This is hard

And Not Glamorous

This week began with early classes. I was out the door by 6:20am every day this week till today-more on that in a minute. This is the view from my bedroom as I get ready to go

As you see, even though I am bleary-eyed at that hour, Paris is still going strong. Last night I could hear drunken revelers singing outside my window at about 4am. I don’t know if I have mentioned this but I live above this bar called the Highlander (so not French) and it attracts every student from all over Paris as only a faux-English pub can do. It’s very popular and the patrons apparently consume a lot of alcoholic beverages. I know my own children have been kicked out of there a time or two-drunkenly asking if they are banned just for that night or for all time-which would make them them sad because the Highlander is beloved by 20-somethings of all nationalities. Luckily, memories are short there and they always seem to weasel back in. In any event-while the laughter and fun float up to me in the middle of the night-I do feel like I am never really alone-just not in a good way.

This week was hard at LCB as we are officially out of the honeymoon phase and into the Grading Phase. That beautiful soufflé I made-got a very average grade-of 3.25. The grading scale is one to five and I was, of course, fantasizing about making all fives and being in whatever the French equivalent of the Dean’s List is -but have now returned to reality and realize I am just an average student.

Yesterday’s assignment, which as I mentioned was performed at 7am -was disemboweling an entire fish and preparing it to be poached with sides of leeks, carrots and celery and these really difficult to cut potatoes called potatoes cocotte.

I had dreaded this fish preparation for two days-so much so that I could not even write about it. When Chef demonstrated cutting the head off and disemboweling it he began to speak of the parasites living within and how we must get all of them out before preparing the fish to be cooked. My French has improved dramatically in these last few weeks but I did a listening double take as I waited for the English translation that occurs immediately after. Surely I misheard what Chef had said. While the translator kind of struggled with the word to use-she first came up with maggots (just makes me queasy hearing it), she finally settled on parasites. It’s so yucky that I get the icks and a full body shudder just reliving it.

The fish was big - almost three feet long and it just stared up at me with challenge in its glassy eye. Working with my own eyes semi-squinted shut, I hacked off its head, cut off the fins, scaled it and then began to clean out the bloody entrails. Just Ewwww! All the while thinking to myself-this is a place where we wore masks for two weeks so as not to spread Covid and now you are not even offering food service gloves for this disgusting task. But on we went. My partner and I cut through the bones which made a distinct crunching noise with every chop until we had four equal sections. Then we made our other vegetables “en vapeur” while preparing the broth in which the fish was going to have a nice hot bath. And hopefully be cleansed of all its sins.

After, I began trying to turn the potatoes-which basically means paring them into this eight sided shape which looks like a long oval. It was hard. I think mine ended up with like 5 or 6 sides and they definitely weren’t even. At the end, while plating the now much more appetizing-looking hake, I was told that an additional grade for presentation would be added to this day’s grading. this additional grade was going to be based on my decoration of the plate and how hot the food was when presented for evaluation to Chef. Hmm. Very tricky to keep everything hot, including the plate without cooking it all to mush. But, I ingeniously kept my plates and sauce cup on the induction stove top that was still warm while I furiously worked to beat the clock and be finished at 9:45am. Haven’t seen my grade yet, but here it is—with my badge-for evaluation.

Its going to be a long couple of months.

Today, as I write this I am lounging in bed because, in true Paris fashion, there is a city-wide strike today! No Metro, bus or train service. I love the French and they love a good strike-a grève- it’s like a city-wide celebration. They have cute yellow vests they wear while marching and singing and the strikes are all coordinated with notices put up. They are just so civilized about it. But back to me-I have to figure out how to get to school today. Its a 3.5 mile walk and its 28 degrees and while class doesn’t begin until 2pm I am still on the fence about how to get there. Ride a bike? A scooter? Risk certain death? If you don’t hear from me again you will know why.

As a final parting gift I thought you might like to live vicariously through me and see the glamour of my everyday travel schedule. Life doesn’t get better than this…