It was only 30 degrees this morning! Brrrrr..... A cold walk to school! We stopped off at a street market before going to school. Marie Ann met us and showed us where it was. Unbelievable vegetables-any and all varieties, fish and shellfish-some of which I have never seen, meats of all kinds-everything from raw beef, pork and chicken to charcuterie cured meats, only one bread maker and loads of clothing, scarves, shoes, etc. It seemed to go on for blocks! We did get a black turnip to try. None of us had ever seen one!
After the market, it was off to cooking school. Today Chef Denis (Pronounced Denny) was back. I had not met him before today but he was very nice. He is another assistant to Chef Martial. We made Pumpkin Soup garnished with a mix of Chanterelle and white mushrooms as a first course. Our main course, or Les Plats Principaux, was Filet de Canette roti aux navets etnjus court. In English, duck breast with a brown sauce with a side of tourne of parsnips, carrots and onions ( I didn't know they did tourne to things other than potatoes! ). Dessert was Napolean or in French, Millefeuille a la vanille. It was definitely not your mama's (or Cook Street's for that matter) Napolean. We let the rectangles of puff pastry rise in the oven. So each layer was quite large. It ended up very light and fluffly, just the right ending to a heavy meal.
Once school was finished, we took the Metro to see Raoul Maeder's bakery. He has won many awards for his baking and supplies many of the Michelin star restaurants in Paris with bread. He works in the basement of his store, the retail portion taking up the first floor. His kitchen is quite small, but he manages to turn out anyway from 1400-2000 baguettes a day! He also makes pastry as well as numerous other breads. We watched him mix a batch of bread that will be baked tomorrow morning. They use fresh yeast, water, salt, and flour for their baguettes. The baguettes were the best I've ever had! We also tasted bagels, seed crusted bread, sourdough bread, chocolate bread with chocolate chips, anise and orange zest sweet bread, orange zest and chocolate sweet bread as well as a couple of different pastries made with pate sable and filled with fruit. Absolutely wonderful! No one does bread and pastry as well as the French.
Alta and I did a little shopping after our field trip. We found a cook book store called the "Librairie Gormande". Alta bought a couple of cookbooks and Tim bought a wine map of France. Tim was from the class before ours and woks for a winery in North Dakota (didn't know they made wine in North Dakota-who'd a thought!) and is going to do a presentation for his co-workers when he gets back. We kind of got lost and the stores close at 7pm, so we ran out of time and did not go into any more stores. Maybe later. I've noticed that almost every French woman wears boots! And they dress nicer than most American! Unfair that they can look so good! Ah, well....say la vie!
I did learn something in Italy that I keep forgetting to write about. Chef Piero told us that instead of using lemons to keep fruits and vegetables from turning brown, you can use carbonated water. The water doesn't alter the taste of the food. I thought that was a nice alternative. Just thought I would pass that on!
No comments:
Post a Comment