French Girls

Phew what a stressful day...

Alexandre and I came in at 1am today as we had a big order to get through and wanted to get a head start on the stuff because Benjamin and William wouldn’t be able to help that much. We were pretty productive...although Benjamin wasn’t on form at all today. He was on mixing the doughs but took incredibly long and some of them weren’t made properly (like forgetting to add gluten to the Sarasin)... Alexandre was kicking his ass hard. I think he ended up making Benjamin cry.

I tried to tell him to refocus and concentrate but I don’t know if maybe there was something else on his mind maybe.

With the pain viennoise it took him so long to divide and shape everything that by the time he was done with everything, the dough was ready to be baked. So he took like over an hour for that...and him giving Alexandre more stress doesn’t help anyone. The big order for 350 dejeunettes tool a while to divide, shape and bake so I was overseeing Benjamin and William and helping with baking while doing most of the shaping.

Ah shit and I forgot my Monster at home... L was bleak about that. We gave the whole place a really nice clean today as well.

Oh and we started burning some of the wooden crates in the wood fired oven...it’s quite interesting how it works. Instead of having a hearth that is heated up from underneath, there is a small chamber where you make a fire using small branches (they use 400kg a day like this) as you want a flame and not just heat. The flames go out from a chute inside the oven which you can direct. Basically it’s heated up by the flames which can shoot out up to about 2m which reaches all the way into the back of the oven which is about 2m deep.

After work Benjamin, William and I went for a beer across the road to talk crap and look at French girls J

nice to socialise a bit and talk with people who get the industry. Also, William mentioned that he’s organised for me and him to go to the gastronomic restaurant of the MOF chef who is a family friend of his. Apparently the chef has invited us, so it’s on him...if not I won’t be able to afford it ha-ha....but should be pretty sick. The guy is 72 and still working, or at least overseeing his restaurants...old school French style.

An Australian girl is staying at Fatihas place for a few days so was cool to speak to her and her sister who are both from Melbourne.

Food & Sex

Standard morning stuff...start off with a lil' coffee with some cream coz doc told me I’m 100% healthy and cholesterol and all that jazz is cool so no reason not to. That with a pain viennoise with white chocolat and the day can only get better...

 I helped Alexandre arrange the loaves on the shelves this morning and he explained that all the loaves with a corner pattern on it, like a square or diamond, always arrange it point up, all of them. You have to think about it like a picture. Also, in France, any bread made with biological flour has to be kept on a separate shelf, above other bread as obviously if flour falls onto the bio bread and isn’t bio, you can’t call the bread bio any more...pretty strict.

Around midday I helped Alexandre with the croissants and pain au chocolat again and afterwards, I made a mix for beurre noisette and honey madeleines..We tasted some late in the afternoon and the flavour was amazing...beurre noisette and honey. It definitely was one of those “food is better than sex” moments.

After I made the dough for bread with saucisson cooked in red wine, where you add the wine as the liquid and it also has hazelnuts in it. I think that some sage in the dough would also be cool. And that bread with a nice strong cheese would hit the spot...

Alexandre made pannetone today...the dough is mixed slowly for 1 hour, maintaining a temperature of 24-26 degrees. It then has Lyonnais praline and orange peel added (praline is normally 18% of weight of dough) and proved slowly at a ambient 29 degrees with humidity for 12 hours before it gets baked at 180 for usually 45 min. Before it gets baked, the skin gets scored in a cross and butter is piped over the cross so when you bake it, you put it in for 5 min, and when the crust starts to form, you take it out and pull back the folds and pull them over the edge of the paper and that way, the crust doesn’t impede the rising of the pannetone.

Alexandre scoring pannetones

There was a problem with the pannetone though, this time, Alexandre tried adding praline as 25% of the weight instead of the normal 18%. What happened was the praline melted and the sugar caramelised, creating steam and turning the centre gooey...so even after 1.5hrs the big pannetones were still not cooked in the centre. After cooking, the pannetones are pierced with a double skewer which is joined at the blunt end forming a long U shape. Once the paper is pierced at the base, the pannetones are hung upside down to cool.

Mr Pozzoli made some decorative bread yesterday which I missed out on, but they do new ones every 2-3 weeks so I hope to see it soon. It’s a mixture of rye flour, water, salt, a lil' yeast and egg whites. Next level shit.

 Oh and I named the male cat “Gazuese” [ga-zoos] which means gas/effervescent/gassy as he’s always running around and loves to chase things and play. So its Bonnie and Gazuese...today bonnie jumped onto my lap and just looked at me and waited for me to stroke her...she really likes to just sit or lie somewhere and let you stroke her whereas Gazuese will force his head under my hand and is almost jealous of any attention his sister gets but I think it’s just his playful and bubbly personality.

We can DO IT

Today was a very productive day, Alexandre and I just pumped stuff out. I really feel like I’m more efficient and therefore faster now and I can still improve. Alexandre also has the same view about setting up and work flow, gets everything ready that you might need and then you work like a factory, with a system and just pump stuff out. My back also hasn’t been hurting as much so I think my body is getting used to the height as well.

I got to mix the ciabatta, pain viennoise and the kamut. All which were mixed a lot as is usual for the French methods. Yan was “un sac de merde” again today...he keeps telling me to clean or what to do but he’s also new and I just do it for now but soon I’m going to tell him to “mange un bite”. He’s just slow and forgets stuff and you can tell from his body language that he won’t last long.

Today I got to score and bake some baguettes. On about 65% of them my scoring/ “laminé” was ok, but on the rest it wasn’t very good and I was pissed off at myself. I am used to scoring more around the loaf and not down the length of it, with a larger angle between the start and end of my cut. Here, the scores are more done with withe end and tip being maybe 1.5cm apart, but all cuts straight down the middle. Also using the very edge of the lame as if you score too deep it opens up more aggressively.

French people like the baguettes to have a nice thin crispy crust and a soft interior, so the baking time is not too long and unlike larger loaves where you open a vent for steam to escape (well, quite a lot), here you just leave it in the oven like normal until it’s time to take out but you don’t “dry out” the baguettes as they become too hard then. Every day I will score and bake the last 120 baguettes that we do as practice.

After baguettes I watched Alexandre as he laminated the butter into the croissant doughs. They have a different what I’m used to but it actually incorporates the butter a lot more effectively with less intensive folds and also, after folding the dough and before starting with the next fold, the side where the dough folds over is cut so there is less tension in the dough when you roll it out again. Makes complete sense but I never thought about it.

While Alexandre and I were shaping the croissants and the pain au chocolat for the next day, we were discussing different traditional customs and holidays and recipes. We discussed work philosophies and difficulties of staying in the industry and how your life is changed and that the work isn’t just a job any more, it’s a lifestyle that not everyone understands. I dig these long mass prep sessions as they’re a great time to really get to know someone.

Alexandre told me of a trick his father told him about when deciding whether or not to employ someone. While talking about this Alexandre knocked a brush onto the floor which I just picked up and put back as a reaction. That was the test...his father would purposefully drop something to see whether or not a person would react and pick it up or just leave it there. If you think about it carefully this is a brilliant way to weed out the people who are just clocking in and who won’t put in effort.

After work I played with the cats again...vie decided on bonnie for the female, but I felt that Clyde just wouldn’t suit the males personality so I have to think about it some more. They really are so adorable and the male with force his head under my hand when he sees me.