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A culinary gypsy's search for new ingredients & classic techniques

Buffet Week at Paul Bocuse

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

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.

 

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Ciabatta & Sandwich Bread

Consistent Size Comes with Experience

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.

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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.

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I am a culinary gypsy in search of new ingredients and techniques from around the world. I am pursuing my dream of sharing great tasting food in a great atmosphere in the village of Gagetown, New Brunswick, Canada.

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