Monday, March 31, 2003

My last day with the macaron team... I feel a bit sentimental now. Although I'm happy that my days sifting 50+ kilos of almond powder for hours are over, I will definitely miss the macaronniers -- they were a fun team to work with. I'll be back to say goodbye sometime this week though. I will be working in the boutique the rest of the week, hopefully NOT doing Ispahans. Eddy told me to call him if they let me do Ispahans again. Finally, you will get to see some of the people I've been working with for the past 3 months...

Chef Eddy making the macaron batter (He's trying to look serious)	Michel happily tapping away
Chatting at Breakfast (we don't always have the luxury of a break like this!)	Turning and Filling Chocolate Macarons -- Eddy said something funny so Michel is laughing
Dai, Me, Tony, Michel, Sandra, Eddy --Tony and Sandra work with the puff pastry, they don't usually work with the macaronniers. We all look kinda funny in this picture because Bubakar took so long -- he seemed to want a picture of the table more than the team, heh.	Michel took this, so it's much better although a bit dark -- this is a more natural pose

Posted by Karen @ 06:22 AM PST [Link]

Saturday, March 29, 2003

I've been on a Millefeuille hunt. Millefeuille literally means a thousand leaves or sheets, describing, in this case, layers of puff pastry filled with pastry cream. Good feuilletage is achieved by incorporating a good amount of cold dry butter into the pastry dough, getting bits of butter spread all throughout the dough by folding it several times. In the oven, the moisture from these pieces of butter creates steam and causes the pastry to separate, thus giving you the layers. Some food science for thought -- heh.

When I went to Arnaud Larher's shop last week I bought a Millefeuille with Praliné pastry cream. Today I went to Stephane Vandermeersch's shop in the 12th arrondisement and Laurent Duchêne's in the 13th, two patissiers known for their excellent Millefeuille. I think Duchêne's puff pastry was lighter and had an excellent golden brown color to it, but I preferred Vandermeersch's pastry cream. At Pierre Hermé, we also sell Millefeuille, but it's similar to Larher's because we fill it with Praliné pastry cream also. Mr. Hermé calls it Deux Millefeuille (2000 layers). I've only tried the scraps whenever we slice them, but it's enough for me to say that it's pretty darn good too. I'm not exactly a Millefeuille lover, but part of my learning here includes being able to taste different varieties of a classic and identifying the best. Pretty enjoyable learning, I would say.

Checked my email and got my weekly Hotjobs newsletter. Normally I just delete it, but this time I decided to see what jobs were available. My 'agent' is set to look for java developer jobs, and I was surprised to see 3 listings for startups in San Mateo. I clicked on the first one and it seemed perfect for my experience. I felt a pang of regret, a bit of doubt -- "No, I can't go back to that," I tell myself, "I'm a patissier now." Somehow, I am still unconvinced. Starting over a new career is terribly hard, and after my stage is over in a week, I will be forced to think about what I will be pursuing. We'll see how it goes.

Stephane Vandermeersch's Patisserie
Duchene's Millefeuille (right) and others	Vandermeersch's Millefeuille (middle) and Kugelhopf (right)

Posted by Karen @ 06:48 AM PST [Link]

Sunday, March 23, 2003

69 degrees today. Beautiful. Reminded me of San Francisco. Couples were out walking with their babies, guys were wearing their Birkenstock sandals and shorts, and I was finally able to go out without my thick winter jacket. Nice. I can finally look like a girl instead of a funky snowboarder.

Last week we had a guest working with us in the kitchen. She was tasting everything, asking questions, helping us out here and there. After she left I asked Michel who she was, and he said that she was a confiseur (maker of jams and jellies) from Alsace. I asked what her name was – it was Christine Ferber, the great confiseur, the ‘Queen of Jams’, and I didn’t even say a word to her! I spent weeks going all over Paris to look for her jams, and I spread her confiture (green tomato and vanilla jam) on my baguette everyday! That’s what I get for being too shy -- nothing.

Checked off another patisserie off my list this weekend. I went to visit Arnaud Larher’s (voted best pastry chef in 2000) patisserie in Montmarte yesterday. Boarded a really crowded bus for 40 min just to get there. I wasn’t too happy because the salesperson was quite rude to me. She charged me 30 euros, and I knew she calculated things wrong because it was too pricey. I told her there must have been some error, and she sorta snapped at me and said: “No, there’s no error.” I read somewhere that the French never want to admit their mistakes. Well apparently it’s true. She walked off and asked another girl to redo it, and it turns out she overcharged me by 13 euros! But no one apologized or acknowledged the mistake, and I went out of there feeling really disappointed with the place even before I took a bite of anything I bought.

Arnaud Larher's Patisserie in Montmarte	Macarons and Cakes from Larher

Posted by Karen @ 11:48 AM PST [Link]

Thursday, March 20, 2003

Wow, two weeks to go before my stage is over. Can't wait to go home and finally start planning the wedding! As of today, Garry and I have made 0 progress on our wedding plans. No date, no venue -- hope I can get on top of things when I get back to Manila.

I haven't been really feeling the war over here in France, but probably because I have no cable TV and no CNN to scare the hell out of me. I was reading some reactions to Bush's ultimatum from other international leaders, and I was really curious to see what my country had to say about it -- all the other countries clearly stated if they were for or against the war, while my president said: "While the nations of the world sort out the Iraq conflict, our job here is to take care of our own stability and normalcy, and we're prepared to do so." Yeah, you guys sort it out. TYPICAL.

There's a new stagiare at work, Saori, a Japanese girl who speaks english! Yey! The past two days have been great -- I was really chatty at work, and Eddy and Michel were feeling left out of the conversation. Eddy would try to speak english too, but he only knew phrases from TV shows, and he kept singing 'Smelly Cat' from Friends the whole afternoon. It was hilarious.

Posted by Karen @ 02:47 AM PST [Link]

Monday, March 17, 2003

Spring in Paris. Too bad I have no one to enjoy it with. It’s been quite chilly in the mornings, but it gets warm and sunny in the afternoons. Saturday I visited two boulangeries – one with the best croissants, and the other with the best cannelés. Woke up at 6:30am, tried to stave off my hunger till 8, and hopped on Bus 62 to Alésia. Got a croissant, pain au chocolat, and a mini kugelhopf at Le Palais D’Or. I was munching on the croissant while waiting for Bus 80, which took me to Poujaran, a charming little boulangerie in the 7th, with its cute blue delivery truck parked out front. I lined up with other hungry gourmands and got some cannelés, a mini pain au chocolat (to compare with Le Palais D’Or), and a mini Quatre Quart Chocolat (chocolate pound cake). It was a breakfast feast. Le Palais D’Or’s croissant and pain au chocolat are a must try. I didn’t like Poujaran’s cannelés so much, it had too much rum and had a funny taste. I think it gets better after a day or two though.

Boulangerie Poujaran -- known for their cannelés and viennoiseries

I’m back with Chef Eddy and the macaron team this week. The Pierre Hermé Spring Collection is out – funny how it’s similar to haute couture – can’t wait to try them all. I’ve tried the new macaron flavor, apricot peach saffron, Alban passed them out last Friday, and I agree with everyone’s consensus -- C’est TOP! (means it’s really good).
Watched Romeo and Juliet yesterday at Palais des Sports. I appreciate ballet, but 2 ½ hours of it is a bit too much for me. I enjoyed the Beth Orton/Kathryn Williams concert I watched last Wednesday a lot more. They sounded really great live. Definitely worth the 25 euros and the long metro ride to Le Trianon in the 18th. Wish Garry were here to see it with me though.

Posted by Karen @ 12:12 PM PST [Link]

Tuesday, March 11, 2003

I’m finally starting to enjoy work. Yesterday was the first day in 2 months that I was actually looking forward to starting my day in the kitchen. I feel a part of the team now, I know everyone and everyone knows me, I know where everything is and how to work all the machines, working a bit faster and cleaner – beginning to feel like a vrai patissier (real pastry chef). :)

Mme. Petremant (she’s in charge of HR at Pierre Hermé) was kind enough to give me an invitation to Intersuc, a convention for patissiers, glaciers, boulangers, and chocolatiers at Porte de Versailles, so I spent a few hours last Sunday just wandering about, watching some pulled sugar demonstrations, eating free baguette samples and such. Here’re some pictures from Intersuc:

Pulled Sugar Demo from Bellouet Conseil, a pastry school right next door to my apartment!	Happy Boulangers from Alsace
Boulangers' Pièce Montée	Croquembouche (mountain of cream puffs!) Display
Musicians from Alsace (they played music AND gave out free food!)	They were actually selling the display case, not the cakes

Here are some entries from the Coupe de France for Pastry and Confiserie (all these pieces are made entirely of sugar):

Posted by Karen @ 11:23 AM PST [Link]

Monday, March 3, 2003

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.

Books I got from Librairie Gourmande -- mostly by Pierre Hermé!

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:

Cakes from Peltier -- they taste a lot better than they look

Posted by Karen @ 05:17 AM PST [Link]