Millions of Tasty Treats and Experiences

     So our first and second week in the kitchen have just ended and it was great to get to learning the real stuff.  This program is going to go by so quickly considering we are already 18.75% of the way done.  We did some modeling with modeling chocolate, fondant, and marzipan (almond paste and sugar).  We made little monkeys, polar bears, dogs, roses, etc.  It was really awesome.  We got started on a few basic recipes making an English fruitcake to start.  As I told you last post, the program is highly personal and this fruitcake recipe actually is one of our English chef's family's recipe that has been around for ages.  I must say, I am not particularly excited about this fruit cake as it is super dense, almost all fruit, and must be aged for around 3-4 months.  A fruit cake should age no less than 2 months and often no more than 2 years.  It is saturated in brandy and sugar which preserves the cake for practically forever.  We also made a sweet dough that I brought home and made into a kiwi and raspberry tart.

     The second week was all about tasting and building a cake based on flavor and texture.  We made tons of cake that we ended up building into a cake that had these layers (picture directly to the left).  The bottom layer was a hazelnut biscuit (biscuit is not a biscuit as we think of and actually is not even pronounced like that but like the french way) but is basically a pretty dense but moist cake, then a layer of from-scratch orange marmalade, and then another layer of the hazelnut biscuit, then a layer of coffee pastry cream with streusel chunks in it and then a layer of an orange hazelnut japonais which is almost like a macaroon but way more cake like.  Basically they teach us that a cake is not just two textures and two flavors but should be a cornucopia of flavors and textures leaving a unique cake that cannot be replicated easily.  We had so much extra cake so I took a bunch of it home and made a vanilla genoise (a denser vanilla cake) with homemade whipped cream and strawberries and a chocolate genoise with a peanut butter mousse.  I took all these baked goods and about 6 small loaves of bread to Jared's and I think they are starting to warm to the idea that I'll be at their apartment every weekend. 

     Again I am highly impressed by my chefs.  The first and second week we had an awesome chef who is freaking hilarious and ridiculous but soooo knowledgeable.  We will have him again for sugar work which is what I am most excited about because I have been dreaming of making sugar work and blown sugar for quite some time now.  This past week and next week we have another chef who is also pretty funny and again so helpful.  I wanted a peanut butter mousse for the chocolate genoise and he gave me his own recipe and stayed after class to tell me what to do.  The chefs are all about sharing their recipes and such and even say a recipe itself really isn't all that helpful unless you know how to do it.  After making the mousse, I learned how true it was.  During class the chefs do a demonstration of all the recipes we will be making which takes about half of the class time and then we go and make the same recipes.  Even then I have a million questions.  For the peanut butter mousse, I just had to guess on what to do and I know I messed up quite a bit but it still tasted like peanut butter mousse so I was okay with it.  It's just so wonderful that they care about their students and care not only about what they are baking in class but also helping them out elsewhere.
     Also something that the French Pastry School really encourages the students to do is stage (not pronounced like stage but like stasjh- terrible attempt at spelling by sound but basically the french way again).  They say that this is one of the easiest ways to figure out what kind of work we want to do afterwords whether it be in a bakery, a restaurant, a hotel, etc.  It is also a way to get letters of recommendation and stuff on the resume.  The French Pastry School says that there is a huge correlation between number of stages done during the year and number of job offers at the end of the year.  I'm going to make these I priority and try to do as many as I can.   I have gone to the same one twice now and it was actually paid.  Normally it isn't paid but this one was because they are a huge, rich club that can afford it and had so many events that they really needed help.  It is really cool because you get to do a bunch of random tasks.  Last Saturday I made 300 apple turnovers, and yesterday I got to plate a wedding cake, try about a 1000 tasty treats and learned really creative new ideas for how to present cakes, and made bread pudding.  I've never done any of those things AND you get to work around great pastry chefs.  Yesterday the pastry chef decorated a four tiered wedding cake in less than 30 minutes.  How is that possible?  Goodness.   I've got a few more stages lined up which means I'll literally be working from 6-12:30 everyday during the week and then going to school everyday from 1-7:15.  And I will most likely be working on Saturdays too like I did the last two weeks (from 10-5).  I always said I wanted to live in the city and have a faced paced life and so I guess I got my dream.  And the cool thing is that I really do love it.  I love my work and I loooovvveeee my school.  What more could I ask for?

My Arrival in Chicago and School Beginnings

     At last, the summer has ended and my time in Chicago has begun.  I arrived in Chicago on the 22^nd with Jared and Mercedes after a 15 hour car ride.  Since I have not lived in Chicago since the 5^th grade, there was so much that I wanted to see and do again or for the first time.  It was great having Mercedes here to be able to go out and see the city and do things.  While trying to figure out our plans for the day, I found some really amazing, free activities and events that happen in Chicago all the time.  There really is so much character to the city of Chicago.  Mercedes and I headed to downtown Chicago to roam the city streets.  We went to Millennium Park to see the Bean  which is really so spectacular.  Basically it is just a giant mirror in the shape of a bean.  The great thing is that the city is right behind it so it reflects all the buildings.  One day we went to the "beach" which is basically the lake with the city behind it.  It was absolutely beautiful because the water was really teal and the city was its backdrop.  It was really nice because both Mercedes and I have DSLR cameras and so we just kept taking photo after photo.  In one day alone, Mercedes took over 700 pictures.  But see the city, we did and boy was it spectacular.

    Like I mentioned, the city is constantly putting on free events especially during the summer months.  Every single night in the summer the city puts on “Movies in the Park”  in which three parks are chosen across the city and suburbs of Chicago playing a wide spectrum of movies.  A park about two minutes from my apartment was playing “How to Train Your Dragon” and although it was pretty cold, we endured because the movie was so good.  Another night we went downtown and stumbled upon this music and dance event that happens every night featuring new dance styles and new DJs.  The night we were there it happened to be DJ Casper who is the DJ that did the Cha-Cha Slide.  We didn’t really fit into the crowd that was there but it was fun to see him and listen to music that is older than I am right in the heart of downtown.  How could anyone get bored in such a city?  I really hope I don’t get lazy and stop finding things to do and places to visit.  I could be here only till December depending on where I get a job and I want to really enjoy and learn the city. 

     Then Monday came and classes at the French Pastry School started.  I am in the Cake Baking and Decorating program which is the only program in the nation that specializes in just cakes.  I can’t begin to explain to you how much I love this school.  First of all, it is one of the best schools in the nation.  The founder Chef Jacquy Pfeiffer was labeled as one of the top 100 pastry chefs in the world and top ten in America.  He has been inducted into quite a few hall of fames for both sugar and chocolate.  The highest accomplishment in the pastry world is becoming an M.O.F. or rather a Meilleur Ouvrier de France which basically means the best craftsman in pastry.  A competition takes place every four years and in 2008, Chef Jacquy competed in the final round against 15 other competitor s.  And although he did not win, a documentary about the competition, The Kings of Pastry, focused on his a career and time in the competition.  Another one of the chefs at the French Pastry School and winner of the 2004 Meileur Ouvrier de France is Chef Sébastien Canonne, M.O.F.  The letters M.O.F. are always included at the end of his name almost like a PhD or and MD.  There are only 114 winners in the world and the competition has been around since 1924.  I haven’t had much interaction with him but just knowing he is that good is astounding.  Also, I cannot forget my other chefs who are also just as wonderful and who won the National Pastry Competition and are now competing the World Pastry Competition representing the US.   Basically I have some of the best pastry chefs and teachers in the world.  I am so blessed to be able to attend the French Pastry School. 

     The first week was all in the classroom and this is the only time throughout the entire program where we will be in a classroom and not in a kitchen.  We took an 18 hour sanitation course to get nationally certified in sanitation which spanned over two days and then the rest was orientation and my personal favorite, the science of baking.  Since I took so many chemistry courses in college, I absolutely love it and combining that with baking only makes it double my passion.  We learned the basic chemical processes that go on with baking powder and soda, wheat, butter, etc.  It was fascinating and the teacher is one of my favorite chefs at the school so far.  Next week we enter the kitchen and begin learning.  I honestly can’t even begin to describe how excited I am to learn everything and gain a bit of these experts’ knowledge.  It is truly incredible.