A Moveable Feast

An ordinary day !?

Just like any day since beginning of February I left my appartment at 8:40 a.m., took the metro 10 stations to get out at "La Madeleine", entered the bistrot, had a very good espresso before climbing down the hundreds of years old wooden stairs into the "cave" and locker rooms to get into my cooks uniform. 

Official working time to be in the kitchen is 9 a.m., but with everybody having an esprosso first, it usually gets 9.15. For the month of March I am assigned to working "au chaud", on the hot line. This morning I prepared a "gratin dauphinois", which was the side dish for the "plat du jour", the entrecote. It needed to be planned to be for 20-30 orders, so it was a huge gratin. Then the usual "mise en place" checking if of everything for the service was ready and in enough quantity in the fridges, from lemons, to tomatoe cubes, to meat, fish, scallops, lobster, precooked vegetable. I cooked some potatoes, that are served with the sole meuniere and the "blanquette de veau", and prepared the mini-legumes that go with the lobster. Before 11 I also finished preparing the meal for the staff (4 cooks, 1 dishwasher and 4 servers), today roastbeef and pasta.

Like every day at 11 a.m. the chef kicked us out of the kitchen, even if we wanted to continue with the mise-en-place. But he insists on everybody respecting the break time. It is the first of the restaurants I have been working at where the staff eats at the normal customer tables and not on the pass or on the working benchens, so I am enjoying those 45 minutes. Like everyday I get back into the kitchen at 11:45 and double checked if everything was ready for the service to start. I quickly produced a sauce Bernaise, that we were running short of, that is served with the filet-frites. The amount is 10 times more that we used to do at school, so the techique and tools need to be adjusted a little bit, but I can do a sauce Bearnaise for 100 people perfectly now in one shot ! Customers come in starting at noon, and are accepted until 3 p.m. Today it was my turn to cook everything, while an appretice did the plating. Usually we take turns. The chef just interfered, when we were starting to "drown" or to be "dans le jus" (in the juice, or losing it).

We sold a lot of "blanquette de veau" today, a dish that goes very well, when it is cold outside. Basically it is a combination of big cubes of veal, carrots, bacon, potatoes, and small onions in a thick creamy sauce, not light but very yummy and the specialty of the bistrot. I also cooked ris de veau, andouillette, chicken breast with vegetables, pork feet, sole meuniere, filets de boeuf, "saignant" and "a point" perfectly mastered, something that was a mystery to me only 1 month ago, the plat du jour, entrecotes served with my gratin that the chef had complimented. Around 1 p.m. the apprentice and I got a bit in trouble, because the tickets were flowing in all at the same time. For each table the machine spits out a ticket twice, once when the customer orders (la commande), and once when the waiter wants the order on the customer table (la reclame). Depending on whether the customer has a starter or not, drinks an apero or not, eats slow or fast, the time between the reception of the two tickets at the hot line can be anything between 1 second and 20 minutes. So I started to lose it a little between knowing what I had to cook for sending out immediately, or what I had to prepare for later. Sometimes you can't wait for the second ticket, for example a pork feet cooks at least 15 minutes, so it must go in the oven with the first ticket. For an entrecote on the other hand, you just start to sear it, when you get the second ticket, and then imagine 15 tickets getting in at the same time... But the chef interfered a little bit to set the priorities and very quickly we were back on track.

(my current work area at the end of today's service, with the last order for a table of two on the pass : a steak-frites with sauce bearnaise and an entrecote)

It got quiet for me around 2 p.m. when the last customers all had their main courses and moved on to desserts. But this month I am not in charge of them. So at that time I started to clean my area, the stove, the workbench, moving items back into the fridges, and cleaning the floor while being ready for late customers, which we have to accept, but everybody hates when they walk in at 2:50. Whether there is something to do or not, we have to stay in the kitchen until 3 p.m. and then are kicked out by the chef again. I took the metro back home, usually I take my afternoon nap before getting back at 6 p.m. to start the service at 6:45. But I decided I will skip the nap today, and instead be awake the most time possible today, and offer myself a nice café in the Café de la Place. 

Actually I don't want this day to be just an ordinary day.

A list of moments

"There is no happiness; there are only moments of happiness” says a Spanish proverb. I think there might be some truth to that. The last days I had a couple of such moments that made me smile for a while ....

Moment #1 :
The chef-owner of my bistrot is not present all the time, he comes in usually three days a week for the lunch service (he is also busy running a second restaurant). Then everybody gets nervous, when he is around, as he is pushing us to accelerate, is very demanding and creating quite some pressure. As long as he is not stressing me too much (he did become a little impatient with me a couple of times), I am quite excited when he is in, as he is the only one of the kitchen team with gastronomic experience including working for Ducasse. For example he turns mistakes into a kind of quiz to make people think why things turned out not the way they were supposed to. Why did the dough not become crispy ? Why is the dessert too liquid ? Also he is forcing everybody to taste every special of the day. But in general the team is very stressed out, when he is around, because he is double checking everything and often makes people redo all their work. When he came in this morning he said the pear tart he had seen yesterday, was the best one he has seen in a very very long time. (Every day we do one apple or pear tart as the "dessert du jour".) I will let my readers guess who had done that pear tart yesterday ! Any idea ? Writing this makes me smile again. I know that details and precision in pastry is something that I have a talent for, but it was very very good for my ego and for some recognition within the team, to have the big boss mentioning it very loud to everybody.

Moment #2 :
One thing I still find difficult is coming home around midnight from work, and go to bed immediately to get the quantity of sleep I would need at my age. I should, but I simply can't and don't want to. So to wind down, I need to have a little bit of entertainment, and since the energy level at that hour is relatively low and even in the animated Monparnasse neighbourhood everything closes down around midnight, I mostly end up in front of the TV. Since a couple of days I have a new internet subscription, that includes international TV programs, and I am sooo happy to be able to switch to something else than French TV. So now every night at midnight I have 30 happy minutes with Jay Leno, that make me giggle and sometimes laugh out lout.

Moment #3 :
Talking about the neighbourhood closing down at midnight (on weekdays), yesterday after my night service, I walked by the Cafe de la Place just before midnight on my way home. It was empty but outside in the rain was my favourite waiter having a cigarette (Since Jan 1st smoking is forbidden in bars and restaurants in France). Since he is always so nice to me, always guesses what I want to order before I even can pronounce it and makes me feel at home there, I decided to stop, shake hands and chat a little bit. Somehow we got to talk about my new profession, my exam last year (I spent all May and June with my books there to study) and life changes. Then he revealed his story, he was not the long experienced waiter that I thougth he was, but in fact the manager of the Cafe de la Place, having left his job as a trader at the Paris stock exchange 2 years ago at the age of 50, just to do eventually something that he enjoys, even if it has nothing to do with his education and university degrees. Amazing. I was very happy that I had decided to stop for a chat, and guess I will spend now even more time in the Cafe de la Place. I want to find out more about his story and who knows maybe even get some advice about my own project from someone who is already 2 steps ahead of me. 

Moment(s) #4:
I am counting down the days until Wednesday next week, I will get a year older again, and to celebrate the occasion I will cross the French border and meet some people that have considerably contributed to my existence on this planet, in Brussels durning my 2.5 days off. There will be happy moments then (Belgium is famous for beer, French (!) fries and chocolate truffels), but the moments of anticipation this week are happy too.

Carpaccio de Saint-Jacques

One of the great advantages of my new workplace is, that during weekdays we offer a lunch menu that changes daily, the "plat du jour", so besides the items on the standard menu I have the potential to learn 12 new dishes every week (I don't work Fridays), or 564 dishes if I stay one year (deducting 5 weeks restaurant closure), one starter, one fish main course, one meat main course every weekday. The exciting observations for me besides the recipes are the customer responses to certain dishes and the organization, to make sure we can get them out in quantities during "rush hour" without any delay.

One of the l'entrées du jour (starter of the day) that is very popular, is a carpaccio de Saint Jacques (Scallops), and we offer it now almost every week. During the mise en place time in the morning we usually prepare 20 plates arranging the scallops cut in thin slices, store the plates in the fridge and at the moment of the customer order, we finish the plate by drizzling truffle oil, olive oil, freshly squeezed lemon juice, fleur de sel, some parmesan and either a little salad or a heap of green herbs in the center. So it usually takes less than a minute to send the plate out once the order reaches the kitchen us.

I wanted to try something similar today at home, using a new kitchen toy I offered myself last weekend. A siphon compressor in order to start playing around with the currently so popular espumas and chantillys (foams and whipped creams), that are used in professional kitchens far beyond creating just plain whipped cream.

And I found a nice recipe in the book "espumas & chantilly" (editions marabout). One year ago I would not have dared to buy scallops with the shell, but now I open hundreds of them every Sunday in the bistrot, so you could say I know the technique and I am getting fast at it. So of course I am buying them now with the shell.

For the cream mix that goes into the siphon, mix :

- liquid cream
- soja sauce
- olive oil
- 5 epices (spice mix)
- lime juice

Then arrange thin slices of raw scallops on a round plate, ideally not white, to create a better color contrast. Drizzle with a mix of lime zest, olive oil and soja sauce. With the siphon add the cream mix in the center of the plate.

Decorate with afalfa sprouts, spring onions and lime zests. You do not need salt, as the soja sauce in the whipped cream and the vinaigrette contain enough salt. That's all ! And there you have a light, beautiful, not so ordinary starter ! Bon appétit !

La vie en rose

To see la vie en rose is much better than going on with a Paris Blues...

I can do that again since a couple of weeks. Against everybody's well meant advice I quit the 2 star restaurant 4 weeks ago. Too many negative things had accumulated, that resulted in total demotivation. The most difficult was that they were expecting too much from me, that I could just not deliver in the given time, so others had to always help me and bad comments and remarks didn't stop. While I did learn a lot in the short time I spent there I was not happy at all, and increasingly unpleasant personal comments from the second made my decision easy. I am now really done with the stars. I am glad I made the experience but this world is not for me. I quit on Tuesday Januar 22nd. On the 23rd I was invited to a job interview by a chef who was attracted by my CV that I had distributed on a specific internet site two days before. My search ad was titled "looking for job in bistro with small team and friendly atmosphere". Eventually everything had become clear to me. I do not want to spend many years as an employee in any kitchen. I needed to find a place that is close to what I want to run soon, while still having a life on the side, learning a lot and having some fun too.

On the 24th I started a 4 day test cooking period in the bistrot, and after 2 days the chef-owner offered me a contract as a commis. He said he was interested in my case because if I go through all that at my age, there must be some passion behind... There are two owners of this bistrot, one is the chef who hired me, but fincancially speaking, le "patron" is the guy who founded yahoo Europe. He left yahoo in 1999 with some stock options and to move into capital investment. One of the businesses he invested in, because he obviously loves French food, and the history of this traditional bistrot, is the place I am now working at since one month. From time to time he stops by, says hello to everybody in the kitchen and of course eats at the bistrot. I just love the idea of cooking in a bistrot and being paid by the yahoo Europe founder. It's a nice story.

The dining room of my new bistrot. I love the decoration and the atmosphere. So typical old Parisien. But not only me. We are booked completely most of the time (45 covers). Business lunches and in the evening mostly .... American tourists !!! 

There is much less pressure, although it varies depending on the weekday, better working hours, small team of 5 people in the kitchen, I touch everything, patisserie, cold starters, cooking fish, vegetables, meat, plating. Everything. I learn so many things that will help me for my project, in a much different way than at the 2-star restaurant. Some days are like going back to culinary school. After one month I still like going there, and I plan to stay there about a year. Of course not every day is perfect and there are from time to time bad days as well, but I think that this as good as it can get for me as an employee with my level.

I wanted to wait a bit before writing here about this change. I had moments when I thought; it must be me. Second failure in a row. I am not made to be a professional cook, I cannot be happy in any kitchen, what if it happens again, what if I have chosen the wrong path, what if I am not able to find a place to work ? My life had become very unstable, something which I just don't like. And I just didn't want to write for the third time in a row "I love it here", just to find out that 4 weeks later I hate it. Now it seems some stability is back, I have taken new motivation to go on with my plan, and I will now continue writing about the pleasures and pain of learning to be a cook again. 

Je vois la vie en rose.... And a big Merci to Marion Cotillard, for bringing some positive headlines to France !

Just because it's Valentine's day...

To whom it may concern.....

No foie gras without....

...the right wine !

Philippe was so right in his comment to my last post, how can I dare to talk about foie gras without mentioning the wine to go with it. Shame on me. If you eat foie gras, and don't suppport it by a glass of matching wine, you spoil the whole experience. As essential as good bread and fleur de sel to make the experience perfect.

The classic match is a sweet white Bordeaux wine, Sauternes. There are other possibilities though, as Sauternes might be too sweet for some, and the big challenge is also with which wine do you continue your meal if you start with Sauternes ?

Other good matches :

- Gewurztraminer ("vendanges tardives")
- Coteaux de Layon  (less sweet)
- Muscat (de Rivesaltes, for examples)
- similar to Sauternes but less expensive : Loupiac, Sainte-Croiz du Mont
- Jurancon
- or as a dry white wine alternative a Chardonnay, like for example a Meursault

So I hope I made up for this "minor" mistake in my last post. I confirm again, it is really essential to be able to enjoy the foie gras tast to the fullest !

Coming up soon on this channel : how the founder of Yahoo Europe became my new boss this week...

Foie Gras for my Bistrot

Whenever I get to taste a good foie gras in a French restaurant I will say "this is one of the reasons I cannot leave this country". And it is not a joke. So obviously it has to be one of the items on my future bistrot's menu. This week I realized that despite having six (!) books about foie gras, a couple of months experience in two 2-Michelin stars restaurants who are specialized on foie gras in all its variations, I have never prepared one myself. And I can't really count the one that I did at Ferrandi in 2006 (too much help from chef Sebastien...).

This week was a good opportunity to change that. I wanted to use my days off now to cook again more at home, focussed on my future own business, which means trying for the same product different recipes and finetune to "perfection". I had invited myself this week for dinner to my Grenoble-friends Allison and Paul who live now just outside of Paris, and obviously I offered to prepare the dinner, clearly indicating that they would be my guinea-pigs ("any time, Ulla, any time !"). I really miss cooking for friends at home and having dinner parties, as my small "lounge" isn't laid out for inviting more than one person for a cup of tea. But the kitchen is big enough and well equipped to cook and then "transfer" the food...

I decided that as a starter I would do a "duo de foie gras" for them. Two ways of foie gras.

Like this I could start to try what type of foie gras recipe I would use in the future, based on the complexity of the recipe and of course the reaction of my "guinea-pigs". And there was a very clear winner. In fact one of the foie gras was so good, that I would say it is the best foie gras I have ever eaten in my life. Better than in any restaurant. Allison and Paul loved it, and I also gave a sample to Katia, who has a lot of foie gras experience, and also for her it was the best foie gras she has ever eaten, to quote her "people will travel thousands of miles to eat that foie gras in your bistrot, .... and now give me the recipe !".

Here are the two ways I tried : foie gras mi-cuit au gros sel & foie gras en terrine

For both recipes you need to take out the veins of the liver first. This has to be done very carefully, without destroying the structure of the liver. Remove the liver 30 minutes before from the fridge, otherwise it will break. When it has room temperature unfold it and use the back of a spoon very delicately to first track down the vein structure and then also to remove the veins. It is a bit messy so for hygiene reasons it is also best to wear kitchen gloves.

   

Now the following procedure will be different, depending on the recipe.  First, for "Ulla's-Bistrot-Foie Gras"

Foie gras mi-cuit au gros sel

Smoothen the surface of the foie gras, and bring back the two halfs together. Then roll them in thin bandage-tissue (the recipe said "gaze au rouleau" which I got in the pharmacy, which is a good story for itself : just try walking into a pharmacy and ask for "the biggest bandage they have", and then "no emergency, it is just for foie gras cooking". Funny reactions guaranteed !) into a cylinder shape. I also put the bandage in cognac before to add a little aroma...

Fill a bowl or cake mold with "gros sel" (coarse salt ?), place the foie gras on it, continue to cover everthing with gros sel until the foie gras is completely hidden by the salt, cover with film, and keep 24 hours in the fridge. Then take off the bandage and keep up to one week in the fridge (I doubt it will last that long though).

And that's it basically. So simple. The foie gras will be cooked by the salt. In fact it will be mi-cuit (half-cooked), with a perfect champagne-pink color and a texture like butter and the fullest authentic foie gras taste. Difficult to describe, but I do take orders as of now, so you can check yourself ;). Best with toasted dark rustic bread like for example Poilane, fleur de sel and a fruit&nut chutney.

Foie gras en terrine

This is the more typical method of cooking foie gras. For me the result was just o.k., nothing extraordinary compared to the one cooked by the salt.

After having taken the veins off, season the opened foie gras with salt, a little bit of sugar and spices that you like. I used "5 epices Chinois" which is a prepared powder mix of  "anis etoile, cannelle, clou de girofle, fenouil and poivre de szechuan" (star anis, cinnamon, clove, fennel, Szechuan pepper). Bring back the two halfs into their original shape and season also from outside. Put the big half with the skin side down in a terrine, then add the smaller half on top, skin side up. Add some alcohol like Armagnac, Cognac, white port or white sweet bordeaux wine. Put the lid, film, and keep in the fridge over night. The spices and the wines will have time to pass their flavours on to the foie gras.

Cook the terrine at 120 degrees C for 50 minutes in a bain-marie. Core temperature should be 48 degrees when done. Take off the liquid grease, then place a carton and a weight on the terrine and store again 24 hours in the fridge, before unmolding.

Needs also to be served on warm toasted bread and with fleur de sel. Bon appetit.

Wall street and Ulla rebound

Not directly linked. Although I must admit that seeing the finance market behaviour in the last days did not give me good energy. My HP severence package and revenues from the Grenoble appartment sale, which are meant to be the foundation of my future own business are all placed in some kind of finance products that keep dropping sharply, including also still a lot of HP shares and stock options. It is really ugly to say the least.

Otherwise I am taking active control of my #1 goal in life, the capability to be happy again, and things are being sorted out. Katia's advice not to take advice has been the best advice last week ;)

Tuesday was a VERY VERY bad day. Yesterday and today were really good days. In one or two weeks from now I will be able to write another book about what is happening in my life since Tuesday. But I will wait a little bit with the details, things are going up and down a lot, and I feel like I want to share more later, but not now... If I wrote now everyday what's happening, some people will worry too much. Just know one thing for the moment : as one of my former HP colleagues and friends and I-think-regular-blog-reader Foli used to say : The future looks bright !

perspectives

I could have chosen "confusion" or "desperation" as titles for my current mood, but I am trying to give myself a positive direction here, and also want to avoid the concerned phone calls I received last week after the "big crisis" post ;). However sorry to say I am still in crisis mode, but I also think it is normal that this happens to me. My life change has simply been very extreme.

Now it is Monday evening and since this afternoon I don't feel well anymore, a ball is building up in my stomach, just like the last two Mondays. Because tomorrow is Tuesday and I need to get back there without being able to imagine how I should get all the work done that they expect from me. The consequence will be "the whip" from the second, and I know that I have already used up my "complaint" quota with the sous-chef. I don't see a way out. Even if I get a bit faster, there are a couple of things that are not clearly organized and defined, so I cannot see how the situation should really get better.

So the thought of leaving within the next days or weeks is becoming stronger every day. It's true that I have an objective to set up a business one day, and that hanging in for a couple of months would probably serve this objective, maybe make me stronger, faster and teach me a lot. But then my other objective in life has always been to be a happy person. I would say it is the more important one. Life is short. So I am not really ready to be unhappy for very much longer. And if all that means I am not  "tough enough", so what !

But I also hate not knowing how life would continue if I quit next week. I hate uncertainty. Fortunately this weekend brought some interesting surprises, that gave me some new perspectives :

First surprise, after putting my CV on the key industry websites yesterday, requesting a job in a "bistrot "gastronomique" with small team and friendly atmosphere" I got the first call from a bistrot chef today, resulting in an appointment on Wednesday morning (my next half-day off). I will not rush in, but I want to take the opportunity to check out a different kitchen and a different atmosphere and if the first impression is good, maybe ask to work there 1 or 2 days before making a decision.

The other surprise and perspective came when I met a friend yesterday, initially just for a coffee, who wants to set up a small business in the south of France in about a year and after 7 hours of coffee together we had a draft of a joint business involving a combination of restaurant, epicerie, and goumet tools and books and gifts shop in either Avignon or Arles. Yes, I know this sounds not like my inital bistrot plan. But that is not the point. Whatever the outcome will be, and maybe our coffee was too strong, but it was amazing how much positive energy I got through the conversation with this person (who has been owning and managing a company since 15 years) and through the more concrete thoughts about creating my own / shared business.

Third perspective, that also came very unexpected through a phone call tonight from a friend I met at Ferrandi last year, was an offer to join an immediate bistrot creation in Paris !

The situation overwhelmes me now a little, and I am confused about all the alternatives and decisions to take or not to take. As one of my blog readers advised (per email), I should maybe stop asking others for too much advice and follow just my intuition for a while. 

New day, new way

I got another "half-day" off today. That's good, because yesterday I could obviously not enjoy the free morning. Such bad days like Tuesday night bring me down a lot, because I end up questioning my whole decision about changing my life, concluding that I should have stayed with HP, and have wasted two years going the wrong way. It is a very bad and sad feeling believe me. So I knew I had to do something to get me out of the crisis, which was in my case longing out to people who either know me well or who know the business well. After calling some good friends and seeing two restaurant owners in Paris, who I trust in their judgement and experience I came to the conclusion that I need to hang in there, but maybe not as long as initially planned.

One of the restaurant owners I went to see is a Japanese guy who has 20 years experience in the industry in France, has worked in the kitchen and as sommelier in a couple of Michelin starred restaurants, at Thierry Marx among others. He runs now a little bistro with 30 covers in the 6th arrondissement. I knew he would help me, because the one time I went to eat in his bistro last year, he already gave me a lot of career advice and all cooking magazines he had, when he learnt that I was at Ferrandi. So I went to see him yesterday, told him about my situation and asked whether I hadn't chosen the wrong path. My thinking yesterday morning was, that I should leave the place I am now working at, and rather find a little bistrot, where I cook 3 days a week and learn the managing and administration part 2 days a week. His advice was that indeed because of my age there is not much time to lose (merci ;), but that I need to focus on learning about products first, that I should stay where I am for 6 months maximum, then move to a little bistrot, and work there for a year. The admin and managing part could come later. Then he offered me to teach me essential parts of restaurant management and administration whenever I wanted during some afternoons. So it seems I have found a kind of mentor, and I was very happy about that advice and offer.

The other restaurant owner I saw was Gilles Ajuelos from the Bastide Odeon, where I had done a two-week stage in February. His advice was also to hang in there, but not if I am scared to go there and have a "bar" in my stomach every morning.

Another unanimous advice from my friends was to talk to the sous chef who hired me, about my concerns. That is what I did right before the evening service. But I am not sure he really understood my point. For him there was no issue or problem, he confirmed that the job he gave me was above my capacities ("tu n'est pas a l'hauteur"), but that he was obliged to do so, because I had asked for a chef de partie job during the interview (which is a modified version of the reality, in fact he had offered me a chef the partie job without even asking what I wanted. I would have gone for less as well). I opened the door and said that maybe that was a mistake, but he didn't react. That conversation was not easy, but I think he is now at least sensitive to the fact, that I am not 100% happy, and promised also to alert the staff about more respectful communication with each other, when I mentioned how annoying the reaction of some people is, when I do my "shopping".

During the mise-en-place yesterday evening, I choose the difficult path and put priority to helping those people who hate me instead of preparing all for my own station. I knew it was a risk, but suddenly those two people became friendlier, and were even chatting a little with me and asking questions about my private life and my future plans. So I think it was worth it. I got my station set up in time for dinner nevertheless, and the dinner service went perfect. I was so good and fast that the second had trouble to plate in time all the dishes. And he kept saying all evening "oh my god, I am behind, what's happenig, what's happening ?" I knew that it was partially linked to me becoming better and faster, but I didn't say it ;) So the service was more or less flawless on my side. I had needed such an evening after Tuesday night. And the perspective that I either finish during the trial period, which lasts until mid February if things don't get better or stay only 6 months max (which means I have done 1 out of 6 already), give me a knew better perspective, which might help me to hang in.