Week 2 of Basic Pastry

Just finished my week 2 of school, and feeling great about it!

Wednesday:
Demo Class#3: This week on demo class, Chef Jocelyn Bouzenard had done 8 crémes, including Créme Chantilly, Créme Patissiére, Créme Anglaise, Créme Bavaroise, Créme D'amandes, Meringue (française, suisse, italienne), Créme au beurre, Ganache.

Thursday:
Practical Class#3: We had Chef Hervé Chabert for this class.  We just did Meringue Italienne, Créme Patissiére, Créme Anglaise, and Créme D'amandes.  We did the meringue twice.  Everything I did was good.  Chef was happy with it.  The only problem I had tonight was that I kept using the wrong size of tools (e.g. sauce pans and bowls)

Demo Class#4: I was so happy to know that we would be making tarts 'cos I love tarts.  Chef Jocelyn Bouzenard showed us how to make Tarte au citron, Tarte aux fraises, and Tarte aux pommes.

Friday:
Practical#4: Before the class, we heard that some students in other group didn't finish their Lemon Meringue Tarts, mainly because of the failing Italian meringue.  It seemed easy to just do one tart in practical class, just do a sweet dough, lemon cream, and Italian meringue (almond cream was done in last practical class).  Most students who finished the tart dough and lemon cream started whipping the egg whites and cooking the sugar for Italian meringue, but the tart was still in the even baking.  Quinn, Cindy and I knew the meringue would deflate if we did it too soon, despite everyone had already started it.  Well, in the end, Cindy and I only did the Italian meringue once.  Hers turned out perfect, and mine was so so.  But I managed to pipe on the tart fast and put it in the oven and baked!  It might deflate a little bit, so what! Poor Quinn did her, I think, twice, but in the end, it was too loose to pipe.  And some of the students did it 3 times.  I heard in other group, someone did it 5 times! I admired how fast he finished everything else and had time to do the meringue 5 times.  I was the first one to finish the tart and got graded by Chef.  He cut my tart and tasted it, he said everything was good, and well done.  The only problem was the meringue, it deflated a bit.  He told me to watch out the temperature of the sugar and stopped whipping once it became room temperature.  Oh, also, Chef kinda gave me little shit for closing the fridge door with my foot :-P

Seminar#2: Chef Phillippe Guiet (from Cuisine) was teaching us HACCP, it stands for Hazard Analyze Critical Control Point.  That's all you need to know.  Don't ask.

So, after the seminar, Tanvi, Cindy, Jason and I went to have an amazing Indian dinner at Haveli Indian Restaurant.  http://www.haveli.com I loved the food, and Tanvi taught me how to use my index finger to tear naan on the plate.  I loved eating with my hand! Oh, I had the most delicious vegetarian dishes I ever had.

Saturday:
I finally reunited with a long lost friend here in Ottawa-Nicole who used to work at COBS Bread with me in Toronto.  We didn't work together for long, but we always reminded close.  And I had visited her before in Ottawa.  But somehow, we lost touch with each others.  Because of this blog, we reconnected.  Nicole and Deb came to pick me up at my place, and they bought me to this amazing bakery near Chinatown.  It's called Art Is In Boulangerie. http://www.artisinbakery.com We had so much fun chatting and enjoyed the food very much.

Deb told the chef owner Kevin Mathleson http://www.artisinbakery.com/meet-kevin that I now study in LCB, if he could show me around his shop.  He was kind enough to say 'no problem, come with me'! :-) Thanks Deb! :-) I'm looking forward to visiting this place again.
After breakfast, we went to Westboro Market.  I bought some broccoli and doughnuts there.

All of a sudden, I remembered that I had a workshop to go to at 1pm.  Nicole was so nice, and drove me to school with my broccoli and doughnut :-)  Once again, thanks Nicole and Deb for the wonderful reunion.
It's a free workshop called Rice and Walnut Workshop by Chef John Placko http://www.johnplacko.com Basically, he showed us how we could cook some fabulous dishes and desserts with rice and walnut.

We got to taste 4 dishes and 1 dessert! Nice.

After the workshop, Cindy, Cynthia and I walked up to Rideau Street and took some pictures of the Parliament area.  Then walked down to Bank Street and had Pho in Saigon Pho.

The food wasn't that great, expensive and small portion.  I guess it's because it's on Bank Street.  We should try the ones in Chinatown instead.

Sunday:
Slept until 3pm.  Cleaned up the place, and did laundry :-)

Monday:
Just had dinner with Jason, Cindy, Cynthia and Tanvi at Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot.  And we all smelled like hot pot afterwards.

Tuesday:
Today, Cindy, Tanvi and Jason came to my place for practice.  Since we all liked the strawberry tart, we decided to do that.  Basically, I was busy posting pictures on Facebook and working on my blog, I didn't really do much on the tart besides eating it.  And I did a great job eating it.  I think they did a great job too.  Well, I provided the place and the tools, so I should have credits as well.

Then, Tanvi needed to be demo assistant in school.  The rest of us went to eat at So Good Restaurant in Chinatown, and it wasn't "So Good".  Then we did some grocery in Kowloon Supermarket.  I was disappointed to find almost nothing that I liked.  Oh well.

The durians in this supermarket were small..... looked sad too.

That's about it..... I am so tired now.  See you guys next week! :-) Oh, you can also check out more pictures on my Facebook account! :-)