Start Your Engines

For the price of used BMW, you too could crank this baby every morning.  One of the benefits of  going to Paul Bocuse is access to coffee, really good coffee. Three times a day I head to the long line of  recovering coffee drinkers and place my order. People are creatures of habit. Every morning I have a double espresso with a shot of hot milk, which according the baristas, makes me one evolutionary step from Neanderthal man during the period eating dirt. Never milk in an espresso if you have any form of respect for yourself. My self loathing goes away by mid morning when I order either an espresso or a cappuccino , which are acceptable mid morning choices. Score one for the cave man. Then another cappuccino after lunch because……….. There’s no good reason. Let’s call it recreational. Please no judgements as the average Canadian spends  about $27,000 at Tim Hortons in a lifetime.

So Good No Need for Butter, Perhaps a Side of Cheese

I have occasionally in a fit a desperation, low blood sugar or just plain gluttony, bellied up to a 100 + item buffet. Some places actually do it quite well. Like Las Vegas. Where else in the world can you get scrambled eggs with Alaska King Crab followed by a chocolate cheese cake followed up by a Zantac.

Haven’t seen any flashing neon signs enticing you to eat your face off for $19.95 including free refills on soft drinks. I don’t want to ask, however, I believe Le Buffet is for Les Animals. So let call this week ” Semaine de le Melanger”, which is kind of like a buffet only classy. On the melange this week, two days of bread, one day of coffee and tea, half a day of wine, one day of cheese and partridge in a pear tree. The partridge turned out to be duck topped with Unami and there was pear picked from a tree poached in wine. All of this from Troisgros, which does warrant a post all by itself. So back to the bakery.

Bakers get up early or they never go to bed. Our bakery chef has been a baker for 40 years and can bake close to 500 different types of bread. His hobbies include working part time as a clown, keeping the family farm going, drinking beer, and smiling when you push all the butter out of your croissant dough. This combination of facts has lead me to believe my initial statement that these guys never sleep.

As part of our studies we had be ready to roll and I mean roll in the bakery at 7 am. While lots of people in the class complained about the early hour, real bakers or their apprentices get up a lot early. I have learned because just outside my window is window to the back end of the bakery. I really hope that the apprentice who dropped the pans at 3:30am either learns or gets fired because it’s starting to get hot and I need to keep my bedroom window open.

Here’s some of our “not ready for prime time” baking.

Ciabatta & Sandwich Bread

Consistent Size Comes with Experience

When you mess up the consistency of loafs, you can cut it and serve it. Nobody knows. If it has really mutated, croutons are always good. All else fails, fatten another pig with it.

That’s not Burned, it’s Caramelized

What I like most about bakery is that you can take a gob of dough have some fun playing with it, add a few things and then mark it up 700% and put a smile on everybody’s face.

My Farm

So many “hot” things right now in the food business. Farm to Table, Locally Sourced, 100 Mile Diet. During my weekend of deep contemplation and sugar rehab, I decided to combine all of these concepts to the best of my “I don’t want to do anything really” ability.

I recently made a farm on the top shelf of my dorm room. You will notice the basil on the right is different from the rest of the plants. It has a brown pot. I used to have a matching set of potted herbs, but sadly two weeks ago, my other basil either grew a little too much or committed herby/herby which is the same the ancient Japanese ritual of  harakiri. From the angle of the pot on the roof below me and 25 episodes of CSI experience. It looks like the basil saw the greener grass below and made a jump for it.  We were all shocked.

I have my farm and I have a table, which actually doubles as an ironing board. I eat at my desk most times. I’ve got farm to table covered. Now locally sourced 100 mile diet.

I have a kitchen here in my third story penthouse closet.

Two Burners with Timer

Those are Rotary Dials 800 watts of Pure Power

I’m Thinking of a New Cookware Line- Harry One Potter

I wake Sunday morning thinking that eggs Benedict would be good. No room service here so it’s back to the basics. The 100 inch diet for two reasons everything is closed today and even if it was opened, I could be bothered to haul my butt out of my room.

Here’s how to make eggs Benedict when you don’t have most of the ingredients. Take couple of generous table spoons of real mayonnaise and add a baby finger nail amount of Dijon mustard, add one tickle of vinegar. Get a whisk. Melt about two tablespoons of butter in a cheap microwave using a coffee cup. Slowly whisk the melted butter into  the mayo mix. Now whip like a crazy person, who hasn’t had sugar since pastry week ended. Toast some day old bread in a frying pan with some lardons. If you don’t have any lardon (another form of French pork fat), fly to France go to the first store you see and there will lardon because it’s almost as popular as butter. Check your bread as you just want it lightly toasted. Boil water with a tinkle of vinegar in it. Put eggs in boiling water for 3 minutes max. Don’t worry the eggs will cook as you plate things. See plating instruction below.

Note: Check Photo Quality before Eating

Also note add fruit to take away guilt and add  cheese to make it exotic drink with big coffee.

Now that we’ve had breakfast what other activities for today. Yes eat lunch. Remember pastry week. As it turns out, people will do almost anything for pastries. Here’s the trade  with another class, who we’re trapped in meat week. Not bad for leftovers.

Veal with Stuff

The Original Death by Chocolate

Remember your best whatever? Forget about whatever you are thinking about d feast one eyes on these pieces of gastronomic sweetness. I like sugar and the classic french pastry guy takes sugar in both its obvious forms and some chemically arranged forms and make your palate dance like a 14 year old at their first rave.

The end of pastry week was bitter sweet! Sorry about the cheap pun, but I can see how people get addicted to any substance. I’m not sure if it was strategic or if it’s just the way it is in Pastry Land, where every cloud is made or either meringue or chantilly creme, but you have a wait a day and then you can get all hepped up on sugar. Just as you smell something wonderful and blissful, chef says frigo (fridge in pastry chef code). And you wait and you wait until the next day. This approach allows you to build up such an expectation. You remember the old “visions of sugar plums danced in their heads”.  These poor kids only had sugar plums as opposed to us rich (in a creamy sort of way) kids, who, if we were eating something horrible like a plum, the plum would be nappaged  with magical sugar glaze on top of a finger cookie encrusted cake with cream based filling that’s illegal in certain countries because of the calories. I forgot it would be plated with a coulis made three different exotic fruit pumped up with more sugar tricks. Victorian era desserts no thank you. I think if Marie Antoinette had just given people bags of sugar, things would be different today.

We’ve been good little boys and girls, we’ve waited a day eaten our faces off, so now what. Too many desserts. What a horrible place to be! So we traded with another class for meat leftovers. Then chef says  “Poubelle” (trash can/ garbage) and years or programming kick in. You can’t throw away food you must clean the plate, even if it’s a three foot long industrial baking sheet. So I take them back to my apartment and have dessert night. Hey some people have game nights. I have dessert night. I also discovered after visiting the market in downtown Lyon, I ripped through about $40.00 worth of dessert on dessert night.

It’s Healthy, It’s Fruit

Forgot to mention the fresh made French Vanilla ice cream, caramel finish around the butter pastry and the pinapple that was curved as a result of the sugar hardened when it was placed in the oven.

Speaking of fruit, you can disguise it with enough other things that kids or immature adults will like it.

There’s Fruit, Just About Everywhere

Fancy Cotton Candy on Top

Sometimes a light dessert is appropriate for people watching their caloric intake. I never mentioned a number. So here’s one for you. I think it’s called the praying nun. Puffy pastry filled with fresh raspberry jam and cream with a blond chocolate collar dipped in candy apple stuff. A quaint dessert that left move space to eat other desserts.

Heavenly Dessert

One last thing, if you feel guilty about any of these desserts, just add the additional garnish of pistachio nuts for fibre.

Sugar High

Some people are  excited about pastry week. I’m cautious. I love to eat pastry, but I know absolutely nothing about pastry other than it tastes really good.

The basics about being a good chef, as I learned last week, is take everyday ingredients and elevate them. How does one elevate flour to a higher level? Pile it on ten pounds of butter. Now if you were a culinarian you would be laughing your face off. Key ingredients this week- flour, butter, sugar and if you can’t enough butter into it you may use cream (butter’s pale cousin with a little less fat content). Sugar is available in all sorts of forms so that people don’t even see it coming. That leaves poor flour.  I have no sympathy for flour it spends its days wrapped around and blended in sugar and butter. Flour realizes that it’s not the most popular kid in junior high school, so flours invites all the cool kids over like butter, chocolate and the sugar triplets.

Here’s what happens when you play with these things.

Don’t Let the Fruit Fool You

Really Good for Breakfast

Can be Used as a Palate Cleanser

Started the next day loathing sweets saying I never do that again and then came the next day. It started out quietly and somewhat low calorie with the slicing of fruits and I think butter wasn’t mentioned until mid morning. Then with military precision and over 25 individual ingredients, this platter had to be tested before anybody went home.  I was hoping for good old fashion detention like in high school. I have almost become fearful of the french word gustation, which has come to mean you should eat this and it doesn’t matter if it hurts. Check out the word gustation in your french english dictionary because I think that I’ve loosely translated it.

A Buffet to End the Day

These glass are ab.out 3 inches tall and contain about 1000 calories per inch. But it’s ok there is fruit on some of them. Nothing to worry abut, you can always have you prescription for Lipitor increased.

There are many classic desserts in France and you don’t mess with the classics. Our pastry chef did give us the talk the other day. It’s something best done between mentor and mentee in the privacy of a classroom, where the large convection ovens drown out the awkward  conversation and hide the shock of the true. He actually said Italian  meringue is better than French meringue. It’s true. Why because Italian meringue has a preboiled simple syrup made from about ten pounds of sugar. Wait until this hits the internet.

Here’s another ordinary day in pastry.

Can you Identify all of These Classics?

Relax and Enjoy

I am starting to get adjusted to the quietness of Sunday. Most everything is closed except for the tourist areas and even there, groceries stores are closed. So if you want a baguette on a Sunday, the gas station is an option. Not the premiere location for gastronomic experiences, but they bake baguettes fresh every half hour and croissant and pain chocolat three times a day.

Sunday afternoon in the city. What do those city folks do? Go to the park and Lyon does parks well.

Beautiful Entrance ….Notice Gold Leaf

Parc de la Tête d’Or (“Park of the Golden Head”), in Lyon, is an urban park in France, with 117 hectares (290 acres) it is 8.5 times smaller than bois de Vincennes in Paris. Located in the 6th arrondissement, it features a large lake on which boating takes place during the summer months. Due to the relatively small number of other parks in Lyon, it receives a huge number of visitors over summer, and is a frequent destination for joggers and cyclists.

At the northern end of the park, there is a small zoo, with giraffes, elephants, tigers and other animals. There are also sports facilities, such as a velodrome, boules court, mini-golf, horse riding, and even a miniature train. They let me on the train, but park authorities wouldn’t let me on the free kiddie rides. Here’s a few pictures of the new menu offerings.

Best Served Barbeque with a. Side of White Sauce

Best Served with a Very Tall Beverage of Your Choice

This Little Fella is called Petit Foie Gras

The park is a fantastic place to relax especially this month as the roses are in full bloom. It is true that you should stop and smell the roses. Then you should take pictures and upload them to you blog.

Close to an Acre of Roses

Every Color and the Smell

We are Still in the Park

You Can Even Rent a Boat
No Water Skiing

On my way out of the park, I had another one of those I could live here moments. So I started to scope out real estate. OK truth is I wanted to stare into the really ritzy apartments/ flats overlooking the park. I am guessing that they are more than $500 a month including utilities. I looked on one balcony and somebody in a uniform was serving tea to an elderly woman. The apartments must be a good deal because they come with staff.

If I have disappeared for any reason I am living on the apartment on the right. That’s top right as in the penthouse. Zzzzzzzzzzz. Have I been sleep blogging again?

My New Address

I Did a Bad Thing

Not sure if this has ever happened to you. You eat world class cuisine all week then the weekend comes and you find yourself standing in line trying to decide between combo number 1 or combo number 2. You can pass all the judgements you want, but sometimes you just got to go to the dark side of town. This was the worst meal ever in a famous franchise. You would think that Lyon being the gastronomical capital of the planet that some chef somewhere would have a pimple faced child with a little culinary genetics and the ability to follow instructions who would take pride on the production of  a burger, fries and a super sized beverage.  I checked with some people in my course and apparently the best burger from Golden Arches can be found in either the Czech Republic or Switzerland.

I redeemed myself by living on leftovers for the remainder of the weekend featuring such favorites as a Chicken Supreme Sandwich with ratatouille.  Best ratatouille ever except I forgot the appropriate garnish. Thank goodness I was eating alone otherwise my dinner would have rated a 3 on 5.

Dirty Plate, No Garnish, No Points

Best Ever!

What do the local folks do on a weekend. In the suburbs, there are two choices. Retail malls packed with people or markets packed with people.  The malls are the loudest malls in the world especially between 6:30 pond 7:30 pm because the frenzy has started with the realization that not many places are open on Sunday  and stores are going to close at 8pm so everyone can make it to their 8:30 Bouchon reservation.

Looks Like Everywhere

Over 400 Vendors

here’s some more flea market shots. The flea were expensive. Nice pieces for thousands of euro. I got a used kitchen knife and a potato twister.

This was Jacques Cousteau Original. Really!

Remember Hippies, Years Later, Moved to Lyon

Even Oil Paintings

Recycling at Its Best

Look like Anyone You Know?

First Timed Evaluation

So you think you can cook. You’ve done it a million times. You have friends over, they compliment you on your style and ability. But then again, they just got a free meal and didn’t have to leave a tip. So you you cook for your family and they tell you how much they love your lumpy gravy. Here’s a nouveau way to spend a Friday Morning. Take ten highly motivated individuals from around the world, give them a deadline  and a big pantry.  Fabulous looking and mouthwatering food. Oh I forgot to mention it’s a evaluation day. Not a test because test is not good. An Evaluation because evaluations are a  learning experience. So here’s my plat du jour delivered withoute,  10 seconds of the 12 o’clock deadline. Impressive huh?

Yummy or so I thought

Just before you download this photo, print it and give it to my elderly mother to put on her fridge. Let me tell you about my evaluation.

Nous vous presenton specialement pour vous Filet of Lamb with a hunter sauce reduction on a bed of roasted garlic with wild mushroom garnished with a melange of mint and citrus , buttery mint baby carrots with new potatoes cooked in  a lemon thyme water and pan finished with lemon and orange infused olive oil.

So with my identical plates in hand, I proudly walk into the hallway away from the ever maddening kitchen that looked like a kitchen gadget party gone bad. There is mon chef, the evaluation chef and 30 people  in dark suits, who were very interested in my creation. I guess with my grey hair and my initial look of pride, I think they believed they were experiencing international gastronomic history.

All 30 of them gathered around the table with great interest as the evaluation chef went thru every centimeter of my dish.  He cut my filet, Cinq en Cinq. Five on Five. I am brilliant. Those 30 people should ask me for a photo. Sauce Cinq en Cinq. Five on Five. Perhaps those 30 people are from the Michelin guide and they are here to give me a well deserved star.

Science says stars burn brightest just before they die.  The potatoes were amusing. The carrots were horrible, not cooked. Another note to self- cook carrots and then cook more and then when you think they are cooked, cook them more. Alway put any soft texture like roasted garlic on the top of your hard surfaced meat. Don’t be so cheap with potatoes. My dish ended up in the middle. My 30 fans dispersed with a look of happiness that they were visiting and not cooking.

I Could have been a Contender!

I like meat. I shouldn’t like that much, but I do. Breakfast, lunch or supper or even midnight snack, meat is always the appropriate choice. We’ve eaten a lot of meat and I mean a lot of meat this week. After the whole chicken thing and I mean I almost ate a whole chicken in a 12 hour period with all the sampling and leftovers. You can’t put it in the classroom fridge for later or  4am snack. You have to eat it or it goes in the garbage. I could hear the voices of my grand mothers and mother talking about starving children somewhere.  But that’s right they were using that line for vegetables, not meat.

We did learn how to fancy up cheap vegetables so that they are worthy of being on the same plate as the really expensive meat. Take the price you pay for meat and then triple it. Meat is expensive. I can understand  why I don’t see that many pigeons and I have seen a few worried looking horses.  Had the pigeon this week, not it didn’t taste like chicken. It tasted like pigeon, with a hint of deer liver. My palate is starting to develop.

What did you cook this week is question I get the most so here’s the meat buffet a la Las Vegas.

This is Our Mid Morning Snack

Yes that’s Beef  Wellington with hand made puff pastry. BTW after we labored over the fear and anxiety of making puff pastry, Chef say easier to buy and if you have been following the program- Rule # 1 Chef is always right. Rule #2 Chef is always right and Rule # 3 for those who don’t catch on so quick or who like complexity- take rule one add to rule two and add a liberal amount of dish washing and floor moping and you will never forget rule #1 or you will work in a very shiny kitchen forever.

A Little Something Before 3 Course Lunch

I think it was beef lightly over foie gras, a lovely jus de voillaile with potato ring (forgot fancy way of saying it) with fancy $10 carrots. Note to self – always overcook carrots when having French Chef for Dinner.

Ah Comforting Stew

More Stew

Tuesday Night Meat & Potatoes

N Where’s the Make Up Artist?

Chicken needs a press agent. Nobody says , “Hey I just can’t wait to sink my teeth into a properly roasted chicken.” That exclamation is reserved for steak or redefined steak a.k.a. Hamburger. The healthy folks of the world  eat chicken breast poached in mediocrity. The party people get together and have wings. Not sure who eats the leg and thigh except customers of KFC. Last but not least chicken organs, ok – guts. We’ve run into a media imaging issue. Even if I said try some sauté chicken livers in vodka with toasted walnuts, you would probably opt for day old KFC.

Looks Better than Dead Chicken

Chicken is just like you and me. A lot of us don’t look so great naked and without a certain amount of trimmings and little cooking like tanning, nobody would have us for dinner.

So after a few ingredients later and some quality time under a heat source, you look a lot better than when you woke up.

One of My Creations
Skinless Chicken

A Little More Classic Roast

Once you get though the basics there are a million things that you can do with chicken. Every culture has a chicken recipe. We should celebrate the lowly chicken with a world wide movement. Perhaps international day of the chicken we could all do eh chicken dance at 11:30 and then take a chicken to lunch. The celebration would end approximately one hour and 350 degrees later with only one person coming back from lunch.

Chicken 10 Ways

More Chicken!

Should be Combo 3 at KFC