DAY 34

We have a very busy day head of us so we get started straight away. We have a couple different things in class today. The first being that we have a different Chef (because our normal one went on a mini vacation), and second there is only 3 of us this week. Which will be alot of fun, not that I didn't enjoy all the people, it's just now we won't be split up into groups to make the stuff. We get started right away on the sweet pastry dough and the cookie dough, since they would have to be in the fridge for a little bit, and of course we don't want to waste time. After putting the dough away, which by the way can I say was a bitch to do, because of the quantity. We then moved on to making the lemon cream, almond cream, and the chocolate cream. Since there was 3 of us we each got to pick which one we wanted to do, I picked the lemon. Making the lemon cream was hard today, more because my arms were tired from making all that dough. Chef took the pears out of the cans and into a bowl while we were finishing up our creams. We then walked over to were Chef was at the stove and started making the wine concoction for the pears in the Pear and Red Wine Tart. If your wondering why were not using fresh pears, thats because we want a uniform look for the pears and not have one be bigger than another, or one be lop sided, etc... We put the pears in after the wine mixture, after it had been cooking for a couple minutes. It was neat looking see the pears soak up the wine it was like see a tye-dye. We cleaned up a bit and had our tea/coffee break while the pears were still cooking on the stove. We took our dough out of the fridge and rolled out to pie crusts, one of each kind. The cookie dough one was kind of annoying ,because it kepted almost sticking to the board, I kept having to put flour down so as not to stick. The last thing to do on the listwas to make the cocoa bean nougatine. I would just like to say that making this was nougatine was like magic or something. We took the crushed cocoa bean, which looked like crushed coffee beans, and put them in the pot to cook with the other ingredients, including the glucose, so as to make it more solid. We then took it out of the pot and and put some on the marble and then rolled it out, cutting it into circles, and then putting it into the oven. Letting it cool after taking from the oven we let them cool for a minute, then put them in the mold (see pics). What the magic-y part is, when you put the nougatines in the molds they are a solid mass, but sticky and if you press on it liquid comes out. Then when you come back to the nougatines, after they have been cooled, they are hard and sort of crunchy.

See the magic......

DAY 33

Today was a fabulous day, I slept all day. Lately i've beem getting tired without doing much, which usually is a sign of lack of sleep. So I spent the whole day sleeping and watching Buffy, all 14hrs of it (don't laugh, it was the only thing that would keep me occupied all day). Well that's all to report about today, getting ready for another week at school.

DAY 32

Didn't do anything today, really I didn't. I had to catch up on writing entries here on the blog. You see while in Ireland I had to write them all down on paper, you know since I was sharing a computer and everything. Unlike in Paris were I have a computer at my disposal I had to sare the one in Ireland with the rest of the guests at the hotel. So now i've spent the eniter day in front of the computer getting caught up with everything for all of you, jeeze peoples (just JK) Well that's all for now, just wait for tomorrow, not that anything exciting is going to happen.

DAY 31

We wasted no time today, we went straight to work on all our different projects. Like yesterday I was put in charge of the Gelée de café au Mascarpone. When I had to make the coffee ice (and that's ice, not ice cream) for the top layer in my dessert I had to use gelatin. It was so cool it started as looking like some kind of confectionery wrapping paper. Then when I took it out of it's ice bath (so it wouldn't solidify from the temperature of the kitchen) it was all gloopy and what gelatin normally looks like, it was like a magic trick (you all know how easily i'm entertained). The egg dish that we were preparing for today is served in the shell. So that only a little bit of the top of the shell is broken off, instead of in half when normally breaking an egg, we used this cool little contraption (see pictures) that you put on top of the egg, pull up the lever, then let go, and it litely hit the top just break a small circumference on th top of the egg shell, it's very cool. Once the eggs yolks and whites were out we had to soak them in this water/vinegar bath for a couple of minutes before taking out all the embryo skin, so that it was clean and bare on the inside of the shell. We then took our little coffee/tea break, but instead of hot tea we got grapefruit ice tea, which if you added a little sugar was really good. After the break we finished whatever we were working on and cleaned up. The last 30-40min of class we set up a nice display of everything that we had made took some pictures, and then the best part about culinary school, got to tasteverythingng that we made, YUMMY!!!!

See the masterpieces

DAY 30

I got to the kitchen right when class was starting toaday. This was because when I was getting my metro tickets the guy in front of my was taking forever. Because of the long wait I took a later train which by the time I arrived at the Ritz I only had a couple of minutes to change into my uniform. Today we made Financier Citron and Financier Chocolate et Griottines. While the pastry part of both desserts were in the oven, we all took a couplle of the vegetables and started cutting them. If your wondering why we are cutting up vegetable in a pastry class it is because a Patissier, originally means someone who works with dough, which also means it doesn't have to be sweet or a dessert. While other people were cutting up the vegetables for the Gaspacho, me and this other girl got assigned to the fruit for Gelée de café au mascarpone. While she cut the pineapples and ginger, I zested the skin and juiced the inside of the oranges. After working on that for a while we went back to the first teo desserts. When we were all done putting the lemon cream on top of the little tarts we got to lick the spatula and bowl, which is like an unwritten rule, LOL. We then had some fun putting the choclate drizzle on top of the lemon cream. Of course we made a little too much so there was enough afterwards to have a little art class. I drew many things like flowers, suns, cartoon animals, and even wrote some things like my name, etc... in all these cool fonts, and then I got to eat it (the best part). One other thing that I enjoyed doing was eating the leftover Grand Manier cherries from the Financier Chocolate et Griottines, and getting a little tipsy, hehe! Drizzling chocolate on the Financier Citron


See the making of....

DAY 29

I get to school with out being beastly hot, which was a first. Today was a little overcast in the sky, still sunnny and blue, but just enough to cool the temperature down a bit. The first thing we worked on was the Duchesse Praliné and Delices Pistache. We were split into to groups each with one of the recipes, of course we would later switch and make the recipe that we hadn't all ready made for the second batch. Suprising both recipes went realy well. I especially like the part when we, well me to be precise, had to put the special food coloring for the pistachio dough to make it the right color green. I felt like I was some sort of witch or something, you know brewing in her little cauldren. I also liked the part when we were cooling down the choclate we had to spred it back and forth. It was like being at Murdick's Fudge on the Vineyard watching them spread out the out fudge before cooling and then cutting it. While both recipes were in the oven we quickly whipped up the mixture (I say mixture instead of batter because there is no dough) for the Sesame Caprise. While the "cookies" were cooling off from the oven we each pipped chocolate on the Ritz sheet and then lay a "cookie" on each one. I also had a lot of chocolate-y fun when drizzling the chocolate over the Duchesse Pralinés, lots and lots of fun :) See the chocolate-y goodness fun

DAY 28

Nothing realy happend today other than going to school, which I now go to the afternoon classes. We first rolled out the dough for our Mini Fruit Tartlets and then put them back in the fridge to so the dough could harden some more. All the things that we make here sometimes take a little longer than normal because were always having to put things back in the fridge to get them hard since things soften so fast since Europe is having an extremely hot summer. After taking the dough out of the fridge we cut out little circles with the mold and put them in the little trays. While they were in the oven we rolled out the dough for the Piemontais that we had made yesterday. Put them in the oven after taking out the tartlets. I fell asleep during our tea and coffee break, not just napping like deep REM sleep. Anyway by the time we were done and cleaned up we had finished the Piemontais and the (french style) brownies. Go to the pics page to see the stages of making the dessert today. I came home put my desserts in the fridge, the chocolate squares were starting to melt, and then just finished unpacking my stuff.


At work on the raspberries

THE DESSERTS

DAY 27

So I’ve discovered that my travel alarm clock needs a new battery. I found this out when I woke this morning, thankfully, to see that it was a couple hours off and it’s minute actually was two minutes, I timed this with my clock on my iPod and on my camera. So I was glad that I woke up this morning instead of 6am at 6:10am. While getting dressed and packing back up what I took out last night I thought that I should’t be mad at my alarm clock because it has had the same battery in it for the last 5 or 6 years. Well anyway I got all ready and went down the bigillion stairs put my key in the box next to the stairs and walked outside. Thankfully the train station was only across the street so when I boarded the train I still had about 20min to spare. I eat breakfast from the bag of food that I bought last night from Sainsbury's. After reading and finishing my book about halfway through the trip I took a nap and was asleep until a little bit before arriving in Paris. I get off the EuroStar train and make my way through the terminal to the metro trains. I’m sitting on the metro and thinking that just yesterday I was just thinking how I wanted to be on this train going home so I could go to sleep. I arrive at my apartment and have some time before I have to go to the Ritz Hotel for school. But I decide that if I take a nap now I probably won’t wake up till it’s to late, so I put my bag in my room went to the bathroom and left. I got to the hotel about 1 ½ hrs early so it went to the lilttle café at the front of the hotel and wanted to get something lite to eat before class but you had to have a reservation to get a seat, even though there were like 6 people in the whole place. So instead I just went to the bar and order a drink. A couple minutes later my Sex on the Beach came along with my ice water, the sun was out and backing everyone alive. While waiting for my drink the waitress served me some mixed nuts. Now that i’m here writing this it sounds pretty funny eating nuts while having Sex on the Beach. Anyways back to reality, I finished my drink and took the service elevator down to the kitchen floor. Got a clean uniform and went into the ajioning parlor, put my head down and sleep till it’s time for class. I got this weeks recipe book and instead of having just French and English, it also had Japanese. It was kind of cool having a multi-language cookbook. Anyway today we made Sweet Short Pastry, Eclaire Caroline (a kind of éclaire if you had guessed already), Beignet amande (a small little almond flavored pastry, with candied orange in the center and pine nuts and some kind of crystalized sugar frosting thing on top). We also made some brownies, french style, which is simliar but still different than the kind you would make at home. Of course while these lovely little delights were in the oven we cleaned off the counter and had our tea and coffee break. Today though instead of reagular hot black tea, we had ice peach tea, it was very good and normally I don’t like ice tea. After class I took the metro home and unpacked and just hung out around the apartment till I went to sleep.

SEE WHAT I'VE MADE

DAY 26

I wake up around 10ish after having a restful night sleep I got up and packed up all my things went down to the first floor and checked out. I put my luggage in the luggage room right next to the front desk and walked out to the curb to catch the bus to the airport to get on the Underground metro. I take the Bakerloo line to Picadilly Circus were I got off to go to the movies. The first theatre that I found was in this 4 floot acarde place (see pic for this day). After getting out of the movie, which was The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, watching the movie I was looking at all the different scenery in Tokyo thinking that i'm going to be there in April it just got me more excited about going to Japan. Anyway I took the Underground back to the airport then the bus back to the hotel to pick up my bags. Then back traking even more took the bus back to the airport then took the Underground to London Waterloo station to catch my EuroStar train back to Paris. The train that was taking me from Paddington station to Waterloo instead of taking 15min to get there it took 1 1/2hr. This was because they were doing work on the tracks so just like on the highway and cars there were the same amount of trains but less tracks in service. Well because of this I missed my train, which happend to be the last train to Paris that day. So I booked a seat on the first train out in the morning. I went got some dinner to go from a small little café and then went to the information desk and asked about hotels. The lady said that there was actually a hotel across the street and to the lest of the station, just go outside and I would see it. So I follow her directions and find the hotel, the funny thing was that it was also a bar. The same place that you order drinks was also the registration, I felt I should be in a movie or something, you know going up to the bar and getting a room. I get my key after having a difficult time paying for the room, my visa I guess has a limit on how much you can spend in a day or something, because the ATM said I had money but it wouldn't give me any of it. Can I just say that I think that's more annoying than not having any money on the card in the first place. Then I remembered that I got a new visa before I left the states for exactly this reason, so problem solved I went up to my room. Well just like anyother old boarding house in London the stairs are narrow and lots of them. I went up like 7 flights of stairs, which were also kind of steep to my room. After colling off a little bit from them walk up the stairs while also carrying a 45lbs bag went outside and down the street a bit to Sainsbury's, which is a grocery store, and picked up some food for right now and also for breakfast, since I would be leaving before the hotel/bar started serving breakfast. I went back to my room and watched some TV while eating some food before going to sleep.

TO VISIT LONDON

DAY 25

I woke up a bit earlier than usual to get everything ready. Since I couldn't pack my thing since the only way to get everything in the bag is if my riding stuff is on the bottom. I then ate breakfast and went outside to wait for my car. I get to the barn and go find out what group they've put me in, this is because everyone else in my group has left and they don't have enough instructors or rings for private lessons, especially on a saturday. So i'm warming up on Magnier when I see my trainer setting up the jumps. Now I know that warm up jumps are smaller then what we work on during the lesson, but the first jump she put up was probably about 1'9''. I was thinking to my self OMG what have they done, i've been jumping around 2'6'' the whole week and then on the last day I go back to the beginning, this is going to be a boring class. After everyone had jumped the warm up fence twice she put it up to about 2'3'', I then thought this is more like it, finally. Then to my suprise she put up the next jump so that it was a bounce ( for all you non horsey people a bounce is two jump close together so that there is only room for the horse to land then do the second jump; up, down, up, down) the second jump was 3'6''. Then after doing that a couple of times she put up another 3'6'' jump so it was a triple bounce, with the third jump being an oxer (an oxer is a jump that there are two polls parallel to eachother, this makes is so the horse has to go up, across, then down, instead of just up and down). This took a while since some of the riders weren't putting enough leg, or in some cases too much, so there were alot of refusals. We eventually went over to the other side of the ring were the jumper course was set up. All of these jumps were set at 3'6'', and I went over the entire course beautifully the first time without any refusals. I would have been proud of myself for not only jumping the course with no mistakes and beautiful jumping postition, but I was even more proud that I was able to do that after only riding for a week since last May. I wasn't able to do the other two hours because of my plane. I went back to the hotel packed up my stuff, ate lunch and still had a little time left over to mail my postcards and visit this cute little abbey before having to go to the airport. While at the Abbey (actually it's a Friary), which was built in 1315, I found out that there were some other realy old buildings in the area that are still around; The Franciscan Abbey built in 1464, The Trinitarian Abbey built in 1230, and Desmond Castle which was built in 1202, AND IT'S STILL STANDING TODAY, that's what I call good craftsmenship. Since I only went to The Augustinain Friary I only have pictures of it and not the other abbeys. Everything went smoothly with the plane and I got to my hotel in London with no hassels, which was realy nice. I checked in put my things up in my room and went down to the hotel restaurant. I had this realy good roasted tomato stuffed chicken with some king of pesto-type sauce, some baby red potatoes and a glass of Chenin Blanc, which was good but was a little to fruity for my taste, i'm more of a dry wine girl. Didn't realy do much after dinner other than have some hot chocolate while wathing some TV. One thing I thought was kind of funny was the hotel had a Pillow Menu, were you could order up any kind of pillow. They give you just a standard type and size, but you can order pillows different sizes and also different stuffings like goosefeather or synthetic, etc...

DAY 24

Today we just worked mostly in the ring and one of the hours out on the X-C course. The equestrian center has a professional horse photographer on site to take pictures of you riding if you want. You know since alot of people come to Ireland for a vacation and do a little riding as one of their activities or something. Anyways not much else to say, but look at MY DAMN PICS I was extremely pleased at how well I looked over the jumps, not even considering the lapse in time that I hadn't ridden. After getting back to my hotel I was so tired that I got dinner in my room and watched movies on the TV. while I organized all my things to be packed (couldn't pack since my riding stuff had to go on the bottom for all my thing to fit).
PS. just so you know the X-C is harder than it looks, there is a huge ditch in front.

DAY 23

Well not much different than yesterday. I rode a different horse today since somebody had already requested Judge, so I got Magnier. I would like to just say that I loved Eclipse and Judge, but Magnier is by far my favorite. More just because he has had more and better training so you can do sooooooo much more stuff with him. For example, in the 3rd hour we did some dressage and normally when I ask a horse to go across the diagonal, but parallel to the wall (east and west, but going going south to north diagonally) ( i forget the dressage name, too late at night) I have to work on having the horse not turn his body diagonal. But in this case Magnier was so flexiable that I had to work his but sticking out to the side. He was like a horsey slinkey, no joke. My instuctor explained how to do all these hard dressage moves, which I did as she instructed and Magnier just did it instantly, it was the coolest thing ever. One thing that I did was canter in place (like w/o going forward), I think that was my favorite out of all of them. See a very unatractive pic of Magnier (taken just after 3hrs of riding).

DAY 22

Nothing really different about today. Rode a different horse, Judge, because Eclipse had thrown a shoe or something so I couldn't ride him. They worked us hard today the first hour was in the ring doing jumper courses and different kinds of gymnastics (translation= gymnastics in the horsey world is bascially different jumps, obstacles, etc.. that work on different areas of the horse and rider, they can be some pretty crazy and wild stuff) then the other two hours was X-C. Not only were we doing the X-C for 2hrs but today was so freaking hot, it was in the high 40°c and low 50°c, what ever that is in °f, but it felt like high 80's low 90's in °f so it just made for another element in the X-C. My favorite part that day was when we were at the water jumps on the X-C course. Not only was it really refreshing getting a little bit wet from all the splashing, but some of the horses didn't want to leave and some of them took for ever to finaly get out of the water. Anyways to see a pic of Judge click here. When I got back into town I changed and went to the little grocery store to buy some snack food and some pears for the horses. When I got to the check-out, I was waiting in line and the cashier asked the lady in front of me if she wanted a bag. I thought to my myself, looking at all her food, yea I think she does want a bag. Unless she going to pop out 5 extra arms or something. Then I realized, after the woman said yes, that there is a bag charge in Ireland. It's only a couple of cents, but they still charge you for every bag. I then took my grocery's, with my bags, back to the hotel and vegged out till dinner.

DAY 21

Well nothing really new at the barn. I rode Eclipse today again. Today I came back after lunch for the 3rd hour of riding. Even though I was still a little sore, it was more the walking than riding, the pain was low enough that I thought i'd come back. When I found out that we would be doing a trail ride I got excited. Not that i'm in love with them, I just knew that the hour would not be that difficult for my aching muscles. Our trail ride consisted of going through lots of people's backyards. But of course people's backyards here are in acres not feet, LOL. This one property that we went though was so perfert and cute. One pasture has sheep grazing, with some babies,ya, another with some cows, some with goats, and some with horses. All with lucious green grass (wer're in Ireland here peoples) and little brown frnces accented by green bushes. The manor house was so cute too, it looked like something out of a storybook or something. Also there was this (sort of) little pond with a little japaneses bridge, a weeping willow, some cat tails, lilly pads, other water plants, and then next to the pond some little normal saplings with some flowers around the brim. After taking a little nap after getting back from riding I go and take some pictures of around town,sadly some of them got earased when downloading to the computer :( See The Pictures After getting back from being miss photographer I hade some dinner followed by some good ole British tele (tele=TV).

DAY 20

I jump out of bed, literally, and start getting ready for riding. When I am all done and about to go down to get some breakfast, I check the time and realize that it's only 1/4 to 7 in the morning and my driver won't be here till 9:45am. After taking a couple hour nap I wake up and go get breakfast. I arrive at the barn ready to ride. So i'm sitting on my horse, Eclipse who is a German Warmblood, and our instructor asks what we've been doing, as far as riding, at home. Well I tell her what i've done but also mention that I haven't ridden in a year so I might not be as good as I normally am, but i'll try. Now I know she heard me because she acknowledged it and also asked me a question about it. Well if you were watching the lesson you would have never thought that she had. After warming up the horses on the flat (translation= warming up w/o jumping) she put up a 2'3" jump for our warm up fence. By the end of the of the hour we were doing 2'6" bounces, 6 in a row (non horsey people traslation= a bounce is what it sounds like, there is only enough room inbetween the jumps to land and then jump the next jump; up down up down, etc...) After the lesson, I thought we were done and were going to put our horses away, we started riding away from the barn and headed for the X-C course. By the time we get back to the barn i've jumped some crazy things. like a stone wall, a big ass tree trunk, a ditch, some picket fences, some drops (there was this one drop that was 4ft) even some water jumps. I get in the car, after taking care of my horse and putting him away, and head back to the hotel for lunch. Now normally I was supposed to go back after lunch and ride for another hour. After not riding in a year and then doing 2straight hours of intensive riding, my muscels were killing me. So I decided to take the afternoon off and just chill in my bathtub all afternoon in a ice bath and then a hot Epsom salt bath, all to help with my acking body.

SEE ECLIPSE

DAY 19

I wake up the next morning to the knock of the waiter from room service with my breakfast. I finish breakfast and go down the street from my hotel. I don't know were I got all this energy but I some how got this burst of energy and went on a very long walk exploring around the whole town. While walkinf down the street I passed this cute little church and across the street was this small park with a little garden in the front with a stream on the left side going down the length of the park. At the end of the block I turn left and walk, and walk, and walk. I walk so far that I leave the main center of town and even pass some houses and B&B's until all I see are some farms large fields. At this point I decide that I should turn around so if I get tierd I at least won't be that far from the hotel. I continue on the main road once I get back into the center of town and at the fork turn right go for a little while, still staying in town, and then went and walked down the street and took the left in the fork. At this point it was getting to be the middle of the afternoon. I headed back to the hotel and had some lunch in the restaurant. After lunch I went across the street to Adare Manor, which is now a hotel with a very big golf course and a equestrian center. Even though this was not the place that I would be riding at I still decided to go check it out. I ask the security guard which way to the barn and he points in the direction while saying that it's a fair walk. I walk for what seems forever, the scenery didn't help, because it was just this big field with hay bales drying, so you couldn't realy tell how much progress you had made. I eventually got to the barn and visited the horses for a while and then decided to go back. Instead of going back the way I had came I went on the only other road, that went in the direction of the manor, thankfully it did. By the time I had reached the front gates again I had gone around the entire golf course, passed the manor and the added on hotel, and then the walk from there to the front gate. After all this walking i'm quite hungary, so I change for dinner and head down stairs. I look over the menu and find that they serve duck, my most favorite thing in the world. As well as ordering the duck I also order a glass of cabernet sauvignon. I am very surprised when I am served the whole bottle of wine instead of a glass, but after eating dessert and looking at the bill they had only charged me for the glass. I am so excited for tomorrow I get to ride, which I haven't done since last May. I AM GOING TO BE SOOOOO SORE AFTER RIDING.

DAY 18

IRELAND BY AIR
Today was a traveling day, going from Paris, France to Adare, Ireland via London, England. I woke up this morning know something was going to happen, which you will find out later. After double checking that I had everything including all my riding gear, I ate breakfast, said goodbye to my roommates and then headed out towards the metro. I get on the metro with the only real trouble being from having to carry my bag up and down the stairs. With no big hassels on the metro I feel better about the day. Well I get to the Gare du Nord metro stop and get off go through all the different hallways and stairs and such until I get to the normal train staion, normal being like Amtrak type trains. Anyways I go up the escaltor to were the Eurostar ticket counter is and get in line to get my tickets. Well here were the fun begins. It'ss now my turn and I go up to the ticket counter to bet my tickets thinking that I don't have to pay since my travel agent got me the 3 month EuroPass. Well the ticket guy said that there were no more EuroPass seats let on this train. So I asked him if i could get my ticket with my EuroPass and then just sit in one of the normal cars. No could't do that either. To make a long story short I had to buy a normal ticket which was like €220 ($280), can I just say, SO NOT COOL! I then decided to get my return ticket so this wouldn't happen coming back. Well to my suprise I found out that the EuroPass doesn't make the ticket free just alot cheaper, in some ways that sucks but in other ways OK, the ticket went down to €75 ($95) and I get to sit in a nicer train car. So I get to London and find my way to were to buy tickets to the Underground (London's metro, for those that don't know). Well I got on the correct train, but like the first sunday in Paris this line was one of those X's so I got on the correct line going the correct way but was on the train going to the upper left instead of the lower left. I then took the train to the last stop before it splits, waited for the next train and then got on the next train which was going to Heathrow. I get to the airport and get checked in actually quite quickly, the only thing that was kind of annoying was that first we go into a line for the kiosks to get our tickets, then the other line to give our bags to the ticket counter people. I then try and use the phone to call my mom to say that I got to London OK but then I realized that I only had Euro's and not Pounds Sterling. I go to a cash machine take a £20 and then go to this little cafe to have them split the £20 into smaller bills and coins. I go back to the pay phones and am about to call when I realize that I don't have enought change for the call, so I go back to the cafe to get some more change. After my call I pop into the little store next to the phones to buy something to drink and to get a book. Walking out of the store I go to get my ticket and find out that I don't have it. I think of the last place I had it and first think of the bathroom, but to get there I have to pass the phones, so I go and check there before going on to the bathroom. To my good fortune while looking for my tickets at the phone this lady comes up to me and asks if I'm the "young girl" the lost her passport, in my state of shock I said yes, which she responded that her husband just went to give them to the airline. After getting my tickets back I head through security and wait at my gate. I know I am going to sound very naive and stereotypical, but I have to say it anyway, it is also very true. All the people with red or strawberry blonde hair were Irish and everybody who didn't was not Irish. If your wondering how I know it's because since everybody needed their passports to board the plane they still had them out when they passed my seat, so I saw where everybody came from. Since it is still light when I arrive in Ireland I can see the lush green frields and little farms houses. I arrive at the airport get my bag and go outside to find my driver, which I just have to mention was driving a 2006 Mercedes Benz, oh yea baby. I arrive in Adare (fàilte go dtì àth dara, in Irish) were my hotel, the Dunraven Arms Hotel, est. 1792. This place is so cute and it's also really cool to think of all the different people that have been here over the CENTURIES. I get checked in and then go to the dinning room to have dinner before it closes. After which I went to my JUNIOR SUITE, thank you very much, read a little bit and then hit the sacks.
PICS OF MY HOTEL SUITE

DAY 15

So didn't do anything this morning, was to excited about tonight. I'm going to the opera, i'm going to the opera........ Let me just say that getting to the Paris Opéra was not all that boring. Nothing realy happened but everybody was staring at me. Though it didn't help that every body was in normal clothes and I was rocking out with my Ralph Lauren evening gown, diamond earings, my Comme des Garçons fur, and my hair done up. Well I get to the opera house and have to wait since i'm a bit early, so I wait around looking at the architectural diagrams of the building, lets just say SO COOL!!! I finally get in and sit down, this place is not only huge but architecually beautiful, though I can only imagine what the original opera house must look like if this, new one, is so fasinating. Anyway to go on with the coolness, the stage and the props etc... was realy cool; the opening act there was a huge three story hay bale stack, there was even a real live dog too. Well instead of trying to explain the story L'Elisir d'Amore, just hit the program and you'll be taken to the synopsis.
TRIVIA: L'Elisir d'Amore was first performed in Milan, at the Teatro Canobbiana, on May 12th, 1832, and compsed by Gaetano Donizetti.

DAY 14

OK so I didn't do anything. No realy, I know I said that yesterday but I realy didn't, truely. This is because it was to hot to go outside. Well you might think "you shouldn't be complaining you live in Miami, this should be normal for you." Well I'll have you know the humidity was worse than any day back in Miami. I took a shower to cool off, I was still sweating even in an ICE COLD SHOWER !!!!! I was even sweating out of my eyes, no not crying sweating, I know this is gross to hear but I got to tell you any way. One fun part about the humidity was that it got to the cats to, so I gave Le Chat a moehawk. Sadly, I think that was my most fun thing I did today. Since we were stuck in the apartment we had a movie marathon and watched movies from about 10ish to 1 o'clock the next morning. We didn't even break fo meals, we ate them in front of the TV.

LE CHAT

DAY 13

Ok, so I did nothing today. I did go for a little walk around the neighborhood. Went to the grocery store and picked up some more grapefruit yogurt, it is now my most favorite yogurt ever. All right, so I did do something today. After coming back with the yogurt and some more milk, my roommates were cleaning. So naturally I got into the cleaning mood (no joke, I actually love cleaning and if you didn't know that then you don't know me.) Well I went crazy! I reorganized all my clothes, folding etc... sweeped the floor, made my bed, and even did two loads of laundry. Can I just say that French washers are the coolest thing ever. Not only do they do all the nifty things that normal washers like if you washing cotton, synthetic,etc... or if you only have 1/2 a load etc... it also DRIES them as well. After it finishes with the second spin cycle ( this is were usually you would have to change machines) it then turns on the heat and becomes a drier. The one and ONLY drawback, is that it's kind of small. Well by the time all the cleaning was done and the laundry was put away, it was getting late. So we started making dinner and when it was ready it was a little bit before 8pm. Ate dinner, while watching Chicago, and everybody singing along (not that bad though, it did help that the two roommates that were from the States were music majors in college) Then went to bed. ZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZz

DAY 12

Didn't do much in the morning, I wanted to save all my energy for the game tonight. ALLEZ LE BLEU!! ALLEZ LE BLEU!! ALLEZ, ALLEZ, ALLEZ LE BLEU!! VIVE LA FRANCE !!!!! At 6pm two of my roommates (the other one is Italian, so she went to a Italian pub, were it would be safe for her to root against the country for which she is in.) took the metro to the Stade du Parc des Princes, were we to watch the game. We follow the hoards of people to the stadium were we wait in line to get into the stadium, it's first come first serve. After a while they closed the doors to the scream of boooos. So with the rest of the people we tried the next door, that didn't work, so we went to the next door. Well to great luck we were able to come in, we forced our way closer to the front, on the field (the stands were already full, so we sat on the grass). We sat down and got our little space ready for the game. Then the big IMAX-type screen turned on and we saw the stadium in Germany, then the view turned to the stage to were Shakira and Wyclef Jean were singing Hips Don't Lie. Then came the time when the two teams came out, there was an uproar of cheers for France, especially when their star #10 Zinedine Zidane (and yes that is his name, no mistake). Well the game is going OK. when France makes the first goal, well all hell breaks lose and fireworks go off. I then get sideswiped by the end bit the firecracker when it was falling from the sky after exploded. Well lets just say that my head got a lot of beating tonight. So were watching the game my roommates and I were eating bagettes and cheese and getting drunk off of lots of wine (you know were to classy for beer and grub.....LOL!) When half time came and the screen go black. While were waiting around for half time to be over they play songs over the loud speaker. It was so cool, like an outside club or something, then right before the game started again they played some survivor and champion songs. So the game continues and the next thing I knew there was orange juice bottle (thankfully empty)coming straight for me, and so it did..... it hit my right cheek. If that was enough, between all this and the game it's self, because the next thing that happened was something that I could have done without. So we're all sitting around making some jokes, etc... ( there was a "dull" moment) when, i'm hoping they're drunk, moon everybody. Though this was a little bit closer than I would have liked, his seat was right in front of me, lets just say I just experienced the view that a toilet has. Well the game ended with Italy winning, and it was so close to. The game was tied at 1, then it goes into over time with the score still tied at 1. Then they give another 15min, still tied, then the next 15min for the other team; nothing changes. Then comes the five penalty shots per team. The only reason why Italy one is because the got all five of the shots in, were France only got four of the five in. After the disappointing loss, we head back to the subway, passing lots of French police and their version of S.W.A.T., got back to the apartment and went to sleep very quickly.

DAY 11

Well today was not very exciting, didn't do much. Well I thought I would still write something today, you know I wouldn't want to miss a day. Well I woke up late, just like you should on a saturday. After having a long breakfast I was playing with the cats when two of my roomates asked if I wanted to come with them on a walk around the neighborhood. When we returned it was getting close to dinner time. It didn't feel that long when we were walking around looking at the places. We saw all these little shops and a cute little park, among other things. Though one of my roommates got her ATM card stuck, which later in the week found out they were able to get it out, but they "had to destroy it," their words. Instead of eating on our on time, we all sat around the tv. and watched My Fair Lady. Then it was off to sleep but took a while to get to sleep though because tomorrow is the big match


FRANCE

vs.

ITALY

DAY 10

I normally wake up around 7ish and just go back to sleep until I have to wake up at 11. Today on the other hand I didn't wake up until my alarm. I got up and dressed and left, I think I had a banana,but i'm not sure, I was not really with the program if you know what I mean. When I woke up I never knew it was going to be such a busy day. Well I got to the hotel, got a clean uniform, got changed and went in to the classroom, or actually I should say kitchen, and was going to wait for class to start. After a little bit a looked up at the clock and realized why no one had shown up yet, because i'm not the only early bird in my class. Well I looked up at the clock and realized that I was 1 1/2 hrs early. So I went into the ajoining room were we have lectures and fell right back to sleep until I started to hear people in the kitchen when class was about to start. We started the class by rolling the dough that we had started yesterday and started doing the folding thing again. rolling it out folding it in three's, rolling it out, folding by fours. Since we were all doughed up, we moved quickly on to the dough for the apple tarts that we were making today. We rolled the dough out, but of course turning a 1/4 in after every roll, ( I say of course because Chef drilled that into our head, nicely of course, with no one getting hurt, except maybe the dough.) put it into our circle cut out pan and then make the nice little apple tart crust edge with this nifty little tool. Put those little sweet hearts in the fridge and continued ou to the rest of our day's work. When every one had finished, some people were put to the task of peeling apples, like me, and of course the obvious, coring and cutting up. While we were doing this the other couple of people started putting together the other part of the ingredients that we needed for the filling for our apple tarts, and started the magic. While the pot was brewing with our apple filling concoction, wow I just realized that makes me sound like i'm a witch, you know "putting in the pot and brewing it," we went back to the our Pithiviers cake. We took out the dough cut it into two and rolled out both pieces into nice large squares. We then took a paint brush and had some artistic and creative fun painting dough, you know expressing our inner talents. Well actually we didn't do anything that exciting, we just took the paint brush and painted water over the dough except for in the middle were we left a circle shape. We took the the filling, which is this almond cream ( even though it was more like a paste), with a little rum mixed in, yummy..... we put the paste in the center, you know were there was a void in the water painting, and then put the other piece of dough on top, cut a square around it so it looked like a big ravioli, and then put it in the fridge. We continued with the apple tarts and each took two apples cut them into very thin slices put the filling in each crust put in a little filling, put the apple slices around in a circle, sort of like a snail shell, put some cinnamon/sugar on top, then we did something that you know is a little secret, but i'll fill you in on anyways, we put little pieces of butter all around the top of the tart, the reason you might ask, well it's so the top doesn't burn. While these were in the oven and the Pithiviers cake was in the fridge, we all went up to one of the parlors, sit around a grand piano, with these gorgeous drapes and crystal chandeliers,etc.... and took a picture for our photographer, you remember the one that's with the reporter from the Russian Marie Clarie. We went back down took out the tarts, and finished the Pithiviers cake by cutting away at the dough, so it ended up looking like a sun/flower, and popped it into the oven. Since that was our last project, we cleaned up the room and had our everyday tea and coffee break. Today was special though, one of out Japanese students brought up sushi that she had made. After our little beverage break we started just talking waiting for the Pithiviers to be done. While waiting we all decided to go over to the culinary kitchen and see what they were up to. Well it turns out they were having a much better party than us, this paticular class was one of the master classes (meaning they are all professional chef's, some higher than others, but you get the point) anyway one of the students had made Foie Gras and the Chef had brought out some Caviar, and there were some shrimp something or other there too. While we were all enjoying our selves some Men In Black looking come in and then this very well dress older guy comes in. Well he comes in and starts eating with us and shaking everybody's hand, etc... after a little while he leaves with his body guards and some Parisian police. Well it turns out he is the owner of the Ritz Hotel and if nobody knows who that is that is Dodie Al Fyed, Princess Diana's boyfriend (incorrect spelling, but you get the point) his father. Well after all the excitement we took out the Pithiviers boxed them up along with the apple tarts, got my certificate of completion, said good bye to every one, and went to catch the metro. I got home and my roommates were all there and just hang around talking about something. Well since we had nothing to do and I had taken pictures of all my food, so we didn't have to wait any more, we all sat around at the table and had a dessert party. At first we felt bad that we had eaten so much dessert that quickly, but then we got over it because the fridge was becoming only white pastry boxes. Screw the "Men in the white coats", it was the attack of the white boxes. Well after our little party we went our separate ways, were I headed in to my room and watched movies and read until a 1/4 to 6 in the morning. By then I decided it was time to probably go to bed since you know the birds were singing and the sky was a pinkish purple, while the sun came up.

Pithiviers


Tarte aux Pommes

DAY 9

I went to school and got dressed really, shockingly, fast. Since there was still a lot of time before I had to be in class, I went into the normal culinary kitchen ( I say normal because it's not the pastry kitchen) There was a class that starts just before my class so they were already working. It was very interesting watching them make all there little things. They were making little appetizers and plating them, and I would like to point out that they were absolutely beautiful. Not that the teacher chefs aren't fabulous or anything, but this class got a special guest for today, they had one of the master chefs from the main Ritz kitchen, can I just say OMG that is soooooo cool!!!!!!!!!!!! Well after watching for a while I walked back into my kitchen, with some of my other classmates who had also got sucked into the beauty of the appetizers. Well even though we only three things, we had a late start because of the spectacle from the other kitchen. I started the dough for the Panettone while my buddy worked with the slice fruit making it into candied fruit for our bread. I've never been a fan of candied fruit, but these weren't that bad. We then started on the almond cream for the Pithiviers cake that we are making tomorrow. Lets just say we had a little bit of fun making the almond cream (well it was more like a paste) After putting in the required amount of rum into the batter, we both took spoon and took two shots each; and yes i'm legally allowed to drink, Europe's drinking age is 18... We put the paste in the fridge and go back to our Panettone dough adding the candied fruit. We split our dough into two and each put our piece into the paper holder ( like a very big and tall cupcake holder) and put this liquidy topping and then put it on a speedrack to let them rise for an hour or so. While waiting for the Panettone to rise we had our tea and coffee break, don't forget our lovely history lesson while having our break. Today we learned about the background of the Panettone, well i'll keep it short for you folks at home; it's Italian, and as most Italian things go it's very good. No problems getting home today, took me long enough though. When my roommates come home, I show them what I made today (it's become sort of a tradition) and before I could say anything one of them is all like, "OMG... Panettone, amo il panettone, sono in mondo da eccitato." (for those which Italian is not your mother tongue: "i love panettone, i'm so excited") that is before I even said anything. Then spent the rest of the evening just hanging around with my roommates until midnight-ish and went off to sleep. I really didn't want to, because that would mean that it was a friday. I know, I know, most people love friday and so do I, but this friday was the last day for my class and is going to be two weeks before my next class begins.


Panettone

DAY 8

Chef Goulaze, one of our chefs!
Good Morning Wednesday! wow I sound so much more chipper now than I did this morning when this all was happening. Well unlike yesterday I actually arrived on time, really not time mistakes or anything, promise... I walked into class and we were already have tea and coffee, must of been a long morning for everyone if were not even waiting till tea time at 4pm. Chef refreshed the starter dough, while we all worked on making "short dough." Afterwards we got into our little groups of two and started the dough for the genoese sponge cake. While the batter was in the mixer mixing, who would of though a mixer mixing, what a crazy idea... we buttered up the pan and lining it with almonds. We took our ladle, scooped our dough into the pan and hopped them into the oven, of course all this took much longer than it sounds. Today was a big history lesson, talking about the history behind the genoese cake. About how it was created by a chef commemorating the war at Genoese during the Napoleonic wars . I was on the metro going home in the middle of changing trains when I got thirsty. I got my, no surprise here, Oringina, and went on to my next train. Well i'm on the train for a couple of stops and i'm like ok here's my stop...... then, I look at were I am and realize that i'm back were I started. In the mist of the heat outside and my going fatigue I seemed to get back on the same train that I was on before getting my drink, but just the other way ( back to school) so then I had to do the whole trip all over again. I eventually get to my metro stop and walked down to my grocery to get some more food since I was kind of running low on food. This was then followed by a lite dinner and swiftly off to sleep..............FINALLY.


Pain de Gênes

DAY 7

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY !!!!!!!

So thinking that I am 35min. early I walk into the locker room to find one of my other classmates getting dressed into her uniform, racing against time. The next thing I know I'm doining the same thing. Aparently on mondays the class starts 1/2hr later than the rest of the week, so I basically had 5min to get completely dressed into uniform. When I get to class, along with the other girl, we are put into groups of two and start making the cream puff pastry for the eclairs. While everyone is doing this Chef puts our guest, Sevetlana, who is here doing a piece on the school for the Russian Marie Claire, charge of refreshing the starter dough from yesterday. After finishing the cream puff pastry, we start making our eclairs from the from the chilled puff pastry that we had made yesterday as well, this is starting to become a trend, lol... well we each had our turn with the pastry bag, learning how to properly squeeze the bag and get perfect and beautiful little eclairs and the three parts to the nuns (which is the classic eclair) after which we put them in the oven and started working on the brioches. From the eclairs to the brioches the room was getting quite hot from the oven, when you open the oven door it would let out very, very hot air. but being two floors, well more like 1 1/2 floors, below ground there are no windows and so when the hot air was released into the kitchen, it stays in the kitchen. Since the brioches were going to be in the oven for a while and the eclairs were know in the fridge we decided that now was probably the best time to take a break. So we went into the parlor and had a tea/coffee break, with some biscuits. Of course there was also lots of water as some of us were looking a little on the fainting side. I do not say this to make my classmates sound like there a little wiltering flower and they need to suck it up and stand the heat, it was just that hot, even the only guy in our class and chef were looking a little under the weather. So we go back into the kitchen and pull out our eclairs, if your wondering about our brioches in the oven chef was just a head of us and took them out of the oven. We each took our eclairs and the three parts of the nuns and put three little holes on the bottom and just one for the nuns. Here is were the true fun begins, we all filled up our pastry bags and pipped in the orange cream puff pastry filling for the eclairs and the chocolate cream puff pastry for the nuns. Of course with out furthe ado we had a little food, well actually cream fight, I say little as we some how managed to only get people and the oven door and not get the intire kitchen messy. Well after we settled down and cleaned up a bit, we them took out the chocolate and the orange ganache and with a quick drip with the spatula put some on their respective eclairs let the ganache harden a bit then decorate them with the toppings; little candied orange pieces on the eclairs and white chocolate pieces on the nuns, which just happen to have R's on them, for the Ritz, but were's the fun in that, I decided that the R's were for of course Rabinowitz. After this exciting day by the time I got home I was extremely tired, so I took a little nap until my roomamtes got home then I decided to stay in, which they went out and watched the game France vs. Portugal. Well my little "quite evening at home" wasn't realu just that, it all started about 10:30-11ish when France beat Portugal and were now going to go on and play Italy for the World Cup on sunday. The whole place erupted with shouting and firecrakers and I thought they had been happy when France had beat Brazil, this was nothing. I finally went to bed around 2am, and not because I wanted to, you see the courtyard in the middle of a couple apartment complexs is like a big microphone, if you get the picture that I'm getting at. Well i'm off to sleep for a nother day at the Ritz.


Eclairs à l'orange // Religieuse au chocolat

Brioche parisienne

DAY 6

So I wake up today, I wouldn't say full of energy, but still up and awake. While getting dressed I was thinking what class was going to be like. One thing that I am glad about is that I went to the Ritz on friday so I new were I was going when I arrived moday. So here's the thing they want me to come at 8:15am and go into one of the parlors where the orintation is then I will leave and come back for class at 2pm. Well that didn't realy go as planned. After the orintation they took us down into "the cave." It's not that it's scary or anything, just 3 floors below the ground. Here we got our uniforms and then went into the dressing room and tried them on, well I was just starting to when I relized nobody else was changing back into their normal clothes. So I left my uniform on and went with everybody into the kitchen were we started class. Well because of all this I decided that I guess I was in the morning group now instead. To day was going to be the busiest day of the whole week, I know this because they have it on a nice little diagram in the back of our cookbook. Well nothing realy exciting happened in class today, except when we were making all the stuff we would get a little history behind each item. I can't remember everything to write it down here but I will just say, it also helps that I love history, that it was very fasinating. Well by the time we were cleaning up the tabletops, equipment, etc... we had made the first part of Starter dough, brioche dough, chocolate ganache, puff pastry, chocolate pastry cream, orange pastry cream, and Lemon Week-end cake, which looks and tastes like a lemon poppy seed cake, but with out the poppies. After talking with the chef, and I will say very interestingly too because I was speaking my poor french and he was speaking his poor english, found out that to get my diploma, as in one that I could get credit for from school I would have to take 6weeks, and not the 2 weeks that I had originally had planned for my trip. After getting that all straightened out with the ecole office I headed back home. Thankfully I got a seat on both my trains, and if anybody knows Paris and it's metro system they know that my trip is not the most quickest, I take Line 11 from where my apartment is in the 20th (Porte de Lilas) to République, then take Line 8 from République to Opéra. Even though I haven't done much, it's more than what i've done in one day in a while so I'm worn out and very tired, so I open the door to my apartment put my bags down and fall asleep. Of course since I went to sleep and about 3:30pm a woke up around 10ish and was quite hungary, so I ate and then went back to sleep were I didn't wake up till the morning.

DAY 5

Well after 4 days of not having my clothes and calling 2-3x a day and all there bullshit about not knowing were bags were, they said they didn't even know what city they were in. I decide to realy do something, so after getting out of bed and have some lunch I take the Metro out to the airport. I'm doing pretty good when I realize that my train has split off in the wrong direction. I was on the correct train, if you were wondering, but the line that is like a sideways X, so I was on the right line but it just split off in the wrong direction. Thankfully I ran into this lady who happen to be metting someone at the airport so I just followed her to the right part of the line. I get to the airport and relize that the baggage service is on the other side of the glass wall. I find an Air France help desk and ask how I can get on the other side? she wrote out a pass to go through the exit the wrong way. I know I probably sound realy stupid, or just silly, but I felt all high and mighty showing my pass and going the opposite way through a secured area. I get to the baggage service and only wait a a short while since i'm the second in line. Well to my delightful suprise, but at the same time utter disgust. Even though I was extremely happy that they had found my bags, I was still pissed off that Air France "couldn't find my bags" until I showed up in person. But whatever, I got my bags and I sent Air France a pretty nasty letter. I felt kind of bad writting such a nasty and profanity letter, but it was so unexceptable loosing my bags and not trying to helping me (like money for couple clothes, free upgrade, free ticket, or something than just saying their sorry with words. I took a taxi home, my bags a quite heavy so not only would I not want to carry them all around and also it would fit on the metro cars with all the other people on it. I get back to my apartment and just hang out sleeping, reading, watching T.V., etc... I'm so excited about tomorrow, my first day at Le école Ritz Escoffier.

DAY 4

Another boring day in the land me.... well isn't that just the funniest thing you ever heard. I had my wake up call by my new best friend, one the cats i'm living with, (I don't know his name, so I call him Le Chat) Well Le Chat and I had a lovely time having some breakfast with him. Well he might of, he was trying to steal the milk out of my cereal bowl. I had talked to one of my friends got this pass for the Musée d'Orsay, but she is going on holiday so she couldn't finish the pass, so she was going to give it to me. So we decided to meet at a metro stop near her house so she could give me the pass. We made the mistake of only choosing a metro stop, were forgot one little, well actually big, detail, we forgot to pick a place at the metro stop. Since it wasn't that late I decided to stop and watch a movie before going home. I stop in the 20th district and try to find the theatre from the directions that I got from the internet. I got up to street level and started walking in the correct direction. When I got the the place where the address. I start to wonder around tring the find this place, and all i'm thinking is W.T.F. where is this movie theatre, it should be all about everyone seeing and noticing the place not all hidden. Then I notice the street numbers don't match up, the evens are much more numerically higher than the odds, and since my address is an odd, so I realize I still have a couple more blocks to walk. Being totally not suprised, I end up finding it right were the directions said it would be. Well I go up and get my ticket for Marie Antionette. Well you know how in the States you can arrive 30min early, well you can't in France, it's only 10min early. So I left and started walking down the street to waste 30min. Well I walk to the end of the block, which is Place de Nation, and see a lot of people and a lot something going on, with street vendors and the whole 9 yards. I walk across the street to see what it is, can't........ so I squeeze my self through all the people till I get to the baracade. That is when I relize what all the comotion was about. It was a parade, not just any parade, it was some kind of parade celebrating (i'm guessing) black culture around the world. The reason why I say this is because 1. most of the people watching were black 2. all the groups were black and there banner had a country's name on it (one's with a large black population). After watching the parade, my favorite part being when each group did a little bit of their native dance, headed back to the movie theatre. I watched the movie, in English but with French subtitles, and headed back to the metro. While walking to the metro I though how appropriate is it of me to watch a movie about Marie Antionette in France. I also thought I would have never even known, let alone gone to, the parade if it weren't for other happenings. Though I think things are ment for a reason (unfortunatly) For example, the parade. I wouldn't have gone to the parade if the movie theatre didn't let people in until 10min before the movie, I would have never seen the movie in the 12th district if it weren't on the way home from the metro stop were I was supposed to get the museum passes, and I would have never even have gone to that metro stop had it not been the one that my friend wanted to meet at. Well I get home and eat, read, call some friends and family, and then sleeepppp..............
isn't he just a beast!?!?!