Seasons Greetings

Merry Christmas and all the very best wishes for the New Year! It's crazy that suddenly it's the end of the December, time flies and I still remember when I wished time would just freeze for a bit and that I could stay at school just a tad longer. School now already feels like a distant past, and I am enjoying being out there working in the 'real world'. The day before I was due to finished up at my first internship place on a Sunday at the end of October, my chef stopped me and glared at me seriously. Ça t'interesse travailler dans un resto? Ummm... Oui... But it will just be you doing all the patisserie... the chef will show you and you do it after. Ummmm... I honestly never thought of trying out patisserie restaurant but I would never turn down an opportunity thrown at me. So I said, can I do a trial? Ok good, I will call him to say you want to try. It's at chez Philippe... he needs someone until the end of the year. I thought oh ok so it's for Monsieur Philippe as we call him at the shop, a friend of the chef. He called him and said go there on Monday 9am don't be late. To cut long story short, I have been working there since doing the lunch and dinner service everyday from Tuesday to Saturday.

In the beginning I was missing the hum drum of patisserie boutique, it's very different working in a restaurant kitchen plus I was missing the camaraderie of a team. But luckily I quickly settled in, my chef was nice in the first couple of weeks then became tough the two weeks after. Many times I was told that I was wasting time and did things wrong in his eyes and he always questioned why I did what I had done. So much so that I thought he had regretted hiring me, but then he asked you will come back tomorrow? You will get there, don't say you are not good enough for this post. Lately I am doing better and stressful as it can be, I like working there... I actually have autonomy and responsibilities. There were of course times where he tells me off and makes me feel quite miserable and a bit useless, but from time to time he would say tu as fait de progrès! Tu as fait bon service! Tu etais bien organisée! Il est beau ton soufflé! Elles sont magnifiques tes tourtes! Ils sont bels tes clafoutis! He is my favourite chef of the moment, I have another week to go, I hope I end on a good note.

In the New Year I look forward to a new start. Wishing you all a great 2017, good health, full of happy moments and lots of love. Take care!

Love xx
Melinda

Epilogue

It's been awhile since I last wrote and things had gone sour between me and school, yes.. and by school I'm pointing my finger towards a specific cow specimen who manages the international program at school. So I will leave the final chapter of the little adventure that was, unwritten. I am simply done with school and now that I have been out for a while in "the work force"... I am kind of enjoying the rhythm of my week. I like the feeling of finishing up for the day and especially riding home on Sunday mornings from work. So let me describe a bit my new life as an intern, it's far from glamorous.... on Tuesday to Friday I take the first metro at 5.36 and arrive at work just in time for me to start at 6am. My stage (internship) is in a small patisserie in the 12e arrondisement, it is actually quite renowned but I'm not going to name it. The team including the chef consists of 3 commis, an apprenti and 2 sous chefs, a boulanger plus me the stagiare.

I honestly feel extremely lucky that my working hours are not body breakingly long... I normally finish around 14h-14h30. On Saturday my hours are 4am to 13h and Sunday 4-8h. Recently I actually appreciate starting at 4am because I get to see and do a bit more than on weekdays. The team there are quite nice. Most of the time I get to be told around by either the chef or the sous chefs. I find the chef a bit crazy! But he is tolerable if you know how to walk on egg shells. Somehow I think he likes me a bit, cos I am a good worker and I from time to time initiate chit chat but he is appalled at the way I work more often than not.

A typical weekday would be me arriving when most of the patisserie for the day been finished and done ready to be put up in the shop, 6am is so late! The chef starts at 2am everyday, the commis at 4 and the sous chefs boulanger and apprenti at 5.30. I would start by helping the sous chef giving tours for the croissant dough, then if there are some fonçage (lining tart mould with dough) to be done then the four of us would do that, followed by emballage (packaging) of the little cakes for the shop... Sometimes we attack it together the four or even five of us sometimes it's only me and the apprentis. I find that my chef likes to get things done together and therefore quicker. The days when we have emballage nougat or caramel or making mendiants it would be all 7 of us on the deck including the chef going Allez Allez Allez!!

Then 2-3 of us would clean the floor around 7am whilst the chef set up shop, I normally run up with him to faire sortir la terrasse. I then get told around to do this and that until the chef comes back from his break, normally I go to do plonge... As a stagiare I kind of assume the responsibility to do plonge, but here everybody including the chef does it from time to time. I regularly get told off if I hang around near the sink rather than following the sous chef immediately. Around 8 we would do croissants and pains au chocolats which by now I think I've rolled about a thousand of each... Our viennoiserie is one of the best in Paris, and I am lucky to have access to see and be involved in the fabrication of it. A beginner that I am, I know a texture of a pâte when it is exceptional. Once or twice when the dough feels amazingly supple and smooth I compliment the commis... I also compliment him when the texture of the crème pâtissière is incredible. I don't know how he feels about getting compliments not from the chef but from a stagiare haha but I thought he should know that he is doing an amazing job! Anyway he knows it when it's amazing and gives me a nod when I told him la texture de la crème est super bonne aujourd'hui.

Then after croissant we stock away the deliveries that would start arriving whilst the chef and the sous chefs start preparing the fruits for mise en place, occasionally I get to peel a box of apples with a machine à pommes... or cutting up the fruits for the tartes, sometimes I get to garnir the tartes with the apprenti and the chef. Afterwards we normally attack! the salad... By the time we finish normally it's already around 10.30-11h and we would be busy preparing for the next day. Lots of plaquages and so it's time for me getting told to fetch this and that. Sometimes I get to do the beurre plaques for the next day, but most often than not it's me doing the runs fetching pâtes and butter for the sous chef looking at how he works at the laminoir. Around midi we start cleaning and after the commis leave at 13h, it's ad hoc time for me and the sous chefs... Whether we would be doing mise en places for tomorrow or we would be finishing up something from today then around 14h if we are all good to go, me and the two sous chefs switch off the lights and finish for the day.

One of my task in the afternoon is my favourite, travailler la crème pâtissière. Some of my classmates do get to make it at their intern place! Whilst I only get to use the gros mixer to loosen up the texture. The extent of pastry work I do there is just that, when we do petits gateaux, entremets or the bûches I pose the insert and the biscuit and smooth out the mousse... When we do chaussons aux pommes, I put the dorure on spoon out the filling and close. I'm afraid I don't do enough pastry work here which is why I want to find another internship to see how things are done elsewhere. And the school doesn't let me, by not letting me I meant I won't be getting another contract issued by the school because apparently my internship is going well so no reason for me to move. The unfairness is off the scale because I know there are students who do get away with two, because they really have a "problem", and what sort of problem is that? how is it that the school is supportive of those who threw in the towel early and is this not a case of positive discrimination this? I am really dégoûtée.

I think the first part of this journey has completely ended, when we talk about this within my group I used a metaphor that being at school was like being in a mother's womb, after the cords are cut the mother gave us away to orphanage. And then she gets pregnant again... for some baby bonus $$$. A sad twist in this whole internship unfairness debacle crap is that I have become estranged with my chef who I used to adore. I am still so angry at him for having, not only, not having cared but not having been supportive at all. In fact in my case he was the one who single handedly brought this problem to the surface, and after there was no remorse no sympathy no sorry instead he said no special treatment for anybody (not true!!!), don't complain to me, not my decison, in short il s'en fout... I don't know if I am ever going to bother saying hi again. Call me petty but this bitterness really lingers.

Maybe if I have something exciting to write about I will, I have another two weeks at the shop and what is to come is still up in the air. I believe everything happens for a reason and people come in and out of your life to teach you a lesson. Wish me luck, hopefully I have good news to share soon.

Melinda x

The past month in retrospective part 3 - creativity challenge week

So one month flew by and suddenly I restart internship again tomorrow *sigh* can you believe that I said in the beginning of holiday that I was bored and would rather be having to go to work... Anyway so I thought it's about time that I continue on writing before all becomes faint memory.

Before I even applied to Ferrandi, I had been reading ex students blog and none of them mentioned anything about a challenge. Art class yes, final exam yes, visit to Rungis and study trip yes. So it came as a surprise to me... and when this challenge was revealed to us, I remember I thought to myself ohhhh masterchef invention challenge!!! How exciting... but then when further details about what we needed to prepare was revealed... Eeekkk there was way more expected of us than just preparing tarts and babas.

So yes, the challenge was that we had to firstly choose a combination of 2 ingredients and create a tart, and individual sized baba. Sound simple enough right ? but actually there were things to consider... because we had to also choose other fruits, nuts, chocolates, alcohol etc that we would like to use, also the shape of the tarts and the babas, write our recipes and consider also how we were going to decorate it...

Plus for this challenge we also had to prepare some sort of presentation for the juries, we had to draw our design, explain the elements, introduce our logo, describe the product. Honestly in the end, because I consecrated hours of my sleeping time for art class homework, I sped through doing the sketch for this project... I don't know whether it was because I was getting better due to intensive practice thanks to said homework maybe?? because I think my drawing and water colour skill went from nil to acceptable.

After the mid term break suddenly it became the season of creativity challenge. In class firstly we had to tell our chef what 2 ingredients we would choose. I spent a lot of time thinking about this... but I was like ummm maybe this and that or this and that... I like this and that as well hmmmm. Just like when I buy clothes, I won't buy it if I think hmmm it's ok but I'm not sure. It has to be oh, I love this.. straight away, and I know then c'est le bon. Ok so in the end, by serendipity I saw something on instagram... an attractive jar of jam that caught my eyes straight away, it says Carotte Vanille Passion and I knew straight away that's me to the T 100%.

Then the next step was that during class we were called one by one to sit with our chef and discussed a little bit what we had in mind, what shape, what mould, again the 2 ingredients we want to use... whether he thought it would work or not. Then we had to submit our preliminary recipes to our chef for him to check, again to see whether they would work or not. We also then had to submit our list of ingredients we need for the challenge, and also the final recipes.

In the beginning, I was crazy wanting to put this layer and that layer in a tart... luckily my good friend Bhupar always reminded me that it's a tart and not a gateau not an entremets. So in the end I pared it down to just something very simple that I was WORRIED that I would seem to not try hard enough. As for the baba, I think I was more sure that it was just going to be a simple one, and that I wanted it to look like a snow man with a carrot tip nose, carrot baba passion syrup creme chantilly a la vanille stop. But then again I thought they were going to think I didn't put any thought into this and so added a little mirepoix of carrot some raw some cooked in syrup. Anywho long story short, let's cut straight to the creativity challenge week because I need to go to sleep.

We started on Monday, where we picked up our fresh ingredients .. actually let me tell you some of my friends combinations that I could remember : pomegranate and pumpkin, red bean and matcha, fennel and yuzu, basil and balsamic, chilli and mint, mango and jasmin, olive oil and cinnamon, bacon and maple, passion fruit and banana, rose and yoghurt, sesame and lotus seed. On the first three days we were free to test our recipes and prepare whatever elements for Thursday big day!

Time flew by, five hours were nothing on the first day I did a few elements and were ok happy about it. I felt a bit too relax I think, then on Tuesday.... when chef said that he would like us to bring our tarts to our TA class later that afternoon so that we could all taste and comment I started to get a bit nervous... especially when I compared my tart (flat top) with other people's tarts (tall and generous looking). Nicolas also came to taste, we all tasted everybody's tarts and chef and Nicolas gave their feedback. Mine got tasted towards the end, I was ummm not confident... but SURPRISE! both said it was ok, don't change anything... perhaps change the tempered chocolate from milk to dark otherwise c'est bon. I said REALLY??? He said yes, FOR ONCE I said que c'est bon. Ummm ok, thank you.

On Wednesday everybody was quite frantic, chef also was running around fetching us this and that from different labs.. from time to time he would come and check on us one by one and asked whether we were ok... otherwise we were left working by ourselves but no one was playing around everybody was focused. Came Thursday, I arrived on time and I saw that it was quite something! Especially since the TV crew came again to cover our group. We were given an hour and a half to finish off whatever we needed to finish and then present our tarts and babas to the judges... in French. My chef was not around much because he was in the next lab introducing the students to the judges and played interpreter, but luckily we had Serge and Nicolas to help us with anything we needed help with. I have to say again how great our group is/was... everyone was helping and supporting each other.

My turn came and so I went into the boulangerie lab next door with some help carrying my tarts and babas. I noticed that one of the judge wasn't there so I said let's wait for him. It gave me time to check out who they were... there were 5, and I had met 3 of them. So I started to introduce myself bla bla bla and my 2 ingredients are bla and bla because bla bla bla. Then the drawings and my presentation thingy got passed around and they all had a look... some asked questions... why the top of the tart on the drawing is white whilst in reality it's dark ? They had a taste and I got ok feed back I asked them one by one for their opinion, they said a simple tart is good because otherwise it's too much and I honestly said to them that I too wanted to put this and that but then decided to abandon most of them. One of the chef said, the diced carrots in the baba were not fine enough... what else... I can't remember and that's why it's killing me that we haven't been given our feedback on this challenge!!!!! I saw that they all had a marking sheet and maybe some had comments that I would've liked to know!!

After that challenge I didn't feel like eating and so many of us saved our tarts and babas for the following day because we were to have a group lunch in the lab. That day ended on a high, everyone was excited to mingle with some big name chefs and we took heaps of photos. But no matter which celebrity chefs were around my favourite chef is still my chef so here is my favourite photo from that day.

Friday we cleaned and cleaned and prepared lunch and ate lunch together. The last supper as I called it. Ah and I did try my tart, the baba was ok BUT my tart... I found the texture of the passion fruit cremeux was not nice and too thick!!!! and so I am even more dying to know if any of the judges commented on it and what they really thought about it... because they were all really nice and politely said it was good but then on paper they might put meh right? and I want to know if it was because the tart was no longer freshhhhh or because I overcooked the bloody cremeux ... the one chef tried on Tuesday the texture was nice because I also tried.... but Arghhh I am not sure at all if the cremeux that the judges tasted was as pastey as how I thought it was the day after. I threw it out before anybody could taste, it was THAT bad... for me at least but I am very very very harsh on myself so I really hope that actually it wasn't THAT bad.

Photo of me cleaning... on the very Last Friday at school. Next time I will write about our final exam and the school trip.

Good night for now. Ciao!

Melinda x

The past month in retrospective part 2 - the week we were on level 4 lab

I am officially on a month holiday from last Saturday morning. Today is Tuesday and I am actually itching to do something slightly productive and hence I'm here typing away. So again, this recount is of something that happened more than a month ago, but I have a memory of an elephant... if only very selectively so you can (ahem) definitely rely that all I say here is accurate. Anyway, so this happened around mid June and it was our very last week of class and all week we were in the lab on level 4. Walking up flights of stairs with our rather hefty tool box at 7am in the morning was not cool! Especially because I always tend towards running slightly tardy and had to leg it in the morning... Those five days it felt like I had a mini work out every morning... legs, biceps, bum. It was like hurry hurry you are already so late hurry and when I arrived finally... out of breath like a puffer fish the lab was still locked. Not cool.

Anyhow it was probably one of the more special week, because first, it was our last week of class because after we only had the creative challenge week and then final exam and the trip. Second, we were on the 4th level lab and I liked it eventhough it's an older lab but I just liked the feeling of it, and we had nice view from the top and we could go out for fresh air and we got to have a peek at what the bachelor students were cooking up. Third, it was the week of ice cream cakes! then we had two days of sugar work which was quite amazing because sugar work is not normally for students of our level.

The week started with us not feeling familiar with the lab... I thought, maybe this would be how I feel when I first start my internship... everything not familiar and I had no idea what is kept where. On the Monday we made all the biscuits needed for the cakes and also all the appareils for the ice cream and sorbets, then on Tuesday we churned churned churned, built some of the cakes and on Wednesday we did the finishing. We made several different types of ice cream : sorbets, glaçes, parfait... we used them to make vacherins, omelettes norvegienne, oranges givrés and a couple of cakes called constellation and pomelo. They are all good, I loved especially the cointreau crème glaçé for the omelette norvegienne and the parfait vanille for the vacherin.. and the sorbet orange. Building them cakes were not easy easy because boy they were icy cold and to pipe for a long time was quite painful, and we had to be superfast for them not to melt. It was good to learn, I would love to recreate one day, because they were sooo good! We kept them for snack and breakfast for Thursday and Friday because nothing to eat really when doing sugar work!

The two days we did sugar work it was quite suspenseful because, the sugar breaks like glass if you are not careful. A couple of my friends broke their bases when transferring them for storage, and plus the elements were against us... during the two days we had rain and humidity is sugar worst enemy. Nevertheless, it was all new to me and I really liked it of course, if I had all the time in the world... pulling sugar could be my newest hobby eventhough even after only an hour or two my thumb became a bit swollen and plump.

We made the base and the structure on Thursday plus we made some leaves. On Friday, we were with our chef (Wed Thurs we were with Nicolas) and he showed us how to make roses and ribbon. Actually, a couple of things bummed me just a little bit on that day, first I didn't get a piece of ribbon because I didn't think it would run out! second, we didn't take a group photo eventhough it would had been the very very very last time we had class together and our sugar pieces turned out quite beautiful and we already had them presented on a table we just had to line up and smile. But no, no one cared.

So the very last group photo in the class was actually the one with all the ice cream cakes and our chef was initially very coy and had to be coerced a little bit to join the group photo.

That week also, we had our last French class. I really like my teacher and so it was quite sad to say good bye. Otherwise, we also had TA class with chef where we discussed about the formula to make sorbets and ice creams which was very very interesting!!! During another TA with Nicolas, we had a long discussion about internship and I really really appreciate how he communicated with us, he was sharing stories and I thought that he was very very good, motivating and passionate and really touched me. I said to myself that yes, no matter how hard it would be I will remember why I came to this school in the first place... that later when I look back, it would all be worth it and to see how far I've came from when I started bla bla bla.

I had done three weeks of internship before the shop closed for a month break, maybe one day I will write something about it. Umm thanks for reading, I know I had whinged too much here today but you know that it's all good times, I loved school and miss it. And here is the sugar piece I made... ribbonless and probably the most simple and my roses hadn't enough petals, but at least it survived till the end of the class (before they all went into the bin!)

Melinda x