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.

3rd Time's the Charm

Hola Barcelona!
Le Cordon Bleu gave us 4 lovely days off from school this last week so of course I had to plan a quick trip to the beach....it was a toss up between Sicily and Barcelona......we went with Barcelona since it's just a quick 1 hour flight away.  Shayda, one of my new "3 amigos" (what I call my new cooking school friends-Shayda and Ranida) joined me on this 3 day adventure. We decided to book our tickets through edreams (first mistake) woke up to find out that our flight to Barcelona was confirmed but the flight back was not. Long story short, we had to book a ticket back to Paris 3 times, I am not kidding. If you ever travel within Europe, I highly advise you to NOT use Ryanair.....they would not let us board our flight then cancelled our other ticket. The positive is we made it back after purchasing our 3rd ticket and I was not "patted down and searched" on the 3rd trip through the security line, unlike the first 2 times.

Barcelona is a foodies dream come true
The food was absolutely outstanding in Barcelona, what a gorgeous city. Here are a few photos from this phenomenal trip:

Beautiful Paella dinner at Restaurant Pez Villa  www.grupotragaluz.com/restaurantes/pez-vela/

Ordered some churros and chocolate, Spanish tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churro

The best part of Barcelona-the Boqueria market on La Rambla street. We were 2 happy girls in this place, spent hours looking at all of the gorgeous fruits, veggies and fresh fish.

Entrance to the Boqueria market.

Fresh fruit juice at the market.

These shellfish are named "Vieira" close to my last name. 

Beautiful fresh fish.

A photo for my Texas friends (popsicles made of fresh fruit) who are making it through our typical hot Texas summer.

We were fortunate to grab a table at the famous Tapas spot called Bar Pinotxo, met the owner who made us an amazing cappuccino.

http://pinotxobar.com

Beach bums in Sitges, Spain
We took a train 40 minutes outside of Barcelona to a beautiful beach called Sitges. Spent the day on the beach and enjoyed some fresh seafood and people watching at a local cafe.

Sitges Beach, Spain

Tour Bus Trip in Barcelona

We gave in and took a tour bus tour around the city on our last day, the city is the second largest in Spain and it truly was the best way to get a lay of the land (we spent 6 hours on the bus-made a trip around the city twice to get our money's worth (-: Barcelona's population within city limits is about 1.6 million and about 40 square miles and if you include the urban areas its population is 4.5 million with about 310 square miles around.

View of the city from the top of the Placa d' Espanya.

Shayda and I at the MNAC.

http://www.casabatllo.es/en/

Fruitcakes and Madeleines:
This week at Le Cordon Blue we were graded on our candied fruit (little known fact..... it takes about 4 weeks of cooking/prepping to candy fruit) and madeleine cakes. I never liked fruit cake until we made this recipe and the madeleines (although they need some aesthetic work) were still delicious.