DAY 65

I wake up about 1/4 till 6am to the sound of the train comming to, a very loud, stop at some train station to let passengers off. I was up for a couple of minutes before falling back to sleep. I then wake up for good about 35 minutes before arriving back in Paris. I get to Paris Nord and walk to the metro and take back to the apartment. I then spend the rest of the day sleeping, reading some of my Jane Austen book and checking my email. Peace Out.

DAY 64

So today was the second, and last, day in Berlin. I didn't do as many things as yesterday, but a couple of them were on the city limits so I had to put travel time into the schedule, plus most of the places today were big places that would take an hour or more per one. The first place I went to today was the 1936 Olympic Stadium (which is also were the 2006 FIFA World Cup was). When I got up to street level from the metro station, my first thought was did I go to the right stop. I mean I realized I went to the correct stop since the name of the stop is
"Olympia-Stadion" if it couldn't get more obvious. The reason why I thought this was beacuse the stadium is outside the city so there are these trees, a little land bridge, and dead quite. Thankfully, after walking under the bridge I saw a sign point in the direction of the stadium. Once I get to there I have to go get a ticket at the visitor's center, this is because when there is no event going on it becomes like a museum. I looked around taking pictures and what nost when I see the Olympic torch holder on the other side of the stadium. I walk around and after taking some pictures of it look at the placks that name all the winners of the 1936 Olympics. Before leaving I passed the VIP boxes, there was this plack talking about Hitler and his envolvment in the Olympics. I then got to go to the box were he sat, I got a VERY CREEPY feeling when I got near his seat. I then left and did the rest of the sites in order in going back to the hotel. The next stop for me was the Schloss (or in English, palace) Charlottenburg. Something that caught my attention was that the pipes, walking to the palace from my metro stop, were above the ground, see...

This palace, by architect Peter Joseph Lenné, was built to "unite" nature, art, and architecture in a "Prussian Arcadia" in 1825, at the behest of Prince Carl von Preussen. The neo-classicist architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel converted the original palace into a summer residence in the Italian country-house style. There are 4 main buildings on the estate; Schloss Charlottenburg (the main building), Neuer Pavillion (the "cotage" on the estate), Belvedere (a tea/relaxation "cottage" for the Queen), and the Masoleum were some of the royal family is buried. The Palace grounds and park is one of the most significant historic garden monuments in Germany. It was designed as a Baroque garden at the end of the 17th century by Siméon Le Nôtre. Though during the 19th century landscape architect Johem A. Eyserbeck and architect Peter Joseph Lenné converted the grounds into an evocative "English" landscape garden. Never the less, a portion of the Baroque tree lined avenue structured and boscages havesurvived. Also, the mausolem is the burial place of the Hohenzollern family. It was built in 1810 in the style of a Doric temple, by H. Gentz with help from Karl Freidrich Shinkel. It was then extended in 1841 and between 1888-18890. In the crypt lie the remains of Queen Luise (d. 1810), King Frederick William III (d. 1840), Kaiser William I (d. 1888), Queen Augusta (d. 1890), and Prince Albrecht of Prussia (d. 1872). On the way back I stopped by "Bellevue" to take a picture. "Bellevue" is the German equivalent of our "White House" and is were the presidential family live. After that I just one more place to visit before going back to my hotel to pack. On my walk over I passed the Eingang Siegessaule which is this statue in the middle of a 10 way round-a-bout. The last place that I wanted to see was the Mercedes-Benz Complex. This complex not only has the headquaters of the company in many different buildings throughout the complex, it has a dealership, cinemas, a musical theatre, IMAX, arcade, a Grand Hyatt Hotel, a mall, even a casino; if you don't believe me just look at the picture of the complex's map. When I was walking back to the hotel I passed this cool fountain, so I took a picture.




ROYAL VISITING COMING UP....

DAY 63

So I woke up today to the knock on the door of room service. The funny thing is that now when ordering I notice everything since I've worked on the other side. So anyways, after breakfast I headed out for my very busy day. I started my day at the concierge to have him circle all the places that I wanted to go on my map. Then took the metro to this area that has some pieces of the Berlin Wall. I got off at my stop and spent some time not only taking pictures, but also reading the plackes that they had put up next to the pieces. Then moved on to the Plenary Assembly Hall of the German Bundestag, aka German Parliment. Next to the parliment building across this little spit of the River Spree was this really cool looking, architectually, building, I later found out was a government building. I wish our government buildings looked like that. It looked like it should be a modern art museum or something. Since I was near it, I then went onto see the Bandenburger Tor; which is an arch at the Pariser Platz on the bloulevard were the Prussian Electoral Princes rode down, I think when they were crowned. On a VERY long walk to the Galleries Lafayette to get something to drink and a rest for my feet I had seen this kind of cool building and wanted to check it out, which I did after recharging myself. When I reach the biulding I find that it is part of a complex, named Gendarmarket Square. The complex consisted of two small cathedrals and a theatre and statrue in the middle of the two. The theatre was designed by Karl Friedrich Shinkel. Then in 1699, Prince Friedrich III (later the self proclaimed King Friedrich I) gave the immigrated French Huguenotes a site (next to the theatre, but north of it) for the building of a church. But then he gave ( to the south of the theatre) the locak German population a church as well. Since the rest of the things I had planned to see today were on the way back to the hotel, I started in that general direction. I was walking back when I sawthis really cool sculpture thing that I remebered seeing from my taxi coming from the train station. It was really cool looking. It was all these squares, some were only a couple of inches high and went to probably about 20 feet. The different levels were all mixed up and the sqaures were in straight lines horizontal and vertical. The coolest part of it all was that if you looked at it straight on the sqaures were in nice little lines, but if you looked at it diagonally they looked like they were all mixed up and no order what so ever. I later found out from the concierge that it was the new Holocaust Memorial. After this I stopped at the St. Marien-Kirche church. This is the second oldest church in Berlin and the only church from the Middle Ages in which services are still being held. The church was built in 1270 in a Northern German gothic brick style. While I was taking the side picture of the St. Marien-Kirche I saw this cool looking building that (I thought this was the best part) was painted in this light baby girl pink with white trim. Ok, now that I write that I sounds hideous, well it wasn't (just look at the pics)
so after taking the picture I walk over and read the sign saying that it's the Deutsches Historisches Museum (aka. German History Museum). Next to the museum was this bridge (you can see the museum in the background in it's pic) that looked like alot of those big grand bridges that you see in Paris. I read the plack on the bridge and saw that it was named the Schoss Brucke bridge, I forgot the year that it was buit, but I remember that I was long time ago. Right next to the hotel and my last stop before going back into the hotel was the Berliner Dom. It is a cathedral that was the former court of Prussia's royal family, The Hohenzollern's. It was built between 1894-1905 by the architect Julius Carl Raschdorff. I then spent the evening in the hotel watching a movie on the TV and then just hanging out in my room since I was very tierd from the lack of sleep that I got over the WEG days. While hanging out I went out onto my balcony which had the coolest view. Straight a head was this park, well at least it looked it, there were too many trees not to be, to the right the Berliner Dom, and to the left the "TV Tower". The "TV Tower" is not it's real name, but that's what everybody calles it, because that's what it is (It makes since though).

TORISTING BERLIN ->->->

DAY 62

So I woke up today and got ready, then went to the train station. I took the train to Koln, Germany were I had to switch trains. Since I had a couple hours I went outside to look around, I didn't go far. Across the steet was this cool looking cathedral, so since I had the time I went and checked it out. Afterwards I got on my new train and had a 5 or so hour journey to Berlin. On the way there we stopped in Wuppertal, Hagen, Hamm (Westfalen), Bielefeld, Hannover, and Lehrte, before reaching Berlin. I then took a taxi to my hotel and then changed and went down stairs for dinner. The hotel that I was staying at, the Raddison SAS Hotel, had this really good asain restaurant, so that's were I went (I took a couple pictures) The really cool thing about the hotel was the aquarium. The hotel was one of those hotel that is hollow in the middle, like a doughnut, and were you can see all the floors. In the middle though was this FREAKING HUGE aquarium, I found out that it is 32 feet tall (went from the second floor up till the 5 or 6 floor, 1 million litres of saltwater, 2,500 tropical fish, and the biggest cylindrical aquqrium in the world. I then spent the rest of the evening reading and watching TV and a movie.

sculpture at the Aachen train station

HOTEL PICS.....

DAY 61

FEI WORLD EQUESTRIAN GAMES 2006: DAY 4

So since my feet were still sore from yesterday I went to the food tents and got all the food that I would need for the day so that I would not have to get up unless I wanted to. I get to my seat and sit down and get everything organized for today events, you know like get out the score sheets and and camera, and of course breakfast. Then a little bit later this couple come looking for their seats, I tell them it's right next to me. Here were it get funny. A couple of minutes later this other couple come and tell (looking at the couple next to me) that they are in their seats. We look at their tickets and it says that they are in row 23 and that this is 22. Then a small group of people come and try and find their seats in row 22, but then we see that one of the people her seat doesn't even exist. I mean the row just end at number right below it. We even look across the aile to see if the numbers continue up, they don't the number is 1. Then we figure out that they are in the wrong section. Then a little bit later some more people come saying (talking to the people sitting directly in front of us) that they are in their seats, we look at the tickets and see that they are correct and that the other people are in their seats in row 21. So then those people check there tickets and find that they were sitting in the correct seats just the wrong row, so they move down a row. But when they do that they bump the people out that were sitting there. After all this confusion we go get somebody who works at the horse show. In the end this is what worked out: we moved from our row 22 to the correct row 22, the people who had said that that couple next to me were in their seats (turns out they really were) took their seats in the correct row 23. Then the people who were supposed to be in the same number seats but row 21, went into the correct row and then the people they had bumped out moved down to their correct row of 20. That is why there were all the empty chairs in "row 19", because it was actually row 20. A little bit later more people came and were trying to find their seats, they found it on the first try, but they were sitting in the same numbers seats but row 23. As soon as they sat down there, all the rest of us (at the same time) all started laughing. They look at us funny and we explain what had just happened and that if they had come a couple of minutes earlier, they would have been able to experience a lovley round of "musical chairs". If you think that I am making this up, believe me I don't think even I could think of even thinking of this. Anyways you know what to do for the pictures.When I got back to the hotel I packed for Berlin, since I was leaving in the morning.



click on the FEI World Equestrian Games 2006 to see the pictures

DAY 60

FEI WORLD EQUESTRIAN GAMES 2006: DAY 3

Since the X-C didn't start till 11am, I slept in a bit. Before going to the horse show I had to go take the pictures off my camera since I only have one photo chip and it only had space for a couple more pictures. When I realized this I felt like a mad paparazzi, since in just 16hrs (8 each day) I hade taken over 300 pictures. That is because my camera can hold a couple dozen or so with out a photo chip and then my photo chip holds 300. Afterwards taking the bus to the show and having a blast. By the time I got back to the hotel my feet were in so much pain from walking around all day. You see X-C courses are set of "x" amount of acres, so if you want to see all the jumps, like I did, that means that you have to wake all of those acres. The terrain is not some paved road, well there is no raod at all, just grassy, and sometimes muddy, rolling hills, with lots of trees and streams, etc..... Plus I didn't sit down at all today, not even once. Then to make matters wore I still stayed at the horse show. Then instead of sittingdown I then went out to the X-C field hand started taking pictures. Then later I was next to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium getting times, scores, etc... for today's X-C and it was taking so long so by the tim I had finished they were just about tp start the FEI World Individual Dressage Grand Prix Freestyle Championship. So of course it pulled me in and I couldn't just leave, so then I stayed even longer, this is also with having to stand. This is because I didn't have a seat I had to stand up. So when I finally got back to the hotel room it was 1am. I then watched some TV while I soaked my feet in hot water in the bath tub and then massage the knots out of my feet. There is not much more to say other than just looking at the pictures. You know what to do.




click on the FEI World Equestrian Games 2006 to see the pictures

DAY 59

FEI WORLD EQUESTRIAN GAMES 2006: DAY 2

Ok so there really isn't much to say about to day. I woke up went to the show grounds, got some breakfast, which was banana with nutella crepes, and spent the rest of the day in my seat. That is other than getting something to eat for lunch and dinner, going to the bathroom, and getting up a the breaks to walk a little bit. Then at 5:30pm, after the Dressage had finished, I went over to Stadium 3 to watch the Vaulting. I would just like to say that vaulting is soo freaking cool, it's basically gymnastics on a moving horse. Well there is really nothing else to say other than what my picture blog says so perfectly "A Picture Is Worth A 1,000 Words"




click on the FEI World Equestrian Games 2006 to see the pictures

DAY 58

FEI WORLD EQUESTRIAN GAMES 2006: DAY 1
So I woke up and got ready for the full day ahead of me. I got to the show grounds about 10mins before the first person was going to start their test. Let me back up a second, if your not a horsey person and wondering what a test is or why they would be doing one at a horse show, this is why. A "test" is the name in what you do in Dressage at a horse show, a synanum would probably be round (ex; the first round). Anyways back to the present, there are many more other types of horsey events going on here, but I only came for the Eventing part of it. I got 4 days of tickets, 1st & 2nd Dressage, 3rd X-C, and 4th Show Jumping. If your wondering why there is two days of dressage that's because there was to many riders to fit into one day. It also helped that we took three breaks throught the day, dressage from 9am till 5:30pm with a hour lunch break and two 10-15min breaks on either side. Nothing really happened, well of course something happened I am at the WEG, but nothing more than the usual at these types of events. Though while on my lunch break I was walking around and looking at the building, when I heard a big chear from Stadium 3 (the vaulting arena) but of course I couldn't go inside since I didn't have a ticket. I then thought to myself that that would be kind of fun going to see the vaulting. I looked at the times table for the Games and saw that i could go after the dressage tomorrow. I would miss the first 1/2 hour, but then it didn't really matter because 1.i wasn't following the score and 2. I would still get to see another 4 hours of it. So after the Dressage ending today I went over to the ticket booth and bought a ticket for tomorrmow vaulting. Afterwards I cought the bus back to the hotel, which I would just like to point out was free. This was because the Games organization (the same governing body as the Olympics) made a deal with the city of Aachen, that we could use that day's ticket as sort of bus pass to anywere the busses ran.

at the entrance to the show grounds


the vendors "tent city"


the photographers






click on the FEI World Equestrian Games 2006 to see the pictures

DAY 57

Ok, so today was all about leaving the country, normally that sounds like a big thing, but for some reason it sound so big just now. Anyways I slept in, got up, dressed and ready for my trip and then took the metro to the main train station. First though I went down to the post office to send Zoe's late birthday present then went to the train. So nothing really exciting happened today. Got to the train station with no hassels leaving me a couple of minutes to get on the train. Once setled I got some lunch from the food car, this mashed potato with duck thing and, of course, a kit kat. The train from Paris to Aachen was about 3 or so hours. On the way we had a major stop in Brussels, Belgium and then a shorter one in Liège-Guillemins, Belgium before stopping in Aachen. I got to the train station in Aachen and found the taxis. I took one to my hoel were it dropped me off in a more residential area. When he told me, in his very little English, that this was the address that I had given him, I didn't say anything, but I was like what the hotel is actually a house or something. So I get out of the taxi and start looking around not seeing anything that looked remotely like a hotel or anything other than someone's private home. I then decide to look down the street, more to look for a taxi then the hotel, which I was starting to give up on. But then there at the end of the block, like a glowing halo, was my hotel even with a big sign infront saying so. I got up to my room and took a little nap. When I woke up and took the bus into the center of town. Here I walked around a little bit till I saw a movie theater and decided to go since 1. my feet were really tired of all the walking and 2. it was starting to get late so most of the tourist things were closing anyway. After the movie, which was Just My Luck (I know, I know, but it was the, and really mean the, only movie playing that I hadn't seen yet even if I didn't want to see it either) I went back to the hotel and went to sleep so I would be well rested for the next full day of fun!!


**********PICTURES FROM THE BRUSSELS TRAIN STATION**********

the sign some random building

DAY 56

All I really had to do today was run a couple of errans. The first was to go to Ritz and pick up the 5 reciepes that I have to study for my exam, the next I had to got back to the Indian Embassay and pick up my passport, and third to go and get my tickets for Germany. I wanted to go to the embassy first, since it was the farthest away, but since you can't pick up passports till 4pm i went to the Ritz first. I arrive at the Ritz and go to the school's offices. Now normally they give you the paper with the receipe names on it after class a week before the exam. But since I don't have class this week I had to come get it myself. I get to the offices and they say they can't find it anywere and that the folder they keep them in doesn't have them. Well to make a long story short, I had totally forgot about the last week of August and that there was still that week before my exam (which is the first week of September). Well we laughed it off and then I left to go back, for what felt like the up-teenth time, to the Indian Embassy. This time I didn't get a ticket. You see When picking up your passport, it is on a first come- first serve basis, so I had to wait in line for about an hour or so before I got my passport back. Then off to the train station. I get to the train station and find a short line, this was only possible since there were many lines to begin with. When it is my turn to go to the counter I take out my EuroPass info and tell the teller that I need a ticket for Aachen, Germany for tomorrow. While waiting for him to find a ticket to my place, date, and times I thought that since I don't know when the next time I will be in Germany is that I should do a little tourist time as well. Since I didn't have to be in Paris the following week I thought that I should stay a couple more night in Germany. Instead of spending them in Aachen, more since I was already going to be there for about a week anyways and I could do touristy things in the evenings after the horse show had ended for the day. So I asked the teller how much it was on my EuroPass to go to Berlin. Since it was only $20 extra I told him the dates that I wanted to go, paid, and then took the metro home. Once I got back home I organized my little space and then packed for Germany.

DAY 55

Didn't do anything today just sat on the couch finishing transfering the last couple days of my blog from paper to computer. I also had some business to attend to dealing with some of my future programs and itenerary stuff with the best travel agent in the world, Mary, my personal hero. I know that sounds funny or cheezy, but she has helped me in so many different ways, getting me out of the things i get my self into when I travel internationally. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for her. OK i'm going to stop now before todays page turns into a shrine for her, LOL! I also need to go to the grocery store, because my fridge was kinda empty, well actually it was empty. So I leave to go walk down to the grocery store, it's freaking raining, and I see that it's all locked up and the light's are out. I look at the time and it's not even 8pm, which is when it closes. I, being the wet fool, look at the hours of operation and find out that there not even open on mondays. So here I am thinking I missed the grocery store and now I'm going to have to find another way of getting dinner and the store wasn't even open today to begin with. So I continue down the street, where there is another grocery store, and pick up my food there.

DAY 54

Worked some more on the blog. I actually think it's easier to just write than it is to copy something from a piece of paper, I think that's why it took me so long. Anyways other than working on the blog, i took a little nap and read more of my book.

DAY 53

I woke up and got straight to work on the picture blog. I had a weeks worth of pictures to upload, and my roommates computer was having some PMS issues and was only letting me upload 1 to 2 pictures at a time, extremely a huge pain in my ass. Well while I was waiting for each couple pictures to upload I got to read one of my new books that I got yesterday. This book, I forgot the name, is by the author who wrote the book Legally Blonde (and yes i'm talking about the movie). Well the uploading to so long that when I had finished dinner I had finished my book as well and it was like 300 and something pages long. After I got ready for bed I curled up in my blankets, there was a slight breeze so it was chilly, I started the second book. THis book I have already read since it is by my all time favorite author, Jane Austen, the book is actually three of her short novels put into one book, they are Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sandition (i think that's how you spell it). I read for a little bit before getting very sleepy deside to put the book away and go to sleep.

DAY 52

I would just like to say TGIF!!!!!! Thanks, I need to say that. We're making Auvergne Cheese Quiche, Veal and Morel Mushroom Pie, and Summer Fruit Cups. Ok, so this won't take very long to write since alot of the stuff we mzde on monday, but anyways.... We started with the two crust and the dough on top of the pie. So we rolled out two short pastry crusts and the topping dough for the pie was the puff pastry. If your wondering why we needed to use two different kinds of dough for one recipe this is why. We use the short pastry dough for the crusts since it is not as "airy" as the puff pastry dough ( used for things like Napoleons and croissonts) so when we add liquid it wont' come leaking through the dough or make a hole at the bottom and leak out. Then reason why were using puff pastry for the top instead of the short pastry is because of the qualities (look above what it's used for) it won't be this thick cardboard thing ontop of your pie. So we put all this in to the fridge and clean up the counter tops from all the flour and put the rolling pins, etc... away. Then we take out the two different kinds of cheese for our quiche, St. Nectaire cheese (and yes that's a kind of cheese, like chedder or brie) and Blue cheese, but the kind that's from Auvergne. With the cheese, the chopped walnuts, and for everybody else minced bacon put it into one of the crusts. Add the egg mixture and pameasan cheese and then popped it into the oven. While that in the oven we take out the vegetable and veal medley that we made on monday and pu it in a pot on the stove. from here we cooked it until the veal had been cooked all the way through and then strained it. While this was going on had our tea and coffee at the same time. Took the crust out and put down a layer of lettuce, then the medley. We then took the sides of the crusts and folded them down. Taking the puff pastry circle that we had just made put an egg wash around the edges and then put it on top of the pie, and with a kork making sure that the top was securely on. Put some egg wash on the top and then put a little design on it. By the time we were finished it was time to take the other quiche out of the oven, then we put this one in. We were only going to make the quiche and pie, but there were some left over fruit in the fridge and they were having the whole kitchen get a big cleaning this weekend, so they wanted to get rid of it, but didn't want to throw it away. So Chef gave us each two little cups and told us to be creative. After this we cleaned up, had a piece of each and then had our fruit dessert. After class instead of going home I needed to get a birthday card for Zoé since I had gotten here a present but wanted to include a card as well. I get off at one of the two metro stops that my roommates say is a card shop. I get up to street level and can't find any shops that look like they sells cards, and it wouldn't matter because most of them were closed anyways. I then proceed down the street, towards what looks like a more busier intersection. While walking, trying to find the shop, it starts to rain. Just so you realize this, one hand is my bag of goodies, the other hand is carrying all my things, like purse, Zoé's birthday present ( so when I got the card I could just go straight to the post office) my receipe book and some other random things like hair brush, etc... that I keep in my locker during the week. Well after a while a start to look like a homeless person, you know no coat t-shirt (thankfully long-sleeved) and short sopping wet, hair looking like a wet rat and then with these two large bags. I step out of the rain but realize that it's not planning to let up any time soon, so I keep on going. I eventually end up passing a GAP and pop in since one of my bage its starting to dissapear I go and ask for a bag. Of course since I'm already in the store and it's nasty outside I go and look around. Leaving with my purchases and a little bit more dry I keep heading down the street. I finally come across this store called FNAC (pronounced F-nack) its like a Barnes & Noble and Best Buy all rapped up into one store. So I go inside to see if they have cards, well they don't, or at least I couldn't find them. Anyways on my search for cards I find my self in the book section, of course. I get two books and proceed to check-out, i get up to the counter and they won't let me buy my books with my credit card without another photo ID, of course the one day that I don't bring my wallet, just my coin purse and card. So I leave the books there and go look for an ATM. I find two, the first is broken and the second isn't there, it was all boarded up. So I walk around some more thinking, the store is freaking going to be closed by the time I get back. I find another ATM and get some money out, at the same time I saw the Arc de Triomphe, and I was like wow did I walk far. From were I got off at to were I aparently was now I walked through like 3 arrondissments. I then go back to the store paid for my books and then walked down that street towards the Arc de Triomphe. I then go around the Arc and walk down the Champs-Elysées and passed by the movies theater remembering that I wanted to go see Miami Vice, so I go in and buy a ticket. Since there is about an hour till my movie starts I go next door to this Italian restaurant. Afterwards I head back to the theater and go find a seat. OK, so I liked the movie, but I think I like the part that it was all in Miami then anything else. I never thought I would say this but watching the movie made me very home sick for Miami and for school. The other cool thing is that I knew were they were in most of the sceens. Like this one part you see this guy driving down the highway, you see this sigh that has the highway 1 symbol and underneath it says Biscayne BLVD. The next shot is him on the floating bridge highway (like I-90) I put the two together and say to my self, "Oh, that's the Julia Tuttle Expressway part of I-195 West going from South Beach to the on ramp of I-95 North." Then a minute or two later one of the actors is like "He's on I-195 turning onto I-95.........." I'm then like hahaha that's realy funny, that's never happened to me before. Well it definately made the rest of the evening nice. After the movie I take the metro back home and then go to sleep.

It's Friday, It's Friday, yipppy,yippy, yah!!!

DAY 51

I arrive back in Paris about 7:30am, I get to the train station and take the metro back to the apartment. I get to the apartmnt about 8am and since I don't have to actually be up till 11:30am I go into my bed and take a couple hour nap. I wake up at 11:30am not refreshed but definately better. I then eat some breakfast get dressed, well actuallly redressed, and then go off to school. Todays reciepes are Reblochon Tart, Vegatable and Basil Quiche and Quiche Lorraine.We started with the Reblochon tart since it would take the longest of the three. We thinly sliced the potatoes and then put it into a pot with the milk, cream, and the different seasonings and herbs. While this was cooking we took out our dough and rolled it out for the crust. We also made the crusts for the other two quiches and put all thre in the fridge. After the crusts we cleaned up and got out the rest of the things for the other quiches, by the time we were done so was the potatoes. We took the potato mixture and strained it. The we each took a couple of scops of it and put it into our crusts.Then we added the cheese, and except for me, also added some bacon. THen came the egg mixture, then into the oven it went. With that in the oven we then went onto the vegetable and basil quiche.This one was much quicker than the previous one. We took the vegetable mixture out of the fridge, this is some of the vegetable that we did on monday, and filled up the quiches. Then in went the egg mixture, then the parmeasan cheese on top, you know to give it a lovely little crunch. Since there was no more room in the oven we put them back into the fridge till the tart was finished. At this point in the day it was time for our daily tea and coffee break. During our coffee break we took the tarts out and put them on the cooling rack. Afterwards we put the newly finished quiches in the oven and started in on the last one of the day. I will save you from trying to think of a creative and prolonged explaination of putting this quiche together, but alas I can't. Basically, we took the crusts out put a layer of minced bacon, then a layer of gruyère cheese, then another layer of both. Put the egg mixture in and then when there was space in the oven put it in. Since the tart and one of the quiches were done and the other one was in the oven we took this time to clean up the kitchen. After the kitchen was all clean we took all our food and spent the last couple minutes of class tasting our creations. Even though today was Thursday, I was to tired to stay for the evening class. Chef said that was fine, since the were only talking about chocolate shops in Paris. So it wasn't like I was going to miss anything that would hurt me in the learning process department. So he gave me the hand out and sent me on my merry way. I then get home put my quiches in the fridge and fall onto my bed. I then proceed to fall fast asleep and don't walk up until the morning.


Cheese-y-ness straight ahead

DAY 50

HAPPY 19th BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!

Ok, so even though I didn't even go to sleep until after midnight I still woke up, around 11am, as if I had been asleep all night. Well that's what plenty of alcohol can do for you. When I finish getting dressed the room service is knocking on my door with my cake and champagne. Before blowing out the candle and eating it I take a couple of pictures (that's why the ice dream is kind of melting in the pictures). After becoming very happy, because of the champagne on an empty stomach, the cake was only a couple bites so it wasn't enough food to stop the alcohol in the champagne from doing it's work. Anyways I left the hotel and started out. I walked down by the marina and looked at all the huge yahts, and did the whole tourist thing of oohing and awwing, but of course to my self,LOL. I then walked up one of the roads, I would just like to say that Monte-Carlo could probably beat San Fransico any day with their hills, it does help that the city was built on a freaking clif. When I get to the top, which seemed to take forever, I do a little window shopping. One really cool thing about Monte-Carlo is that at each major street there is a sign that tells you what stores are there (look at the pictures) it was fabulous, a shopping minded city. I then stop in the casino and look around, and because the legal age in europe is 18, I go to the bar get a Sex on the Beach and then play a couple things. Even though I didn't win anything at least I didn't loose anything, well maybe 5 or 10 euros but any more than that, if that at all. After the casino I start back down the hill, pass the marina again, then up mount everest, well felt like it anyways. At the top was the Royal Palace, I took a couple of pictures around the square and some of the building. Then I got in line and got to go into the palace and visit the state rooms, there was this gorgeous portrait of Grace Kelly, Prince Rainer, and their children in one of the rooms. Afterleaving the Palace it was time to go back to the hotel. The reason, if your wondering, there is a time to go back to the hotel, is that they have to shuttle you over to the beach and it was getting near the time with which I said I would like to go. I get back to the Hotel, change and get ready for the beach. At the beach I am shown a lounge chair and table and asked if I would like anything to eat or drink. After ordering something to drink, if your wondering it was water with lemon, I write some postcards. Finishing my post cards I head down to the water and chill out down there for a little bit before coming back and taking a little nap. After spending a couple of hours on the beach I ask for my driver to head over to pick me up. I get a message from one of the waiter that my driver is stuck in traffic, so since i'm going to be waiting a while I order a light dinner. While waiting I find out the my server, that I've had all afternoon, that before movong to Nice with wife and kids lived in Wellsley, MA. Which is kind of funny since i'm always seem to be going there when i'm on my way to Boston or the Vineyard. I get picked up and brought back to the Port Palace, which is my hotel, and can I just mention that it only has suites, there are no "regular" rooms here and that it is the secound best hotel in the intire principality. With only Hotel de Paris, which is the first hotel in the principality, being better. I then get my week-end bag, check out and walk around a bit before heading over to the train station. I get to the train station the same time that my train does, so I have time this time to find my car. This time I don't have switch trains in Nice, also since it's night time, this train is the sleeping car train. I get all settled into my chambers and change into more comfy pants, I was wearing jeans, and fall fast asleep in my bed. When I wake up the train is about 20-30min from the train station in Paris.



Your Ticket to the Birthday Extravaganza

DAY 49

OFFICAL COUNTDOWN TILL MY BIRTHDAY: 1 day
Oh...My...G-d (Becky look at her butt) OK, I know that phrase is soooo over used, but i don't care I like it anyway. Well the reason i'm so OMG is I leave for Monte-Carlo, Monaco today since TOMORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY!!!! I decide to get to class early today to make up for the fact that I have to leave like 45min early from class to catch my train to southern France. Today were making Provencal quiche and Tourtière de Foie Gras et Sauce Périgueux. We started the day off with making the Provenceal Quiche. We took out the tomato thing, (looked like chunky tomato sauce, like for a pizza or something)i'm not really sure what else is with the tomatoes since it's not in the recipe book and I wasn't one of the people who made it. Oh wait...I forgot that before we first rolled out the dough and made our crust. Back to what I was saying, then after the tomatoes came the zucchini and eggplant which were mixed together. Then taking the the egg, milk, etc... filling filled the rest of the quiche up. Then with thinly sliced tomatoes put them around in a circle and then sprinkle some gruyere cheese. Put the quiche in the oven, then started with the potatoes for tha foie gras dish. We took the potatoes peeled and thinly sliced them. Then in a sautée pan cooked them with a little butter until they had a golden color, and then set aside. We took out the small little tart dishes put cut out a circle shape in the wax paper and put it in the bottom of each dish. We then seasoned the foie gras and set aside while we had tea and coffee break. After break we took the potatoes and placed the overlapping in a circle in the tart dishes. The next layer was the foie gras, which was put on top, andsince this is the Ritz, there was no shortage of foie gras, so we could stuff the tarts :) Then with the pastry dough that we made yesterday put a layer of that on top. With this we put them into the oven. Fot the rest of the class I have no idea what went on since after that I left to go catch my train. I get changed back into normal clothes and with my week-end bad in tow head out the door towards the metro that would take me to the train station. With my metro map in hand I figure out the way that I need to go to get to my train station. At first I was confused since the metro station for the Ritz and the metro station that would give me a non-stop to the big train station were connected underground, so I was able to walk to it. Confused at first but then realized what I had done (the walking stint) after I had done it. Anyways I get to the train station and find which platform my train to Nice is on. I barely made it, and I was originally going to leave later, thank g-d I didn't. So I wasn't racing or anything but I was taking my time either trying to find my assigned car. As I was trying to find it I hear the whitsle blow, so I quickly get on the train and start going through each car till I get to mine. Well I walk to the end of the train and still hadn't gotten to my car (the had put to trains together) so I thought well I will just find somewhere to sit and then the first place that the train stops I will get off and get on my correct car. In the mean time I listened to music and played all sorts of games on my iPod. There was even a point that I got realy bored and started talking like a million pictures of me being silly and making all sorts of faces, then if I couldn't get any more bored I start talking freaking pictures with my food. I mean how much more of a sorry loser can one person get, the nxhen they start posing with their food. On the way down south I stop in Aix-en-Provence, Toulon, Saint Raphaël, Cannes, Antibes, then Nice. At Nice I had to get off the train and switch to one of the local trains to take me to Monte Carlo. I arrive in Monaco around 11ish and walk outside, where there is nobody around. So I start walking, to save you from falling asleep, I will shorten the story, I walked and I walked and I walked and I walked and I walked, etc.... At some point I gave up trying to find my hotel and found the nearest hotel, and got a cab from there to take me to my hotel. I get to my room and colapse on the bed. I then change and go into the mini bar and take out a bottle of champagne, because by now it's past midnight and has officially begun the 16th of August.


Duck Heaven This Way -> ->

DAY 48

OFFICAL COUNTDOWN TILL MY BIRTHDAY: 2 days
I get to class ready to work, I don't know were the energy comes from, but I think it has to do with not really doing anything this weekend. Since it's monday we are making lots of things today that we will need further down the week. Today we are making more puff pastry, if we haven't made enough allready, LOL, short pastry, cutting up most of the vegetables for some of the quiches, the marinade for the duck, and the preparations for the stuffing. Oops, I forgot to tell you guys that this week is "Savory Delights" so it's all savory foods and no desserts. If your wondering why i'm making normal food in a baking and pastry class it is because the origin of a pattisiere ment that you worked with dough. This means that you not only made sweet things like desserts but also other things as well. Now a days our culture has turned it into more of just desserts and such, but now you know the ture meaning and the beginnings of the pattisiere. We started with the puff and short pastries, put them into the fridge and then moved on to the real task at hand, which was the vegetables. There were so many freaking vegetables to cut and then cook, when we were done, more vegetable showed up, it was like a never ending cycle. I started with the cucmbers, first with the peeler then i got to use the madolin (see pictures)it was very fun, I cut up all the cucumbers into fine circles in the matter of minutes, it was fabluous fun. Afterwards I got put in charge of the onions, this was because I knew the proper and fastest way of cutting the onion, becauwe of my culinary school in Miami. Well I don't know wht my problem was, but the onions were really getting to me today. I can't say that I never cry when i'm cutting onions, but normally it's like one glistening tear, not Niagra Falls. Then it became like the class joke, and i'm like great, i get to be today joke, but it's all good, it was really funny anyway, I can't say that I wouldn't have made fun of it my self, wait..... I did, LOL!!! Then if the joke hadn't stopped at that, then they put me in charge of mincing the garlic, I took this all in good humor. After all the vegetables were cut some of the class stayed with the vegetables and went onto cooking them, the rest of us moved on to making the marinade and stuffing for the duck. Well actaully just the stuffing that's because all that's to the marinade is de-boning the duck and letting it sit, or marinade, with some stock ( from the main Ritz kitchen, oh yeah!!!) then we moved onto the stuffing. We took the foie gras and some other meat and cut them into little dices and then cooked them with the cut mushrooms, the eggs, the Cognac (hell yeah), some stock, and some seasonings. By the time we realized the time there wasn't much time left in class (jeeze how many times can you say the word "time" in one sentence). Anyways, while all these things were happening we took our tea and coffee break. Afterwards, we cleaned up and put all the things we made today into the fridge or freezer, depending on where the paticular item need to go.


This way to Savory goodness

DAY 47

OFFICAL COUNTDOWN TILL MY BIRTHDAY: 3 days
Just like yesterday, sans the walk. It was still raining cats and dogs, well i guess here it would be chats et chiens, but still you get my point. I think the weekend is the official "Let's Rain Down On The World Day" because i've noticed that most weekend at least one of the days there is some kind of rain, heavy or light.

DAY 46

OFFICAL COUNTDOWN TILL MY BIRTHDAY: 4 days
As you might have guessed already, didn't do anything today. I woke up around 1pm, nomally, even if I go back to sleep, I wake up around 6am or 7am because of the sun coming through. But today, besides it being overcast, I woke up under neath my covers, which made it dark. I then ate some breakfast and went back to my book that i'm currently reading. The book, for those that are interested is by the same author that wrote Under A Tuscan Sun, and is about the author travel to a couple of countries that she went to with her husband. Quite intertaining if you ask me. Anyways, after reading for a couple of hours I worked on some of the picture pages on the blog. When I started to get sleepy from staring at my computer screen I went for a walk, but was cut short because I started to rain cats and dogs and I hadn't brought an umbrella or jacket. I then spend the rest of the afternoon curled up on the couch with one of the cats, read more of my book and watch a little bit of TV.

DAY 45

OFFICAL COUNTDOWN TILL MY BIRTHDAY: 5 days
Today was "lets get drunk day", well maybe not drunk but at least at that really, really happy stage. Were making Napoleon, Raspberry Soufflé, and Granité de Citron et fruits. We started with the puff pastry for the napoleon. We had premade this yesterday and had it in the fridge overnight. We took it out of the fridge and rolled out a piece of the dough so that it covered most of the cutting board. We then rolled some holes (for ventation) into it and then put it into the oven. The one thing that is different when we put this dough in the oven then the other times, was that we put another cookie sheet on top of the dough to make a sandwich with the cookie sheets. This is because we want the dough to rise (this is the same dough as croissants) but we still want it to stay flat and not have an air bubble or something. We then made the vanilla cream for the napoleons and the lemon granites. The lemon granites was the first thing today that had alcohol in it today. Granites containes lemon juice, sugar, water, and dry vermouth (oh yeah baby!, were's the rest of the ingredients for a MARTINI) The funny thing was the girl that was pourinng the dry vermouth someone bumped into her. Of course nobody belived them when they said that it was an accident, (of course, ok what ever you say), I'm sure you wouldn't even be on that side of the kitchen if she wasn't pouring the vermouth. We put that in the freezer and started on the raspberry soufflé. I have never made a soufflé, but can I say it is very cool not only to make but to watch being made. First we had to press on the raspberries, like we did earlier in the week, so there was only the juice. Put this into a pot with the sugar and potato startch and stirred this till it reduced. If your asking how do you know when it's reduced, well let me tell you, you'll know. The mixture will go from a sauce, boil, then turn into a sticky, gooey concoction. You take this and fold into the beaten egg whites, this looks like pink and white clouds (see the pictures), at this stage, it's one of those make it or break it stages. You want to mix the egg whites with the raspberry mixture so it's all a light pink color, but you don'twant to mix it to much, because then the air bubbles in the egg whites will go away and then the soufflé won't rise in the oven. We put this puffy mixture in the ramekins that we had previously sugar/buttered and then put Kirsch soaked (another alcohol for today) raspberries on the bottom. After filling up all the ramekins put them into the oven. If your wondering about the puff pastry, it has to be in the oven for a while, so we took it out after dealing with the soufflés. We set it aside to cool and then had our tea and coffee break. Before we finished with the break the soufflés were done, so we dabbed some raspberry sauce ontop and had it with our coffee. With the left over puff pastry we rolled it out and sprinkled it with cinnamon, sugar, and some chopped up almonds, cut the dough into strips and then twisted them and popped them into the oven. Going back to the napoleons, we took our puff pastry and cut it into small rectangles. With our rectangles and pipped the vanilla cream onto the first layer, then putting some of the leftover Kirsch raspberries (more alcohol). Then put another layer of the puff pastry, then another layer of vanilla cream, then last another layer of puff pastry, then put some icing sugar on top. We decorated the plate with the raspberry sauce from the soufflé and some of the passionfruit sauce and then placed the napoleon on the plate. Very Pretty! Last thing of the day was the Granité de citron et fruits. This didn't take long, we took the rest of the strawberry "jell-o" from ealier in the week and put it into the glasses and put that into the fridge. While they were jell-o-fying we cleaned up the kitchen. By the time we were done so was the "jell-o". We then put the fruit on top filled the glass from the "jell-o" to allmost to the top with champagne (even more alcohol) then topped it off with the granités. Afterwards, we had some champagne left over, so while we all said our good-bye's (I'm the only one coming back next week) we finished the champagne. We then bagged the twists that we made earlier and left. Today of all days I had to were heels, now these heels are not normal shoes, there a bit to big. See I got them while at school in Miami and I must of got them on a hot day, because I know that my feet have not shrunk, but when I bought them they were kind of on the tight side. Well now I was having even more trouble because of all the alcohol, and I had gotten some extra money for my birthday so I went to my second favorite store, Zara, and bought some new shoes, that not only I love but also happen to go with my outfit, you know kill two birds with one stone. Then if my day was done I still had do get my train tickets for Monte Carlo, Monaco, which is were I'm going for my birthday. I get to the train station to buy my tickets and go up stairs to were the Eurostar ticket counter is and wait in line. After waiting for about 20min I finally get up to the counter and find out that the tickets for Monte Carlo I have to get them downstairs. So I go downstairs and wait in line, thankfully not that long and get my tickets. Since I have the EuroPass I only pay €23 total. I look at the time and see that I only have 1/2hr before the grocery store closes. So I run and take the metro back home. I get to the grocery store with only a couple minutes to spare, thankfully their better at letting you stay a bit overtime if your already in the store. I get my groceries and finally go home. Where I watch some TV, and don't ask what I was watching because it was in French, and had some dinner.

((( For some reason I lost my photos, sorry about it, I'm just as sad :( )))

DAY 44

OFFICAL COUNTDOWN TILL MY BIRTHDAY: 6 days
The desserts that were making today are Moelleux chaud au chocolat, (which is one of my favorite desserts) but this one also has Thyme ice cream, Roasted Figs stuffed with amaretti macaroons, and fruit salad with sauternes wine. We started with the figs dessert, we first had to take out the meat of the figs and mixed it with the amaretti macaroons and some other things and then piped it back into the figs. Here we put the figs into a pan sprinkled them with sugar, to give it a crunch (culinary tip: every well done dessert has more than one texture) and then put some butter all around (so the figs would stay soft) put it in the oven and then went onto the other desserts. The next was the chocolate cake aka. Moelleux chaud au chocolat, but this is no ordinary chocolate cake, this is the one that has the chocolate sauce inside. The secret to the recipe is the eggs, it says to whisk them for 10min straight, which I did, by hand, my arm literally fell off, lol not really but you get the point. They reason how I now that the eggs (and how lond you whisk them) is we were put into two groups and the other one didn't beat the eggs for 10min and theirs was more liquidy and lighter in color. We then put the molds on the tray and got the pre-cut parchment paper put some beaten eggs (like when making scrambled eggs) on with a paint brush and then laid them on the sugar. We put the parchment paper in the molds with the egg/sugar on the inside. Then put the chocolate mixture in pastry bags into the molds and into the oven. The last recipe was simple, and fast so we made it to eat on our tea and coffee We took all the different fruits and made a pretty design with them and then poured the white wine so there was about a 1/4 in of wine, then put it into the fridge for a moment. We cleaned up the kitchen and then took out the stuff for tea and coffee. After everyone had gotten their drink we took the fruit plates out of the fridge and added a scoop of milk ice cream, and no it wasn't vanilla ice cream it was MILK ice cream. This is beacuse we want the ice cream for the dessert but we don't want to take away from the tastes of the fruits and wine. After the break we took the chocolate cake out of the oven and then decorated the plate put a scoop of thyme ice cream on and then put the cake on. Now this may sound easy, but moving the cake was sort of tricky and also very hot. See we can't take the mold off till the cake is on the plate (otherwise the cake will fall apart) You take a metal spatuala and slide it underneath the cake making sure that you don't puncture the bottom, then, while burning your fingers, hold the top of the mold put it onto the plate and then slide the mold off the cake. The trick to this cake is that you have to serve it right away otherwise the inside (were the liquid is) will keep cooking and will congile and then when you cut into it there will be no sauce, but a solid cake. Finishing eating the cake we take the figs out of the oven and place them in another pan will we let the sauce on the bottom of the original pan keep cooking a bit (we want it to reduce a little bit). A couple of minutes later we take the, now, sauce out of the oven. We put a couple of figs in out plate and some sauce and ice cream and then eat eat, which of course is the best part, lol.

The Thursday Evening Class:
Since today is a Thursday we also have the evening class as well. Todays topic was flour, if your wondering how we could talk about flour for a little over 2 hours and not repeat our selves, well you can. It's much easier than you think, there are so many different things to talk about. In the class we covered what flour is, the composition of flour, wheat flour (which is the only true flour), and the different types of flour. The introduction to flour is basically what most people know about flour. You know stuff like what things flour is used in, and why we use flour (what qualities help us in cooking a certain item), etc... Then the compostion of flour; which is 1.Startch 2.Water 3.Gluten 4.Sugar 5.Fat Content 6.Minerals 7.Vitamins. Then we talked about Wheat Flour concentrating on the different types of wheat flour (yes there are different types of wheat flour, not just different types of flour) Just to name a few: type 545, type 150, type 80, type 55 (tart dough, pastries, minced meat), type 45 (puff pastry, brioche, risen dough), fluid/strained (creams, pancakes or crepes), extra fluid (sauces, thickening), and pastry (pizzas, brownies). The next was how flour is made. How it goes from the fields to your kitchen for cooking. First we talked about how it was done at first, you know with horses or a water mill, then how they do it now a days, with machines. The last thing we talked about was the different types of flour, now there are numorous kinds, but we focused on ten different kinds, they are: 1.Barley Flour 2.Oatmeal Flour 3.Corn Flour 4.Buckwheat Flour 5.Rice Flour 6.Rye Flour 7.Soy Flour 8.Potato Flour 9.Gluten Four 10.Millet


Warm Desserts Always Welcome!!

DAY 43

OFFICAL COUNTDOWN TILL MY BIRTHDAY: 7 days
Well 3rd times a charm because I finally got to submit my visa application. I arrive at the Embassy a little over an hour before it opens. When I am a block away I see all these people standing outside, and I am like WTF it's not even open and we have half of Paris here. I then figure out that it just looked like alot of people because they were all satnding outside the gate, since the Embassy hadn't opened yet. Which made me feel a whole lot better. At 9:30am they opened the front gate and handed us our ticket when we walked through. I went straight inside and took a chair near the windows so when my number was up I would be close and wouldn't waste any time. Well since there wern't mzny people in front of me I only waited about 1 1/2 hours before I went up. The only annoying thing about all this was I had to pay more money than I was told for the visa, this was beacuse they had to send my passport back to the states because I had an American passport. But I didn't care I just needed to get this visa because if I didn't I would be "homeless" for 2 months. Afterwards I left and started making my way towards the Ritz. I get to my metro stop and realize that I still have some time before needing to be at school, so I head down the street and go to Starbucks. I will never complain about the prices at Starbucks ever again in the states. This is because the European Starbucks sell things at the same number price, but because of the exchange rate, i'm actually paying more. For example, if your coffee costs $5.45 (and in Paris they would charge the same but in euros, so that would be €5.45) the new dollar price is $7.03. After eating my breakfast and drinking my very expensive coffee I walk over to the Ritz to go change into my uniform. We were very busy today. Nothing was very dificult, lots of steps. We made Layered Hazelnut cake with light praline cream and coffee sauce and Melon Soup with Beaume de Venise sweet wine and grapefruit sorbet. YUMMY!!!! We started the day with the chocolate hazelnut sheets, made the batter and then with the help of the stencil put them on the silicon baking sheets, put them into the oven. Now the secret with these is that as soon as they come out of the oven, even though your going to burn your fingers, you have to take each rectagle up and wrap it around the mold then press on the seam so it becomes one. The reason why you have to do this quickly is that they cool very quickly qnd when they cool, they harden, which means that if you try and wrap it around the mold it will just break and crumble. Setting those aside we moved onto the the praline cream and coffee cream and sauce. While making it we all kept tasting it, well who could blame us it was freaking amazing. We took the melon and with a (appropriately named) melon baller, scooped the inside of the cantelope. After which we put the cantelope onto a plate and put ice underneath and around it, adding a little water. We put this into the freezer, so when we took it out it would be one mass object. While the cantelope was in the freezer we took the chocolate hazelnut sheets and put them onto the plate. Then adding the two different creams and putting on some carmelized hazelnuts on top. Then lastly decorating the plates. Then came the best part........... EATING IT!!!!.........., we ate these with our coffee or tea, it was the perfect dessert to have since there is coffee in the dessert, it just tied it all together. After the break, which today was a little late so there wasn't as much time afterwards as there normally is, we cleaned up the kitchen then took out the cantelopes. In a bowl we put the melon balls and added some other fruit like strawberries, blueberries, currants, raspberries, etc... and then put them into the hollow cantelopes till they were full. Then we put in a couple scoops of the white wine. Following with a scoop of grapefruit sorbet fruit sauce and the garnish.


Fruity-ness coming my way!

DAY 42

OFFICAL COUNTDOWN TILL MY BIRTHDAY: 8 days
Since I like fruity desserts the best, don't get me wrong I love chocolate, but fruity ones are my favorite, I enjoyed making todays desserts just like yesterday. Were making Chocolate Tarlets and Mini Savarins in Passion fruit syrup (let's all say YUM!) We, as usual, started with the sweet pastry dough for the tartlets. Once we got those into the oven we went onto the batter for the mini savarins. We made the batter, put them into the molds and then into the oven. Once we got the oven things done went onto the stove top stuff. First we worked on the passionfruit syrup, since it would need a while to simmer on the stove. In this concoction consisted of passion fruits, orange juice, apricot glaze, sugar syrup, orange zest, lime zest, some vanilla, and star anise. While that was on the stove we also made the chocolate ganache, chocolate icing, and the vanilla ice cream. I think that if there wasn't a plastic cover of the the ice cream machine that there wouldn't be any left by the time that it had actually turned into ice cream there wouldn't be any left. The last thing that we made today was the poached cherries. For the poaching syrup, we take water, sugar, vanilla bean, cinnamon stick, and orange zest. After all this came to a boil we added the cherries, you see if we added them to early then there probably wouldn't be anything left by the time it was done. We then put the chocolate ganache in the tarts and put them into the fridge to harden into a solid mass. Then onto the fun part, putting all the parts together. But before we did all this we had our tea and coffee break. Afterwards, we started with the chocolate tart, and laddled the chocolate icing on tarts. Then did a design with the poached cherries put the tart on the plate, then put on some red sugar candy. Then took some cocoa bean nougatine left over from last week, and don't worry there still ok, they haven't gone bad or anything yet. After eating the chocolate goodness we got out the mini savarins and put a couple on a plate, well actually a bowl, well it was more like those bowls that are kinda flat, but not. Anyways, we then took the, now finished, passion fruit syrup and laddled some onto the mini savarins. Then for some color took some of the syrup from the poached cherries (minus the cherries) and drabbles a little bit around. For a last little touch put a scoop of ice cream and some sugared currants. Was a bit tired so went home and just played with the cats till dinner.

I See Chocolate...

DAY 41

OFFICAL COUNTDOWN TILL MY BIRTHDAY: 9 days
Since today is monday I take another stab at getting my application in to the Indian Embassay. Well I will save you the task of wondering if I got in, NO I DID NOT! I arrive at the embassy a couple of minutes after it opened, I go inside and look for the person handing out the number tickets. I can't find them so I wait around a bit to see if they just went away for a sec and will be right back, or something like that. Afterwaiting a bit a find out that they have "run out of tickets" well not run out persay, but that they have given out the max amount of tickets that they give out for they day or some bull like that. I know for a fact that is complete bull, because when I was hear last week, and a couple hours later no less, and the same amount or more of people and they were still handing out tickets. I wasn't in the mood to wait around and see if I could still get a ticket or not. Especially after I realized that even if I did get a ticket that it wouldn't matter, becaus I had forgotten to go to the ATM and get money out for the visa, so I left. I arrived at the metro stop for my school and went to a nearby café and had a late breakfast.While eating at my table next to the window I look out at the crosswalk in front of me and watch all the different kinds of people cross. I would like to make a Public Service Anoucement: watching people do what they do,both crossing the crosswalk and waiting ofr it to turn green is one of the most intertainging things that I have watched and I HIGHLY RECOMEND doing sometime, but you can only do it when you are able to do it for more than 2 hours.Thank You For Reading My Public Service Anouncement. After sitting there for a while I walk to the Ritz and go and get a clean uniform before changing and heading into the kitchen. Today we made Blanc-Mange au Jus de Fraise and Peche Poelle du Roussillon, Glace au Lait d'Amande. We started with the strawberry "jell-o" for the blanc-mange, we cooked the strawberries the water and the sugar. When it was ready we then poured the mixture into a "chinois" and strained only leaving us with the juice. Put it back onto the pan and add the gelatin sheets, andthen mix still the gelatin is completely incorporated. We then took out the glasses that we were to use and put about a 1-1 1/2 of the juice in all the cups and put it into the fridge to form. then we moved onto the peaches via the almond ice cream. For the ice cream we whisked the sugar and egg yolks together while the milk and cream were on the stove. Then we added them all together into the saucepan andcooked till the "coating stage," were we then set it aside to cool and then, once cool, put into the ice cream machine to churn. Going back to the peaches we put them in a very large saucepan with orange juice and vanilla beans, even though that was all there was to it, it takes a while since you have to have it on low heat while the delicate peaches cook and also soak up the juice, that's why it was one of the first things we did. We moved on to the blanc-mange, boiling the milk and the almond milk. Then adding the gelatin sheets to this milky mixture andlet sit to thicken. After whipping the cream we fold it into the milk mixture and put into the cups on top of the strawberry "jell-o." We then moved onto the almond financiers. At this point everything was made, all we had left was one more stage of the strawberry "jell-o" and then all the garnishes and platting. So we first removed the skin off the peaches then had our tea/coffee break. After break we started the master pieces. We took the peaches and and put it on the plate then added the orange juice mixture that we had down a reduction during break so it had a little bit more body. Then adding the financiers and then a scoop of the almond ice cream. After eating this extremely delicious creation took the blanc-mange's out of the fridge. We took some fruit out, cut them and then put a coat of sugar on them. These were used to top the blanc-mange's.



A Fruity Day

DAY 40

OFFICAL COUNTDOWN TILL MY BIRTHDAY: 10 days
JUST LIKE YESTERDAY........ I DID NOTHING TODAY, that is other than writing this, catching up on my email, and sleeping in. It may not seem like it, but cooking for about 5 hrs a day plus commuting; Monday through Friday is actually very tiring.

DAY 39

The normal week-end thing, DO NOTHING! I slept in till lunch time, caught up on the blog and then watched all The Lord of The Rings, in a row. Well, till tomorrow.......................

DAY 38

I arrive to class right on time, if there was a bell it would be ringing. As always we started with the cookie dough and dough for the cheese cake. Normally I can get the crust on the first try, but with the cookie dough took two trys, the first time the dough stuck to the rolling pin. Afterwards we got out the Philadelphia cream cheese, yes I said Philadelphia, even in France they use the best stuff. The amount of cream cheese and that I had to use when mixing with the other ingredients, by the time I was done my arm was about to fall off. It eventually got smoother which meant easier, but at the beginning it was hard as all hell. When it was all mixed we put it in the fridge. There wasn't much stove work today, after working the cream cheese mixture I moved onto the pistachio cream. We took the crusts out of the oven and let them cool while we had our tea/coffee break. Filled up the cheese cake molds, put them in the oven and then moved on to the strawberry/pistachio tart. Took the pistachio cream out of the fridge and filled the tarts up. Then taking the strawberries, cut them in halves and them layered them in circles. Taking the berry galze, I shined up those little beauties and then took some raspberries, that had icing sugar on them, and placed them stratigically around the tart and addes some chopped pistachios for some more color. Next we took the cheesecakes out of the oven took off the molds and put some icing sugar on top. When we were putting our desserts in take out boxes, we found out that the pie boxes were too short. But our cakes boxes were all gone and the new shipement hadb't come int yet. So we took a field trip across the hall to the main Ritz kitchen and took some of their cake boxes. They were very pretty, ours are plain white, theirs are a lite cream color with the Ritz emblem on top and the address on the front. After the boxes issue I left and took off for some dinner at home.


To the Strawberry Fields ->->

DAY 37

I get to class and we get straight to work on the hazelnut cookie dough. This dough is later going to be used in our milk chocolate tart, basically its going to taste like a Nutella pie, YEAH. After which we made the almond nougatine. This, just like the cocoa bean nougatine is like magic. After cutting out a circle in the nougatine, the rest of which we ate and surprisingly tasted similar to peanut brittle, but not as hard. While the nougatine was cooking we made the ganache cream and made our crusts for our tarts. We then took our tea/coffee break while the crusts were in the oven. The chocolate tart was very easy and took no time at all, we took the chocolate cream filled the tarts up and put it in the fridge to harden. We then went and got the cooked apple and the rice pudding that we had made yesterday. We filled these tarts with the rice pudding, and then with our cooked apples put them around the edge so they overlapped. Followed by another small one in the middle, that looked like a blooming flower. On top of which we layered the almond negating, sprinkled some icing sugar, then another "blooming flower" apple. We then cleaned up the kitchen. Today instead of just having class in the kitchen we also had some normal learning in the classroom. Well maybe not classroom, more like luxury parlour, you know were at the Ritz Hotel after all. There was only an hour between the two classes and I was kind of tired. So instead of going anywhere I just went to the parlour and took a nap while waiting. When everyone had returned we started our lesson. This week’s lesson was on sugar (and honey). We learned everything from were sugar comes from, as in where in the world and were on the plant. Then moving on to things like the process of sugar from plant to table. Not to forget all the different all the different kinds and types. During the lesson we also had to taste 11 different types of honey and sugar. The one that was the most bizarre was the Glucose. It was clear and almost tasteless and had this honey like consistency. Well after having an “intense” discussion about sugar for 2 hours straight I finally got on the metro and headed home to some dinner and bed.

Off to the land of Sugar!!!!

DAY 36

We started the day off with the rice pudding. During the cooking process, it looked like porridge with black liquorice (which was actually the vanilla bean). The next task was to shred the outside of the lime and the shredded coconut and mix together. Then we start filling the first crust with the stewed pineapple and then the shredded coconut/lime mixture on top, followed by putting it in the oven. Taking the pineapple/coconut tart out of the oven and going on to add the chocolate and coconut gelatinous thing on top of the tart. With the sliced pineapple from earlier in class, placed it around the edge so it looked like a sunflower. Then adding the glaze onto the pineapple, so it looks shiny and "pops", then the chocolate squares. Putting the tarts into the fridge we took out the crust for the Apple Crumble Tart. We filled up the tart with the pastry cream up to were there was only a little bit of the side of the crust showing. We then took the apple mixture from the day before, the one with the vanilla bean in it, and heat it up on the stove, then proceeded with a layer on top of the pastry cream. Out of the oven came the “crumble” which looked and sort of tasted like broken graham crackers. With a layer of the “crumble” and a dash of icing sugar we were reading to serve and taste the tarts. Afterwards we cleaned up the kitchen and chatted a bit till class let out.

Beautiful Fields of Sunflowers, here I come........

DAY 35

Not that we make not extremely yummy things anyway, but today just seems to be extra yummy. First thing on our list of things to do was to make the pineapple compote for the coconut and pineapple tart for tomorrow. The compote is very easy just the pineapple chunks in a saucepan with some sugar and vanilla bean (not extract, the real thing). I could eat just that forever the sugar made the pineapple a little bit sweeter and the vanilla bean added something, don't know how to explain it, all I can say is make i at home and then eat it and you'll see what I mean. While that was brewing I put the coconut in the pan and cooked it with the gelatin to make a sort of jello-y consistancy, then put it in a cookie sheet with sides and put it in the fridge to harden into that jello-y consistancy. I went back to the pineapple compote and set it aside in a bowl to cool and to have everything seep into each other. There was some chocolate cream left over in the mixing bowl, so we took a little chocolate break and had some fun eating and talking about things, of course all culinary things. We then move on to making the Italian Meringue, what we've been waiting to do all day. To make the meringue is not that difficult. Not much in the recipe and not much to do, you just have to do everything in a certain order and a specific way. Before making the meringue we had taken the pears (from yesterday) and put them with the batter and into the oven. We then take the the lemon cream that we made yesterday and fill up our tarts. We then put the pipping hot meringue cream in a pastry bag and pipe it out onto the the tart. then add the pretty little garnish. We put our Lemon Meringues in the fridge till it was time to go home, then took the other tarts out of the oven. We let them cool a bit then added the chopped almonds and the icing sugar. Cleaned up the kitchen and then had some tarts. IT WAS PURE ABROSIA.

The Yummy Goodness!