm ready for school tomorrow...ew.

May 10, 2007

Full day today! Didn't skip. No more for a while :) I'm basically done anyway. Like 3 more weeks...not even. Anyway...8:30 I had a PP. I made the Wild Strawberry and Vanilla Treasure Cake. I was doing ok...until I burnt the top ;) haha. Chef said my dacquoise was very good though. It's a very tasty cake. I did everything else ok. Oh well. So that class was fine.


During break I split a sandwich with Kaili and sat while the kids drank cafe. Then went in early to print some stuff. At 12:30 I had CP. I'm beginning to not like the chef that taught this class today. Normally he is fine, but after a while he just starts to say the same thing in class..."bon travail" (good work) and everything is perfect...or good. He said my potatoes, spinach, tomato concasse, and mushroomes were cooked well and my lamb was perfectly cooked (right color). Oh...and he liked my jus. We ALL know that my jus are rarely good. And today was no exception. You should have tasted the others! Anyway...he never gives criticism! all i want from him is SOMETHING that gives me some feed back...not good work! Anyway...here's the plating. We had to do it like that...so don't commend me on good plating :)


After school I went to my bank to do some dirty work! Then came home, made all of my leftover puff, ate my lamb and have since been procrastinating on my FAVORITE new website....www.mycampfriends.com! If you ever went to camp...or if you didn't...check it out! Shout out to TJ (one of my favorite people) who started it! It's finally up and running and I'm addicted! I'll study one of these days :) Have a great nite and check it out!!!!

May 9, 2007

Well...i'm not always a good kid. I skipped class today. Didn't feel like going. Many reasons. Just not emotionally up for cooking. Lame excuse I know. In the professional world i can't do that...so I'll milk it for all it's worth now :) hahaha! Anyway....i woke up around 9:30ish and got dressed and ran some needed errands. (ask me this...why do i have so many errands in paris? beats me!) Anyway...i did that and then I went to school for my 12:30 class which was a CD. We learned Sardine salad, Lamb tien, and a nougat yogurt. Eh. I'm glad I didn't skip it because the lamb was very tasty. After class, I was done...so I went and did some grocery shopping. However I came home and ate leftovers. Then I studied, and procrastinated and studied more and pretty much procrastinated. I'm good at that. Eventually I went to bed having not so much accomplished.

un autre jour de conge

Yes another day off. We have 4 this trimester and my last one is next week! Today was a perfect day. I woke up at 10ish. And i can barely remember what I did ;) I made myself a very good breakfast with oatmeal, and made some of the puff pastry from the day before with eggs! Then I did spring cleaning, did some homework, and then I baked good ole US style chocolate chip cookies! which my roomate said were really yummy. I thought they were ok! Eventually my roomate and I watched The Holiday which was a brillant movie. I was sobbing by the end. I'm such a sap when it comes to romantic movies. sheesh! But I'm glad i watched it. Eventually I practiced piping opera. Then made myself some dinner and while i was eating broke my chair (it was old...im not THAT fat!). And then studied for my exam next week. I know that doesn't sound like a lot for my day off, but I left little tidbits out. I pretty much remained busy all day. But it was a steady busy and good for a day off. Very relaxing. One more day off left...gotta think of something good to do. Hopefully it will be sunny and not raining and gross like this one!

May 7, 2007

Happy Birthday Sara Fox(my best friend)!

Today I once again had school from 8:30 to 6:30. It's a pretty bad week only because I have class on Saturday. So at 8:30 we had a CD. We learned a smoked perch warm salad, stuffed rabbit with prunes, and nuns farts (ok choux paste) with orange cream filling. Everything was ok. Nothing to die for. Then during break I went to a meeting. I'll fill you in about it later! Then at 12:30 we had a PP. Well this practical was the one with the petits fours. We started off with the inverted puff pastry so that the butter was on the outside of the puff. Then we made, devils on horseback (prunes wrapped in bacon), chorizo in puff, pigs in a (puff) blanket, puff filled pate and then we begged for chocolate so we could put it in our puff. We opted out of the cheese straws. They are so bland. Plus most of us wanted to take home our extra puff! i took home the extra puff, but that was it. I don't eat any of that stuff. So i shared it with my friends. But here are the pictures. The only problem was that my pate filled ones were too small. Oh well! There are also other pictures from class. Some with Asaan our dishwasher who is so funny! He likes when we dance! Others are Melissa and Kaili eating the puff! A fun time to be had by all!





Then I had a PD at 3:30. We learned a Wild strawberry and vanilla treasure cake and a pistachio cake. Both very tasty. However I wish we were making the pistachio one in class. It had a bit more flavor. After school I went to the grocery store to pick up some food for dinner. As I was walking home I realized i must have been having a bad day. I saw a blind man walk into a pole and i immediately burst into tears. It was so sad to me. I'm not sure why, but I think it played into the long day I had. I came home, relaxed, did a TON of homework and then putzed around for a long time! It's nice knowing you don't have school the next day! Eventually I did some laundry, then finished another book (i had started it pre france but put it down for a long time) and then went to bed at 11.

Dimanche

No creative title today. It was a pretty boring sunday. I woke up at 10. And from 10-2 I napped, cleaned, did laundry, got organized for school (which takes more preparation than you think!), and did some stuff online. Then eventually I left my house and walked Rue Lecourbe which was having an antique sale. I didn't buy anything, but it wasted some time. At 4 pm I plopped myself down at a park near to where I was meeting Sarah for dinner. I fell asleep in the sun for about an hr and a half. Then I woke up and read my book for about another hour. It started to get cool out so I had to put my coat on. Eventually Sarah called and we met at the Convention stop at 6:45 and walked to the Morrocan restuarant we were going to. We both had couscous. It was ok. Nothing to talk to your friends about(ie; you all!). We finished dinner at 9. I walked home, did a few more things, but for some reason i was exhausted so i went to bed by 10. See I told you...pretty boring day. But you know...it was an amazing weekend!

Versaille

Today will be the BEST and LONGEST slide show up to date! partially because Trephene took the camera a lot and took pictures. AND i didn't even post all of the pictures because there were so many! BUT enjoy! We met near school at 8:45. I got there early because I left my house at 8 to pick up the bread products. So I got there around 8:30 and had a cup of coffee. Anyway, we were supposed to leave at 9...but did we...no! Ofcourse not...people are never ontime. Anyway, we left and they said it was going to take an hr but it took about 30 min (with pain aux chocolate for my friends provided by me on the bus and OJ from the school). After we arrived we walked around for a few minutes and eventually decided on coffee/tea til the 11 am fountain/classical music show. We gulped our coffee down to see this amazing show and we come to find out all it was, was classical music playing and the fountains were on. Boring! I forgot to mention...it was cloudy and rather cold out. Luckily I brought my hoodie. And other people brought other clothes because the girls, Katie's girls, were cold also! We didn't expect it to be that cold. Anyway, eventually we found a nice spot on the grass to plop ourselves down on to picnic in. We layed everything out and stayed there the ENTIRE day. i mean DID NOT leave. Well the girls went on a boat ride and then Katie, Melissa, Pam, and Lauren took the girls on a Golf Cart ride for a little...but other than that...we ate and drank our way from about 11:30 to 4 pm! and it was a BLAST! I had so much fun I can't even explain it. You will see in the pictures. We ate i think 7 of the 10 baguettes, drank 8 bottles of wine plus tequila, plus so much cheese and fruit and pastries and Trephene's Petits Fours she made at school the night before! haha. We departed from the park at 4:30. I can't believe i didn't go to in the chataeu or Marie Antoinette's house or walk the garden's more, but it must have been a day where the company of my friend's was more important. I can always go back! When we got home we made a pit stop at the bar by school. Then we parted on our seperate ways. I went to see the movie Love and Other Disasters with Brittany Murphy. It came out in 2006 in the states. It was made in London so it was exciting when I recognized the buildings. I loved it. It was just the perfect amount of alone time that i needed. But after that i met up with my friends again. I met them at Trephene's. Oscar was in the other room, so it was a girls thing. We just chatted and it was a chill night. Eventually we all went home. Then I went to bed at 12:30. Long but fun day! Enjoy the slide show. I know i did ;)