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

Sojourn with the Swans of Chantilly

It was an evening of eclairs that began with a creme chantilly cocktail, and ended with a flock of swans in my foyer.

I realize that I just painted a picture for you that sounds something like the movie The Hangover so let me start again.

Three words: Pate a Choux, or Choux-Pastry. The name derives from the pastry's baked appearance: when cooked the pastry surface resembles the head of a cabbage (or at least some ancient french chef believed so). Regardless, choux-pastry is one of the cornerstones of French Patisserie, and can weigh about a stone when filled with coffee Creme Patissiere and covered with chocolate fondant.



Choux Pastry is an incredibly satisfying thing to make if you are a baker, for it doubles in volume in a warm oven in under 30 minutes. Considering the near 48hrs it takes to make brioche, this is remarkably swift and satiating. Once cooked, Choux Pastry can also be successfully frozen and defrosted to then be filled and served. Hence the array of fresh eclairs, Paris brests, religieuses, and salambos found in any pastry shop each day.

It was quite seamless in the kitchen tonight. I wouldn't quite say 'ballerina stage' (the term used to describe the beauty of an organized and skilled chef who works about the kitchen as though his every move were part of a choreographed dance), but some of us have definitely found a rhythm.

I have made some personal progress in the patisserie. Today my eclairs (pictured above) won Best In Show, or in class at least, and my family of swans received a resounding honorable mention.


Family Cygnes

So sailing home at half past 10, glowing with the success of my good grade, and delighting in the prospect of a late dinner of prize-winning dessert, I missed the door step and proceeded to set my swans free to fly all the way across the front hall floor.

"Those babies can really move across the sky..."
Image not available.

As for them? At least you knew them at their best... As for me? Seems I need to work on my footwork in and out of the kitchen.



In Memoriam

Darcy Jones

APPLE OF MY EYEsore

Today marked our first foray in the pastry kitchen. During our inaugural lesson, I bore witness to the single most impressive fruit salad ever made. This delicious delicate dessert sings with the flavors of fresh vanilla and citrus and sounds of warm anise, cinnamon, and clove. It’s simply seductive syrup is used to infuse and preserve the fruits maximizing freshness and flavor, and let’s just say ‘fogettaboutit’- this is a natural sugar high.

Sadly, all highs must be followed by lows: after a 3 hour-long demonstration on the art of decorative fruit cuts (colloquially entitled ‘Fruits on Crack’) I was inspired to create a citrus sanctuary in my own kitchen. And from a substantial covey of Granny Smith apples here what I bagged:



I would say my V-cut creature looks more like Bird of FrIgHt than Bird in Flight.



In case you are wondering, it is supposed to be a swan...an apple a day, this way, won’t keep the doctor away.

Feeling rather demoralized at my lagging knife skills, I decided to flee the world of fruit and food for a breath of fresh air.
Although I met with no swans on my jog, I managed to enter Hyde Park just as a fresh snow coated the city commons. The flakes were so big and breathtaking that I had to stop and admire: I couldn’t help from imagining a celestial chef with his chinoise, smiling as he sieved the clouds to dust the square bellow in sugar.



This was truly a foodie’s fairytale.


Darcy Jones