A Moveable Feast

Researching

My research on fish has started as planned. Yesterday I discovered this guy preparing some dolphinfish on the pier in front of the restaurant, where the fish was going to end up in the kitchen for dinner (I felt an urge to discuss HACCP with him, but then resisted). Now I am ready to be chef de partie.



During my trip here that lasted a couple of days including a delayed flight, a missed ferry and one hour of seasickness on the next ferry after waiting of 5 hours in a strange bar near the harbour of Saint Vincent, I sometimes asked myself why the hell I was doing this to myself. But once I arrived on my little island I knew why I hadn't chosen an easier vacation destination. It's true "once you get there you'll know" (a slogan I picked from a hotel advertisment).

The story is, that about 5 years ago I was on a German cruise ship in the Carribean, and for one of the "land" trips, I had booked a one-day sailing trip through the Grenadines. We stopped for two hours in a bay that was so beautiful, that I decided that I want to come back one day to this island, called Bequia (pronounce "beck-way") and stay longer. Now, five years later, I am here and staying two weeks. And it is as beautiful as I had remembered. Not many tourists yet, sunshine, turquoise sea, empty beaches, very friendly and relaxed people, lots of beach bars no luxury or all inclusive resorts, and very cool atmosphere. After two days I have only seven moskito bites, one proposal to buy a catamaran with a Canadian guy, no sunburn (gettting carful with the age), one day trip booked on a schooner to go further south to the Tobago Cays and to become seasick again, five scuba dives scheduled. So you see I am very busy.

Every body talks to everybody here. And you are supposed to greet everybody you meet on the street. Something I still need to get used to. What a culture shock compared to Paris.

There are a couple of expats and lots of sailors. No French, some German and lots of Brits. I met for example that English lady, who used to be a manager and then decided she has had enough, and went from then on sailing everywhere in the world. Right now she is helping that Canadian guy, (the one who wants to buy a catamaran with me) to learn to sail. He quit his management job in Toronto, bought a sailing boat, will sail down to Venezuela, and doesn't know yet what to do after that. Or that German guy, who looks like Keith Richards, and lives here since 30 years, and sails every two years from here to Germany to visit his children. Funny crowd... My vocabulary is enriched by words like, jetty, dinghy, etc. In two weeks I will be able to talk like a sailor.

My hotel is in the "busy" part of the island, so today I walked across the island to the beach, called friendship bay, where I discovered Bequia initially. Here the postcard pictures for which some people will hate me. But I just need to enjoy my last vacation and life before starting my job in December. I deserve it. I just assume there won't be much of a life anymore then....

Friendhip Bay on Bequia

View on Admiralty Bay from my hotel room


The jetty of the dive club in Admiralty Bay

More on Bequia.

Gone fishing....

...and diving. For professional reasons of course ! I need to do some research on the original environment of fish. Hey, if they want me to be in charge of the fish station I'd better know something about those animals. So I think the best way to learn is to observe them under water in the Carribean.

I will try to leave strike-country somehow tomorrow morning (wish me luck, it is not obvious), and hopefully arrive on a small island in the Grenadines (close to Venezuela) Saturday afternoon. Until then I will take a two-hour train, a three-hour bus, an eight-our plane, a one-hour plane, a one-hour ferry and sleep in 3 different towns on the way (Strasbourg, Frankfurt and Barbados). I could have shortened the first part from Paris to Frankfurt, but now air controllers and Air France go on strike too...Actually today everybody is on strike in Paris, teachers, train and metro workers, post office, hospitals, air controllers, opera workers, etc. etc. It's getting insane. A good time to leave this country for a while. I believe my destination island has an internet cafe, so maybe I can share news about my fish research from there, if I find the time. But I will be extremely busy !

Otherwise will be back mid December.
Happy happy Thanksgiving to my American readers.

I will be paid to cook !

Hard to believe but true. Starting December 18th I will be paid to cook. I keep pinching myself to make sure it is real.

This is a major event in my life #2. After a year at Ferrandi, passing the CAP and and a tough stage in the south-west I have now my first job in a restaurant kitchen. Not any job, not any restaurant. I was offered to be chef de partie for the fish station in a very good and well known restaurant in Paris with more than one Michelin star. I should be excited and jumping up and down but I must admit, that I am more scared than anything else. Not so much scared of the hours (about 15 per day, so maybe I should be afraid), but scared of disappointing the sous chef, being too slow, being percieved as stupid. The stage experience still sits deep, and sometimes I have nightmares about the new job, in which I do everything wrong and the brigade is shaking their head and making fun of me.

But I still hope that this restaurant is going to be different. At least the sous chef hired me not only despite my age, but because of my age ! He was looking for somebody mature, never mind the experience. When I told him last week on the phone that I signed the promesse d'embauche (a promise-to-hire document), he kept saying "ça va être dur, ça va être dur" (It will be hard, it will be hard) I know. But I will try, it is a great and unique opportunity, and if I survive the first month I will survive at least a year. That's my objective.

I decided not to name the restaurant here for the moment, it will allow me to share more openly about my future experiences, which is however the key intention of this blog...

I survived Beaujolais Nouveau

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, reason is I had to recover a couple of days from a wild Beaujolais Nouveau evening. I am fine again. Normally I am not a fan of Beaujolais Nouveau. Cheap wine, that causes headache, supported by big marketing, that makes each 3rd Thursday in November a big worlwide event.

But the perspective to go out with my Japanese friend Ayako and potentially have some fun together in a bar in Montparnasse (those days/nights in Paris you go out where you live, because of the public transport strike), made me overcome my doubts.

After some strolling around my neighbourhood, we decided that the Café Odessa would be a good place. Fun musette musique (very traditional French accordion music from the 1920s or 30s, something I would under normal circumstances never listen to), straw on the floor and everywhere, disguised and crazy waiters (that later danced on the tables), and some special offers for charcuterie to go with the wine. To make a long story short, Beajoulais Nouveau indeed gives a LOT of headache, but when celebrated with good company in the right environment, it can be an unforgettable evening. (Maybe one glass less next time though...)

Beginning of the evening : "just one glass" and the charcuterie plate. The waiters are joking with us when we take the pictures, but we are not (yet) really receptive... When we ask for more bread, they bring popcorn...

A couple of glasses later :
The waiters dance on the table, get closer, and I (covered with straw) fall in love with a beaujolais colored balloon. I gave him my phone number, but he hasn't called yet...

A couple of glasses later :

A couple of glasses later :
No more pictures existing. And that's good.

Mit ... da faengt das Leben an

Herzlichen Glueckwunsch !!!
Aber bitte nicht zu sehr ausflippen ;)

Two-Star Tuiles

Unlike a lot of women in Paris women I don't spend much time and money on shopping for jewellery or shoes or handbags, but what gives me a real kick is an afternoon strolling through the professional kitchenware shops in Paris, namely Dehillerin, Mora and A. Simon., all in the same neighbourhood of the former Les Halles in the 2nd arrondissement. One of the things I discovered at Mora when I returned from my stage was this "thing" on the picture on the right.

Immediately it made my heart and my credit card race, as it was a tool I recognized from the pâtisserie kitchen of my stage. When I had to prepare the petit fours during my two weeks in the pâtisserie I was using the identical one. I had to have it at home !

You wonder why this ugly metal thing makes my heart beat and what it is ? Well, it is simply a "professional" tool to bring tuiles into their typical roof tile shape (hence the name).

Now combine that with the right recipe, and you can make a lot of people happy (my key objectve with all this career-change-adventure I am going through). Here is one that helped me to succeed... :

The good thing about this recipe is, that you can make it in advance, freeze it, and like this are always ready to have the most amazong tuiles ready within 5 minutes. In the restaurant, this helped to be more efficient, as the batter for the tuiles was only made once per week in a huge amount, and it allowed to do the tuiles in the right quantity, corresponding to the number of reservations, within minutes just before service time.

1 x butter
1 x sugar
1 x glucose syrop
1 x flour
1 x chopped almond + pistachios

("1x" means, that you use the equal amount of each ingredient, no matter what, for example 100g of each will allow you to make about 50 tuiles)

Mix the softened butter with the sugar, then add the glucose syrop, a liquid that looks like translucent honey (see picture), and is available in pastry ingredients specialty stores, like in Paris for example at G. Detout. The glucose contributes to the tuiles being so crunchy and crispy and to their airy texture and is really key for the recipe ! Add the flour and then the chopped almonds and pistachios. So far nothing special or difficult. Now comes the trick I learned during the stage: roll the batter into cylinders (about 3 cm thick), and wrap them into film. Then freeze !

   

Now next time you plan to have the friendly neighbour over for tea (or any other friendly person for that matter), just preheat your oven to 160° C, cut slices of 0.5 cm, place them on a "silpat" (silicon mat), and bake them until they have the right color, depending on your oven that would be between 5-7 minutes. You need to watch though, as they can turn too dark within seconds after being perfect...

And now my new toy comes in .... You need to be really fast when placing them from the mat into the shape (alternatively you can use a rolling pin, if you don't have such a toy), as the tuiles are only flexible for seconds, and if you wait too long they will break.

The best is really to do them just the day you want to serve them (they won't last longer anyway...).

Voilà. Success guaranteed !

I could be French and German !

Today I found something interesting on the website of the German consulate. Since years I am playing with the idea of acquiring the French nationality. But when I called the German embassy last time a couple of years ago to inquire what it would mean for my German passport, I was given a long speech by a German consulate officer, about one having to choose things in life, and they wouldn't prevent me from taking French citizenship, but I would have to give up my German citizenship in return. Although the "speech" on citizenship I got was in German, he threw in a popular French proverb : "on ne peut pas avoir le beurre et l'argent du beurre". In English this corresponds to "you can't have your cake and eat it".

Through further research at that time on German government sites about my impossible question I found that the reason behind this restriction of denying a second nationality to Germans, was for a potential situation of war between the two concerned countries, to avoid that you would have a conflict of interest. I guess it's somehow true that those days I wouldn't know which side to fight on. Definitely would want to defend foie gras and tarte au citron, without forgetting about Knoedel and Frankfurter Kranz !

Now the good news is, that apparently German authorities have considered on August 28 2007 that the risk of an imminent war between Germany and France can be considered as relatively low those days, so now if I acquired French citizenship I could keep my German one. So that makes me want to talk again to that German consulate officer about having butter and the money for the butter at the same time...

So the German side is solved, nothing to do there. Now I have to file in an request to the French authorities, and a lot of paperwork is waiting for me including an interview where my ability to communicate in French will be tested. Mais je suis prête ! Then nothing is guaranteed, and the French authorities will decide on a case by case basis, whether French nationality will be given to someone or not. And the process can take up to 2 years. But I will try. J'y vais. Do I have any advantage by doing this ? Not really (except for being able to vote). It's symbolic for me. I have been living now for 13 years in France, and I feel at home in this country, I noticed this very strongly when returning from Italy. I know that I don't want to go back to Germany, except for visiting friends and family, and the desire to live and work in another country is (at the moment) not existing. So....update in 2009.

Back from Cappuccinoland

I am now back in Paris after having spent 5 fantastic days in Bologna. And my anticipation about the best Cappuccino of this world was confirmed. I don't know how they do it, but the milk's texture is close to cream rather than foam. Heavenly. And only in Italia they would make a love declaration even by the way they serve a Cappuccino ...sigh...

Bolli is requesting more torturing food pictures, but as I took about 150, I will select and post them later. Katrina and I also walked and visited a lot, although food research was one of our key activities.

Unfortunately I still have nothing in writing about the job I interviewed for, and when I called them today some elements were a bit confusing, so I think about starting to interview with other restaurants... I wouldn't be able to really enjoy my vacation planned for end November, without knowing what will be happening after my return.