I Cook; You Eat

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Exams over!

L'examen finale
The final exam

Cuisine dish:
Roulade de selle d'agneau farcie, sauce navarin, emulsion de petit pois
petit panier de legumes tourne, puree de chou fleur, mille-feuille aux legumes brunoise

Stuffed saddle of lamb, navarin sauce, green peas emulsion
small basket of turned vegetables, cauliflower puree, mille-feuille of diced vegetables

It was certainly a nerve-wracking experience! The exams were quite difficult in my own opinion, seeing you have to create your own dish from a basket for the cuisine, and working with sugar sculpture for the pastry. I mean, two sugar sculpture from my group fell down, much to their dismay -oh, horror!- and was almost unsalvageable.

I'm not terribly happy with my work, and somehow, my sister tells me that the execution is the problem. What execution, achie?? Nag-insult ka ba sa akong abilities?? Sus, if you are, see if maka luto ko para nimu sa balay..

In the cuisine, I panicked a lot, and chef told me a lot of times to calm down. It's hard to calm down when everything's going wrong! My turned vegetables wasn't ready, and everything's a mess in the kitchen. My pots were too many and it was all over my place. I hope they don't take points from me for it. I mean it was the worst the last 15 minutes before the time limit. I barely passed the time limit, with no seconds to spare. It was the most intense 15 minutes i ever had in my life.

I have no idea of my grade yet, but we'll see tomorrow when the graduation ceremony will be held.

Classes are finished! Yippee! No more blisters in my thumb! I'm patting myself in relief since I was able to go through everything with no problem, except for minor hyperventilating and breathing problem. I get easily pressured.

Ok, ciao

Labels: le cordon bleu

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Saturday, March 3, 2007

Shiny shiny

Sucre Souffle, Sucre Coule
blown sugar and poured sugar

I admit to having reservations when it comes to blowing sugar. The chef used some sort of pump that looks like the one used for babies when they have runny nose. You know, kugmu alert! snickers.. Somehow, it reminds me of Sioti.

Chef made the one on the left. It is breathtaking, but somehow in my opinion, the colors don't match well. I still think he should have use other color instead of black for the base. Did you see the swan? Two swans together at the top platform? That is difficult to make. Super difficult.

I did the color on the right, which somehow came out bronze. At first, I used red, but then it turned out to be purple. I don't know why it wasn't color-labelled, leaving the students blind when mixing color. I used two colors, violet and orange for the rose. I then did the sugar blowing. OMG, i had blown probably around 9 broken pieces before I could make a bended balls. They kept exploding on me! I did the rose.. ^^ yay! And yes, those are the balls in the background with the rose.

Labels: le cordon bleu, pastry

licked by valerie, 9:11 AM | link | 0 drools |

Marche Rungis..

Sorry for the delayed post. I was really busy panicking and all those stuff. Anyway, we went to rungis market and we had to meet at the metro at 5 AM! I know it's not too early, but I live 40 minutes walk away.. So I slept over friend's house. We slept at 1 AM and woke up at 4:15 AM. Blearily I made my way to the bathroom when it occured to me. Coffee!? No Coffee!? The only vice that helped me stay alive during unholy hour! We trudged to school, me incoherent from lack of caffeine. The bus which will take us to the market outside of Paris, arrived late too!

To make matters worse, it was raining the whole trip! I had no umbrella and my camera was getting wet. Sigh. It's fun. Yep, it's fun if you can take the strong smell of beef and pork.

See that white stuff we wore over our clothes? Apparently it's for sanitation purposes. We look kinda funny, with those white caps styled similar to soldiers' cap. At 9:30, we had brunch at one of the cafe situated near the market. The food was blah. So-so but i was so ravenous that I had to have two helpings of ham and cheese.

Labels: le cordon bleu

licked by valerie, 8:46 AM | link | 0 drools |

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Fat Tuesday, anyone?

Pastillage

Totally, completely waste of time. I spent lots of time making several shades of color between orange, red, and yellow. I supposed that shows considerably, looking at the girlish color of the hat on the left side.

Yes, I made the one on the left, the truly uberly feminine hat. Chef Nicholas made the one on right. I simply adore the shade of green on his hat.

A happy chef never complains.
i need to study that... it simply boggles my mind...

licked by valerie, 1:55 PM | link | 6 drools |

Friday, February 16, 2007

A Bloody Waste, i tell you!

Ok, now we come to the final chocolate decorations. I made the one on the left side with the round thing. And chef made the one with all the colors. I think i probably used up 2 kilos of chocolate doing that thing. It's a bit plain, but then we had like only 2 1/2 hours to finish up, and we had to temper the chocolate before using it!

Yah, yah, kahibalo ko mas ganahan mo kang chef, pero naa man siya ug molds and us measly mere mortals had to use whatever we have. And that is wala molds! Plus nag gamit man siya ug powder coloring. Yay, finally ganahan si chef sa akong decor, ingun daw siya na nindot. Pero dili siya ganahan kanang lace thing around the flower atop the circle. Oh, well. Happy lang gyud ko. So?? Whaddya think?

Labels: le cordon bleu, pastry

licked by valerie, 1:50 AM | link | 4 drools |

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

St. Valentine

Chivalry's dead. Honor's dying. Modesty's gone. Romance's way overrated. Why the hell are we celebrating valentine's day!?

Here's my love in form of chocolate for my hauntingly few readers. Its inside is as empty as the upturned glass. I'm sucky at poetry now. Mi! Gimme a poem about the celebrated -snorts- day!

Hey, at least I'm spared from looking at the giggling girls with their cocky boyfriends smooching at the metro! Or anywhere else for that matter!

Labels: le cordon bleu, pastry

licked by valerie, 12:01 PM | link | 1 drools |

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Hair balls, potted plant and whatnot

I hate how everyone keeps saying my flower really looks ugly. One even dared to mention mine has too much petals. I tried using few petals only and the chef immediately zoomed it on me, telling me to add more. Isn't it such a hair-wrenching experience? Now onto the rest; take note that it is not me made these dishes, all were made by the chef in the school.

Langoustines Croustillantes, emulsion d'agrumes a l'huile d'olive

Crispy langoustines with emulsion of citrus fruit and olive oil

Utter, utterly crispy! There's a treasure hidden in the cats' hair balls, the va-va-voom item which cannot be found in the real hair ball. Drums, please.. It's langoustines! 'Nuff said about it.

Filet de boeuf a la ficelle, os de celeri a la moelle, sauce raifort

Achie, did you know they a whole bone marrow here without bones? As in like the whole thing? No need to suck the bone, just eat it straight! This dish was so-so, beef was extremely chewy and I'm wincing at the thought of forming those vegetables into those shapes tomorrow morning. The sauce was great. Please don't give my words 'frenchish' air. I beg you, sissies!

Moelleux Chocolate, Glace Pistace, Sauce Caramel
Soft-centered chocolate cake, pistachio ice cream and caramel sauce

I ate two servings of this! No, no, no, it's not a huge serving like the pictures above. A serving amounts to tasting, probably 1/4 of the entire piece. Ice cream? Mwahaha, I ate a lot of those. Ice cream releases endorphins in my body, thus making me giddy the whole morning. I don't care what the lot of you says, but i really like the design of the potted plant of chocolate cake. It seems so endearing, whereas the other was seems just flowing limply. Yummy, yummy, yummy. It sure makes you wish you were here in Paris.

Congrats to one of my sissies kinsa naka da-ug ug bolleyball game! It's all thanks to me! Achie, Bim, asa naman inyong mga new photos? So far wala lagi mo new photos na? Bim, how's Boni? Ni samut ba iyang PMS-ing, wla? Ni daku na ba siya? Wala lagi ug photos of her preggers?? Asa naman?

Labels: cuisine, le cordon bleu

licked by valerie, 12:09 PM | link | 0 drools |