A Moveable Feast

May !

Shopwindow on Boulevard Saint Germain of Chocolatier Patrick Roger. Delicious "muguets de mai". A happy green sunny month of May to everybody !

Welcome to Europe Mr. President

with this picture from the Jardin du Luxembourg and the first model of the statue of Liberty by Bartholdi. I just discovered it two days ago, running there now 2-3 times a week, which is now feasible thanks to my new evening work schedule. A whole new life...

It must be spring, my favourite season. I spend all my money on café and "Perrier tranche" sitting on terrasses in the sunshine reading cookbooks (my new bosses want me to come up with proposals for the new menu next week).

Amuse Bouche

I know I am skipping some steps of the events in the last week here...time will come to tell the full story.

One of my assignments in my new job is to come up with an amuse bouche every night, just using spoons. The super arrogant chef de partie who I am replacing and who transitioned the job during one week to me, said I should not "waste" more than five mintues every evening on that. Ha !. He doesn't know me. I love doing pretty amuse bouches and I think it is the first impression that the customer gets of the cuisine of the house so I insist it should be nice, and I rather come in early and work a little overtime instead of preparing 50 ugly spoons in 5 minutes. What a jerk. Glad he is gone and I can take decisions on my own now.

The only constraint I have is, I to use "leftover" (from the lunch special for example) and non expensive ingredients. Yesterday I created a "mousse de truite" in the pacojet (my favourite professional kitchen tool), and added some trout eggs and dill. That's all. One of the owners came down (my kitchen is in the basement) during the service and said, that the amuse bouches looked "tres joli" (very pretty). There you go. They haven't probably seen that too often with the 5-minute guy...

43 trial years

I had invited a couple of friends to celebrate my 43rd trial year on this planet with me for last Thursday. But then, against all expectations I was offered the job of my dreams in the restaurant of my dreams and therfore had to work Thursday night. So we postponed to Monday night, yesterday. I invited the girls for cocktails in Harry's New York Bar, a bar that Hemingway used to spend quite some time in and so did my blog reader Norman from California when he lived in Paris as a young man. This is the bar where the Bloody Mary was invented, and I must say it is the best Bloody Mary I ever had (but is the mix on Air France flights really a good reference ?). The atmosphere and the barmen make this a very special place. Thank you girls for a fun evening !

 

 

Gran Torino

One of the best movies I have seen in a long long time. Amazing story, touching, deep, made me giggle and cry as well. Clint Eastwood at the peak of his work as director and actor.

Too good to be true ?

If I learnt one thing over the last week it is that I judge situations and person I don't know enough about a bit too fast. I hardly dare to write it, but the trial yesterday night was terrific. This is the restaurant I want to work for now, it meets all my criteria, and I am increasing from 5% to 100% the likelyhood I am going to sign with them if they make me an offer. It seems I have been the best candidate so far (despite the fact that I broke the "monte-charge" (food elevator) 30 minutes after my arrival) but there is another candidate to come on Thursday evening, and so they are going to make a decision on Friday. I need to try to calm down and not be too excited, to avoid big disappointment if they don't pick me. The chef said that already my CV makes me stand out and shows how much courage I have. They don't want people who have done brassereries and throw out 200 covers per service, but rather people who can put love on the plate. Well, here I am, just pick me !!!!

The food is amazing, quality products, very creative recipies, using spices, aromatic oils, inspirations from recipies around the world, while simple in production and beautifully plated. The chef is experienced, competent, friendly, calm. The two owners have both an amazing background running several restaurants in various parts of the world, one of them used to be the maitre d'hotel of the George V. So they too know what they do. I had no difficulty with the tasks I was assigned. I had to start with filleting four huge salmons. Thank God I went to Ferrandi, where I got a good training and so was able to execute. Always imagining chef Sebastien behind me with a stopwatch and checking whether I deliver good work.

Probably the only mistake I made is telling the chef when he wanted my opinion at the end, that I loved everything, but was a bit scared about whether I really had the required experience and competence to be able to manage the amount of work for the mise en place. It was stupid. But then this is me. Direct, open, honest.  

This job would be a great education prior to running my own restaurant. I would have to manage everything related to starters and desserts myself, which has obviously good and bad sides. They also hope for contributions to the development of the menu, which changes frequently with the seasons. The space is better than I thought. Though working in the basement, the size is approximately twice as much as the previous complete restaurant kitchen. The dishwasher seems friendly and experienced too. He runs the Monday night service for starters and desserts, so could be of big help in the beginning.

In one hour I will be leaving for my next trial cooking. After yesterday's experience I feel I know what I am looking for, and I'd better stick with my initial criteria. But I will not write down my prediction in percentage for tonight. Would get it wrong again, I guess.

next one please

After two more services with no customers and more insight into how badly this new restaurant is managed, how clueless the owner is about work in the kitchen and how few emotions I will be able to put into that type of cuisine, I told the owner yesterday evening, that I will pursue my search and trial cook in other restaurants, but would remain available for "extras" (jargon for working on a paid-by-the hour basis without long-term contract). As Sydney said, I really learned a lot about how not to open a restaurant. No recipe was documented, no one in them team had a clue how the owner wanted us to do things, and without his German-chef mother-in-law it would have been a desaster. The fridge is overloaded with fresh foie gras for the next years to come. I have never seen so much foie gras at a time in my life. No kidding. He said he bought a lot, because he got a good deal. Right. Unfortunatly the DLC (Date of latest consumption) is today, three days after restaurant opening, and also each foie gras weighs about 800g, which means rather bad quality (better is between 500-600g), which was confirmed by his mother-in-law. Pretty clear why he got a good deal. Now he transfers about 100 packages of foie gras into the freezer. Sure this will increase the quality.

The other thing that led me to refuse his offer was maybe just a little thing, but enough of a turn-off for me. One of the other "cooks", that has been there since 8 years, and will not move from there, when he cooked the hamburger for the dummy order, tested whether if it was "a point" (medium well) by pushing his index finger into the meat, moving the finger in the meat, until he had destroyed it, to see whether it was still red or not. Jesus. this will take me too much energy to explain to a 45 year old "experienced" guy that this is NOT the way to check the cooking degree of meat. I cannot do this. Sorry.

So yesterday night after that decision I wanted to have a good-decision-celebration drink in my favourite bar in St. Germain (La Rhumerie) and decided I need a better plan, than just reaction to ads. So I wrote down a list of people / restaurants / mentors I would contact first for advice, on what should be my next steps. Then I wrote down a list of restaurants that would meet 100% my initial criteria that I had established, that I would start to contact to check whther they would have openings now or later. Some Pina Coladas later I felt pretty good about my new fantastic plan.

So far for plans. This morning I did it again. Looked on the restaurant recrutment website, and just before logging off, at 10a.m. an ad for a fish restaurant with an excellent reputation in my neighbourhood popped up. Not meeting a lot of my criteria, but definitely the one about learning about products, techniques, recipies, and working next to a chef who knows what he does. I didn't even bother to call, thought I need to be the first one, picked my CV, and 2 minutes later I sat in the restaurant presenting myself to the Chef. Unbelievably he had at that time already talked to two other very qualified people, but accepted me as a third potential candidate. He wants to hire Thursday morning. This confirms again how important it is to be available right away, if you want a good job in a Paris kitchen. No restaurant will wait 2 weeks. So my test cooking slot for this fish restaurant is tomorrow night. I know it is going to be hell, no fun, lot of pressure, but if I get this one, I will deal with quality food and learn a LOT.

Tonight I go test cooking to the modern art-deco bistrot in the 9th arrondissement, where I am also one candidate out of three. A bistrot I had never heard about before, but responded to their ad because of their interesting menu. I am writing it down below as an exercise for tonight....(no time for translation though, sorry):

Starters :
- Foie gras chantilly et creme de boudin noir aux echalotes
- Bonbons craquants de gambas au caramel de porto et fruits secs
- Huitres panees au pesto de mache
- Verrine de betterave rouge au citron zeste et crabe aux herbes
- Trilogie autour du saumon
- OEuf meurette a l'huile de truffe
- Veloute de panais et potiron a la creme de mandarine et chips de pomme

Main courses :
- Foie de veau glace au miel et soja
- Magret de canard mi-cuit a la creme de poireaux et nouilles Soba
- Roulade de poulet farci aux langoustines et kiwis
- Medaillon de rable de lapin a la moutarde violette et lard caramelise aux endives braisees
- Cocotte de Saint Jacques au jus de geranium bourbon
- pave de sandre au jus de volaille et poires confites
- Filet de bar aux chataignes et sa creme

Desserts
- Baba au rhum traditionel
- Coupe de cubes agar-agar au sesame noir et clementine a l'Amaretto
- Verrine d'ananas confit a la vanille et sa mousse coco
- Tarte aux pommes facon 3 etoiles
- Feuillete de poires a la glace Amarena
- Salade d'orange et pamplemousse au sorbet d'herbes et palet breton
- Mi-cuit au chocolat et menthe poivree

The job I am trying tonight would be in charge for the 7 startes and 7 desserts. Working from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays. Never seeing the chef or the servers not to mention customers. Alone with a dishwasher in the basement.

I am tempted to say 5% chances I will sign there, but I have been rather bad with my predictions in the last days, so I will be better able to judge after trying. I know one thing for sure though : I need to go there for dinner...... It just sounds like amazing food.

Opening Night

Still excited about working for the startup, but a bit less enthusiastic. Did I say 98% sure I will sign ? Well right now it is rather 70 %. I started working for the restaurant at home this morning producing chocolate financiers. Yesterday the owner was wondering about what he should put on the cafe gourmand, so I suggested to him financiers and mini crème brulées. Since he doesn't have molds for financiers, neither a recipe for them, I did some trials at home and brought them to the restaurant. They made it immediately on the menu !

The final mise en place was rather stressful, because of course we had overlooked a lot of things on the menu that were to be prepared. Everybody skipped dinner and worked through from 3p.m. to 8 p.m. My  highlight of the day was the visit of the owner's mother in law. A German lady, that had moved to France in her 20s like me, and has run a restaurant in the Perigord region for 15 years (like me in the future). She made an end to the anarchy and chaos, and drove the team to get ready with all these recipes nobody knew. After the mise en place work, while we were waiting for the first customers she and I exchanged all our foie gras recipies. I hope I will have an opportunity to meet this lady more often.

Then we kept waiting for customers. And waiting.  And waiting. At 10.30 finally an order for 4. The frustrated owner and his family. Nobody else had even walked by. He said later that the restaurant was located in the most desert street of Paris. So why the hell did he buy it ????? Just for the terrace potential between May and September ? Even though there were only four dishes to prepare it gave me a first impression of what working with the team will be like. It will not be so easy and I will have to calm down a little. Oh my god they were soooo slow. And clueless about how to do it and what. I just wanted to fire off the plates, get everything cooking at the same time and send it out. As I am used to and have learnt to do in the last year. One new colleague made a comment : "You are really motivated, aren't you !" But I think he really meant that I was too pushy for him and should relax, I guess. But I can't. The desire to get stuff out fast is now inside of me.

Also I am not overly impressed by the food and the recipes. Not the same level of quality as in the last restaurant. So I'll see. Maybe the trial in the other restaurant on Tusday will be good, despite the "lonely basement".  If they offer me a job too the choice might be difficult. If they don't take me, maybe I'll stick with the startup until September, when there is normally the biggest turnaround moment in Paris restaurants, and a lot more interesting opportunities than in March during "la crise".

I hope tomorrow we will see the first real customers. Anybody not knowing where to have an reasonably priced, average quality lunch or dinner in Paris tomorrow, please contact me ;)

job hunting

Exciting times. As being without job was less fun that I had thought, I put my CV on a specialized Web site for hotel and restaurant recrutement, right after my return from Deauville on Wednesday

My "ideal" criteria for the next restaurant are
- small team
- experienced chef, with Michelin star experience
- modern bistrot cuisine
- 30-40 covers

On the same web site there were two ads that I was interested in. Four days later this is where I stand : I got three phone calls with offers, two of which I turned down, because they were for restaurants that seated 150 poeple, and were actually more bar/lounge type of places, in one case not even mentioning the menu on their website.

Reactions and decisions are made rather fast in Paris, so I was late for one very interesting ad of a French chef who has spent 10 years cooking for the stars in Hollywood, and now cooks French / Californian style in an upscale restaurant near the Champs-Elysees (www.citrusetoile.fr). Replied two days after the ad, and all positions were taken.

For one restaurant with an extremely interesting menu and type of cuisine, I have passed an initial interview with success (I am good at talking and getting my motivation accross), and was invited for a trial this coming Tuesday evening. The cuisine is very creative while accessible, and I would love to learn how to prepare their dishes and get insiprations. The negative point : The kitchen is on two levels, on the restaurant level the chef, preparing the main courses. On the basement level : The chef de partie for starters and desserts (which would be me), with a dishwasher, and the only contact to the outside world an "elevator" for the plates to send upstairs. I would not see a customer, a waiter, nor the chef. Hm.

Then there was this call Thursday. A lady asked if I was available the next day to start as a commis, she would open a restaurant on Saturday, and needed someone urgently. No real chef, except her husband designing the menu, two other commis, and a dishwasher. Rather traditional French cuisine. My mind was on the other modern restaurant, and I was telling her that I was not really interested. She kept begging, if I couldn't at least come for a paid trial on Friday to help her with the mise en place for the opening. As I was impatient to work with my knifes again, I ended up giving in, but without any real enthusiasm.

The next morning I arrived at the restaurant which resembled rather a construction site. I didn't look like a restaurant that could open within one day. But : a complete new kitchen, all equipment new, a rather nice team for the kitchen, cute waiters, a reasonnable owner, terrace with view on Notre Dame. This and complete anarchy and chaos. The menu idea turned out to be more interesting than I thought. To make a long story short, I have been involved now since two days in getting the restaurant up and running, the owner saw me chopping shallots, and then said : "I watched you working, you are not a commis ! I will offer you a higher position and help you to develop, you have a great potential." How the world has changed  ! I remember two years ago, I was chopping shallots and Chef Sebastien yelling through the kitchen "Ulla you are falling asleep" and then throwing my badly sliced shallots away "Poubelle !" and I remember one year ago the owner of the last restaurant said after my trial day : "I watched you working, but you are not a chef de partie. I can only offer you the job of commis, and you will get the SMIC (minimum legal salary in France)". Now yesterday my new potential boss offered me a salary that would be a 60% increase compared to my last job as a commis. He also wants to work on team schedule that allows rather continuous hours, instead of coming in twice a day. Also he wants his team to contribute to the specials of the day, and so this could be a playground for me to try my "creations" without any financial risk, before I realize my own project.

I told the owner that I will decide once I have done the trial in the other restaurant, but I am 98% sure, that I am going to sign with him. It would be a big compromise on my criteria, no chef I could learn from, instead I would rather be the driving force in the kitchen, no modern, creative cuisine, but I could try whatever I want, and the owner would buy the ingredients. A salary that would be finally superior to my rent (it's Paris !), and so avoid that I continue to touch my savings. I nice social environment promising fun at work, colleagues that beg me already to stay with them after two days. And the opportunity to live the adventure of a restaurant startup from Zero.

It is Sunday, and of course the opening could not happen yesterday, because many items in the kitchen and in the restaurant were not finished. Today we will start working at 3 p.m. and hopefully be ready for the first dinner service tonight. To be continued...

Beirut - Nantes

This is a song that was played a lot during the Omnivore Food Festival in Deauville (http://www.omnivore.fr/?p=1367) I attended this week with Diane and Cathleen. Beirut, a group I never heard of before, founded three years ago by a then 20 year old guy from New Mexico. Even if it is not the type of music I usually listen to, I got addicted to it and it has finally replaced Viva La Vida as my new favourite song (Kate : don't mention it to you know who...;).

 

Found Nemo !

It's been almost a week now that I returned to dull grey cold Paris after an exciting vacation in the Philippines. Twenty beautiful dives more in my logbook, interesting excursions to learn more about the Philippine culture (cockfights !) and nature, friendly smiling welcoming people, cute hideway hotels, great tasting food including tons of garlic rice, and a very nice group of people to share those two weeks with, with some of them I will stay in touch.

I must admit that the return shock was big this time. I have been busy with doctors visits to treat a heavy ear infection I brought back with me, travelling to a foodfestival with amazing chef demos in Deauville, and job hunting (after all being without job is not as cool as I thought). So I had no time yet for a full vacation report, maybe I'll upload the best of my 400 photos on flickr some time, for the moment only my favourite Nemo picture. Aren't they cute how they look at me ?

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Visayas

Visayas is an island group in the Philippines. That part where they don't kidnap foreigners. At least so I was told...;) Ok, now some people will be even more excited than me...

Anyway, this afternoon I am leaving to a scuba-diving island-hopping vacation there, a trip I have been dreaming about for a couple of years. 4 islands in 2 weeks. And lots of opportunites to find Nemo ... if I am able to dive, because I did not manage to get 100% rid of a cold that I have been fighting since 10 days, and any congestion in the nose/ear area means diving is impossible, because you cannot equalize the underwater ear pressure. But I am counting on the tons of nose and ear spray I packed and the warmer temperatures there to eliminate the last symptoms...

This will be my first real travel to Asia (not counting in a 3-day trip to Singapore 15 years ago for training the HP Asia technical support team on computer graphics). So I am really excited....

Current temperatures : 22-28°C / 72-84°F, yeah I need that right now
Relative Humidity : 96% (maybe I don't need to pack a hair dryer... ?)

For Christmas I got a underwater housing for my camera, so I hope to be able to take a lot of pretty clownfish pictures this time. 

A bientot !

Snow !!!

Yesterday night meteo france communicated a "snow alert" for the north of France, including the area around Paris. I was excited like a little child. Actually I have never seen snow before...in Paris. So this morning, while I could have enjoyed my unemployed life and sleep until noon, I was so excited I woke up at seven, got up to see what the night had brought, and indeed, some snow on the trees in front of my window. It felt like Christmas. So I forced myself to stay up, and to get out to admire the snow, because I knew it was rare and would not last very long. I had a special place in mind to go to, but until I arrived (I had to walk, as the bus network was shut down), most of the snow had already gone. Still very pretty !

And returning home at noon instead of getting up at noon was eventually not too bad. Anyway I need to get used slowly to the time zone that awaits me as of next Sunday (7 hours advance).

250 covers in 1 hour

Today I sent out 250 meals within one hour. No reservations had been made. Nobody ordered. Nobody paid.

Let's take a step back to explain. For the last two years my mind had been totally absorbed by my career change. Continuous struggle with the new environment. Questioning whether I had taken the right decision. Working inhuman hours for a ridiculous salary. Since I left HP and Grenoble and my life #1 I had to put aside some of my habits, hobbies, activities that were part of it, in order to survive the beginning of live #2. But I think a couple of months ago I made a big jump, and eventually found the capacity to look beyond a restaurant kitchen again.

Part of my desire has also always been to volunteer and help other people who are not as lucky as I am to live a better life. My father and my sister are both medical doctors and it is not that I wish I had taken their path, but somehow I envy them that they are giving so much of themselves to save other people's lives, to help them to live with less pain; to lead a longer and better life. It is something that is missing in my life. So when a couple of months ago I had overcome the biggest hurdles of my new life, I felt I had the energy again to give also to others and not focus exclusively on myself.

The most obvious way of giving should also be related to food for me. After all the key motivation for my career change had been to bring happiness to other people with my food. So it was a no-brainer to choose to join "Les restos du coeur" , the restaurants of the heart.

Les restos du coeur is very popular French humanitarian association, founded by the French comedian Coluche in 1985. He set up the distribution of free meals to the poorest people, a program that continued even after his tragic death in a motorbike accident shortly after the first winter of the Restos du Coeur. Today a lot of celebrities support Les restos du Coeur, and raise funding in a yearly big TV concert. Even our famous beautiful Carla, the French president's glamourous wife, donated the 60000 Euros she got in a lawsuit against Ryanair (for showing her picture in advertisement) to Les Restos du Coeur.

So since a couple of weeks I have spent my Saturday evenings together with a couple of other regular volunteers to distribute hot meals to the poorest people, who often don't even have a place to live. I didn't write immediately about this activity, because in the beginning I was not really comfortable. People who come to the meal distribution, which takes place outside, are not requested to present ID or justification. Anybody can come, and I was told to follow some rules strictly to avoid trouble. There can be any type of people with all types of education background, some are drunk, some sleep under a bridge, some just got out of prison, some just come for the social aspect without taking a meal. Some people were indeed agressive, but most of the time those evenings have been good experiences, and I try to keep a big smile, a bonjour, a bon appetit for everybody, and I am happy when I can see from time to time a smile returned. I read in an article recently that after all volunteering is as much selfless as it is selfish, because it makes you feel good about yourself. I guess this is true. In this case it makes me also feel good about my life conditions. When you can go back to a warm home, after having spend a couple of hours with people who can't afford to buy food, or don't even have place to stay when it is freezing cold outside, you know how good your own life is. It is a healthy reminder every Saturday night.

Today, after two months of participation, I was "awarded" a badge with my name. Les restos du coeur want volunteers, that are reliable and come regularly. So I had to "prove" first that I am serious about regular participation, before being officially "accepted". Some of the other volunteers I met, go to the same place for meal distribution, every Saturday night since more than 6 years !

More infos about "Les restos du coeur" on their (French) website :

http://www.restosducoeur.org/

The last supper

It's over. I made it. One year.

Yesterday night was my last service at the restaurant. I quit after one year, which had always been my minimum objective. I am proud that I was able to get through this year, but now it is really time to move on. I see how much progress I made , when my new colleagues ask me all the time how to do things. To my surprise I also get upset when they are too slow, and can't get the plates out fast enough during the lunch service rush. It drives me nuts. Who would ever have thought that. The speed had always been my biggest issue, now I know that I have made progress, but I can also better appreciate the former reaction of colleagues during my first internships and jobs, about my lack of speed...

Although the chef was crazy, burnt everything he could burn, cooked steaks in the microwave, and set several fires in the kitchen, was more concerned with discussing "la crise", than with the quality of the food and hygiene standards, he had a big heart and never yelled at me because of my initial lack of technique and speed. So the passed year enabled me to gain confidence into myself, and validate my decision to become a cook.

I will enjoy now some unemployed "time off", first to recover from a bad cold that took away my voice, then to think, to read, to travel, to cook, to scuba-dive, and in March will be looking for the next restaurant, with a chef hopefully a little less crazy. The owner of the Cafe de la Place already offered me to work there, but that is a place where I want to remain a customer...

I will miss two of the waiters a lot. Daniel and Benoit, on the photo of yesterday night. Their good mood always made my day. With Daniel I pretended to have an "affair", I called him "cherie", and he called me "ma biche". Each time we were - by accident- in the walk-in fridge together, I screamed : "mais non Daniel, arette Daniel !", which made all the team laugh... The situation became hysterical, when a couple of months an (openly) gay waiter joined the team and pretended to love Daniel as well. So we "played" scenes of jealousy between the three of us... It sounds silly, but this was part of a relaxed atmosphere I needed desperately after my previous depressing experiences. Benoit, who could be my son, always typed special messages for me on the order tickets. They would sometimes read : " 1 foie gras - 1 Salade Verte - Super Ulla". He also brought flowers for my birthday. Besides being fun, they were both real professionals, and I took their coordinates, you never know. To Benoit I always said "one day you are going to work for me". He used to answer "but you know Ulla I am expensive", which made me reply "But you know Benoit, I'm rich"...

Then there are other people who I will not miss at all, and didn't even say good-bye to. But they don't deserve that I waste more thoughts on them, it is better to move on, take some lessons for future behaviour when idiots agress you, and just remember the good things.