"A party without a cake is just a meeting."-Julia Child

Sorry for the late post but I was swamped this last week with course work and some personal stuff, all is well and as always, I am looking to the future and counting my blessings.

No Meetings here.......
NO MEETINGS here, just dinner party business when the Le Cordon Bleu Patisserie future chefs get together for an evening of fun. This is the first time in my life that I have been surrounded by people who are just like me.....they love talking about food, recipes, restaurants and cooking together in our spare time after just having spent our entire day cooking in class. 

At one point we had between 5-7 girls cooking in my small kitchen....it was one of the fondest memories that I will take with me from this whole experience.We had so much food, everyone made something specific to their country....we had had the following countries represented in our buffet below, (Turkey, Iran, Italy, Japan, France, Spain, U.S.) great assortment of choices.

Shayda to the left making Persian rice, Yumi making sushi and Pelin making a Turkish dish.

All of us in my apartment enjoying our buffet of food after hours of cooking. 

Great food and great company.

This week at Le Cordon Bleu:
Wow, lots and lots of cooking this last week. Oh, and did I mention that I set the table on fire with the torch while trying to caramelize citrus tarts?!?! I also forgot to mention a few weeks back that I put my supply bag in the oven (we never use the conventional ovens just the convection ovens) for storage and someone walked by and turned on the oven. I noticed an odd burning smell and smoke coming out of the oven, thank goodness I retrieved my bag before it melted entirely. 

On a positive note, I met with the head chef for my evaluation and I am happy to report that to date I have a very good grade (with God's grace). I have been praying and working on improving and it's working...YAY! The things that I have to work on before finals are; piping decoration technique, puff pastry dough, tart sweet dough and a few other things. I am blessed to have a dear friend in the program who is an outstanding future patisserie chef, she is going to help me over the next few weeks before our final.

A variety of tarts, the head chef called this Texas sized tart rings because the French prefer smaller  ones. 

The infamous torch in front of my baking sheet. 

A wonderful caramelized pear tart that I made this week. 

Out with a few Le Cordon Bleu friends, the school hosted a dinner for us this week.

Getting my $$$ worth out of my Eurail pass.......
Since I am on a strict budget I decided the cheapest way for me to travel over the next few weeks is by Eurail. I am happy to say it has worked out beautifully thus far, I accidentally sat in the "reserved for pregnant and elderly" seats on my first adventure and did not realize until it was too late...I was wondering why I was getting strange looks from the elderly gentleman next to me. 

First stop....Honfleur, France:
I decided to take a last minute trip to Honfleur and it did not disappoint, except for maybe the fact that when I got to the beach there was no ocean water...I am not kidding, the tide was at least 3 football field lengths down and you could not even walk to the water thousands of feet away because the sand was like quick sand in some spots. It was still beautiful and relaxing, pretty much just laid out on the sand and watched the tide finally start to move in 2 hours later.

I was so excited about a little salt water and sunshine, walked onto the beach and discovered that is not what mother nature had in mind. It was absolutely stunning though and I had the beach to myself.

Took 2 hours for the tide to come in, amazing to watch.

Cargo ship going into port looks so strange without water.

This town is straight out of a movie, birds chirping, the smell of flowers in the air and beautiful streets lined with french homes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honfleur

Second stop.....Giverny-Vernon, France-The Monet Gardens
Took a quick one hour trip up to see the Maison et Jardins de Claude Monet (Claude Monet's House and Gardens). Words cannot describe the beauty these gardens embrace, what a blessing to get to see this in person.

The gardens in front of Claude Monet's home. 

The reflection pond, gorgeous. 

Me standing on bridge, reflection pond...see water below.

Parting thought for the week...
"Pay more attention to your CREATOR than your critics. "-Author unknown 

Crazy busy week at school, I will post my last Sunday post on Wednesday.

Here is a sneak peak at the last week of cooking, I will post more on Wednesday....I have class form 8:30am-9:30pm today. I did manage to catch about 3ft by 3ft of the table on fire when I was torching the sugar on my citrus tart...LOL.....no one was harmed, thank the Lord.

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. Proverbs 27:17

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend- Proverbs 27:17
This Bible verse describes my precious friendship with Anne, I always leave a better person after spending time with her. For the last 4 (plus) years I have been blessed to travel around the U.S. and the world with Anne. This year, we both celebrated big changes in our lives....me moving to Paris for Le Cordon Bleu and Anne moving to Amsterdam to work as a buyer for Calvin Klein (and yes, I got the hook up on a gorgeous CK jacket that will be featured in the 2014 spring collection---thanks Anne.) 

Best way to see the beautiful canals in Amsterdam is by boat and of course a Dutch beer.

Precious cheese shop next to Anne's house. Cheese, heart and a mouse.....about sums up my feelings towards cheese.

Borrowed Anne's bike and toured the city, gorgeous city.

Flowers grow so beautifully in Amsterdam, the weather is perfect. 

Great spa day to wrap up a great weekend. This is the violin centerpiece when you walk into the hotel. http://www.conservatoriumhotel.com/spa-and-gym/the-spa/

Le Cordon Bleu:
Another awesome week at Le Cordon Bleu. I was the assistant to the chef in class this week, made a little "technical error" and gave our classmates the wrong pie ring size...whoops. We were all wondering why our batter did not spread evenly......it was too late at that point to correct the situation (those of you who know me well will laugh) The chef and my classmates were really kind about the whole thing.

Beautiful Meringue and raspberry sorbet cake. 

Made marzipan roses in class, going to make these for Rosie's baby shower when I am back in Texas. 

French Mocha Cake. 

Opera national de Paris:
We lucked out and purchased the last two tickets to the last ballet of the season at the Opera national de Paris. 

La galeria in the Opera House.

Interior of the Opera House, stunning. 

 Beautiful Ballet, sad story but made you think. http://www.operadeparis.fr/en/saison_2012_2013/Ballets/la-sylphide/detail/

Perspective #3 
I will never get tired of seeing the Eiffel Tower, this is a great view from Palais de Tokyo. http://www.palaisdetokyo.com

 

Where are you going? Where do you go?

Perspective:

This is my Paris perspective for the week. The 3 Amigas ventured out (along with thousands and thousands of other folks) to celebrate Bastille Day (French National Day)  in the park in front of the Eiffel tower. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastille_Day 

Shayda, myself and Ranida enjoying Bastille Day in front of the Eiffel tower. We got there 7 hours early to get good seats.

Paris Fashion Week:
My beautiful fashion friend Anne, who I am happy to say just got a job as a buyer for Calvin Klein in Europe....would be proud to know that I attended the Paris Haute Couture exhibition http://www.hotels-paris-rive-gauche.com/blog/2013/03/05/paris-haute-couture-exhibition-at-hotel-de-ville-until-6th-july-2013/. Very interesting designs and it was free. 

Interesting outfit by Maison Martin Margiela.

Le Cordon Bleu-Macaroon Week, YAY!
Lots and lots of cooking this last week at Le Cordon Bleu. I am so excited about the macaroons, I thought I did not like these little guys until we made them in class last week.

Chocolate, vanilla, pistachio and raspberry vanilla Macaroons.

Choux pastry, these little guys are delicious.

Eclairs.....umm, yes please.

Touring and taste testing restaurants around town:
We spend a lot of our time between classes touring the city and researching the best restaurants in town to review. Cafe De Flore is always a pleasure to visit, we got the VIP treatment when our waiter found out were were patisserie students.

The Famous Cafe De Flore.

Great onion soup at Au pied du sacre coeur.

Long hike up to Sacre Coeur Basilica but well worth it, gorgeous view of the city.

Perspective.

Eiffel Tower 360 degree views

So I thought it would be fun to feature a picture of the Eiffel Tower from different locations around the city spots that I frequent. So here goes the first photo:

This is a view from the American Expat July 4th Party at Pore de Suffren https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Port+de+Suffren,+75007+Paris,+Paris

Le Cordon Bleu

It has been a long week of cooking but so much fun, very meticulous work.

Demonstration day in the classroom.

The chef bakes a sample of what we are going to bake.

Glazing our Palmiers.

The Chaussons aux pommes.