Jayne's dinners: coquilles, vacherin, salads and more

Jayne's dinners; yes, we had a few really really nice dinners in the last few days.

After class, on the 12th November, I received a text message saying that Jayne bought coquilles and if Cristina wanted to have dinner with us. Of course C. liked that!

So Cristina bought some wine on the way home and Jayne prepared dinner. Coquilles, salad and a dessert of cheese and figs. Very nice!

Yesterday evening, both Mark and Cristina were here. Jayne bought

a Vacherin cheese which you have to melt in the oven first.

There's more info on vacherin on Mark's blog at http://parisandcordonbleu.blogspot.com/2009/11/1st-weekend-off.html

(scroll down a bit for the cheese information)

Jayne has put up a Vacherin recipe on her blog at http://jaynieskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/11/thomasina-myers-vacherin-victorious.html
And please do have a look at her (food)blog :
http://jaynieskitchen.blogspot.com/

Mark brought the wine and Cris dessert - handpicked berries from the Jardin Luxembourg...by herself. yeah, yeah. I was also very busy in the kitchen: cooked the spuds and added a lot of butter and chives...

Thank you all for a very nice and entertaining evening! and Jayne, thank you for all the ideas and cooking. XXX, love you lots. Moi.

He's back in the kitchen - the first (oven) burn in practical

oh yes, 'Mr.Burn' is back in the kitchen. Last Friday morning I 'touched' just a tiny little piece of the sautee pan in the oven..... at 200degC. bugger!

It's near the joint on top of a finger, so that doesn't heal easily.
the score is two now. (The oven wins!)

Week 2 - the first shock, look at the schedule!

Week's two schedule is a challenge, to say the least. Look at it, shiver, cry...
(When there's a letter A and B together, it's a demonstration class; when mentioned seperately, it's a practical.)

In short: it's an awful lot. But, I've paid some money to Le Cordon Bleu to do it, so I will make the effort! I'd be dead by the end of this week. And, on top of this wonderful schedule, I have a visitor for the weekend....

Standard:

Be at school around 8 'o clock after having my 2 early morning espresso's in the cafe on the corner.

(last year's beer drinking friend is gone now, but HIS friend has taken his place at the bar - 2 beers between 7.30 - 8.00 a.m....Bonjour! I'll stick with coffee.)

week 2;
Monday: 8.30 - 18.00 hrs

Tuesday: 8.30 -15.00 hrs

Wednesday: 8.30 - 21.00 hrs

Thursday: 8.30 - 21.00 hrs

Friday: 8.30 - 21.00 hrs

Saturday: 12.30 - 15.00 hrs

After this I can have a few beers and collapse!

Friday 13th... 3 classes

Yes, today was Friday 13th ! and a busy day. Two practicals and one demo. The first practical was yesterday's 'very inspiring' chicken.

Imagine: A big fat dead bird in front of you (head already chopped off) waiting to be taken apart... So, first you cut off the legs and debone that piece - roll it up and fry it. Same with the breast meat. After that, you wrap the pieces in some nice ham and present in with (saffron) rice and veggie's.

Then a demo and the corresponding practical. The demo was a whole menu; 3 courses. For a starter there was a fish soup, mains salmon wrapped in cabbage and a sweet dessert of lemon meringue.

dessert.

Well, the sauce for the main course consisted of a red wine reducting/veal stock based liquid - strange with salmon and cabbage....

Jayne was really looking forward to the salmon dish because this would be one of the vegetarian dishes that we are going to make.... WRONG ! the stuffing was full of lardons and the sauce was mainly veal stock. So I snatched a few pieces of left-over salmon and took that home for dinner.... Jayne was a happy bunny! And I had left-over chicken from this morning.

After class, we had a beer in the cafe on the corner. Home bij 19.30 h. It was a long and exhausting day. I still have to get into it, I think.

Class details: There are twenty people in intermediate cuisine this time. (two groups of 10 each). I don't know many of them (yet), but the people in our class seem quite nice so far. (Although one could be a character in the US series of Gordon Ramsay's 'Hell's kitchen'... and probably win it on 'character'.). Our group is from: USA, Turkey, Spain, France, The Netherlands, Italy and China.

Sjoerd