All posts tagged: Recent

Black Sesame Orange Tart

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What better to do with a Saturday afternoon than to hole up in your kitchen for several hours experimenting? It all started with my relatively simple idea to actually practice some of what I learn in school on my own time and in my own kitchen, but then as all ideas I have tend to do, it quickly snowballed as it encountered the semi-jilted feeling I had of not having my recommendation to use black sesame in an entremets be well received. One thought led to another, and before I knew it I was dragging three bags of groceries home filled with more butter and eggs than any normal person would consume in an entire week, and I was ready to go. Even when I started baking though, I can’t say that I really knew what it was that I would be making. I knew the elements and I thought of ways I might combine and shape them into creating one dessert…but it wasn’t until about an hour into the process that I had an ‘ah …

Writing in Chocolate, Midnight Adventures and French Skills: Week 11 in the Kitchen

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“So…You do the opaline and the mignardise and everything else…And I’ll just be over here. Okay?” Sunday, I once again needlessly showed up 45 minutes in advance of my shift starting, and Stan and I had so little to do that he literally made the largest tiramisu I have ever seen while I slowly and calmly finished everything for the evening and then started on tasks for the next day. It was a win-win-win situation, as it allowed us to pass a calm day, me to learn more and become more independent in the kitchen, and everyone who works at Belles Rives to have an incredibly enjoyable staff meal that evening. So. The apprentice is scared of bananas. Like, not only does she not like eating them, but she doesn’t like touching them or looking at them. So naturally when Stan found out, he promptly left pastry and went and grabbed a banana from the cold storage room to put on the counter beside her. As the night went on, the banana remained in the kitchen—and …

Trials, Jokes and Translations: Week 10 in the Kitchen

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I think my team has finally figured out how weird I am. I’m finally comfortable enough to be myself. It has not been easy to find my personality while speaking French and while simultaneously beginning a new job and career in the kitchen. It has been hard to balance being myself with being a student and a worker and a foreigner and a new language. But I think the two/two-and-a-half month point has marked the change in me going from that-timid-American-girl-who-for-some-reason-smiles-a-lot to being simply Maddie. Just Maddie. And I like it. Sure, I’m a weird person—I make random noises and sometimes talk to myself in languages that the people around me don’t understand. I’m sarcastic and I roll my eyes and sometimes I swear a lot. I sing Korean ballads and English show tunes to myself while I work. But in the end, that is me and I am happy that even if my coworkers find me strange and unique, it is my actual self that they are getting to know and not the facade …

Family in France: A Weekend with My Brother

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I attempted to set an alarm to drag myself out of bed and be productive Saturday morning, but in the end I woke up early enough only to eat lunch and work on an email in French before jetting off to the train station to head over to Nice. I made it to Nice and soon after found the airbnb where my brother was staying. Of course, being the only one of us with a working phone, I sat on the curb for about 15 minutes before he got my message and came and found me. And as he walked down the sidewalk it was as if nothing had changed—that it hadn’t been 9 months since we had last seen each other, that we were’t meeting in France instead of the US, that our lives hadn’t been completely turned upside down since we had last met. After briefly gathering our thoughts in the apartment that smelled like five grandmas took up residence there, I brought them along the beach towards old town, where we caught …

Diner à La Passagére

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“And for you Maddie, the menu is in French” Jerome says as he hands me a menu, smirking, after already having handed English menus to the rest of the table. Were they running out of English menus? Was this a test for my French reading level? A joke between coworkers?! I sit on the terrace of La Passàgere—the one michelin starred restaurant where I am doing my internship—next to my brother, sister-in-law and an amazing friend, and I couldn’t have been happier. It was the eve of my 24th birthday (which is only terrifying when you think about how I still am not sure what I’m doing with my life) and the stars had aligned to bring together some of my favorite people to share an amazing meal together. Let me go back to the beginning of the story, so you can understand exactly what state of mind I was in by the time I was sitting at this lovely table bordering the Mediterranean Sea on my birthday with my brother. So Alex and Caitlin …

Gastronomicom Week Five: Bread Week

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We have returned to bread week. And I feel a little bit like the unofficial mother of my classroom. That wasn’t on purpose, but we got a new batch of students starting today and there were four new people in the class. Obviously I spent half of my time wondering if they were doing okay, and after repetitively asking one of the students if she was doing alright Chef told me in exasperation that I was being like a mother and that the other students were fine. Oops. Anyway. With the chaos of adding students into our already very tentatively formed class ecosystem, we moved with the pace of slugs the entire class. Understandably the new students didn’t know where any of the tools or ingredients were–as I didn’t know even just a few weeks ago–and actions and processes I have now done a handful of times were completely new as well. Also as you may remember, bread is not my forte. Like, not even a little bit. And after the creative happy place that …