It’s raining snow!

Standard day today, except for the part where Izam made an 80kg poolish O_o  ha-ha is have no idea what he did with the autolyse but there was a layer of flour on the inside of the mixer that just did not get hydrated. Alexandre eventually had to add an additional 7 kg of flour... my guess is Izam probably added 10 litres too much water. Benjamin was ok in that he wasn’t too slow or didn’t make any mistakes.

I helped Alexandre bake some biscuits in the afternoon. A really practical system where you lightly brush a sheet of silicone paper with water then place an inverted cutter mould sheet on top (so sharp edge is facing up) then sheet your biscuit dough and then place over the sheet mould, covered by a silpat  mat and then use a rolling pin to “cut” out the biscuits by rolling over the dough. As Alexandre likes to say “it’s a factory” J

I was feeling pretty tired after work so went down to the cellar and just lay on the flour for like 10 min and played with the cats. I’m going to miss them when I leave...

It’s snowing!!!! I almost couldn’t believe it this morning when is saw the soft white flakes dancing down into the street. So after a nice hot shower and layering up as best I could I ventured out. Bloody hell it was flippen cold. The ground was also slippery as hell. Had to watch my step. Snow is a lot more mystical and romantic when your face isn’t freezing and you aren’t covered in tiny pieces of slowly melting ice.

The houses and trees looked sick with that fluffy white layer on them though. And is walked past a mom playing with her little kid in the snow, making snowballs and throwing them at each other.

Walked around a bit and took some pics, then popped into L’Atelier des Boulangers and bought a tarte tout chocolate, pain au cacao and a mini sandwich with jambon cru and ricotta. The pain au cacao was really cool...a chocolate bread with chocolate chips.  A slice of that toasted for breakfast with bananas and syrup would be sick. Or even a nice orange and ginger marmalade or something like that.

Gonna be brewing some ginger beer tomorrow...representing baby! Really looking forward to sunny South Africa now though...more baking, dnb [drum ‘n bass ] and krav maga await!!

Good Food, Great Wine, Gracious Friends

Today was a pretty good day. Started helping Benjamin with the shaping of the pate Blanche and then was with Alexandre at the “fournil” (fournil is the area near the oven, four is oven in French), helping load the breads. Pretty solid with my scoring and baking...it’s just a bit intense when you’re controlling 5x2 separate batches and rotating the dough that’s proving so it’s not proving too slowly/too quickly. My French is also pretty good so in the mornings I serve the customers while imp baking if they want a baguette or croissant and I can understand them as long as they don’t talk super-fast.

After the morning baking was done around 10am I went to help Alexandre and chef with some canapés. There was an order for the chambre des meitiers de meilleur ouvrier de France( MOF ) as well as some other orders so we were pretty busy with them. We made some burgers like last time and some new canapés like foie mousse in jambon cru with black fig, cream cheese with chives, parsley mayo and tuna mayo in a hollowed out cherry tomato as well as smoked salmon filled with asparagus puree and garnished with an asparagus tip... I got changed after it was all done but then got invited to have a glass of wine with “le patron” and Alexandre so I was like ok J had a jambon beurre sandwich with that and then an opera cake

Opera Cake

for dessert...mmm like a crispy biscuit base with crisped rice in it, pralinee (here, praline is the red stuff with almonds, they call the hazelnut paste “pralinee” and chocolate mousse.. I ended up helping chef glaze the canapés even though I had changed... it’s just not natural for me to see my boss working if I’m not.

Canapes

I know my French is improving if I can understand most of what Mr Pozzoli says and actually joke with him J but after a while the wine started to kick my ass so I decided to go home.

I planned to only sleep for a few hours as I had been invited to dinner at Alex’s place with friends but ended up oversleeping and only waking up around 19h00 (when I was supposed to meet) so was over an hour late but it was all good in the end as the food wasn’t ready on time.

He stays in Grange Blanche, which is close to Monplaisir (near the Lumiere Institute). The area has most of Lyon’s hospitals and lots of schools so there are loads of students staying in the area. So for dinner it was Alex, his housemate Hugo (a former Maison Pozzoli employee), Pierre (the baker who works in the afternoon), jean (a baker from the vaise branch) and Laura (his American fiancée).

Tartiflette

For dinner we had tartiflette which is a dish made with potatoes, lardons and a cheese that I forgot the name now but it’s like a lasagne vibe with potato, bacon and cheese. YES PLEASE!!! Soooo damn good. We had that with some dressed salad leaves and some bread and a beautiful 2008 chardonnay that was utterly sublime. Probably the best wine I’ve had here. Soft, deep flavours, beautiful golden hue and not to sharp alcohol. I love how here in France you always have bread and bottles of water with every meal. It’s definitely something I want to continue when I come back to South Africa.

Afterwards we had a tarte pomme fin which was a pate brisee base with sliced apples that gets brushed with melted butter and baked with sprinkled sugar...with some glacé pralineé that Alex made as well as some chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies and oat and orange juices soaked raisin cookies that Laura made with a really good red wine. Can’t remember what. 

Wine Fridge...these guys mean business !

Soft, deep flavours, beautiful golden hue and not to sharp alcohol. I love how here in France you always have bread and bottles of water with every meal. It’s definitely something I want to continue when I come back to South Africa.

Tarte Pomme Fin

Afterwards we had a tarte pomme fin which was a pate brisee base with sliced apples that gets brushed with melted butter and baked with sprinkled sugar...with some glacé pralineé that Alex made as well as some chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies and oat and orange juices soaked raisin cookies that Laura made with a really good red wine. Can’t remember what.

Alex and Hugo have a really cool apartment...and I noticed some GTO comics too J seems like anime is quite popular in France. Only got home around 23:00 so had under 2 hours to sleep but I had a great evening so I didn’t mind.

Working Out

Today was weird. Benjamin was pretty slow and I had to load the bread because Alexandre was doing the pastry and other Alexandre left before 10 for school, and in between I was trying to do autolyse so it was a bit chaotic, but good. Without someone telling me what to do all the time, and knowing I needed to pull my finger out my ass, I did...running around but in a good way. I was the same when I started my stage so I’m not judging...I’m just glad I’ve progressed a bit.

My body also isn’t as tired and I think it’s just because I was so lazy before my stage started. Now, every day before I shower, I do either some push ups, dips, squats or sit ups (unfortunately, nowhere I can do pull ups) and so my body is always a bit sore, which actually makes me feel more awake and like I have more energy. I can easily carry 2 bags of flour (50kg) at a time, so I do...I just treat it like exercise anyway.

I helped make mini burgers for an order...mini beef with cheddar, gherkin and ketchup
chicken crusted in crumbs and seeds, wholegrain mayo, cheddar and thin slices of red onion
salmon and mozzarella with dill,rocket, sesame seed coated chevre, jambon cru and Turkish apricots.

When I got home I was so knackered I wanted to sleep but just ended up procrastinating most of the day, not getting around to writing anything even though I have loads I can do.

Looking forward to Friday though, I have a house warming in the evening and afterwards there’s a bass music party in the 7e arrondismont (district) and I’m not working Saturday so I don’t have to stress...maybe I can walk past there on my way home to pick up a croissant? J