Welcome to Brest!

About a week before graduation I was able to speak to the Chef we would be working under in Brest, Chef Yann Plassard. He informed me when we arrived in Brest we would work at another one of his establishments (he owns 3 restaurants in Brest and according to everyone, "he owns the town") since he and the restaurant we are going to be working at, Le Fleur de Sel, would be on holiday. He assured us when we arrived in Brest from Paris someone would come from this other restaurant, L'O a' la Bouche, and pick us up in a black Audi.


After the 4.5 hour train ride from Paris, Gina and I arrived, called L'O a' la Bouche and spoke with the Chef de Cuisine there, Erwhan. He said he'd be right over. We watched car after car drive by the train station making jokes at the ugly ones saying it was probably our ride and perking up at any Audi that came by. About 20 minutes went by and this vehicle pulled up and we both just knew it was for us. Out popped the Chef who was unable to open the side door of this classy van and instead threw our luggage into the back through the front door while cars honked at him as if he couldn't hear. Gina and I hopped in, uneasy and excited, and sat like sardines to the restaurant. A few minutes into the ride I noticed a huge trash can of dirt and a shovel in the back of the van...I'll let you imagine where my thoughts went from there.

The whole day was super overwhelming meeting the kitchen staff, seeing the restaurant, seeing our temporary apartment, learning the town and attending an incredibly strange party that was reminiscent of a junior high dance with the addition of booz, crazy French talk and chain smokers. We were delighted to see the ocean which was something we both looked forward to while in Paris.

Au Revoir CIA, Bon Jour France!

Graduation from the CIA took place Friday, August 8th, my car was packed to the brim by Saturday with help from my trooper mom and I was off to Paris Monday, August 11th with my enormous backpack and little suitcase to begin the journey of my 5 month externship in Brest, France. Oh to begin the journey!

It's been a long time coming but by the grace of God we made it. We actually had our student visa's picked up by Gina's husband Jon the morning of our graduation in San Francisco at 9am. To make it even more crazy he had to sneak into the French consulate, bypass the security guard and huge line in order to get in and out and make it to see his wife graduate! Speaking of troopers....we seriously owe him one.

Paris had nice weather for the most part and we were able to see all the usual sites by walking all over the city for three days in flip flops and American clothes receiving intrigued looks and shaking heads/laughter when trying to speak French. We learned that people in Paris are nice for the most part but are quick to mock you when trying to speak French when you're not good at it. We had a few meanies here and there but I think you'll get snooty people in any city. Regardless, Paris is beautiful and much bigger than I had remembered. Gina and I are actually still sore from the walking....OH, did we walk! Words cannot describe.

(Croque Madame)

(Napoleons apartments in the louvre)

(me and my plaid American shorts, Gina and Notre Dame)

(escargot and champagne!)

We met a friend at the Marriott hotel, where we stayed, and he actually accompanied us to the Louvre (he had never been!) our last day in Paris. His name is Axel, he is a bartender, 29 years old, been told he looks like a cross between Tom Cruise and Christian Bale (I think that's pushing it), speaks English fairly well and is quite funny. We found out our last night at the bar he is an extremely good piano player....like really, really good and when asked if he liked art at the Louvre he said, "of course I like art, I am a musician...musicians love art!." We had fun making him teach us bad words in French so we would know what the chefs were saying in the kitchens and learning about French culture, which seems to be a bit tragic. They don't hug, they don't cheers, they don't smile on the streets and they don't say thank you very much, only thank you. Gina and I decided giving up those things for life would be much too hard. So, for all you who were hoping I would fall in love with a French man, I wouldn't hold your breathe.

Our theme word in Paris was "AU REVOIR!!" When a any weird guy would yell at us from a car or on the street we would just keep walking and yell that....and laugh of course.
Oh yes and one more thing, Gina and I were less than impressed with the food in Paris. We ended up having a good meal at Le Cafe Marly in the Louvre, some decent escargot and pastries, and then a pretty good pizza our last night (shaped like a heart from the flirty pizza man) but for the most part we decided California food beats it any day.

We arrived in Brest yesterday and begin work tomorrow morning. Our schedule for the first two weeks is 9:30-2:30 and then 5:30-10:30. One day off, Sunday. Sante (cheers) to workaholics! More on Brest later.

No More CIA Chef Whites!

That's right, today was the last day my half of the class will be in our chef whites at The Culinary Institute of America! We will now transition back into our penguin uniforms until graduation day, August 7th. Bitter-sweet, bitter-sweet indeed, but I must say at this point it's much more sweet than bitter. I'm so excited to be done. I'll miss a few things, like Chef Brown and the learning atmosphere, but all in all I've gotten everything I've come for and it's time to move on. Here are a few pics of the last day. I have no clue how to explain my facial expression other than I think it publishes my emotions quite perfectly.

Daniel and Roger cracking jokes

Me: "how do you feel on our last day?"
Karl: you're lookin' at it

that would be a "thumbs up"

yes, of course Burroughs posed for me

Rachel and Emily with Joseph making a crazy face behind them

Field Trip to Mumm!

With the front of the house comes a field trip to a winery of Martha's (our instructor) choice and for us she chose Mumm Napa, a sparkling wine producer in Rutherford. At 10am we loaded the Greystone bus with precious grandmother-like/crazy driver/white hair Grace behind the wheel and drove to the establishment off the Silverado Trail.

Upon arrival we were met by our tour guide Suzy who showed us all the background of the winery and production side. Though it was interesting walking through and seeing the workers bottle the grape jucie and "girate" the soon to be champagne, I can't say I or anyone else in my class was too attentive knowing the fun part was to come in the tasting room with the bubbly.
Our tour guide was more than gracious and not only poured us five full glasses of bubbly to taste but also two more glasses of their red sparkling wine. All I kept saying in my head was, "pace yourself, Vanessa, pace yourself." Seven glasses of champagne? Who could drink that much right? Definitely not me, BUT, at least four out of the eight of my class drank them all while finishing off leftovers from other students. You can imagine what the day progressed into. By the end we were cheersing and convincing our instructor we needed to go out to lunch on the way home. She gave in, we went to La Luna Taqueria in Rutherford, devoured tacos, burritos and Mexican soda before going back to school. Realizing we were in no shape to be serving guests at the restaurant Martha let us play jeopardy for a half hour until we were let loose.

Good tour, good field trip, good burritos. The only sad faces I can picture of this whole experience were the few the next morning with baby hangovers. Who drinks eight glasses of champagne at 11am in the morning anyway?

This is called "disgorging" and it's when they open up the wine after freezing it to remove the yeast

These are mini FYB's ("funky" yellow boxes) Instead of grapes in them they had Asiago crackers

Karl sporting the souvenir as an earring. Becoming, I must say

Service Amateurs

Today was my third day in the "front of the house"/front of the restaurant which means my poor chef whites are hiding in the closet and I'm now dressed like a penguin for class with black pants, a white collard t-shirt and a hideous black vest with a name tag...oh yes, and how could I forget the little gold pineapple pin I proudly wear on my color that stands for hospitality. So far I've worked bar-back, hostess and server. And so far...I miss the back of the house.

From 8am til our server meeting at 10:30 our teacher, Martha Keller (no, not related to the famous Thomas), teaches us random knowledge about front of the house, brings in speakers and has us do exercises to practice our new found skills. Today she had us all sit at a round table and practice bringing one another plates of food and trays of glasses.

Daniel in the seat where the spillage occurred

One of the first to volunteer, no surprise, Mr. Burroughs Blind, came out of the bar with two wine glasses and a tall pitcher of "triple purified" Natura water. He semi-gracefully set the first wine glass down and while placing the second down proceeded to tip the tray ever so slightly to knock over the pitcher, aiming it right onto Daniel and watched it fall to the ground where it shattered making an enormous mess. Sodexo came, it was a big woopsie, they cleaned it up, yada yada, and we moved on. A few other people practiced, Emily with some glasses, me with some plates etc....it was going somewhat smoothly for awhile.

Towards the end of the exercise Martha asked for an ambitious volunteer to bring over a big load of glasses to the table. Feeling confident (for no reason I can fathom now) I volunteered, went over to the bar and despite her suggestion to take the load in two trips, piled the glassware onto one tray and walked over to the table. I set down two little glasses of beer before the entire tray toppled over knocking down three other beer glasses and two wine glasses spilling ALL over me and Daniel of all people!!! The glasses weren't filled with water but rather Diet Coke...YUCK! It was a serious disaster. Daniel was completely drenched, there was broken glass everywhere, my vest was literally dripping in a stream where one side comes to a point and everyone was out of there seats laughing and wide-eyed at what had happened. The long clean up ended with me using Shout wipes to try and get the Diet Coke out of Daniels sopping wet white shirt...I think I went through five wipes.

Daniels hands in his face show his mood and the knocked over blue glass symbolizes all that was spilled on him. Sorry Daniel, just consider yourself a VIP...we both just wanted to serve you SO bad.

the one thing I can't resist...

Yes, you named it, the one dessert that keeps me constantly glancing over to the dessert station each day to hopefully find a beautiful piece of it waiting for me to consume. It's light, it's fluffy, it's sugary and delicious. It's angel food cake.
Tonight on the way to dinner I spoke with my baking friends about how much I needed some; How much I missed it. It had been so long since I had seen it on that glorious dessert table. Then, when we arrived, to my delight, there was a beautiful (not as beautiful as mine pictured, but still pretty) angel food cake with strawberries ushering me towards it...sort of like a magnet, if you will.
I went over and got myself a nice piece and ate it as a delightful appetizer while waiting to order food. Then, after dinner I consumed yet another piece, not knowing when I might see it again. Then, I finished my friends piece she had on her plate. I don't know what it is, but I LOVE the stuff. Good thing there's tons of egg whites in it rather than butter. But really, if the ratios were switched I still don't think it would stop me. Maybe it's a good thing it's rare for it to be baked at the CIA.

Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant...

Isn't that a mouth full to say? I even think it's cumbersome and confusing to remember "WSGR" for writing it shorthand. whew.

I'm officially out of the teaching kitchen and floating through rotations within the restaurant connected to our school. Despite my initial feeling of chaos and confusion of having to learn a new kitchen it's been pretty cool for the most part. My life at school is completely different. Instead of eating with everyone else we make family meal and eat with other staff within the restaurant which means we basically never see the rest of the school. We now get off on the second floor from the elevator, which, for my time here up until now, to be extremely intimidating with non-Chef Instructor Chefs walking around doing their thing in the real world. Now though, its all normal...funny how your perspective can change so drastically so fast. The other day the elevator opened far across the room, past the dish-station and hallway from where I was chopping in the back kitchen. It opened just as I decided I needed to go upstairs to get something so I looked up and semi-yelled (yelling's not looked highly upon in kitchens unless you're the Chef) "WAIT!" while shuffling swiftly over to the elevator where students from classes behind mine were staring, just as I had before, at the foreign place. I think I ruined any sort of wonder or glamorous thought of the restaurant they had from my desperate plea.

The picture I have posted is of the day I worked the "temptations" station. Temptations are small bites or snacks before your appetizer and I love them. They're the perfect little taste to have with a drink while not making you too full. Pictured from left to right is a lamb chop with fava bean puree and mint, lavash with hummus, caramelized shallots and paprika oil, green garlic soup with extra virgin olive oil, crostini with egg salad and bocorones, and finally beef carpaccio with a salad of parsley, shaved parmesan cheese and extra virgin olive oil.
The other picture is Karl holding up the little lamb chops we were about to grill up to the window. We thought it looked like beautiful stained glass. Perhaps only if you like the look of raw meat, which, apparently we do.