First day in Pastry and we hit the ground running! The next class started today and Pastry is responsible for making breakfast not only for our class but for the new class (we have 14 in our class and they have 22 students in their class). The new class will spend their first month in Wine just like we did in June. Once we got coffee made (we are the first people there in the morning!) and started to set up the breakfast or "snack" table as Chef Lexie calls it, she gave out assignments for the next week. I have snacks! I am the only woman in my group again so the "boys" got to choose what they wanted to do. Shawn and Geoff are doing bread, Corey and Collin are doing dessert, and April has snacks. First thing I was told to make was blueberry muffins, tripling the recipe to feed all these people. Hurry, hurry! Corey cut up fruit for me, although tomorrow that will fall to me. Collin sliced cheese and meats to put out. Corey also soft boiled some eggs.
We had a lecture after that on Provence. Provence in southeastern France is known not only as the "Port of Olives" but also as the "Land of the Sun". Southern Provence is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea (lots of seafood here), the Rhone River to the east and the Alps and Italy The climate in Provence is dominated by two factors: the wind and the sun. The summers are hot and sunny, the winters are chilly with the "mistral" winds that begin in Massif Central and makes its way down the Rhone.
The Greeks brought olives to Provence 2500 years ago and established the harbor of Marseille (mar-say). Because of this, you see more olive oil here than butter used in cooking. 500 years later, the Romans came and took over this area. Provence was the first Roman province outside of Italy. With the Romans came vineyards and wine making. The Romans also developed irrigation systems for agriculture using water from the Rhone River. Provence is actually older than France itself!
The "holy trinity of Provence" is olives, tomatoes and garlic. Vegetables play an extremely important role in the cuisine here, zucchini, sweet peppers, greens, artichokes, fennel, eggplant, fava beans, asparagus, and haricot vert (green beans). Herbs grown here include lavender, thyme, rosemary, savory, chervil, mint, marjoram, oregano, saffron and basil. The further away from the Mediterranean coast and further north into this region, olive trees make way for nut trees, so nut oils are frequently used for cooking in northern or "Haute Provence". Fruits include berries, cherries, figs, lemons, apricots and melons. Livestock includes goats (with LOTS of goat cheese being made-Provence is world famous for their goat cheese), rabbit and lamb as well as some cows.
Boullabaisse is their most famous dish as well as ratatouille (just like the movie!). Provence is mostly known for their rose wines-70% of wine from this region is rose. Grapes grown here are mouvedre, grenache, cinsault and syrah. They also make Cassis wine (not to be confused with the liquor Creme de Cassis) and Pastis-the French national drink and aperitif (tastes like black licorice).
Then we learned how to fabricate a rack of lamb, which, by the way, is what we had for lunch today. Hot Plate did a good job! Pistachio Crusted rack of Lamb served with Ratatouille. GardeMo made Crespeau, which is egg pancakes layered with green olive tapenade, black olive tapenade, and goat cheese, served with a tomato/red pepper coulis. Yummy!
For dessert Colin and Corey made a Paris Brest, which if you remember is the round ring of Pate a Choux first made to celebrate the bicycle race between Paris and Brest (pronounced bress). They cut it in half then layered boozy cherries, Pastry cream and whipped cream in it then put the "lid" back on. They did a great job!
Then it was time to clean up and go home. I am doing breakfast (or snacks, depending on your point of view!) by myself tomorrow so it will be a busy morning. I made Pate Brisee for quiches on Wednesday and mixed a Royale (3 eggs to one cup of liquid, in my case I chose cream) using 9 eggs. I'll choose the filling for it tomorrow after I see what's in the walk-in. I also made four loaves of Banana Bread! That's for breakfast tomorrow. Busy, busy, busy!
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