Examen Final!!!!!!!!!!

(LONG BLOG) Today was the BIG day! Ok...pay attention closely or you may miss out! Ok...so I woke up at ten to 8 (my alarm was set for 8) Got dressed and primped! Left the house a little before 9 and went to buy a new umbrella cause it was raining and i needed to stay pretty :) I bought breakfast for kaili and I. Got to school at 9:30 and there she was sharpening her knives! So we ate breakfast together. At 10:10 she went in and 10:20 I went in! for the next 4 hourse I cooked my meal. Ok...this is the explaination. So I got a basket of ingredients.

I Have to use: 2x 450-500 g gilt head sea bream, 100 g chorizo (spicy spanish sausage), 4 "poivrade" artichokes, 1/2 cauliflower.

Other items I can use: 8 jumbo shrimp (king prawn), 500 g waxy potatoes, 6 large plum tomatoes, 2 red bell peppers, 150 g cultivated mushrooms, 100 g shitake mushrooms, 2 zucchini, 500 g fresh peas, 1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley, 1/2 bunch basil, 300 g new pearl (spring) onions, 2 lemons, 3 slices sandwich bread, 50 g olives.

PLUS i get: white wine, red wine, noilly prat, red port wine, madeira, cognac, butter,eggs, whipping cream, milk, grated gruyere, grated parmesan, rice, breadcrumbs, flour, salt, sugar, tomato paste, potato starch, pistachios, soy sauce, tabasco, 1/2 liter brown veal stock, carrot, large onions, celery stalk, leek, garlic, shallot, thyme, and bay leaf!

With those ingredients I had to make a main dish (which had to be the fish), a sauce, a simple veggie, a composed veggie, and a stuffed veggie. I had to make 4 plates EXACTLY the same!

So....my dish was: Sea bream steamed with salt, pepper, coriander and butter. A tomato sauce (with lots of garlic and coriander). (simple) Roasted garlic in chorizo oil with garlic, parsley and coriander. (composed) Artichoke souffle with gruyere cheese. (stuffed) pate a choux (same stuff you make eclairs with) with shrimp, chorizo, onions, coriander and seasoning stuffed into a mushroom and fried. Under it was a red pepper circle and a channeled zucchini.

Chef came in after the plates were taken downstairs and he said...my sauce was still too thick (like he said during the practice) and the sad part was that after i strained it, it was thin...but when i heated it, it thickened up again! My souffle was a HUGE hit!!! And my mushrooms looked SO much better and tasted just as good. However to find out my grades and all their thoughts i have to wait til graduation! But overall, my practical went smoothly and i felt great! I said to the chef today "you were the one who taught me how to filet a fish and I couldn't do it the first day...and now i'm a pro!" It's truely a miracle!!! I was so proud of myself after the exam! The first two pictures are of my exam PRACTICE which was on Tuesday! I wanted to post them today so you could compare. Not much different...but there is a slight differnce! The ones after are from today!






I went out for a beer with Kaili and some peeps. Went tanning again. Then went grocery shopping. Came home and ate some cheese and a baguette. And have just been relaxing. I don't know what I'm gonna do for the rest of the night...but it's prolly gonna involve R&R!!!!!!!! Have a great nite!!!!

August 22, 2007

Today was a mess at the beginning of the day and ended so perfectly! So I woke up at 8:30 because i just couldn't sleep! I started to work on my final exam paper (in french) and i kept messing up. So i needed white out. So i decided to go to the store. I went and I bought some other things. Then I went to the bakery to buy liz some breakfast because it was her birthday. I came back, unloaded my stuff and guess what...i forgot to take the white out. So i had to walk back! ARGH! I went back got the white out, came back and finished up my exam paper. Voila! So when i finished I putzed around getting my life together and realized I couldn't sit in the house anymore. I left to go to school REALLY early. Well it was DOWNPOUR. I got drenched from my knees down. My socks were soaked and so were my shoes. I went to photocopy my exam papers so i could have them during my exam. Then I had some time so i went to this place and went tanning for 20 min. Then I went to Sarah Fritz's house because she is back intown and we chatted for a while! I eventually went to school for my LAST demo. I don't think i payed attention though :) I took minimal notes. I was too excited. We learned hot foie gras with an artichoke puree, sea bass with a really good ham sauce, and rhubarb compote with marsala sabayon. Very tasty today! we had champagne as well! YAH! FINISHED! After class Manuel and I went to the movie theatre and waited for Liz and we saw Hairspray!!!! We got lots of food and celebrated Liz's birthday right! (it washer 21st!) The movie was good. Definately not amazing...but it was fun, enjoyable and i liked it a lot! I then came home and went to bed at 11!!!

August 21, 2007

Today was the big trial exam! I woke up and Liz and I walked to school together because it was her last day before her final. At 8:30 I got in that room ready to kick some butt. I am going to save all the detail and drama because honestly...it's rather boring! So i'll just tell you how it went. However, I won't tell u that much because I'm saving it til thur! Chef like my plate! He said my sauce needed to be thinner. And one of my sides he said was ugly but tasted good. So we fought over that for a while and I said that taste was more important than look. He advised me to change the side, while I said i was going to keep it and spice it up a bit look wise! I have pictures...but I am saving them for thur so I can show you side by side of what my practice compared to my final looked like. Plus then I will reveal what I made!!! Ooooooh thur will be a fun blog! look forward to it! I actually finished in 4 hours. We had 6 hours today though to play around with. However I wanted to go in and do it exactly how I was going to do my final exam. And I did. Obviously things didn't go exactly as planned, but they went well! I left school after talking to some people and printing emails. I came home and was such in the exam mode that I worked on the exam papers which are writing my recipe in french :) I gave up on that when liz and I decided where we were going to dinner. Tomorrow is Liz's 21st b-day. However in Canada that means nothing...but to us in the states it's a huge deal...so i'm making it a huge deal :) I took her out to dinner at L'entrecote! She loved it! I love it! It was nice! Here are some pictures. I surprised her with a candle and she had no clue!!! I was sneaky ;)



I then came home and did a bunch of nothing(with a little attempt at more exam work inbetween the nothing!). I'm about to go to bed because tomorrow is my LAST demo ever for my Grand Diplome!!!! (and I have TONS of french work to do before then! AHHHH)

August 20, 2007

Wow...8 more days til i graduate...6 til mom and dad get here...can you tell im excited! Anyway...today was my LAST long day! and boy...was it boring! at 8:30 I had my LAST cuisine practical...unless you count my practice for my exam tomorrow...but i don't count that! Anyway...we made the stuffed lamb with a potato cake! I kicked some butt today! My seasoning, my cook, and my jus were good! Chef loved it all! I was very happy :) especially since it was the last one! I ended on a good note! The plating was boring...but there wasn't much I could do with it...so oh well!

After class I went to grab a snack and then at 12:30 was when the boring stuff began. We had two cuisine demos in a row...BOTH of them we aren't making. We just had to watch them. So i talked most of the time...BUT i did take notes as well. In the first one we learned a lobester salad with caviar, Sea trout mousseline with an orange sauce and a broccoli puree, and a watermelon jelly with melon soaked in sauternes (which was horrible!!). The second one we learned langoustine salad (wait...didn't we just learn the same thing!!?!??!), Duck with radished, dates in red wine sauce, souffled potatoes, and a carrot and cumin puree, and macaroons with fennel ice cream. Second demo was MUCH tastier :) After class I went home with Dzintra and she has a tanning bed in her house...so I caught some rays :) Then her husband Alan cooked dinner. It was GREAT! Fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, bread, tomatoe and feta salad, and for dessert, homemade peach sorbet! All of it was amazing! I eventually came home and I am about to study for my practice exam tomorrow and then go to bed shortly! I am ready for this...i know!!!! a bientot!

les films

Today was a lazy day! I woke up late and actually was productive. I finished booking my ireland trip (yah!), and I plotted out my final chart (for the most part-just needs some fine tweaking), and i cleaned my room (ok...not spotless)...but i got a good amount of stuff done. It rained all night and all day...so it wasn't a day to leave the house! Eventually I made myself some breakfast/brunch/lunch. Then I was really bored so I started searching High School Musical two since I knew it premiered this week on Disney, and I found the entire video online. SO i sat an watched it! It was good...but it definately wasn't as good as the original! But I'm glad i saw it. By the time I was finished with that, Kaitlin was over in our kitchen practicing her final exam. Liz was sitting in there with her, so I sat with the two of them and chatted. I brought my computer in there eventually and just putzed around. SO for the next few hours I just talked to them and tasted and was bored out of my mind! Kaitlin left around 7. I did a bunch of nothing for a little after that and then I decided to watch Y Tu Mama Tambien...one of my favorites :) After that I went to bed...around 10. A pretty much uneventful day. But it's my last week of school ;)

Sucre Tire

So i had school today. I woke up and walked into a wall. I knew it was going to be a bad start. So i had school from 8:30 with a break at 11:30 til 12:30 and then we got out around 2ish. Anyway...class didn't go well for me. Actually it went BAD. Not only did my sugar cook incorrectly so I had to make it over, but my colors turned out like crap AND my fingers were SOOO blistered from friday so i could BARELY pull! So, needless to say my sculpture is REALLY bad. I also had to borrow kaili's camera to take pictures. Well they got lost somewhere...but she's still looking...so I'll keep you posted if they get found! Anyway...chef said to me "having a bad day huh?" and I was like...yah. Guess my sculpture was THAT bad! It was pretty bad...too bad you can't see! Oh...but I forgot to tell you chef made pistachio ice cream and a cherry clafoutis for us in class. We asked and he was happy to do it. So we had a nice snack.
After school I went to this place called Body Minute. 10 minutes and 15 euros later I had waxed legs. It was GREAT! I then went grocery shopping and went home. I was starving since I didn't eat all day except for what chef made. I had a craving for eggs...so I ate some. I then relaxed and didn't do much. Washed my uniform. Eventually I layed down and watched Cinderlla Story. It was cute. I went to bed at 12.

August 17, 2007

I have another day off. don't get too excited...I have school on saturday! Anyway...my day started off CRAPPY! Let's begin with at 8:30 there was construction going on outside my house which forced me to wake up (THAT EARLY ON MY DAY OFF!!!) I then proceeded to put my recharged batteries back into my camera and it STILL is broken. So, I get dressed write down the address for the place I plan to get my legs waxed at and walk to fnac to get my camera fixed. They tell me they will send it in to see if it's covered in warranty and it will take atleast 3 weeks! GREAT...the post office lost my old one, and my new one is broken...cameraless again!! SO i then proceed to walk to the wax place. Well there is rue grenelle and blvd de grenelle. I mixed the streets up...so i wound up not going. Instead I went to monoprix to pick up my groceries for my cooking today! Well...they had most of it except for the two most imp things...poivrade artichokes and shrimp! ARGH! So i went home dropped that stuff off and went to Grand Epicerie where I spent and arm and a leg on 4 shrimp and artichokes! WASTE OF MONEY! I came home and Liz and i cooked my meal. In the process of it, I tried to catch a knife...almost cutting myself. But i did cut myself showing liz how one of the chefs taught me to sharpen my knives...atleast i know it works! Anyway...we started that process around 1ish and finished around 5ish and the kitchen smelled horrible! Well...the fish scent smelled bad after everything was cleaned....the food i made smelled delish! I did better this time. However, I still don't have most of the machines so I have to wait til my practice run. After that I started feeling sick again because once again I ate WAY too much of what i made...it's so good! SO i layed down for a bit, because I didn't have to be out til 10. BUT as usual, my phone rang. So i got up, showered, and got dressed. Left my house at 9:15 to wait for my friends at 10 who were LATE! Rodolfo and Manuel arrived first so we started to drink. Then Will and his friends Bobby and Adam came. Will looks great! It was WONDERFUL to see him! sadly, my camera was broken...but he took pictures so eventually when I get them I'll post them! Adam i didn't talk to much...but bobby...I'm in love! I could go into why....but I don't like to gossip about famous people :) Anyway...we had a great time. At around 1:15ish...i decided...time to go home because I have sugar practice tomorrow! Manuel got me into a cab safely. I went to bed around 2ish. I had a BLAST! Always great seeing old friends :) and meeting new ones!