Washing and getting druk in Burgundy

It has been 2 days of only lessons in the evening from 18.30h until 21.30h, so whole days off.
Thurday i did my first ever laundry in my life (i am 52 now), it is unbeleavable but true. As a child my mother did my laundry, when i was a student, the first year i took my laundry home every weekend and from the second year my wife, Juliëtte, joined me and she did my laundry since than. The first year at Le Cordon Bleu in 2009 i rented a room in a flat with other people, and the women in the house, Khadou, did my laundry. She however did not iron my kitchen clothes, so i learned to iron in 2009.

The result of my first ever laundry

For most people normal, but I am very proud of the result, nothing schinked, nothing coloured, what more can a man wish for.

In the evening practical where we made the red mullet dish. As i was talking to the pastry schef next door, i forgot my sauce and it turned completely black. As i had no fish bones left to start over, i re-made the sauce with chicken stock. Although Chef Caals had seen this and approved it, he judged it as if it were the original recipe and concluded that ofcourse the fish taste was missing, it was a little to acidic, but not much and had the right consistancy. My tappenade was perfect, my fish was a little overcooked but still good.

After practical we went with some classmates to have a beer and beaujolais as today is the day of the beaujolais nouveaux. All over france you are confronted with this horrible young wine, even in the morning in the supermarket you are supposed to drink a glass. It is a below average wine, sold with an enormous marketing campaign worldwide. I must give the french a compliment for this.

So Andre, Hiroshi, Thomas, Tzu-yen, Talita and myself went to have one beer, Grimbergen blond from the tap, and another one, and another one, and anohtey, ang anethkke, and ...... Later Alex, from Basic cuisine joined in.
When the bar closed we were kicked out, i have not looked at the clock, but i believe it was 2.00h. Together with Tzu-yen home with the Velib bicycle as he lives even closer to the Eiffel tower tan i do. No photos as i forgot my camera.

In the morning a hang-over, so i woke up late, took a very long shower, went to the bakery for my baguette and relaxed all day. In the evening class from Chef Caals, in the meanwhile we have arrived in Burgundy.

Starter: Feuilété d’escargots au lard fume, champignons et vin blanc de Chablis; Main dish: Poulet fermier à la façon de gaston Gerard les “Crapiaux” comme en Morvan; Desert: Mille feuille de glace et pain d’épices

Escargots

Poulet Fermier

Pain d'epices et glace

Even though we coul not start until 18.45h as the class befor us went late, we finished 21.15h. Great. No alcohol today, so straight home.

The longest day

School started today at 8.30h and as i did not trust myself in the Paris street jungle again, afraid to get lost again and miss class, i took the Metro. Also this is not fun, it is being transported as fish in a can, it also smells like this.

But it is safe and i was at Metro Vaugirard at 8.05, so enough time for my first espresso. Quickly change into school uniform and first lesson from Chef Thivet. This chef is famous for his sauces and i must admit  he tought us really excellent recipes: Matelelote Normande au cidre brut (excellent dish), pintade (guinea fowl (E) or Parelhoen (NL)) femière poêlée valée d'Auge; Tarte fine aux pommes et crémeux caramel (also very good)

As you can notice we are in Normandy in these lessons and that is the system at school at intermediate: every 2 lessons you change region. We started out in Basque country, now we are in Normandy and tomorrow we will be in Burgundy (Bourgogne).

Matelotte

   

Pintade

Tarte de pommes

Chef Thivet

11.40 we were finished and had some coffee at Le Commerce, which all you regular readers know by now.
12.15h home, this time with the Velib bicycle and believe it or not, i found the way without mistakes. It takes 12 minutes from my appartement to School. At home worked out my recipes of yesterday and made it to 1/2 the Matelotte recipe, rest to be done tomorrow as i only have class tomorrow from 18.30h until 21.30h.

Le Cordon Bleu

Second class today was my practical where i made the pintade. I was very satisfied with myself as for the first time i had the feeling i was in control, had everything organised, worked on a clean working spot all the practical and ended up with a very nice pintade. Chef Caals judged my dish and he was satisfied as well, my sauce was too much reduced (so too thick), i agree with him. Good lesson.

18.30h until 21.30h last lesson from Chef Caals. he was in a good mood so he joked around all the time without loosing control (except turning whipped cream into butter once) and left me confused 2 times as i had difficulties separating the recipe from the jokes. For the rest it was a good lesson.
Still in Normandy region, we made Marbré de langoustines et ris d'agneau, sauce aigrelette; Rouget (Red Mullet)  aux tapinade d'olives, royale d'onions et sauce emulsionée anisette; Poire belle Hèléne.

Marbré de Langoustines

Red Mullet

Poire belle Hèléne

Food tasting after class

21.30 everyone was tired, so no beer today after school. Straight home, ate my (much too late) Dinner (Pintade), wrote my blog, watched some TV and to bed.

I have to admit now: i do not know Paris

For the second time i thought it cannot be that difficult to get from A to B in Paris. In this case this morning i took the famous Paris velib system www.velib.fr , using the velib pass of my landlord Elena.

In fact from my appartement to school should be a 10 minutes bicycle ride,  straight forward. I made 1 or 2 wrong turns, found rue du Vaugirard (where i must be), but ended up at Boulevard Pasteur.  I should have gone right instead of left when i found Rue du Vaugirard. The problem in Paris that it is all one way streets, so once you are wrong, it takes forever to get back to the poit where you went wrong. In the end it took me 35 minutes up and down the Paris hills to get to school. Good excersice.

Today we had one demo and one practical.. Demo from Chef Patrick Caals, definitely the longest chef at Le Cordon Bleu. When he teaches he hardly can look under the mirrors in class. He is a great chef, very well organized, putting hygiene and organisation in the first place and being a perfect example of a well organized chef himselves. He demonstrated 3 dishes: Shell fish soup with garlic glaze, Savoy cabbage filled with salmon accompanied with red wine sauce and wild strawberries gratin. Intermediate is not basic cuisine anymore als Chef Caals goes through the recipes with incredible speed, leaving students confused (including myself) where we are in the recipe. Even the professional translator had difficulites to keep track. Chef Caals however notices everything and will go back as soon as he sees that his class has lost track.

Confused collegue students

The soup

The salmon cabbage

Wild strawberries desert

In practical we made the Savoy cabbage filled with salmon accompanied with red wine sauce. A reasonable recipe that i may once make at home, but not with the red wine sauce that does not match the dish at all. In general is a sauce that is not worthwile making. It is a lot of work and the result is less than avarage. Terrible sauce as most my collegue students agree.

To flush away the day, again we ended up in cafe du Commerce.

Discussing the day

First day at school

Thinking to be clever i made sure i was at school at 8.15h, to make sure i have a good locker and possibly even a second one. School has changed, they now give out lockers which are numbered to student. No chance to get another locker than allocated to you, let alone a second one, as you simply do not know which lockers will be used by collegue students and which not.

I was not alone in my strategy, so in the cafe du commerce on the corner i met a group of 4 intermediate students, classmates as i found out soon. Even a Dutch women, Ilse in the group, further a canadian, greek and Japanese in this group, so again a very international class.

School started at 12.30h with a class where we learned how to make a salmon & watercrest salad, a bask type of chicken with pilav rice and an apple pie, made with phyllo pastry. I had to get used to the school system, making efficient nots, knowing when to look what the chef is doing and when to write.

In practical we made the bask chicken, not a very great recipe, but good to train the basic skills.
My plate was good, the chicken at the right cuisson, the rice was perfect, my sauce was good, a little to much fat left in the sauce and little to much reduced.
As i knew the presentation of the chicken in the end, i cutted up my chicken differently (taking off the filets rom the breast bone) as the chef demonstrated in class (traditional sauté cut), which gave me some minus points (never try to be more clever than the chef).

Ofcourse i was again the first to cut my finger when i took out the wishbone from the chicken a little too harsch.

After school we went to have a beer at cafe Le commerce with about 10 classmates.
19.00h i left for my first evening in my appartement. Made part of my homework, as tomoorow morning i am free, called Juliette, as i have a free phone for landlines Worldwide, made a blog, got organized and went to bed.

I also know my schedule now, i know that there will be no free saturdays this time. Every saturday i have to go to school, sometimes even until 21.00h at night. So, no possibilities to go home in between. Julietee will book a train on 26 november as this is the only sataurday that i am freeat 15.00h. The good side from aving school on Saturday is that i have many in between free hours during the week.

Lazy Sunday in Paris

Scary picture isn't it. Is a demon mask from the Andes, i found in Musee du Quai Branly: http://www.quaibranly.fr/ . So thats where i spent my lazy Sundayafternoon in Paris.

Late breakfast in the Hotel, than by taxi to see my appartment for the first time. It was almost as i imagined it from the pictures. Except the garden. It is huge. Behind the private garden (10 m2) there is a public garden of 5000 m2 or so. The building als has a back entrance, which makes it easier to go to Dupleix metr station.
Andrew & Elena are truely  very nice people and Andrew showed me aal te features of the appartement, the washing machine, dish washer, HD-TV with 400 channels and hundreds of films for me to watch. Great.

It was a sunny afternoon and i walked to the Eiffeltower, always crowds and things to see and do.

Than straight on to the musee du Quai Branly, a tip from Andrew. With my magic card i can pass all waiting lines and have free acces to all museums in Paris. Even the Louvre or Musee dÓrsau or Versailles.

Muse du Quai Branly has a collection of artifacts from Oceania, Asia, Africa and the Americas. Quite impressive.

After the Museum back to the Hotel, Vietnamese food across the street. In the evening reading a book, as Sunday everything in Paris is closed and i didn't want to go out for a drink.

Arriving in Paris

From door tot door from my house the small city of Rijen in the Netherlands to my Hotel (only for the first 2 days) in the big city of Paris took me appr. 5 hours, but only thanks to my wife Juliëtte who drove me from Rijen to Breda as i saw on internet that the train from Rijen had a 3 minutes delay, which would make my connection to my train in Breda very tight. Good she did this, as sitting in the train in Breda i saw all people from the train from Rijen, missing the train that i was on. In Rotterdam i took the Thalys at 14.00h and arrives at Gare du Nord 16.35h.

It took me one hour by taxi ( we were obviously not the only people driving that direction in Paris) to my Hotel http://www.alesia-paris-hotel.com/english/ a small, but nice 2 star Hotel in the south side of Paris, 10 minutes from School by Metro.

In the evening i went to the center, knowing the city, i decided to take the Metro, get off at Odeon and walk from Odeon to Place Saint Michel. Place Saint Michel would have been be the next stop on the same Metro, but from Odeon to St Michel is a nice walk as i remembered it.
Obviously i do not know the city as well as i thought. I walked around for 2 hours, passing the same "Cafe de Marche" 4 times and got completely lost. After 2 hours, i thought: lets ask someone, as i did not believe i was lost. I have a very good feeling of direction, and rarely get lost. When the man pointed out that Place Saint Michel was exactly the other direction than i thought it to be, i knew what went wrong.
Last year i always arrived at Odeon from the other side, so when i left the Metro i switched directions and mistaked South by North and East by West. So instead of leaving Odeon in North-East direction, i left South-West. As this also was a very nice neighbourhood, i did not even notice i was going the wrong direction in the beginning.
After finding place St Michel, i quickly found a pizzeria and as i had already walked enough, i did not care to find the best one. So Pizza was less than average.
When i left the pizzeria i wanted to go for a drink, but i felt that my feet had had enough and i have learned to listen to my feet, so i went back to my Hotel, arriving 23.30h, so quite early.

Life in Paris on Saturdaynight in November is uncomparable with Rijen. From empty streets at night in Rijen, here you have to mingle yourselves through the masses of people. Streetlife is like in Summer. On Every 5th corner a band or a lone musician is playing music. Artists make and sell paintings on the street and all shops are open. Thousands of people are on the street. The wheather was nice, what ofcourse also helped a lot to create a nice atmosphere in the streets of Paris.

So what have i found to have forgotten to take to Paris until now:
1. The cable to upload pictures from my camera to my computer (thats why there are no pictures with this blog)
2. My map of Paris i bought 2 years ago. I will ask Juliette to sent it by mail, as i obviously need it

Today i will meet my landlords, see the appartement, leave my luggage there and then go downtown.
I do not know where yet, but you will read this in my next blog.