Books I got from Librairie Gourmande -- mostly by Pierre Hermé!
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03/03/2003 Entry: "Librairie Gourmande"
Never thought I'd love Mondays so much. We had another busy weekend in the patisserie. Saturday, everyone in the kitchen was stressed out -- yelling merde! putain! and mumbling angrily to themselves. Yannick was scolding Hermès for wasting time flirting with Tiffane (the sexy salesgirl all the guys in the kitchen seem to want), and Quentin was ready to explode when he found out he had to redo all the chocolates (300 boxes worth) because they didn't fit in the box we sold it in. By noon, all the entremets (big cakes) were gone -- the salespeople in the boutique were worried we didn't have enough cakes to last the afternoon. Meanwhile, I and Edward (the 14 year old intern) were struggling with the Ispahans -- we had to prepare 220 Ispahans, plus 120 more as mise en place for Sunday. This was Edward's first stage, and I was having a difficult time teaching him how to do things right. I knew I had to be mean like the other patissiers when they try to teach the interns, but I couldn't, at least not in French. To make matters worse, I was suffering from a stiff neck, the result of attempting a headstand while practising yoga Friday night. It really wasn't a good time to be working in a busy kitchen.
I'm moving back to the laboratoire, this time to join the team making the actual components of the cakes we sell -- pastry cream, buttercreams, sponge cakes, coulis, jellies, caramel -- this is where the good stuff is -- lots of recipes to learn. Just when I was starting to enjoy being part of the other team, I have to move on... oh well.
I went to Librairie Gourmande today. I was there last week too. They have an enormous collection of cookbooks -- mostly French but you'll find quite a number of English and bilingual books as well. I wasn't able to visit a bistro for lunch because I bought a few pastry books and they were so heavy that I had to go back home. I was able to stop by Peltier patisserie though and get a few things for dessert:
