Monday, September 5, 2011

Getting Down to Cooking in Liege, Paris

20th June 2011 marks an important day and a new beginning for me as a small time homegrown chef from Malaysia. TODAY I get to see for myself and learn how the French themselves teach their French cuisine classes in Paris itself! Both Brabon and I were terribly excited but I knew in my heart all will be good because I had made sure I had a good night's sleep so I would be at my best during class. The plan was for Brabon to drop me off at the PARIS GOURMAND COOKING SCHOOL and then he would take off to Gare Montparnasse to sort out our train rides to Lourdes. Gare means Station and  Gare Montparnasse takes care of the routes to western and south-western of France.

Paris is made up of 20 arrondissements, i.e. administrative districts - arranged in a spiral starting at the Louvre and winding around to the edges of town. To me it owns a nervous culture similar to that of  Malaysia and why not, much of what I've seen are Parisians busy commuting round the clock, I suspect, going to and from work. I can totally understand why the French are quick to temper with tourists, imagine, they are like found everywhere and what's more, they don't speak French, an absolute communication breakdown!

Our destination to the school was Liege and to get there we had to take the metro from Saint Michel to Gare Montparnasse and jump over on the blue line to Saint-Denis Universite destination. We arrived safely and at ease, thank goodness. Let's see, instructions are to - ring at Escario, cross the court, Ahh...you......are?...Jennifer, I replied...she continues with "you are here..I am Myriam..please..come, follow me". I looked at Brabon, we smiled, he wished me well and I went in.

Chef Myriam
I was asked to take a seat (we had to wait for some other folks, she said), I sat and I spied another lady going through some reading, I waited...no rispondere, okay. "So, you are from Malaysia eh"? says Myriam. "Yep", I replied, "originally, the island of Borneo, but I live in Kuala Lumpur for now". "You are my first student from Malaysia...so you are special", she continued, "Victoria is from Canada". "Oh", I said, "Hi Victoria"! We smiled, I don't know about her but immediately, I liked her, so we got talking.

Victoria Coates
I'm thinking the folks we waited for must have gotten lost somewhere because it was quiet a while before they turned up. They were a team, mother and daughter from someplace in America, very strong accent.

Mother and daughter team!
Anyhow, we started proper like a breeze, easy, everyone was friendly and talking. While we got cooking, I was told about the French, how they ate, how they chose to cook and some of France. I heard all about Canard Confit and why I must eat it at a restaurant and then BUY SOME AND BRING HOME. I heard all about Fluer de Sel and that I must BUY AND BRING HOME. I learnt how to caramelize chicken and why I should not pierce them. Etcetera, etcetera....frankly, I learnt a lot. I also discovered that Myriam had been to Penang some many years ago.

Our menu for the day was,

Eggplants and Tomatoes cooked in Olive oil and Honey with Coriander

30 coriander seeds are all we need, any more will....turn into another dish I guess...

Assembling the eggplants

then the tomatoes and the trimmings....

Chicken Made in Normandy

caramelized chicken......

fresh button mushrooms

caramelized apples

cider for the chicken

White Peaches with Olive oil and fresh Basil


and Les Madeleines.

Unfortunately this is the only picture I took of the Les Madeleines, shamefully I ate  2 pieces without a thought of photo-taking.  This is the batter which should be kept refrigerated for at least 24 hours for best results!
I must say that the food was delicious although I might tweak the chicken dish with a little more garlic and probably add some shallots while I'm at it but other than that, it was parfait! We finished our meal with wine, Myriam didn't join us, she said "Imagine what I might look like if I ate with all my students?" I imagined...that she was right.

more stories....

Eggplant and Tomato Confit served with a slice of Parmagiana or Goat's cheese

From the oven with Pesto








Brabon came by and picked me up, he was flushed with all the commuting and I was flushed, with wine! We spoke all the way back about my class and he told me aaallll about the waiting, the queuing, the communicating and EURORAIL over our tickets to Lourdes.

If I recall correctly, Brabon and I had to go back to Gare Montparnasse to finalize our tickets because the earliest and only available train to Lourdes on Sunday leaves at 6.50am. That would mean we had to be up by 5am and leave the apartment by 6am to get to the station on time. As we will be arriving at Lourdes at 3.51pm, we decided to go for it. Then while at the station, we thought we might as well sort out our departure from Lourdes to Zurich. Well, that took us like forever so by the time we got back to Saint Michel at Notre Dame we were tired and the excitement of the earlier part of the day had somewhat toned down. We couldn't wait to get back to our digs and shut down for the day. Moreover, tomorrow is another cooking day and that was taking place at Versailles.

There is a French Music Festival that takes place annually every June called "Fete de la Musique". It's a huge festival with concerts lasting through the night and it takes place just about everywhere, along the streets of Paris, in the trains, subway, bridges, etcetera. All musicians from full-blown to haven't blown play, dance and busk as peers. It was scheduled to launch the following day but as you can see we bumped into some musicians who were already strutting their stuff on the eve.

At Saint Michel, Notre Dame along the metro way