Yes

Bruce and I started our relationship a bit backwards.

We lived together from the start. We weren’t even good friends to begin with.

Actually, I barely liked him even before we met.

Keo Confiserie

The past few days in Toronto have gone by both too quickly and painfully slow with errands all at once. Just this past Monday we were still in Brooklyn with our dear friends and now we’re trying trying to catch up with older ones before leaving for Hong Kong this coming Monday night.

Our trip to New York was unforgettable. For a whole 11 days the city was ours to explore and eat. Every one of those days we walked for at least 6 hours and still it wasn’t enough and we found ourselves wanting more. There’s no doubt we’ll be back eventually.

A couple of days ago, we made our final caramel delivery. It still amazes me to think how far we’ve come with it in the time we had.

Our little candy company started in our apartment in the 19th arrondisement of Paris.

Overweight

We’re slowly starting to pack up our stuff, as we make the most of the time we have left in Paris.

I pride myself for living pretty frugally this past year.

My expenses have been mostly on food. I seldom shop.

…except for cookbooks.

Liquid gold

I’ve been a bit obsessed.

I’ve found a new project to keep me occupied during this unemployment lull. It’s been frustrating, and you wouldnt believe the unnecessary amount of bureaucratic nonsense I have to try and decipher, even if I just wanted to stage at a place. The French never make anything easy, and everything takes more time than it has to.

I have my heart set on a particular patisserie, but the leading man is on vacation, and I’ll have to wait another couple of weeks.

My days are spent mostly chasing eclairs, tarts and petite gateaux through my usual Paris pastry circuit, but my afternoons have been spent nursing bubbling pots of sugar.

I’ve been up to my ears in cream and butter, trying to make the perfect caramels.

2011- A year in photos

As I left Jacques Genin’s at around 7pm yesterday, new year’s eve in Paris, I think back to the amazing year I just had.

2011 was for me, a bittersweet year of challenges, stress, hard work, accomplishments, endings and beginnings.

I said goodbye to a lot of people that I love, but met some amazing people who welcomed me into their life.

I went to Chicago earlier in the year, had dinner at Alinea, met Grant Achatz. I moved back to Mississauga after an incredible year of living downtown. Barry Callebaut Chocolate Competition. Finishing the Baking and Pastry Arts program at George Brown. Leaving Buca.

Getting ready to move to France. Moving to France. Living in beautiful St. Bonnet, working for 3 Michelin star chef Regis Marcon. Moving to Paris. Jacques Genin.

I’ll never forget the people that I’ve been lucky enough to meet this year, who have influenced me, befriended me, changed me.

Expats’ Christmas in Paris

I consider myself a lucky girl for many reasons. I’ve been away from home for almost 8 months now, and although there are times when its inevitably been hard, I have never had the problem of really being completely alone.

Almost there

My inbox is flooded with emails waiting their replies. My bedroom floor is strewn with chef’s jackets, all chocolate and caramel stained. There’s garbage to be taken out and the dirty dishes are reaching embarassing heights. I have no time.

I’ve worked 130ish hours for the past 11 straight days.

My back hurts. My hands are scarred with a million little cuts and dry from working with chocolate. My eyes are exhausted from inspecting thousands of pieces of chocolate everyday.

I cant wait for Christmas.

Details

I recall vividly, the first time I stepped foot into Jacques Genin’s chocolate lab.

It was my second visit to Paris in three weeks. I mainly came down so that I could give Monsieur Genin my resume, after meeting him a couple of weeks ago. After our chat, and his unexpected work proposal for me, he gestured his arms towards the beautiful spiral staircase in the salon de the.

I knew that his workshop was just at the top of those stairs, and I couldn’t contain my excitement when he asked me to come up with him.

As he opened the glass door for me, I inhaled and felt my nostrils fill with the rich scent of dark chocolate cascading from the enrobing machines. The room felt cool, as it has to be, and with my second breath, I smelled caramelized nuts and remenants of other fruit ganaches that were on the racks just beside the door.

The main room is beautiful, with three large marble countertops, a chocolate melter, enrobing machines and speed racks upon speed racks filled with trays of Monsieur’s tiny perfections.

He showed me the pastry room, just to the left of the main chocolate room. There were bowls of glazes and sugar warming over the gas ranges, the ovens midbaking his signature long, slender eclairs. “You’ll work here as well, during your two years.”

He took me to the ganache room, opposite the pastry room, where the temperature was noticeably cooler. A couple of girls were busy on the guittard, cutting slabs of ganache into perfect little squares.

We were back in the main room shortly after, and he asked me to wait for him while he went off to take care of something. I stood there, taking everything in, and I remember thinking that this could potentially be my home for the next two years.

And then I noticed something. I didn’t see it before, but I couldn’t help but stare once I did notice. One of the staff was cutting hazelnuts.

Not chopping..but cutting. He was working alone, and beside him, was the biggest container of hazelnuts I had seen. There must’ve been 15 kgs worth of the nuts in the clear container. He was using a paring knife, and I saw that he was meticulously cutting the hazelnuts into pieces, and had the cut pieces in a neat pile off to the side. I thought it was a rather tedious and odd job. Do they not have a food processor? Could he have not just run over the nuts with a bigger knife?

During the three weeks that I’ve been working here, I noticed that meticulous hazelnut cutting job gets passed on to everyone in the pastry section. Everyday, someone is stuck standing there, cutting hazelnuts for a good hour.

Today, one of the guys in pastry gave me a piece of the Paris Brest to try.

And then it all made sense.

Paris Brest is a classic French pastry. It`s named after the famous bicycle race from Paris to Brest, and the ring of choux pastry is supposed to resemble a bicycle tire. It`s traditionally filled with a praline buttercream of some sort.

I`ve seen Jacques Genin`s Paris Brest before of course, but I`ve never tried it. He fills his choux ring scarily high with swirls of the buttercream, dusts it generously with icing sugar and from under that, pokes out pieces of toasted hazelnut.

The best Paris Brest I`ve had so far, was at Patisserie des Reves, but after trying Genin`s today… its a close call.

Luscious, thick, hazelnut dotted praline buttercream, sandwiched between tender choux pastry…and toasted hazelnuts on top.

It suddenly made sense to me why Monsieur Genin doesn`t just put the hazelnuts in a food processor. That would just crush the nuts, and produce uneven pieces.

I asked one of the guys who work in pastry, how Monsieur likes the hazelnuts cut. “Into 4 pieces,“ he replied.

Four pieces, each hazelnut gets cut into.

That way, each hazelnut piece (about 15ish pieces on each ring) that goes onto the Paris Brest, is just the perfect size. It`s not the same texture if you bite down on a choux that`s been sprinkled with odd bits and pieces of hazelnuts. Cutting the hazelnuts just in half would be much too large, and whole pieces would just be silly. A lot of other Paris Brests I`ve tried before simply just had silvered almonds sprinkled sporatically on them before baking. No love.

I`m actually looking forward to the day when I have to quarter those hazelnuts.

 

All of the lights

“Must be nice,” I whisper to my roommate Bruce as we both head out the door at 7am ish on a Saturday morning to our separate jobs.

I was referring to our other two roommates, who, like a lot of folks not working in the food industry, are happily sleeping in and about to enjoy their normal weekend.

I had a very brief three days off in between my last day at Regis Marcon`s in St. Bonnet, and my first day at Jacques Genin`s in Paris.

I worked 5 days my first week at Genin`s, 6 days last week, and I found out a couple of days ago that I`m working 12 days in a row until Christmas. I dont mind terribly, because I love my job. Still, I live in Paris and I feel like i`ve only seen the insides of Jacques Genin`s chocolate lab since I`ve arrived.

So for my one day off, this past Monday, I couldn`t think of a better way to spend it than with my two Canadian friends, walking around the Trocadero market in front of the Eiffel Tower.

First Days

It feels like forever since I’ve last posted. A lot has happened.

Today officially marks my 11th day living in Paris, and my 6th day working for Jacques Genin.

What’s it like, working for the famed Parisian chocolatier?

It’s ridiculously hard.