Proof!

First day back in London. Rainy and wet but there are signs of a spring soon to come.



Today we began with an easy introductory to the second semester of pastry. Just when I thought I had finally gotten over the exam embarrassment of my wet pate a choux and burnt pastry cream, what is our first recipe? Gateau St Honore (a cake composed of non other than pate a choux and puff pastry). I hoping this was not done in my honor, or should I say in my memory…

We’ll see how it turns out tomorrow.

Despite a two hour torturous reminder of the past, I received a sweet reward that made it all worth it:



Pain is Beauty





Darcy Jones

Case of the Cordon BLUES

A gloomy peace this morning with it brings. And what a tearful 24 hours it has been. As you may have guessed, the cuisine exam did not go well. And now you know that I am a rather dramatic mourner of all things lost in testing situations.

I was given a break, or so I thought, and pulled the beef as my test recipe. I will spare you the long drawn out details of how and where I went wrong, how I couldn't get anything right, and how despite getting the easiest of the 3 recipes, I still managed to run 2 minutes late (costing me 2% points per minute off my score). This is all acceptable, until the shocking news arrived: the judges had made a horrifying discovery on my plate. It arrived to the table with a hair hidden in the carrots... Not only could this hair never have come from my head, but there was absolutely no sign of it when I checked the plate prior to leaving the kitchen. Eat your heart out lemon sole; when chef returned with this news, I was the gutted one.



And so this morning reared it's ugly head and for the first time, in I can't remember when, I had to forgo contacts for glasses.
Assessing the damage done to my living room from the previous post-assessment evening: a kicked bottle of Bordeux, two bloodied and beef-jus-stained aprons, a cell phone convulsing on the last legs of low battery, and a barrage of increasingly depressing and indecipherable text messages to anyone and everyone who would listen, I realized I was acting more like a carnivorous beast than the distinguished culinary student I am supposed to be.

With that (and with a big fat Please Forgive Me gift in route to my husband's office) I stumbled into my kitchen to resurrect another fallen hero...



With a clear disdain for travel of any kind (see their previous appearance), these pate a choux swans have become my Stay-at-Home-Swans. Let's just hope that if I get these Homebody Birds on the pastry exam they'll be suffering from a rare case of cabin fever and relish an outing to the schools patisserie...


Chantilly Crack


Ducks in a Rows


Squawk Box


Love Birds


Darcy Jones