So I got to work and drank an energy drink and then slept
for about 30min on top of the freezer before Alexandre woke me up when he got
there. Got changed and onto the work...
We were banging out the bread like machines...Alexandre used
the divider to do some rustically shaped baguettes while I did all the
biological bread and misc. shapes. By the time Benjamin came in at 2 we were
almost done with everything. I got onto mixing all the other dough’s like kamut
and spelt, viennoise and seigle Auvergne. The seigle Auvergne came out flippen
sexy, with beautiful colouration and cracks. And I divided and shaped the
viennoise on my own as well, as Benjamin was pretty slow even though he only
had the white dough to do.
I honestly was in the zone, not talking much, just kept my
head down and got shit done. I love that feeling or over tired second wind
energy where you just go with everything. Alexandre mixed a rye recipe with
some orange juice and zest in it which is an interesting idea.
After cleaning we were done around 10:30 and I was exhausted
as once the work slows down, fatigue starts to creep in, but still pushed on.
Oh and Bonnie is pregnant!!! You can see her belly swelling up already. She’s
so cute...and I feel very protective of her but she still runs around and
chases things like normal.
Ah and the ginger beer I brewed was really good. It could’ve
fermented a bit more but it’s so cold at night that it couldn’t be helped.
When I got home I passed out hard, but only after cooking
and doing some washing J
and I woke up late!!! I had set my alarm but I only woke up after the rugby test
match between SA and France had started. Anyway, I rushed to King Arthur where Alex,
Pierre, Hugo and a beer were already waiting for me. Was a bit shit because
they had some chick singing so they had no volume on the game but then again
the French are more into their soccer.
The game wasn’t that great but SA beat France so no worries... I bought a round of 3 pints of that awesome
banana bread beer for Alex, Hugo and myself and when I got my sms for the
transaction I was shocked...20 plus euros came to R275 for 3 pints!!!! They must’ve
upped the prices a bit as its December but still...for that price I could buy 2
cases of beer back home. Oh well. It was a good night.
Everyone was hungry so we decided to go to McDonalds which
was the first time I was going to one in France. They have a really cool system
where you put your order through on a touch screen and pay for it, then just
wait with your ticket until its ready. It’s so efficient and would really be
better for SA I think. They also give you an option of potato wedges which I
thought was really cool.
Good day of production today...except for the fact that I
weighed of the chataigne
recipe with just the chestnut flour instead of the T80...so to compensate we
changed the recipe and ended up with enough bread for the week so we just
precooked most of it and stored it in the freezer.
I was invited to the official house warming of Alex and his
housemate Hugo for dinner so I met up at their place around 8pm. I was a little
delayed because there was something delaying the metro and once they got it
working there was a bottleneck of people so the first 3 trains were too full: p
Finally once I got there I was welcomed by everyone but
luckily wasn’t the last to arrive. In the meanwhile we played some COD Blackops
multiplayer on Xbox. Alex’s younger brother is really good and kicked my ass,
albeit not too much ...but if I was on a pc I would’ve totally owned him.
For snacks we had some dried sausage (not droewors [South
African dried sausage], but saucisson
sec) and some lovely sardine pate which was almost like a gourmet fish paste on
some bread. As well as some Beaujolais wine
(wine from the new season) which was really fruity and light in alcohol.
Finally we got down to the main event: RACLETTE! They bought half a
wheel of raclette cheese which was cut up into small slabs, plates of charcuterie including ham, Parma
ham, salami, coppa, mortadella,
“bacon” as they called it, potatoes and more bread. So there was a small
machine with and element underneath and everyone had a little pan where you put
your cheese into and slid underneath to melt. There is a warm plate in top
which kept the taters nice and hot too.
So you cut up your charcuterie into smaller, bite size
pieces and pour the melted cheese over your taters and charcuterie and chow
like that. It’s a really cool, communal eating experience. Although one guy
mixed his charcuterie and potatoes together and made a paste almost...which
looked disgusting and is think is kinda disrespectful to the host and the food
but anyway, not my house.
I ate so much though and we only finished after 23:00 so I
decided to go straight to work as Alexandre and I had decided to start at
00:30....
But after all the bread was done being baked we got stuck
onto decorating the gingerbread houses. Mr Pozzoli coated the roofs with
chocolate and then sprinkled some hail sugar down the sides, then Alexandre and
Alex piped on some royal icing which is 6 parts icing sugar to 1 part egg
whites. Looks almost like meringue but it’s more like a grainy paste texture.
We made a crap load of the base and then mixed small amounts of green and red
icing as well. So Alex and Alexandre did the edge of the roofs, chimneys and ledge,
making it looks like the snow was built up.
Afterwards we put little mushrooms and Santa Clauses on
which were made of jellies and icing! I piped on vines and leaves and then
little red berries. We had a nice production line going and we were literally
on our knees sometimes in order to get the icing on.
They also made “longhopf” which is a sort of Austrian
brioche with rum-soaked raisins, almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and specific
alsacean spices. It’s baked in a clay mould and afterwards is brushed with
melted butter and dusted in cinnamon brown sugar. Looks sick! Mmm I wish is
could stay to still see all of the products that get produced but I’m already
looking forward to coming home.
I found Bonnie playing with a small mouse in the afternoon.
The poor thing’s heart was beating so fast and you could see that it was almost
dead. But Bonnie would just chase it then pick it up in her mouth and then play
with it again. So is did what is thought was best and killed the mouse. It was
pretty gruesome as when I stepped on it, crushed everything and I felt a bit
bad but at least it was a quick, albeit brutal death.
It’s still super cold as well...my heater is on permanently J
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!!
So we had that big order for mini burger buns...20g pieces.
What a pain in the ass.
Alexandre and I started at 1am so by the time Benjamin
came in at 2 we were almost done with everything. I was on mixing the dough and
in between shaping and dividing dough. Day was going pretty good for most of the
day but Benjamin is just unreliable...he had to mix some dough’s and didn’t
know base temperatures or mixing times etc. and was asking Izam who is an
apprentice stagiare. We had another stagiare today, only for 2 weeks, a 15 year
old kid named Nicolas.
Interestingly these stages are organised in conjunction with
schools and all kids do them. I think it’s a great idea as I never forget my 1
week job shadowing at the Mount Nelson.
Although the kid lacked initiative and interest. And when he asked to take a
break and was told he could have 1 hour he said it was too short. I almost
flipped when I heard that. Wtf is he doing here? It’s only 7 hours. Maybe I’m
too hard but I am a firm believer in hard work and that you don’t get anywhere
by sitting in the back seat, but whatever.
A former stagiare visited as well, Indra, a 25 year old
Mexican who just recently acquired French nationality. He’s been studying and
working in France for about 7 years now. He told me it was always a dream of
his to become a chef so he actually studied at institute Paul Bocuse as well
and knows chef Berthomier. He’s a really cool guy and he, Alexandre and I went
for a beer and burger at Ninkasi just next
to the bakery.
We had a good time talking about mentalities in the industry and
the f***ed up legal system in France. I found out that if you catch an employee
stealing something you can’t just fire them...wtf. All the laws really f*** the
small business owner. Like our cleaning lady who has claimed sick and hasn’t
been to work for over a month but is still getting paid. And Alexandre can’t
fire her either... seems that if you’re stuck with a shit employee there’s
nothing you can do.
I prefer coming in an hour earlier...much nicer and it
reminds me of coming in 2 hours before all the other staff...just much smoother
knocking everything else out. So Alexandre and I are starting at 1 tomorrow so I’m
gonna be off....
Today was pretty interesting as Alexandre was off for the
weekend so it was Alex, Pierre, Izam and myself working. I was at the oven and
everything was fine except for scoring one type of bread like another but it
was able to make a change so there was a difference between the 2. We managed
to get done pretty early and then cleaned down and were out after 10am. Nice
life...
When it got home it didn’t want to leave stuff to do for
when it returned so it did washing and cooked some stuff that might not have
lasted and then just chilled for a bit before heading out about 1 hour before
my train.
When it got to the station it was like a bee hive...crawling
with people everywhere. I had to wait to see where my train would be so had to
wait and look at the departures board for like 15 min...
While waiting some young girl came up to me asking for a donation for some
handicapped organisation and was quite pushy about it...it didn’t have any cash
anyway so told her it didn’t and she was still like “just 2 euros”. Whatever. After
waiting for a bit longer it saw there were 2 other girls also doing the same.
Some guy then came up to them and looked pretty pissed (it just had my
earphones in so it just watched everything happen) and asked for their papers
then wanted to see what t-shirts they were wearing. They were wearing normal t-shirts...people
from an organisation would have official t-shirts or at least t-shirts that
were all the same with a logo or something. And after it thought about it, the
donation sheet was photo copied too which should have raised alarms.
So this guy, a passenger, pretty much took their sheets and told them to piss
off and the 3 girls just sulked off...embarrassed at being called out. Everyone’s
trying to hustle hey...
Anyway, it got on my train no problem and it was really
nicely fitted, even for second class. And like all the other public transport,
you have to validate your ticket yourself before you get on (which it forgot to
do since it thought trains have conductors but France is different) and if you
get caught with a ticket that’s not validated they can fine you like 128
euros...once you’re on the train you can’t even do it which sucks ass. So it
was kinda shitting my pants but luckily there was no one who came to check
tickets the whole trip.
It was quite a pleasant trip to Geneva, even though the
weather was pretty crappy. Once there it just had to walk to another platform
to take my next train to Lausanne which was less than 30 min long. I was picked
up by Emma and Anotonie (tony for short) ad we drove back to their place.
Lausanne as a city is really cool and almost has a story book feeling with the
leaves all changing colours and the tramlines and hills and curves and just a
small, but busy town feeling really.
I had time to have a beer with Emma and Tony before Emma had
to leave for work and tony went to watch a soccer game with some friends. No
worries for me...had a shower and a little nap.
I woke up to the house phone ringing....it was Emma’s
friends who had come to pick me up to go to Emma’s restaurant. Cafe Bellini was
pumping by the time we got there just before 10pm. We were 6 people...3 Swiss,
1 Brit and 1 Saffa [South African] actually. All were really cool people and
conversation flowed nicely in French and English. I had a Grimbergen to start
while everyone else had a south African red wine...it think was something like Vriesenhof or something. I’m not sure.
I ordered a small octopus salad. For 14 Swiss francs. That
R140. [South African Rands] For a starter. Switzerland is f****** expensive.
It
was awesome though...Emma gave me a big boy portion ;) it was chunks of the
octopus, baby potatoes, pickled cauliflower a bit too strongly pickled...really
over powered all the other subtle flavours, radishes, orange segments, fennel
bulb, mixed leaves and basil pesto (I know Emma loves her basil pesto. It was a
delightful dish and really filling too. We stayed quite a while and Emma joined
us when she was finished and we had another bottle of wine... on our way out of
the restaurant to a bar across the road, the barman gave Emma and me a shot of
apricot eau de vie. The shot glass overflowed. Literally. Omw that stuff sets
your throat on fire...and it’s not the kind of taste you want to think about
when having a shot....urgh.
Ok, so across the road we went to a bar called “comptoir”,
no idea what it means. Emma had her birthday party there so they still had a
huge sign up saying “Gatsby
gone wild”...nice small place with a bar and lounge area upstairs and a dance
floor/bar downstairs. We moved between the two, having drinks and chatting and
then dancing...if had looooads of fun. But the place closed at 3 am so we went
ambling along to the next place. Oh one of Emma’s friends is a Xhosa guy who’s
a doctor and entrepreneur and has been staying in Switzerland for 20 years so
he speaks English, Xhosa and French... J
We briefly popped into a place called “13e” or “tresieme”
meaning “thirteenth” in French. I don’t know what the significance of the name
was. People were still dressed up in Halloween outfits as if suppose most
couldn’t celebrate it during the week. It was a really cool place, built in the
old part of Lausanne and had bars and dance floors in these ancient cellars
pretty much. It was too crowded so we headed off to Darling which is where Emma’s
fiancé works/manages.
That place was packed...kinda like a mix of Stones and Tiger Tiger but not
formal...but nice pumping music and a square bar in the centre so they could
serve people on 4 sides simultaneous which makes sense....and utter chaos. A
double gin and tonic cost 13 francs...R130.that is INSANE! We ended up staying
there until about 5 or something and then caught a cab home. I was pretty much
off my trolley at this point but was still making sensible conversation. My
body just was lagging behind :p Emma and if still stayed up until sometime
between 6-7am talking and drinking wine and eating Lindt chocolate .
Was awake from 4 am today and actually heard from Travis.
Seems the fanny finally got a Malaysian sim [sim card for mobile phone]. We
were talking about breads and croissants as he was having difficulty with the
humidity affecting the crust as normally the salt in your pastries or breads
will absorb the humidity so you need to either eliminate it completely or use
very little. I suggested also using a levain in the pastries and breads as the
increased acidity helps with keeping quality and crust.
On a side note if want to experiment with cocktail inspired
breads. Like a rum n raisin bread where the raisins are soaked in rum, but then
it’s mixed into a pain viennoise. And still playing with the idea of a ‘Klippies’
and Coke sorbet [ Klipdrift – a South African brandy ] J
I think when I start at the
school if want to continue my journal, even if only for myself, documenting
changes and developments if notice with recipes and production and also to keep
track of ideas and progress..
Had a nice chat with Faitha today as well while we ate one
of her concoctions of split peas, chilli, pasta and potatoes. Don’t ask... we
were talking about relationships and life and how it’s difficult to find
someone when you have a really free spirit but how important and real it is to
have someone or friends outside a work/party environment that you can do things
with and talk to .
Was feeling a little exhausted still
but nothing a good breakfast and a coffee can’t solve. I was baking again from
5:30-10:30..we had a lot to bake and I had a nice rotation so that the time I
was finished with one trolley, the next was already out and starting to come up
to temperature so I was owning it. Scoring was good and baking was on par. It’s
pretty cool that Alexandre leaves me to bake almost all the bread most of the
time. I mean, if someone was on the oven and didn’t really handle it, it would
be a huge f***up.
Pretty standard Saturday though...knocked out production and
everyone started deep cleaning early while I was still busy so by 11:30 we were
all done. I got to try a foret
noir (black forest) which was good.
They add some of the maraschino liquid to the
cream when whipping the Chantilly
so it has loads of flavour. I’m gonna miss being able to try all these things...but
only 2 weeks left at Maison Pozzoli now.
I’m thinking about organising a trip up to Paris in my last
week but I need to find someone who would want to go with me as I know if I go
alone I won’t really want to walk around and see things.
Got home and passed out...and woke up around 8pm. The
weather here is getting really crappy and depressing. Ready to get back to
sunny SA although I know the weather has been a bit wonky there but still, home
is home.
Want to know what a sack of s#&t looks like? It looks
like Benjamin. So he was finally back at work today...that’s like a week and a
half. And turns out he wasn’t sick but fell down the stairs or whatever and
hurt his knee. Shit, I’ve worked with sprained ankles and after dentist’s
appointments and stuff before...I don’t let small things hold me back.
Man he was slooooooow. And he was making mistakes. And
pissing Alexandre off which is never a good thing. Like for the poolish he just
weighed off the water, yeast and flour together but didn’t mix it. Wtf? And
forgot to shape epis at the normal time so they weren’t ready when one usual
customer came for them.
Other than that it was a pretty standard day. Oh and
baguette with jambon cru and Roquefort
ftw. J
I didn’t sleep at all last night. Apart from a 2-3 hour nap
in the afternoon I didn’t really sleep. I stayed awake talking to Magen. She’s
a girl that studied with Nicholas, my brother, and we never really spoke before
but since about 2 months ago we started talking every day and now she is just
part of my life. I literally stayed up until my alarm went off to get up. And
even then I didn’t want to stop talking to her. It’s really amazing when you
meet someone that you can have endless conversations with.
I think if it wasn’t for her company, Lyon would’ve made me
miserable by now. She makes me more aware of my actions and beliefs and
stimulates me intellectually and challenges me constantly. Every day brings us
closer and I can’t wait to get to hang out with her in Dec when she is down to
visit.
So even though I didn’t sleep, I had a coffee and a
croissant with frangipani and just owned today. I was on the oven and was
pumping stuff out left and right. Sack of s#&t was slow again, nothing new
there. I can see he really pisses Alex off as well...
I made my brioche recipe yesterday and shaped it today so
we’ll get to do a taste comparison tomorrow. Now I just want to make ginger
beer!!!
Ah and we made gingerbread houses today and started cutting
out gingerbread men...the recipe was a nice end product, with Alexandre adding
some minced dried orange peel which really lifted the flavour. Although my
favourite is still the German lebkuchen.
Nothing beats that...I could eat it until I enter a food coma.
It was really cool to see how the houses got made and I
helped put together the chimneys. We used melted isomalt as the glue. It works
like sugar but doesn’t crystallise; oh and it burns like sugar too. F*** me I
had forgotten what that felt like. So there was a lot of swearing going
on...and if you ever watch peoples reaction when there’s sudden pain they
always swear in a native language... lately I swear in French but that time I
was swearing in English and Afrikaans J
even tried teaching Alexandre some words but French people struggle with the
hard, guttural sounds..
Anyway, so 60 houses down, now we just need to do 40 more
and make the bigger houses. But as for gingerbread men, we cut out about
50...and we need 600. So it’s over 200kg of dough we need to make; that’s a lot
of gingerbread men.
Today I was just taking it easy as even though I got home at
2am yesterday, I only ended up going to sleep around 8am.
Didn’t eat much as I
was still processing everything I consumed the day before. I felt like that fat
guy in the one Monty Python skit who eats a crap load of food and then wants a
wafer thin mint hehehe.
So yeah, pretty boring day...deal with it: D watched DotA2
casts on YouTube and lazed on the couch like a rubbery couch potato.
