The internship. A bit about that later.
So the week that's just gone past we did another round of chocolate... bonbons and honestly, they were really good! I love cookbooks but I had never been interested to buy a chocolate book, until last week. It's my current bedtime reading.
We made 12 different kinds of bonbons and my top three favourites in descending order are : Capuccinno, bi-couches passion/pâte de fruit abricot, and miel/orange. I love dipping them actually, though I really get annoyed when they don't look neat and chef kept saying that it wasn't a race and to do them properly.. He shouldn't probably say that because then I really took my bloody own sweet time and was behind everybody. On top of that my chocolate wasn't looking ok and I had to re-do the tempering 3-4 times and especially towards the end, it was thickening up abnormally. Grrrr, anywho I still love it and I really want to be good at it technically... maybe I should save up my measly internship salary to study further or buy a slab of marble or something.
So, about the internship.
Ummm it was announced on Monday evening, and I was deeply upset. I really thought that my chef considered me a mediocre underperformer :-/ and that's why he chose a place that for me was completely underwhelming. I am not keen on the products that they sell... and I thought that was most inconsiderate of him because I trusted him to choose something suitable and yet I really felt I was getting the leftover. Umm I don't go berserk often ok.... but I did this week, just a bit... that nowadays I feel a bit sheepish thinking about how inappropriate it was. But I was dissapointed because I felt that he had no confidence that I could make it through. Anyway, nowadays I prefer to think that maybe chef thought he was doing me a favour, because he said yes he chose the place because it would suit me and that they would look after you and Melinda, you are VERY slow... (thanks) so maybe he chose that place to protect me because I am small, slow and getting old (thanks). I didn't really expect him to forgive and forget that fast because he was angry at me for having been rude at him but after all the drama, (because actually he is very nice and honestly it was my fault, I should've controlled my emotion better) he said that he had already made another arrangement for me (thank you...) for which I really appreciate. . It's not all confirmed at all and I haven't been called in for an interview... but today I saw that the chef of the place had been recommended by Facebook as a "friend I might know". Ummm if he had been checking me out on fb I hope I gave a good impression. Anyway, I see it as a good sign and so fingers crossed. XX
On Thursday we did a presentation of our chocolates and took many photos and then we boxed them all into many ballotins that look like gold bars. Happy days! Because also on top of that, chef asked us to do croissant dough for Friday... I'd been wanting to practice croissant again because my last batch wasn't great. On Friday we also made some baba dough, which is great... because it allowed us to practice for the creative challenge! My croissants turned out not too bad, but far from perfect. One mystery about the shaping for me at least was solved and so I am happy about that, and by Friday I am again lovey dovey with chef Stévy hahaha he is the best!
One of my group mates made this yesterday, and I LOVE it so much! Everyone's got their own little detail and the ressemblance is quite uncanny. She is soooo talented my friend!! I can't believe that we only have 4 more weeks to go before we won't see each other everyday. Three weeks of classes and the very last week we are (just like in high school) going on a study trip! Group A and B are going together to Rennes and Vannes, 3 days 2 nights train trips and bus trips. I think I will be feeling bittersweet, I don't like partings...
Melinda xx
Ps. One of my fondest memory from last year was the Race to Survive (from which, months in advance I wanted to pull out many times because I didn't think I could do it but nobody let me), it turned out that the terrain was really tough even adult men said so, when we were 'racing' (or more like struggling really) people around me all said that I could do it and dragged me along when I most needed it, nobody ever told me to throw in the towel and give up and anyway it never crossed my mind to quit halfway. We had been warned that internship is going to be very tough, I just hope my little body don't break, wish me luck! I think I can do this!
