We are continuing our break from the already irregularly scheduled "Culinary School" content to go into more detail about the visit I received from Mom-Sisters-and-Cousin.
Day 2 started off with a lesson on how to pronounce "oeufs brouillé" (or scrambled eggs) at the St. Regis Café on Ile-St-Louis.
Truly a family favorite of ours. The French are more inclined to eat a singular pastry with their coffee and call it a breakfast, at least this establishment gives you the option to eat an egg with it too. Americans are firm believers that since breakfast is the most important meal of the day, you must do it right!
Our culture of the day started at the Musée d'Orsay so we could check in on the art and make sure it still looks good. Can confirm, looks even better when you pose in front of it. Jokes aside, I never get tired of seeing the classical art, impressionism and sculptures, neither of which this museum lacks.
Of course, life imitates art.
Twins, twinning??
I had to duck out early to go to school (remember, we are in Paris for a reason) and make a fabulous beef dish. It was so good, we were snacking on it in class. I will never succeed this hard again, I was SO proud of this plate.
Bonus: Somebody from the diplôme de patisserie gave me one of their raspberry macarons they made in class as we were leaving school for the day.
And I packed up my own dish and took it on a trip across Paris to find my family.
I found them shopping! How fun! I tried on some lipstick while they finished up looking around, then we went to a local cafe for drinks while I told them about school for the day.
Tiny French Ubers make shopping so much more dramatic.
Unfortunately my beef stayed unrefrigerated for too long, and I didn't want to risk anyone taking a tour of the hospital, so we "ooh'd" and "ahh'd" (or oh là là), documented the success and donated it to the bin.
Since I was no longer providing dinner, we went down the street to eat Raclette (a new discovery for me) and fondue (a crowd favorite). There was a classic chalet-style restaurant with plenty of available space upstairs for us, and our server was charming, telling us all about his daughter and which wines he recommended with our cheese.
This time I did not stay over for another sleepover, because I had class at 7:30am the next morning and my host family was much closer to school than my real family.
We made crab bisque.
It did not start out like this.
In fact, the beginning of class looked a lot more like this:
We learned that crabs have to be alive when you cook them otherwise they can be toxic. It's the only way to ensure freshness and safety, but that doesn't mean they have to be warm and aware. Chef showed us the giant tub of crabs and then promptly placed them in the blast chiller to cool down and put them to sleep. It made it a lot easier to take our cleavers to them later (not to mention it kept them from running around like Sebastian in the kitchen scene of The Little Mermaid).
My friend and I stole over to the little Korean market around the corner for lunch, opting to split a bunch of pre-made dishes between classes instead of joining the enormous line for lunch in the school cafe. Sometimes you need a bit of deviation from the cuisine you're learning about all day.
When I finally got back out of school for the day, I ran home to drop off all my kitchen things, packed a quick bag and scampered off to find my family. We had plans to eat dinner with the friend of mine from university who lives in Paris, who also happens to know my family from previous interactions, and managed to get six of us into a tiny restaurant the size of... well it was tiny. Google the Caveau de l'Isle in Paris and you'll see what I mean. It was perfectly situated right across the street from their AirBnb too.
My sister needed a crêpe for dessert, so while everyone else needed to go catch up on some jet lag, my friend and I happily obliged her and went a few blocks over to Chez Suzette for some fluffy, sugary goodness.
Look at that smile!
Catching up with family and friends over hot crêpes while it rains outside? Take me back. Don't you wish you could have been there too? :)
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