Teamwork

Teamwork !

Nice day today...sick push in the morning with everyone hands on, Benjamin and I doing the pate blanche, Yann doing bio, Alex doing the viennoiserie, seigle Auvergne, ciabatta, Sarasin, autolyse etc...And Alexandre on the oven. I ended up spending the morning with Alexandre, taking notes about small details when scoring different ways. He told me he knows 30 different ways to score a boule, different shapes just by changing small details, even if it’s still the same amount of scores. And the difference between a baker and someone just chucking some dough in the oven is the finesse and the attention to visual detail. Making sure your scores are all parallel, corners all in line etc...It’s all noticed on a subconscious level.

It made me kind of sad to think about coming home...I don’t want to stop learning. But I’ll have to put more effort into upping my game and trying things out myself. I definitely want to visit Maison Pozzoli again in a few years... or maybe even have chef and Alexandre come visit Cape Town for a bit...I already want to try to organise to get a case of wine to them...

I ended up loading most of the bread today...it went ok, except for a few very borderline bakes...and I let the Sarasin over prove which sucks. It’s a really dense bread and not really responsive...one minute I check it and it feels dense and under proved, 5 min later and I see the surface starting to separate like when dough is over proving and I knew it was a mess. And it bakes pretty long as well...

We had some baking students come in and visit today... like I mentioned before most areas have a baking school but these kids looked young. When I asked chef about it he said most were 15/16 and already studying to enter the service/kitchen/baking area. That’s hectic!! They all looked very smart in formal suits though.

After baking was done I helped the others line crap loads of tins with pate feulletage for the quiches...everyone was involved, even chef and Jean-Luc (the guy who calls me compote) after that we prepped a huge batch of monsieur. Here they put the cheese on top and gratinate it.

Came home and chilled. Yesterday the curtain fell down when I tried to open it (the walls are very old and powdery and the curtain was too heavy. So now I just put them around my bed so I have a curtain to keep light out and heat in since I sleep on the couch anyway. Fatiha and I were joking that it’s like those bed forts you make when you’re a kid J