Food in Provence (and elsewhere)

This is what our pastry chef produced through the week:

And I think I can be proud of my Tarte Bordaloue:

We also baked pain viennoise with chocolate chips using dough prepared yesterday (chef’s are in the basket in the middle in the top picture). The dough recipe made seven pains and, as chance had it, I made four and R. three. But she really didn´t want to share the odd one, still less take four rather than three! We are making a lot of pastry, more than any of us can eat on our own. But it gets shared out—especially with students just taking the cookery class—and a random occupant of a nearby unit at the residence was delighted to take half of my tarte and a couple of pains.

Our production in cookery class is more at the scale we can eat and I doubt I’ll need to do much about evening meals in the next weeks. Tonight I’ll be eating Macédoine de légumes revisité—i.e. an upmarket Russian salad (if that moniker can still be used these days)—although it no longer looks like my plated offering:

The chef wasn´t impressed with this as a presentation. Yes, it could have been tidier, but his main complaint was that this is more a starter for a bistro where the menu is starter, main and desert. He’s looking for offerings that fit a five course menu—starter, fish, meat, cheese, desert. So yet again interesting comments on how a commercial outfit needs to address the expectations of their client base to ensure they appreciate the full menu and don´t feel over- or underfed.

Overall, I’m pleased with the way things are going. I think I’m competent enough to cope with the challenges to come and my julienne and dicing skills have improved. I think I need, though, to slow down a bit and work on improving these and other skills more, not simply delivering a result. After all, that’s why I’m here, to improve my skills.

Time again for a goûter today, but one I nearly lost to a passing seagull…