Question of the Day: Should I write about what happens in pastry class?
Answer: I've chewed on it. After all, we've had a marvelous week thanks in part to a visiting top French pastry chef from Canada. In one afternoon he demonstrated several classics - pithivier (my version above), Naopoleons, turnovers, bouchees, vol-au-vents and tart tatin, as if they were no more difficult than peeling an apple.
This congenial chef and I exchanged pleasantries several times (me attempting petite French phrases), and I mentioned Kathleen Flinn's book "The Sharper Your Knives, the Less You Cry." It's about her love, laughter and tears while attending the palace of all culinary arts, the Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. The chef knew all about the book, and he asked me if I was blogging about my own adventures in butter, cream and sugar.
"Non," said I, because I have to keep my two worlds separate (or at least not incur any front-office heat while grades are still to be made).
The chef asked if I planned to write a book when I'm finished with classes. I shook my head. Kathleen's done it and done it so well that it would be a weak attempt on my part to add royal icing on top of fondant. Pourquois?
What happens in class is quite similar to the workplace, with a few twists. For example, I've had my share of verbal lashings in Cube City and kept them covered up on the inside. In a pastry kitchen, those wounds are usually visible. Last week I had no less than 5 blue bandages on my hands and arms, from lifting racks out of ovens set at 500 degrees. Bump your bare skin even for a moment, and its burns.
In the Cube you have deadlines - in pastry, same. You must stay on top of the clock.
At least in the kitchen, you can be master of your own success. Where in Cube City you may arrive at decisions by committee, your productivity hampered by the speed of others, or heaven help you, The Client, in the kitchen your progress is in your two hands.
Mistakes happen in both places, but if you drop a report on the floor, you don't have to rebake it. Get a grip and keep it at all times. Remember to breathe, the chef tells us. Relax.
I do enjoy the tangible reward at the end of the day; you don't always get one of those in the workplace. See that pithivier above? We taste it. We taste everything. Our visiting chef's tart tatin was a brilliant marriage of Granny Smith apples and vanilla essence.
Non, I cannot talk about what happens in class. My mouth is closed when I'm chewing.
