Journal...day 12

Today was the last day for the semester at  Institut Paul Bocuse. Also, it being the last day of the week, which meant that the students were having their exam. Chef let me choose what bread they would have to make so I chose a variety of different shapes and techniques for them to do. I decided on Pain de tradition, petit boules and baguettes, pain de meteil, petit boules farinee and boules grande (which they had to flour seam side down) and pain bressan which had to be shaped into fusettes and batards and farineed.

I mixed all the doughs and then while I was doing that and waiting for the doughs to finish, the students started cleaning parts of the bakery.  After the primary fermentation, chef and I didn’t talk to the students at all except if they were going to do something very wrong. If they shaped, scored or baked anything incorrectly, they were penalised. Both the first and second groups started off well, but once it came to loading the bread, things went downhill. Both groups slowed down to the point where the secondary fermentation was too long and so the pain de meteil and bressan were so proved that they hardly opened up at all. Both groups also forgot to either score at all or scored bread incorrectly.

Subsequently, they were penalised for this. with both groups getting around 10 points out of a possible 20. Each individual was also scored on their technical execution of the methods, their understanding and listening to you, their work spirit within the team. In both groups there were one or two people who stepped up and took charge, making sure everyone was on the same page and what was being done was being done so correctly (well, kind of). 

 Lunch was weird today. Obviously the canteen was trying to use up any leftover stock but when we were served, at our table, some portion sizes were bigger than others and some were only partly garnished. This also fell to the service staff who almost had no clue wtf was going on.

Entree was a selection of small things, club sandwich, some roasted pepper stack, a grain dish, and a Caesar salad (mine didn’t get bacon, croutons or parmesan...it wasn’t even dressed). Mains was a disaster in my books. We got some sort of cured fish (later we saw them bring out salmon for other people) and it was with similar spices and veg as the day before, but it’s like they literally took every piece of prep and just chucked it together. Mange tout going brown...I think the chef couldn’t have been there. Possibly the students winged it for our service (there are usually 2 services, at 11:30 and 13:00...)

When I got home, Thierry and I went to a bouchon in Croix Rousse close to  Fatiha's place. Bouchons make traditional Lyonnaise food which is usually made from offal or less choice cuts of the animal. It started when the poorer carriage drivers wanted to stop for a cheap meal then they would have something at the bouchon and they would also get a bale of hay for their horse and it’s different from haute cuisine in that it doesn’t use as expensive ingredients and is more centred on meat and is usually fattier. You will generally find pork, duck, veal, beef and chicken on a menu in a bouchon.

Thierry ordered the confit duck leg cassoulet which was really good but the leg seemed to been quite dry as if it had only been roasted and not confit’d and I ordered some potatoes cooked in duck fat and the Andouillette, which I thought was a pork sausage with whole grain mustard and white wine (it sounded lovely on the menu) but it was actually a tripe sausage!!!! 

I immediately thought of the Mr Bean episode where he orders steak tartare in a restaurant, not knowing what it is and then spends the rest of the episode trying to hide it. I really could barely stomach the one mouthful I had. I just smelt and tasted farm and wanted to chunder... it was a painful experience having to sit with it in front of me and smell it all the time. The service was really slow at the restaurant... only 2 waiters, 1 manager and 1 chef....and it’s like a 40 pax place and there were around 25pax there incl us. Not smart at all. The chef was definitely spinning his ass off. At least my potatoes were ok. And it makes a fun story but next time I’m not going to order in French unless I’m 100% sure what it is I’m getting J

Thierry and I then walked around a bit and I finally bought some gin and agrum’ which was soooo good. We chilled a bit and then he had to leave around 11pm to catch his train.