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 |
 |
| 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 ! |
 |
| 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment