My First 5

Everything Puff Pastry

As I write this I have one glove on, as it is too cold to take off the other while I sit, in what is optimistically called the Garden Room, at Les Deux Magots. It cannot be more than 40 degrees in here, and there is no garden. My breath is coming in little white puffs in front of my face. Out of necessity, I am still wearing my coat and hat and I am shivering as I wait for my omelette to be delivered. I am not kidding you when I say the silverware is too cold to hold. I think they must store it in the freezer. I should have stayed in the line for an inside seat. The people in there look happy and warm. Oh well.

My view of the warm inside!

This past week was a blast at LCB and we made so many great things—everything encased in puff pastry, which took two days to prepare, and more rolling and folding than I can count. My biceps are bulging! We made pithiviers, (a type of cake) apple turnovers, napoleons, mille feuille and more. And, drumroll please—I am proud to say I have finally shattered the glass ceiling-it’s true! I have finally earned two fives on my evaluations! I really never expected it to happen, but miracle of miracles, it did! I could not be more excited and it definitely inspires me to work harder. Each day this past week I left LCB loaded down with goodies. My housekeeper is loving it, and I hope the homeless man is as well, though he has quite a stack of baked goods and other things surrounding his sleeping bag, so I am not too worried now about him going hungry— though it is freezing! We had more snow this past week and it really was beautiful for the two hours it lasted.

Snow on the Seine!

Pithiviers

Apple turnovers

Classic Napoleons

Vanilla Napoleons with Chantilly creme piped on top—this earned me my two 5s!

Luckily, I had one day off last week and it was while my daughter was here, so we made the most if it by shopping the sales at the Bon Marché and trying our luck at a few different restaurants. We also met up with friends of hers who are in Paris studying abroad. We took them all to dinner and then the youngsters went out to, you guessed it—The Highlander, of course. Though I tucked myself in bed after dinner, they enjoyed a late night and 4:30am came way too early as I drug my daughter out of bed for her 7am flight back to Dublin.

That was Friday, and I commenced another long day at LCB, but was rewarded Friday night with cocktails in the bar at Le Meurice and a fun visit with friends from Dallas who were in Paris for a couple of days. The bar at the Meurice is always a treat --dark and wood-paneled, with attentive waiters— just the kind of cozy, hotel bar you could stay in forever. Highly recommend a visit.

The rest of the weekend passed uneventfully, and tomorrow marks the halfway point of my intensive patisserie class! I am actually super busy preparing for the week ahead. Tomorrow we have 12 hours of class in which we will learn how to make croissants and brioche. Because they both contain yeast, which needs to rise, we will apparently be waiting for it to do its thing. Pretty sure watching dough rise is along the same lines as paint drying, but we shall see. In preparation for this marathon, I have four and half hours of a video demonstration to watch to get a preliminary look at the technique- which seems pretty complicated. It requires, not only some math skills, but actually taking the dough’s temperature. The mysteries of baking…

Also, this coming week, which is the busiest one so far, I am, what is known as a “team leader”. Sounds like an honor, but it is the worst job. You have to be 15 minutes early for every class, in addition to the 15 minutes early you are already expected to be. This means being ready 30 minutes before class starts each day—and this week class starts at 7:30 every day except Saturday, when it is at the most inopportune time of 5pm. Who wants to bake something at 5pm on a Saturday night? Hmmm, let’s see—no one!

As team leader I have to prepare the kitchen for all 14 students. This requires setting out all the ingredients and tools that will be used for the class. This is no small task and often requires going in search of things, as they are frequently not in the refrigerators in the kitchen. Often they are still in the basement of LCB, which is a labyrinthine larder of foodstuffs, only accessible by an elevator that requires Chef’s ID card to operate. It is quite stressful, and people get peevish when you forget something. This week we have nine kitchen sessions— that is a lot of butter and flour! Wish me luck!