Upper Crust

Epicurus told us that we should first “ look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink.”

But I take issue with this position, for I am more of a if-you-bake-it-they-will-come foodlosopher.

And bake, I did:

Now I just wonder where everyone is... Nevertheless, my buns, bread, and biscuits are happy hibernating for the winter in my freezer, or at least until further notice.


The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

Today marked our first battle in the Boulangerie. Equipped with a menu of British Soda Bread (sourdough) and white dinner rolls we prepared for a long night of kneading, knocking back, and nailing bread.

For all this violent language, the process of bread baking in fact involves more nurturing than knockdown drag-out fighting. As it turns out, bread is a highly particular animal. It requires multiple moments of resting in its 12 stage development. The resting periods allow the dough to relax and grow (or rise), where as the gradual shaping intervals help discipline the otherwise unruly creature. Highly sensitive to temperature, dependent upon precise measurements, and deathly afraid of direct contact with salt, bread dough clearly lives up to it's KNEADY name: it must be looked after from the moment of its inception.


Bun in the Oven

Traditionally, bread was baked in a hearth over a roaring fire that blackened the bottom portion of the loaf. Therefore, the upper unscathed part was given to the master of the house, giving rise to the modern connotations of the term Upper Crust.


The Roll-ing Stones

But today we cooked for the masses creating individual dinner rolls, each shaped by hand and topped with a variety of custom flavors including fennel, poppy, and seasame seeds, olives, and flour to name a few.

I even included an extra specially personalized Romantic Roll:


Virtual Valentine for my husband :)

So although I am not ready to surrender the butchery just yet, I am willing to declare a small victory in the Boulangerie today.



Darcy Jones

My Fair Mayfair

I am most certain that a Nightingale did not sing in Berkeley Square this morning. At 3 bellow Celsius, London seemed reluctant to awake: even at half past 8, the evening street lamps still shone, as I took my first of many brisk walks down Marylebone Lane.



Morning in Mayfair is surprisingly similar to the early hours on Manhattan’s Upper East Side: a fleet of dark overcoats sail down busy narrow streets, all luffing in the face of a whipping winter wind. Navigating these waters first thing can be both cruel and comforting for a transplant like myself. For at least this morning, I felt a bit closer to home. And so it is fitting that my home-away-from-home for the next 9 months can be reached in an utter New York minute.

Tucked away in a quiet corner in Maryleborne lies a rather unassuming stone façade. As humble as the British and as traditional as the French, it is quite fitting that the culinary school of the ages calls this it’s London home. But by 9am this seemingly sleepy mews is rudely awakened. Screaming ovens and hissing pans sound through the bright blue shutters, as the alleyway bellow fills with echoes of whisked stainless steel. It is vinaigrette, it is mayonnaise, it is crème Chantilly… it is just another morning at Le Cordon Bleu.

Day one in the kitchen began with a bang (or siren that is): fire alarm in the boulangerie. A surge of steam, smoke, and students followed, all billowing onto the sidewalk. All of us in our iron pressed uniforms formed a rather remarkable sea of crisp white naiveté. I do not think I have ever felt so small, so inexperienced, and so out of my element. But as I stood shivering in this sea of frightened and frozen faces, the first snowflakes of the new year began to fall, and I realized that my story is just one of many on this day of new beginnings.


Darcy Jones