Don't take me tongue tied... Don't wave no goodbye.....

My eyes on your eyes. Like Peter Pan up in the sky....
(Grouplove- Tongue Tied)

Intermediate Lesson 23- Brittany

We go back up north today, to the northwestern region of Brittany. It's right next to Normandy and shares a lot of similar characteristics with its neighbor. I remember visiting Rennes and Saint-Malo 3 years ago. They were really lovely towns and I'd love to go back and visit other cities in the area.

Our dish today is a Monkfish wrapped in bacon with braised artichokes, broccoli and cauliflower "pannequet."

For this dish, we had to fillet the monkfish, which is so ugly people have to sell them without their heads or no one would buy them. I'm personally not a fan because of its texture. At least we didn't have to scale the thing. We also made blini pancakes with cauliflower and broccoli fillings. Finally, we had to turn two artichokes for the garnishing, and you know artichokes go way back....

We finished a bit late today, at 6:05pm, and as assistants we had to clean up the practical room. Since we had a demonstration class at 6:30pm, most people rushed through their cleanup work and wehad to do more cleaning, in addition to returning the supplies to the storage room in the basement. These two basic cuisine students came in and started nitpicking about how dirty the room was in front of me. Seriously, do you not see us cleaning the place? You still had plenty of time anyways. I told them they had plenty of time, and they just snapped back. "We are assistants! And we need the room now!" I looked at the clock, they still had 10 minutes. Assistants from 2 different classes working together is rather common in this school, since the classes are so tightly packed. Whatever, some people in this school just take themselves too seriously. I've heard of crazy psycho students who steal supplies of other classmates or go into shouting matches with each other over shared space. I'm so glad that my classmates in my last two classes had been normal and cool. We're still very demanding ourselves and work really hard, but I've never had the hostile work environment that some people apparantly experienced.

It's been a long day and we've just finished our third class. After I had everything organized, I was so exhausted that I took a 1 minute power nap before our fourth and final class. Of course my very loving classmates all decided to take photos of me outside of the demonstration room.

Nap Time. Photo credit: Nour

I'm wearing a mask because I'm still pretty sick and don't want to get anyone else sick, and also because we deal with so many food products everyday.

Quotes from this class:

Student: Chef? There's a worm in my fish!
Chef: Yes it's quite normal that there are worms in the fish. That's how you know that it's fresh.
Student: ITS STILL MOVING
Chef: Just throw it out. You'll be cooking the fish anyways.
... 1 minute later....
Student: CHEFTHEREISANOTHERWORMINMYFISH
Chef: Just throw that out too.
Student: I can't do this anymore. Give me a zero for this class. I'm fine butchering chickens filleting fish but I can't take this!
Chef: Just work on your vegetables first and we'll talk.
The student was a good sport. She finished her dish anyways.


"They say even a blind person can make beurre noisette. It is ready when the melted butter stops sizzling on the stove."

-Demo Chef Caals,

On how to make Beurre Noisette (Brown butter)

Nobody does it quite the way you do......

Why you had to be so good.....
(Carly Simon- Nobody does it better)

Intermediate Lesson 22- Laguedoc

We take the SNCF west a bit today and head to Languedoc. Previously, I only knew Languedoc as a major contributor of the European Wine Lakes. Winemakers in Languedoc have been making sub-par table wine that could not compete against South American and Australian wines in the global market. Instead of responding to competitive pressure, they decided instead that their established way of life is more important to protect and used their political clout to force the EU government to buy up all the wines that they cannot sell. The gastronomy section of our hand out basically sums up how mediocre this place is:

This vast area is rich in arable land, natural resources and culinary traditions.

That's it. This kind of generic friendly description is akin to saying a ugly person has a nice personality. Why are we even studying this place?

At least we made a pretty good dish. We made a traditional white bean stew, or a cassoulet. Sadly we didn't have nice pretty ceramic container to present our dish in, only aluminum take out containers. It was still really good though.

Boom

The dish contained poached white beans (poached), bacon, lamb, sausages, tomato concassé, and a confit de canard. All in all, a really hearty and delicious dish.

The frustrating thing about this class was the demo chef and practical chefs had completely different ways of cooking the dish. Chef Bogen showed us one way, and in practical Chef Ju basically told us to cook it in a completely different way. The end result is I would do something according to Chef Bogen, and then I would have to redo certain steps because Chef Ju had a totally different thing in mind.  I heard the other intermediate class also had the same problem with Chef Gui. This is pretty annoying since the whole teaching method of Le Cordon Bleu is to force students to pay attention in demontration class, take notes, and then replicate the dish in practical. I understand that every chef has a different way to prepare the same dish, and that everyone thinks that his or her method is the best. However, this is quite frustrating for cooking neophytes like me when I'm just trying to learn to cook. 

Why can't the chefs all just have a weekly meeting in which the demo chef walk through the way he wants a certain dish to be prepared, and the practical chefs just go with it? Then in practical maybe the practical chefs can share some personal tips on how they would do things differently without forcing everyone in the class to change. I think students would benefit tremendously from more organization and coordination.

Quote from this class:

"And I am going to add a bit of duck fat into each of these pots. What? I tell you, duck fat is good for your health!"

-Demo Chef Bogen,

As he puts huge slabs of white translucent duck fat into 3 of his pans.

He heard the students (mainly me) gasp at the amount of fat and

felt compelled to explain himself

Sur Le Pont d'Avignon, On y Danse, On y Danse....

Les belles dames font comme ça! Et puis encore comme ça!
(Sur Le Pont d'Avignon)

Intermediate Lesson 21- Provence

We've arrived at Provence, with a ice-cold bottle of Côtes de Provence rosé in our hand and surrounded by lavender fields. In my opinion, Provence is the most beautiful region of france. Avignon, Aix-en-Provence, Arles, Nîmes..... I've always said that if I ever make it big in life, one of the thing I would do is to drive a convertible sports car to the Verdon Gorge and then para-glide down the canyon.... One day.

We made pretty incredibly annoying dish. A fish stew with a Mediterranean scorpion fish and a John Dory, with a fish stew flavored by a conger eel. In other words, we had to fillet three different types of fish, marinate the fish, and then cook the damn thing. The dish wouldn't be so annoying if it actually tasted good. Sadly, it tasted rather bland. The sauce was not flavorful enough to be delicious, yet we've added so many things that one could not taste the fish anymore.

Dun-dun-dun!

The sauce is flavored by a bunch of aromatic garnishes. But we also added some saffron and espelette pepper for flavor. There's also basil involved. For the thickener, we used a potato, egg yolk and garlic. All in all, I think the dish was too busy.

I must say though, this is the first time that I thought my fish fillets came out pretty good.All the practices I had from the past really paid off, because I THINK I'm finally grasping the skills necessary to fillet a fish. Finally, my fillets came out looking respectable. I'm very proud of myself.

We had Chef Bogen for practical today, who has been MIA since Basic Cuisine ended. This man knows how to keep the pressure up, although I have to admit he's eased down a lot today relative to the man I remembered from before. Perhaps it's because we are in intermediate, or perhaps he has changed. I don't know. I have to admit that he would pretty good advice every time he saw me doing something very wrong.

Quote of the class:

Demo Chef Poupard: Pop quiz, what is the base of a Sauce Américaine?

Student 1: Is it ketchup?

Chef: WHAT? No.....! You want to make a sauce with Heniz?

Student 1: Doesn't the American sauce contain ketchup? Or mayonnaise or something?

Chef: No madam! We might as well mix in some Tobasco Sauce! I think you're confusing it with cocktail sauce.

Student 1: Geee.... then I have never heard of Sauce Américaine!

Chef: We just did it last week!

Student 2: It's a sauce made with a lobster base.
Chef: Thank you! At least someone is still awake.

Et j'ai dit.... Bonne idée....

Et puis j'ai vu de la lumière et je vous ai trouvés...
(Jean-Jacques Goldman- Bonne Idée)

Intermediate Lesson 20- Loire Valley

Before I start today, I'd like to tell you a joke from high school French:

Why do the French like Easter? Because it's a Bonne idée (Bunny day)! Hah... okay not that funny. But this explains the title track of today's entry. Yes we had rabbit again. And this time is much more complicated than my encounter in basic, which was also my exam dish.

Hop!

This time, in addition to cutting a rabbit into different pieces, we had to fillet out the meat from the bones, and then use the meat to wrap around the forcemeat that we created from its two front legs, its liver and a duxelle. We also threw some prunes in for kicks.

Sadly, I had to rush through the dish today because we had back-to-back demonstration and practical classes, and the demonstration class ran late. We finished our demo at 6:20pm, and I effectively had 10 minutes to change into practical uniform and prep the kitchen as assistant for 6:30pm class. I was therefore far behind most people today in class. This is compounded by the fact that the fillet work of the rabbit was so complex. At least I got it done. In rushing to complete the dish, I forgot that we were suppose to serve only one slice of the loin with a hind leg instead of the whole loin, so as you can see in my photo I have this chunky piece of meat next to my rabbit leg (whopse). At least my dish tasted good.

On the other hand, my garnish came out great. We had these baked potatoes from which we dug out the contents, mashed the potato and added scallion and cheese, and then filled it back to the potato skins. That I did very well.

I just wish that my cold can get better. The fact that I was late already gave me a lot of pressure, worse yet is I had to be careful to 1. not cough to much 2. cover my mouth when I do cough 3. go wash my hands every time I cough. I definitely lost a lot of time as a result.

Quote from this class:

Demo Chef Stril:(in French) ... and there's a lot of fish in the Loire River.

Translator looked dazed...

Chef Stril:(in French) ... and there's a lot of fish in the Loire River. *WAVES HIS HANDS vigorously

Translator: (in English) and there's a lot of fish in the Loire River. (In French) I was here Chef!

Chef Stril: (In French) well so am I! Wake up! *laughs

As we entered our practical classroom, it was very clear the previous class didn't clean the room thoroughly

Student 1: Ohh the room's a mess! Who was here before us?

Student 2: It was the basic kids.

Student 1: Those stupid basic students. What rookies!

Student 2: Now we have to clean their mess!

Guys... we were in basic less than a month ago ourselves....

He took the midnight train going anywhere.....

For a smile they can share the night. It goes on and on and on and on..... 
(Journey- Don't Stop Believing)

Intermediate Lesson ??- Lunch on the Eiffel Tower

Similar to the basic class, we had a class lunch at a location that is known for its culinary excellence  as a tourist trap. This time we had lunch on the Eiffel Tower. I was so excited because I've always wanted to eat at Le Jules Verne, a one-michelin starred restaurant on the tower.  To my dismay, the school actually planned on taking us to Le 56, a still-respectable-but-definitely-a-letdown restaurant.

So did I go to the lunch? Nope. I was invited to a conference in Bordeaux organized by KEDGE and ISVV on China and French wines, which I really wanted to check out. So I took the first train out of Paris and arrive at St Émilion to do some work this afternoon, and then drove to Bordeaux for the conference. I hope the school doesn't count this as an absence.

People commuting into Paris for work in the morning

I met a lot of interesting folks from the conference, and hopefully I'll see them more in the future. I felt so bad being at the conference though, since I was coughing so excessively. Even though I was sitting in the last row of the lecture hall, I could tell that I was distracting the audience as the Professor gave her presentation:

"In our study...."
*COUGH* 

 "of Languedoc and Provence wines...."
*NASTY COUGH*

"we found no significant correlation between..."
*YOU KNOW THERE'S PHLEGM COUGH*

"willingness to pay...."
*SERIOUSLY I'M TRYING SO HARD NOT TO COUGH

"of Chinese buyers of French wine.... "
*COUGHING OUT MY LUNGS

"and the following variables...."
*........cough

There's definitely a lot more Chinese presence in the region these days, either as owner-representatives, or as employees for vineyards to better understand their #1 customer.

I clearly have my priorities all wrong, because the thing that I looked most forward to coming back to St Émilion is not the intellectually-stimulating conference, nor the wine, but my fireplace and my magret de canard.

I can stare at this all day...With a glass of Armagnac or Cognac!
That'll definitely make my cough better.

BOOM!

A Proper, Country, Non-Gourmet Magret De Canard!

I'm so not looking forward to taking the morning train back to Paris tomorrow. The train ride is always painful and cold.

This was from my previous rides. 

No quote of the day, since I didn't spend any time with LCB people, but here's a conversation I had with a friend from home:

Friend: Is the Oui chef part of the blog real?

Me: All real quotes

Friend: No way..... Every class?

Me: All quotes are real

Friend: hmm......

Me: Hah way to call it the Oui chef part.

Boom, badoom, boom, He got that super bass!

See I need you in my life for me to stay

(Nicki Minaj- Super Bass)

Intermediate Lesson 19- Côte d'Azur (French Riviera)

I arrived at Le Cordon Bleu's building on Rue Léon Delhomme at 11:30am, guilty for having skipped morning practical and leaving Gulnazi to do all the assistant duties. I then found out that only 6 out of 10 people from my group showed up to class, and Gulnazi wasn't one of them. Yep, neither of the assistants today came, and Chef Poupard had to move all the materials to the second floor classroom himself. When my partner-in-crime Gulnazi strolled into the building at 12:00pm, she apologized embarassingly for skipping morning class.

"Gulnazi, I didn't go to class either" I laughed.

"Wait, so who moved all the materials to the classroom?" She asked astonishingly.

"Chef Poupard."

"Oh, shi.........."

"Yep."

Chef Poupard, who also led our demo class at 12:30pm, didn't look too bothered when I apologized today for not being there. He just threatened to fail me so I would have to repeat intermediate in January. Hahah..... oh wait was that not a joke? I couldn't tell. Ummm... Please don't.

For this class, we drove our imaginary convertible Renault Dinalpin along the Mediterranean coast to the Côte d'Azur (French Riviera). Ahh a burst of sunshine by the beach in Cannes is exactly what I need now. We made a puff pastry galette with marinated sea bass, virgin vinaigrette with basil.

Boom.

The dish was very straightforward to make, especially since we didn't have to prepare the pâte feuilletée ourselves. We just baked the thing. We even prevented the puff pastry from rising too much by putting another baking sheet directly over the dough.

On top of the puff pastry, we put some tomato concassé mixed with really soft onions, brunoised green peppers and sliced black olives.

We filleted the sea bass, cut the ill-tempered fish into thin pieces, and then marinated it in a lemon-based sauce. The acid of the lemon cooks the sea bass without heat, and we would have to serve the fish 10-15 minutes after soaking the meat in the marinate or the fish would be overcooked.

We even had some dried tomatoes and balsamic vinaigrette as decorations. All in all, this was a pretty and delicious dish.

Quote from this class:

Demo Chef Poupard: Now add a few drops of Tobasco sauce into your marinate

American Student: Wow wait, you have Tabasco sauce in France?

Chef: Oui.... of course.

Student: Where can you find it?

Chef: Anywhere..... in any supermarket.

Student: No way! Where? I've never seen it.

Chef: Typically these are placed in the condiment area, where one would expect it.

... 10 minutes of back-and-forth later...

Student: I just find it incredible that you can buy Tobasco sauce in France. It's like made on some random island off of Louisiana!

Chef: The basic students go on a farmer's market field trip, and the superior students to go the wholesale market. Perhaps we should organize a field trip for the intermediate students to go to the supermarket!

... at the end of the class...

Student: Howard, this better not be your quote of the class!

While cleaning up the practical room after class...

Fellow Assistant Gulnazi: Howard, you have to step on my foot now.

Me *washing my knives*: Huh? What?

Gulnazi: I accidentally stepped on yours, and by Russian tradition you have to step on mine!

Me: I didn't feel you stepping on me, so..... I'm not going to step on you.

Gulnazi: You must! Or else we'll fight each other!

Me: No! I'm incapable of hitting women.

Gulnazi: HOWARD! You HAVE to step on me, because we're going to be assistants together for the rest of the week.

Me: I'd rather fight and see who wins!

And so, my week of being assistant with Gulnazi began with:
1. Both of us skipping our first class 
2. Us arguing over why I should step on her foot
Five more days to go, partner....

I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell.

I know, right now you can't tell...
(Matchbox Twenty- Unwell) 

Intermediate Lesson 18- Auvergne

We travel to the Auvergne region for this class, and we prepared a braised forcemeat dish wrapped by cabbage and bacon.

Pow

We've made so many forcemeat dishes already it's getting boring. What annoyed me in this class is that in the past, the chefs presented the rule of forcemeats using 20g of salt for 1 kilogram of protein, but for this dish they're saying it's 9g of salt for 1 kilogram of protein. When I asked the Chef, he said "Obviously it all depends on the dish." Then why was there a rule if its always going to depend on the dish anyways? At least this dish is wrapped in bacon. Everything is better when it's wrapped in bacon. We served the dish with some vegetables cut to pont-neuf.

Confession: I didn't go to practical class today. The picture was from the chef's demonstration class last Saturday. I've been suffering from a terrible sore throat since Saturday, and last night I woke up basically every other hour because I was drowning in my own phlegm. My throat hurts when I eat and talk. Sorry, I know it's TMI, but I feel compelled to explain myself because I am also assistant for the week with Gulnazi. I feel terrible to have bailed out on her and left her alone because today the assistant had to grind up the meat for the entire class. Really sorry about this Gulnazi. I intend on going back to school at noon today and help with the afternoon practical.

Although my throat is really killing me now, at least I don't have a fever. In intensive, you can easily miss 4 classes just by skipping one day. That would really suck since you are only allowed 6 absences.

I have to admit though: sleeping in on a Monday morning felt great.

Quotes from this class:

Student *Pointing at the forcemeat wrap that the chef made*: That's for one person?
Demo Chef Caals: Oui Madam. This is for one person.
Student: Oh my god. Can I do a smaller one?
Chef Caals: We're already using our smallest bowl as a mold
Student: I dunno, to me that size is already really..... intimidating!
The Chef ended up serving a half portion dish for her.