Chef’s Diary

alors….ça y est, dimanche 30 décembre, 01h55 et c’est la fin de l’année où j’ai pris mes premiers pas dans le monde de cuisine professionnelle - la transformation de consultant en cuisinier est loin d’être arrivée à la fin du cycle, mais, à la fin de ces premiers 3 mois (le 8 octobre me semble assez lointain !), je me sens bien avec ce que j’ai mis en route.

J’ai écrit il y a 1 ou 2 semaines que je cherche un “mentor” / un parrain / un “guru” qui me guiderait pendant mes premières années. Je sens tjrs ce besoin-là. Pour l’instant je fais les choses comme je le sens - c’est à dire,

En fait, je ne sais pas si ma démarche est la bonne - je veux absolument réussir, mais je ne sais pas si je suis sur le bon chemin…..je pense que “oui”, tel que je vois les choses aujourd’hui. De toute façon, c’est quoi “réussir” ? Qu’est-ce que je veux faire de cette vie de cuisinier ? En rentrant ce soir en vélo je me suis dit de ne pas oublier que j’avais en tête - tout au début - un lieu “anglais / français”, échange des cultures, autour de la “bouffe” et de la cuisine, mais aussi de la musique, photo, journalisme, romans…..je me vois bien attirer par le monde de cuisinier “perfectionnist”….gastronomique….maîtriser les gestes et les produits….mais pour réussir cela il me faudrait au moins plusieurs années du métier……et même avec 10 ans, peut-être au final je n’aurais pas le “talent” pour être le grand cuisinier.

La vérité est que je ne sais pas ce que je veux faire dans ce métier - comment laisser ma marque.

Par contre, ce que je sais, c’est que je suis bien parmi les autres qui se trouvent dans ce métier. C’est un monde tellement vaste…..on pourrait se spécialiser dans tellement de choses différentes (cuisine de champignons / que de la cuisine sur une base de saffron / que du fois gras / ……..).

En tout cas, à cette fin d’année, je suis content avec ce que j’ai fait cette année - autant dans la cuisine que chez Capgemini, à vrai dire.

Bonne année à tout, toute et tous, et vivement 2008 !

This week I started my 2nd period of training in La Fontaine Gaillon kitchen - Wednesday to today (Friday) to be more exact. I was a bit apprehensive on Wednesday morning whilst going to work, but in the end, I picked up pretty much where I left off over 6 weeks ago. The team hasn’t changed, the menu has (with essentially the fish changing - no merlan / whiting, for instance) and the number of customers has dropped off dramatically - all restaurants in Paris (maybe all of France for all I know) seem to have a long quiet time during the festive period - something which is not the case in the UK…..at least not when I was a waiter 20 years ago !!

The big change for me since my return is that I am finally “au chaud”, as they say over here. That means that I am finally working on the hot plates / gas rings. My job is essentially to serve the mashed potatoes, heat the vegetables in the poêle, cook the ravioli and dress the plates (heating the leek julienne and the beurre fondu and truffle sauce in the process). Since I’ve been back we’ve had between 11 and 50 customers each midday service…in other words, very few !! However, given that I have just started au chaud, the lack of customers has been a bit of a blessing for me, at least. Just to list the things that I’ve been doing this week (I haven’t done this for a while !),

One of the complications of running a kitchen during the festive period is the lack of customers (at least, during the midday service), lack of fresh supplies (we had no fish delivery on Wednesday, our first day back after Christmas) and, thus, managing the stock - pretty obvious, I know, but for a restaurant like La Fontaine which is so reliant on fresh produce which arrives daily, this festive period is a bit tricky to say the least.

I’d like to say that it was great to be - finally - at the hot stove / plate / rings, but to be honest, it was a bit of an overload….even with very few customers, my head wasn’t prepared for the different things that I was meant to remember

……”2 bowls of creamed potatoes, put out the plates for the next 2 orders going out…that’s a bowl for the scallops….ohh, you get the sauce ready for that by the way…..and a plate for the cod……3 raviolis….get the juliène heated up in the poêle which you then dress in a bowl with a little beurre fondu and truffle….why didn’t you get the vegetables for the bass ?!….no, don’t bother, I’ve already got them…”

……phew, way, way out of the comfort zone…however, strangely, I most certainly don’t want to stop being with the guys “au chaud”. Anyway, I’ve never been one for liking the comfort zone.

On that note, I’ll say goodnight and here’s to a rousing finale to my culinary 2007 tomorrow at Le Zephyr….I want it to be a good end to my 2007…a big 2008 awaits !

A venir une description des recettes, mais commençons avec 2 belles photos !

Now that we’ve been back in Paris for a few days (and that the Christmas meal is over and done with) I just wanted to mention some of the main points from our final 2 days in Barcelona.

On the food front, we continued to test out the suggestions of our guide book, this time getting a 100% success rate

Arrived at 14hrs, service pretty poor (that is, the head waiter wasn’t in the slightest bit helpful - he really didn’t want to let us have a “menu estival” and a selection of tapas at the same time), but the food was a real experience…not always great, but always interesting. Overall cost was excessive at 120€, but given that we felt as though we’d been taken on an interesting 2 hour culinary journey, it didn’t bother us so much. The outstanding “taste” points were : chocolate with salt and olive oil, black rice with razor fish, caviar with tuna tartare and egg yolk, oxtail and truffle with a cauliflower écume, morrel and razor fish ravioli. I’d recommend it, for lunch - insist on sitting in the area which looks onto the open kitchen…..as always, it’s interesting to see how they work.

The team suggests a short menu (3 starters, 3 mains, 3 desserts) with 1 drink (wine or soft drink) and bread included for 13,50€. I wouldn’t say that the food was excellent (desserts were v. basic, but the mains and starters that we had were decent), but they were good, honest dishes with efforts on the combinations (coconut and squash soup) and presentation. Right next to the wonderful food market “La Boqueria”, it makes a very cheap place to chill out and fill up. The view ain’t great, however, given that it looks onto a scruffy carpark, and I wonder how it would be when it is very cold and raining (even though it was a dull, cool day, we ate outside, as did everyone, and I didn’t see a great deal of space inside). The products can’t be top notch, but I’ve eaten in much more expensive restaurants where the products are probably of the same relatively low quality, but the cuisine has been much poorer and the bill much bigger (money going into a better location and fancier view - I’m thinking particularly of the restaurant “Agua”).

On the tourist visit front, Gaudi remained the top visit…this time the Sagrada Familia and the Casa Milà (Pedrera). I spent a couple of hours at the MACBA (Contemporary Art Museum) at the end of a rainy day - ticket for 3 exhibitions 7,50€ which is valid for 1 month. So, good value, just shame that I didn’t understand either the permanent or the Joan Jonas exhibitions, but enjoyed the one covering American and French modern art in the 1950’s.

On the shopping front, my wife thoroughly appreciated the chain of shops “Desegual” (it’s not spelt like that but it’s close….I think !) - very spanish.

A lovely city and worth a second visit - maybe when the weather is a bit better, though !

Dis-donc, 23h08, la fin de mon 5ème réveillon à Paris (avec 2 à Newcastle pendant mon temps ici en France), et une belle réussite au niveau du repas de Noël….je suis très content de moi, et pour cela, je devrais remercier à la fois

Mes clients (ma femme et ma belle mère) étaient très contents avec les mets ce soir, et plus exactement, j’ai été très satisfait par ma production culinaire….qui n’est absolument pas toujours le cas !

Commençons avec la photo du résultat final….

Le principe de ce plat est de présenter 1 produit (St Jacques) sous 3 formes différentes (marinée - coriandre, huile d’olive et jus de citron vert; poêlée - saupoudrée de gingembre, anis et ras al-hanout; croustillante - st jacques en papillotte de pâte filo avec sa sauce crèmeuse) - 3 dégustations, comme si on était encore au tapas restaurant de “Comerç 24″ à Barcelone.

marinée - coriandre, huile d’olive et jus de citron vert

Ingrédients :

poêlée - saupoudrée de gingembre, anis et ras al-hanout

Ingrédients :

croustillante - st jacques en papillotte de pâte filo avec sa sauce crèmeuse

Ingrédients :

Globalement, tout était bon, sauf peut-être les légumes caramélisés - très bon toute seule, mais ça manquait de subtilté à côté de 2 autres dégustations. J’ai réussi à mettre tout dans l’assiette en même temps, cuit comme il fallait et chaud.

Une bonne soirée.

A demain.

Alors, cette année, préparer le repas de Noël (ici en France, cela veut dire le repas du soir le 24 et non pas celui de midi du 25 !) est devenu un évenement beaucoup plus important qu’avant -

Mais, je vous assure…..il y a l’essentiel qui n’a pas changé……le plaisir de préparer à manger et travailler les produits (entre l’achat au marché jusqu’à leur préparation - éplucher, tailler, débarber, lever filets,…..) reste bien intacte.

Déjà, les menu pour demain et l’après-midi du 25….

Soir du Réveillon

Midi du 25

Voila où j’en suis, mais j’ai hâte de déguster les plats….surtout le fois gras et les saint jacques (la crème dieppoise et le queue de boeuf……je les ai déjà gouté puisque je les ai préparé d’avance !).

Vers la fin de la journée du 25 je vous communiquerai des photos des plats. Je voulais finir avec un retour sur une petite exercise que j’ai faite sur le coût d’un turbot. On m’avait dit que le turbot est très cher….et très bon. Donc, aujourd’hui j’en ai acheté au marché (marché Place des Fêtes, dans le 19ème, Paris). Le coût - 25€ le kilo, pour un turbot entier. Le turbot que j’ai acheté pesait 1,4 Kilo, et me coutait 35€. En rentrant chez nous ce soir je l’ai débarbé et je lui ai levé les filets. A la fin de cette exercise, j’avais 4 beaux filets de 600g au total !!!! C’est à dire, une “perte” de 58% !

Pour vous donner une idée d’où se trouve “le poids” dans un turbot, le découpage de mon turbot était….

Donc, le turbot nous a couté 58€ !!!

A demain

My wife has whisked me off to Barça for 4 days….this is our Christmas present….no kids, lie-ins, tapas, coffee (cafe solo and con lece), bracing wind by the beach, lots of walking, Gaudi, dancing, guitar music, colourful clothes (for lasses, anyway).

We´re discovering the city (even though I´ve been here twice already) with the series of guide books “Real City” by Dorling & Kindersley - lots of good photos and text that seems to capture the mood of the city. So far we´ve used it mainly for the restaurants and bars. Yesterday, 2 restaurants (”Agua” and “Taller de Tapas” - which is infact a chain of 9 tapas bars, which was not at all the impression that I had from the guide) tested but both disappointing - food not in the slightest imaginative, and not particularly well executed. Expecting top, fresh fish at least, but not really present on the menus that we saw. Today, visit to the “Mercat de La Boquería”, the biggest food market in Barcelona and ate (razor shell fish with basil and olive oil dressing, and päella - 21€) in one of the bars within the market. Good stuff and recommended, though probably not the cheapest place to eat, but way better than yesterday. Followed by glorious visit to “Casa Batlló” - the Gaudi special….and well worth the visit, though 16.50€ is a bit steep. Finished off the afternoon with a good coffee and chocolate cake in the bar “Absinthe” in the Barcelonetta area…..v. friendly welcome, 8€ for 3 coffees and 1 cake, and soft, comfy sofa. On the way, discovered the cool bar “Sal Cafe” which looks out onto the sea (Barcelonetta again), but unfortunately it was closing for the afternoon….another time.

Tonight we´re off dancing (Paloma) following our neighbour´s - Chloe - recommendation….much more trustworthy than our guidebook I reckon.

Tomorrow we´ve got guitar music, Sagrada Família and typical Catalan cuisine on the agenda….I´m determined to find and savour some typical fare before my departure !

As a part of my CAP Cuisine training course here in Paris, I decided to organise the Christmas meal for my fellow students and some of the teaching staff - an opportunity to plan a menu and to manage a budget.

The only constraint was to stick within a 20€ (£13) budget for the food (drinks not included), whilst providing something a bit more interesting than salad and pizza, followed by apple pie ! After all, we could have all gone to one of the numerous kebab or couscous restaurants and eaten happily for 20€.

Anyway, to enable us to have a say in the menu proposed, I suggested that we go to the restaurant where I work each Saturday (and where a fellow student, Rosa, is spending her work placement) - Le Zephyr in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that the team at the Zephyr are very open and that the chef is always looking to use good, honest products presented in the most inventive way possible. So, I figured that it would be a great exercise for me to propose several dishes and see what the Zephyr team do with the suggestions.

I’ve already explained the process that I went through to select the dishes and calculate the cost (for the chef) and the price (for us - taking into account the mark-up and taxes)…..actually, just checking my posts for the reference shows me that maybe I haven’t actually told you what “strategy” I used….for another time.

The dishes selected is as follows,

The aim of this post is to let you know what recipies have been chosen, their cost and the others that were considered. The process of calculating costs was based on the inventory listings and supplier prices quoted in the chef’s Hermes computer system. Anyway, find attached a copy of the PowerPoint Presentation that I prepared to explain the process. I’d be delighted to have any comments (by the way, I’ve not listed the different steps for preparing the different dishes - simply the ingredients and their cost).

CAP Cuisine Paris at Le Zephyr Menu Presentation

D’abord……vous me manquez….enfait, je dis “vous”, mais je ne sais pas qui vous êtes. En tout cas, “mes pages” ont du mal à évoluer / avancer, mais j’y pense souvent……tout simplement, je n’arrive pas a trouver le temps en ce moment.

Alors, cette semaine était à l’image de moi - c’est à dire, ça commençait avec les doutes à la suite de qqs semaines un peu trop “tranquilles” au Zephyr le samedi…..après il y avait la réussite de mon travail sur le menu pour notre repas de Noël au Zephyr (on sera 15 - menu choisi pour 20€…soupe de petit pois, jambon sec et menthe suivi par Épaule d’Agneau au Potimarron et aux Oignons doux et terminé par la surprise du chef)……après il y avait les doutes encore après qqs difficultés pendant la formation…..et puis, je termine ma semaine culinaire avec une belle soirée au Zephyr (85 clients et enfin j’ai retrouvé le rythme d’une soirée un peu chargée !) et l’anniversaire de ma fille, qui aura 6 ans demain.

Donc, des hauts et des bas….mais je suis un peu comme cela…au moins maintenant je le sais, et donc quand ça ne va pas, j’attends la remontée de ma confiance qui arrive au pire qqs jours plus tard.

Les points clés de cette semaine ?

1) reconnaissance du volume de travail à compléter pour le CAP Cuisine (surtout pour un Anglais qui doit passer les épreuves générales parce qu’il n’a pas le BAC….même si j’ai largement le niveau….simplement pas l’équivalence)….environ 40 recettes à mémoriser (pas dans les moindres détails, mais quand même pas loin) jusqu’à présent, et peut-être 2 fois ça pour le nombre de techniques. A côté il y a aussi le détail de nos cours de Téchno Culinaire - depuis qqs semaines nous sommes dans le vif du sujet….les cuissons, les fonds de base, les liaisons, les sauces et leurs sauces dérivées…..énorme ! Je n’ai toujours pas complètement fiscelé ma stratégie pour travailller et enmagasiner toute cette info, mais je vais y arriver.

2) J’ai besoin de qqn du métier qui croit en moi - j’ai besoin d’un “mentor”, si vous voulez…..qqn qui va me montrer la voie et qui va reconnaitre que j’ai un bon avenir dans ce métier.

3) J’aime bien me trouver au coeur de la tempête (comme on dit en anglais), “in the zone” quand les bons de command arrive l’un après l’autre sans répit. C’était le cas ce soir pendant 1 heure, peut-être, mais cela m’a fait du bien - j’ai assumé. En même temps, je vois l’écart entre moi et le chef (il avait 8 commandes “à suivre” - donc en attente - et 4 en direct à un moment ce soir, plusieurs poêles sur ou à côté des feus, des choses sous le salamandre ou au four……et toujours le temps de me dire “n’oubliez pas le toast pour le fois gras” !).

4) salle de gym et café au Napoléon - mardi et vendredi cette semaine j’ai réussi à continuer ma “routine” de faire du sport et puis travailler au café sur les progressions (le plan d’avancement pour la réalisation de ma production culinaire lors de mes travaux pratiques).

5) l’anniversaire de ma belle fille, Jade…la plus belle petite fille dans le monde entier…..et c’est vrai en plus ! Il y a 6 ans je venais d’arriver en France et je galerais. J’ai beaucoup travailler pour surmonter les problèmes (au travail et dans ma vie personnelle), et je continue à travailler. Mais demain je vais prendre une petite pause lors de la fête (15hrs - 18hrs, si cela vous intéresse !) pour apprécier où j’en suis et où je vais.

Il faut que j’aille au lit - 03h22……

à bientôt,

Dom.

4)

First of all, 1 week without a single post….I can only apologise to my faithful following in France, Switzerland, the UK, the US all the way thru to China ! It’s not that I’ve been particularly busy - simply no juice for writing. Don’t know why.

Having said that, I have been pretty busy during the spare time that I get - mainly trying to organise a trip to some top kitchens and markets in London for me and some fellow students (and teachers !). As well as that, I’ve also spent a fair bit of time trying to organise the Christmas dinner for the people from our training course - students, teachers and admin staff included.

So, to give you an idea of what is being planned for the visit to London, first of all a copy of the email that I sent to Gordon Ramsay Holdings, followed by a forum post that I put on the Jamie Oliver web site.

I am writing to you following the advice of one of your colleagues, who I spoke to this lunchtime.

I am currently training to be a chef here in Paris (oct 07 - may 08). As a part of this training, I suggested to my fellow students (aged between 21 and 48) and teachers that it would be very interesting to visit some of the top kitchens in London. Being an Englishman in Paris for over 6 years, I am always trying to promote our chefs and cuisine wherever possible. My idea is to organise a couple of days to visit 2 or 3 top kitchens run by British chefs, as well as some markets (Borough, New Covent Garden, Smithfield, etc) and suppliers. My visit is fully supported by my catering school - Greta Métiers de l’Hôtellerie.

I am in the early days of planning the visit where I need to identify those restaurants which would be interested in allowing a group of 5-10 French cookery students/teachers to meet members of the staff in the kitchen of one of your restaurants (Royal Hospital Road, Petrus or Maze would be of particular interest) - the aim being 2-fold :

show the French students and teachers that good food and great ideas are alive and well and being pushed to their limits in the UK

to give us a good idea of what differences (if there are any) there are between French and British kitchens (we are all working in different Parisian restaurants). It would also be very constructive to be able to “feel” the passion that drives your staff, and also to see what kind of training your staff receive.

I am currently talking with a friend of mine who is a journalist for a major British national to see if our visit would be of interest. Given that Gordon Ramsay is planning a new restaurant in the west of Paris, maybe our visit could be a source of publicity for you ?

Anyway, this is an initial contact to see if the general principle would be possible. If this is OK, then we could talk about the details.

Working already in 2 restaurants, I know that time is difficult to find in kitchens. However, if I have choosen the Gordon Ramsay restaurants for our visit it is because, not only is he the best (and British), but you clearly have a serious respect for training, encouraging and developing new culinary talent.

Thanks in advance for your time, and hopefully we will speak soon

By the way, I have to say “hat’s off” to the backroom staff at Gordon Ramsay Holdings - they have been extremely polite, quick in their response, and willing to find a way of accomodating us. As it stands at the moment, we have at least got a visit to Gordon Ramsay at Claridges, with an interview with Mark Sergeant (Head Chef) and one of the trainees, and then a Head Office visit to meet the people who organise the training for all Gordon Ramsay staff. So, a big thank you.

The other restaurant that I am trying to organise a visit to is “15″ - the Jamie Oliver inspired restaurant which is a base for the “15 Foundation”. Why ? Well, because Jamie Oliver has been a great source of inspiration - not always for his cooking, but 110% always for his energy, his passion, his willingness to discover (and show that he is not the master of everything) - and also because I admire the principles upon which the “15 Foundation” bases itself….principles which seem to me to be lacking a little bit here in France. Before copying the message that I sent to one of the top men at the “15 Foundation”, a quick reminder of the principles of the foundation…..

I find this approach pretty damned refreshing, and very British (it’s my French wife who said that, in fact). I know that I’m just at the beginning of my cuisine career (so I have a lot of things to see here in France, and elsewhere - so this is simply a general impression about French attitude to diplomas, age, number of years experience, background), but I’m not sure that the above principles are omni-present in French society.

Anyway, the discussion about differences that I have noticed between British-French cultures is for another post. Onto the message that I sent (to which I am yet to have a reply !),

my name is Dom, I’m 38, English and currently 8 weeks into an 8 month French Cookery diploma (CAP Cuisine, it’s the main entry-level qualification here in France) here in Paris (I’ve been in Paris for 6 years as an IT consultant and am at the beginning of changing my career path - computers to cookers !).

I know that, being 38, I do not match the “15 Foundation” selection criteria, however, I do have 2 questions concerning the Foundation.

1) are there any plans to set up something in France - possibly one of the regions where there is a particularly high % of Brits ? Given that Ramsay is heading over here soon, and also taking into account Jamie’s growing profile over here (good exposure on “Cuisine TV” on cable telly), surely the time is right to take on the “French Challenge” head-on ? The Foundation’s ethos of investing in youth / not letting the past dictate the future / paper qualifications not being as important as real life experience / having fun are things that are often lacking in the traditional French system. What you have all done over the last 5 years would really be a breath of fresh air to a trade which is in difficulty (not enough people attracted to fill the many vacancies, more restaurants closing than opening….).

2) As I said at the start, I am currently 8 weeks into an 8 month traditional French cookery training course (at the Greta des Métiers de l’Hôtellerie, in Paris). I have proposed to my student colleagues, and equally to the teachers, to organise a 2 day trip to London to visit the kitchens of some of London’s top “British” (that is, set up and inspired by home-grown chefs) restaurants. My aim is to show the French people that I study with that good food and great ideas are alive and well and being pushed to their limits in the UK. I am currently in discussion with Gordon Ramsay Holdings, and would like to know if you think that “15″ w