part1; This week - white (Texan) beenstew, Lesourd, ready for prison, new translator

An update of the week so far.
Today is Wednesday evening, just got in and I thought I'd give you an update of the last 3 days. (Part 1 and 2)

Monday: As I already wrote - a loooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnggggggggg day.
Starting with a practical; White (farty) stuff with sauce, saucages, confit duck and pork. Chef Lesourd was running the show, joking around a bit too much. When it came to judging ze dishes he yelled at K: 'Let me sjust taste ze Texzas beanz, iz it like ze food of all yeur 'orses?' - no smiles there from the maker of the dish....
Good job!

.Le petit thinks he made a great dish...

And as usual there always time to joke around..... fill in the number youself and we go straight to prison!

What's that thing behind us?

Kissing chef's hand for good grades...., 'Look at me, yes, that's how you do that!'

Later that day we had a new translator in the demo - well, according to us she did a very good job and she can stay!

After the last class we all left knackered. How stupid can it get: weaving a 'carpet' with slices of boiled leek? Come on, that's some kind of therapy they do in mental institutions....

To cut a long story short: Last lesson was way too long and I'm not going to this practical on Tuesday morning.

birthday - alone in Paris..! present from Finland and chef

Thank you for all your best wishes, emails, sms messages, phone calls and kisses! 46 already...
And Jayne is not here..... #@! I'm all alone......
This morning I was so tired, I skipped (the wrong) class. Wrong, because the meat I should have been preparing was super stuff. But I just couldn't. (Cristina saved me a few pieces of the raw meat for tomorrow - thank you! nice birthday present...)
I went straight to the cafe this morning (11 'o clock) for coffee.
After that I got a very nice bithday cake (2) from Petri, who is from Finland. He bought two very nice pastry things on his way to the school - thank you! (The strawberry one was the best.) Most of the time he eats the dinners I make; He's still alive, so I must be doing something right somewhere.......

Today's demo and practical was about Lyon sausages, quenelles (fish) and we had to KILL crayfish (but only after we took the intestinal vain(?) out by pulling by it's tail - it was still alive!), this was only for the sauce - and we also made monkfish quenelles with this sauce and some kind of fritters dessert.
Chef Terrien was in charge. He normally only does superior cuisine demo's, but because most of the intermediate chefs are out, he had to do an intermediate demo. (Patrick is at the Nobel prize summit in Stockholm to cook, Franck is in Switzerland for work, so that only leaves Marc to teach - so chef Terrien helped out!)

Chef also made me a birthday dessert ! Fritters something - thank you chef!

Tonight I have to study - tomorrow we have our written exam. Don't know what to expect.

See you all again tomorrow!
Sjoerd

looooooonnnnng day, tired, wine, raining, beer, skipping class?

Just got in (it rains a lot right now/I'm soaked) : 23.15 hrs... Got up at 7 this morning, started class at 8.15, and had 4 (!) classes with chef Thivet.
Tonight he finished VERY late again, as usual - although I liked his meat dish..... But his planning sucks big time! Looks like he wants a demo to be 3 hours instead of the normal 2.5...
Today's first practical (white bean dish, prrrrrrrrrrrrrrtttttt !), then a demo, practical again (monkfish wrapped in bacon with broccoli and cauliflower, prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtttttttttttttttttt ! another fart, sorry. yes, I really am!) and a late demo by chef T.
During the last demo we had a few (4?) glasses of wine (thank you James/Damien) and after that I had 2 'petite' pints in ze local cafe avec Damien.....
just got in, I smell like a ...... whatever - I just stink (fish, bacon, meat, fois gras and the $%#! beans!) Shower, and then to bed.
And I'm thinking of skipping class tomorrow morning - this practical is too much work, I'm tired and the written exam is coming up on Wednesday .... we'll see. And I also have to study....

A demain,
Sjoerd
(in half an hour it's my birthday - thank God I'm not in the pub right now!)

Weekend; relaxing, shopping, studying and sightseeing

Saturday was a nice day. After a bit of rain in the morning it got better quickly, so I decided to get some fresh air (after studying a bit) and walk towards the Seine river. It was quite a walk from Dupleix, via Motte P. to the Eiffel Tower and Ecole Militair and then towards Museum Rodin. (Still no coffee...). Rue du Bac - did a bit of window shopping - and finally a belated breakfast with lots of coffee, eggs etc and a glass of vin blanc somewhere in the 6th arrondisement ! Yes, life sucks, I know....

I took the metro back from Mabillon (X-mas market has started again) because I just didn't feel like walking again. Got home to study a bit again. Reading recipes, recipes, more recipes and all the regional stuff we have to learn. Haven't got a clue what they are going to ask next Wednesday at the written exam, we'll just have to wait and see.

Sunday; Got up fairly early, read a bit in the Cordon Bleu binder and went to the local market at Dupleix metro station.

Fruit, flowers, fish, vegetables, bread, cheese, local protesters, homeless people, rich people, lots of 60+ people and occasionally a tourist. This market at Dupleix is twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays. Very nice!

It was quite busy at the market and the weather was great!

Bought some fruit, had a chat with a local (oh yeah!) in fluent Franglais, but it was just nice.

Then breakfast in the local cafe on the corner of the market. I brought my LCB books and stayed for about 1.5 hrs.... Lots of gooooooooooodddddd coffee!

These three shops are my local boulangerie, fish monger and cheese shop.

Home now; Put the iPod on random play and turned up the volume, cleaned the apartment a bit, played on the internet, had a glass of vin blanc, studied a bit (encore) and did some ironing (LCB stuff).

Dinner: Bought a coquelet (mini chicken) with a baguette and a bottle of wine.
Tomorrow will be a long day - practical-demo-practical and finally an evening demo.... we'll finish by 21.00 hrs....

A demain!
Sjoerd

Shopping for cookware in Paris is great!

Shopping for cookware in Paris is heavenly!
All the bigger shops are close together: There are 4 (!) shops on Rue Montmartre (Mora, La Bovida and two shops of A.Simon) and there´s one around the corner at Rue Tiquetonne that specialises in pastry equipment.(G.Detout)
A few 100 meters towards Les Halles is the 'institution' of Dehillerin in Rue Coquillère.

When you go shopping and you are a Le Cordon Bleu student, take your ID card with you for a discount !

http://www.e-dehillerin.fr/en/index.php
http://www.mora.fr/
http://www.simon-a.com/
http://www.labovida.com/
and G.Detout, 58 rue Tiquetonne,Paris

Two nice articles about the kitchen shops have been written on the website FXcuisine.com
Check out the article about all the major kitchen shops HERE. A specific artical has been written on Dehillerin.

Chef invité @ LCB - Dominique Dubray / a cuisine demonstration

Last Thursday was a slow day; Only one demo. So we decided to go to a cuisine demonstration of a non-LCB chef, a so called chef invité session. This time it was chef Dominique Dubray of the Pavillon Elysée in Paris.

He's a good friend and colleague of Marc Thivet, our chef in intermediate.
Because chef was a bit late, he didn't prepare the dessert;

Today's dishes were European crab with wakame seaweed and a lobster emulsion and herb crusted veal tenderloin stuffed with chanterelle mushrooms.

Different ingredients. Coloured carrots.

This demo was set up in the same way as we have our demo's at Cordon Bleu. You get the ingredients list and you have to write down the 'recipe'yourself. (I will not write the recipe details on the blog!)

Interesting starter!

The main course.

picture time!

Nice demo; Thank you chef !

News about our practical exam dishes.

The list is in - no real surprises. It just means I have to study recipes a bit now. The written exam is next Wednesday and the practical exam is another week later.

The latter is all about roasted duck, stuffed salman, fish stew, guinea fowl (pan roasted or stuffed), monkfish, stuffed rabbit, chicken sautee, lamb fillets and stuffed trout. The technical dish is a bearnaise sauce (Cuisine de Base, can't remember, I have to look that up....)
Please read it out loud in French - now it sounds a lot better and nicer !

Long, long, last demo of the week - nice dinner though!

Our last demo today was all about the Languedoc region. This time chef made a salt cod puree with a tapenade for a starter, a traditional white bean stew (cassoulet prepare comme a Toulouse) for the main course and for dessert a apricot and figs gratin with lavender honey / oh yeah!
Well, the chef had quite a few relevant and irrelevant ´petite histoires´ in this session, but the end/result was actually very good. The stew was super (lots of work / we´ll do that next Monday), but timewise it was very long session. We finished nearly half an hour late - but hey - the stew was good! Can´t complain about that. Thank you chef and bon week-end!

big stew

dessert

starter

Chef portioning the white bean stew - that was a nice early dinner before we went to the cafe for a few beers.

Happy birthday Katie !

Today was Katie's birthday. Congratulations ! We're in the same class and right before the last demo today, I asked chef Marc Thivet to make one extra dessert for Katie's birthday. Marc did a nice job - merci chef !

Chopping lots of fish - bouillabaisse !

blog, blogspot, Cordon Bleu, Intermediate Cuisine, Paris, SjoerdAfter yesterday's demo about the bouillabaisse, it was now time to chop up the fish ourselves. First I went to the cafe (7.30 am) on the corner for two espresso's, had a chat with chef Patrick (in Franglais, interesting) and was at school before 8 'o clock. Since I was still assistent, I was there early because there was actually quite a bit of work to be done; 3 big trays of different kinds of fish, a tray of general ingredients and 2 trays of veggies had to come from the basement to our kitchen on the second floor; but my co-assistent didn't show up this morning...... he was in class, but not early enough to set up the stuff. %$#@ ! Well, I got it all out on time with a bit of help from James and off we went... Today, there were only 9 of us, one didn't feel like chopping up fish on an early morning I guess....

Today's dish; this is my creation.

chop,chop,chop,chop ! veggies, fish, rinse, chop more veggies, filled the fish, remove all the pinbones, deseed and skin tomato's, chop more fish, sweat the stuff, cut fishbones and pop the eyes, remove gills of the suckers without getting hurt, brown the fishbones, chop more veggies, add water, add tomato puree, add more tomato puree, slice potato on a mandolin and slice off some skin as well (idiota!), cut onions, crush garlic, clean the blood (of your finger) on the chopping board, and clean the blood again 20 seconds later, and above all: add lots (and I mean lots) of saffron! To cut a lot story short - we made bouillabaisse.

Not a bad dish, but a lot of work. My result was sort of OK, the liquid was just a bit too thin. Too bad, better luck next time. The fish was cooked to perfection though! (If I may say so myself.)

King of Chinoix - strain/sieve the soup!

Plating the dish at the end. Everything looks yellow from the saffron.

Merci Karine Carroy for your translations!

Today, it was Karine's last day of translating chef's work/explanations in our cuisine class. Karine normally works at the reception desk and she is not a professional translator, but since quite a few translators are currently unavailable, she was doing this job on the side; Thank you for a good job over the last few days - today's session was slow, but a lot of fun in the end. As chef Thivet would say: Bon travail ! (et aussi avec une petite histoire...) Thanks.

Karine with chef Patrick.

Another Lesourd!

Frederic has a new friend; Or is it his brother 'Damy'?
Or maybe one of the others: Dopey, Sneezy, Sleezy, Slimy or Snotty? All
these little creatures look alike!

Le petit ami de chef L..... just above ze table....

OK, one food update then...........

Yesterday afternoon, right before our dinner, we made something with............

Rabbit!!!  bon appetit !

cuisine & pastry class dinner, no food update

Yesterday evening we had our class dinner. This is a dinner in a nice place together with all the people from pastry. This time we went to the *resto 'Le Passiflore', in the 16th arrondisement, near Trocadero. Since our class finished late (18.15 hr) and we  were supposed to be there at 19.30 - it sort of went wrong. Not many of the 40 students were on time.

But hey, I thought dinner was OK although certainly not spectacular. The only remark I have to make (and also heard a lot from others) is that the restaurant people were very very rude. Not worth the * at all. That's too bad. Maybe LCB can find another place quickly, because they are not worth another vist because of their attitude. sorry.

some pictures;

After dinner we had a beer in the cafe on the corner. Home by 1.15 hrs. Thursday morning we didn't have any classes - that was great! time to sleep..........