The end of a (month-long) era…
Walking to school at 6:20AM in the pitch black, the moon shining overhead, the smell of fresh baguettes wafting by, and delivery men setting up today’s Monoprix stock, I had visions in my head of accidentally lighting something on fire, completely botching my pastry cream, or ripping a hole in my tart shell. Being stressed for a pastry exam feels like this tweet, it’s all so absurd and hilarious - in retrospect.
On this walk to my final exam of Basic Pastry, however, I was genuinely scared of failing. With all of the other exams I’ve taken in my life, there’s a certain level of control. Pencil, paper, just you and the test. Here, you have to connect your brain to your hands to reproduce 1 of 8 recipes from memory in a 2.5 hour time frame. Major Top Chef vibes.
Failure is an essential part of cooking. Happy accidents. It's how great recipes are created, tweaked, and perfected. To overcome this exam, and cooking in general, I’ve had embrace this concept. Cooking is not something to be scared of, food should not be feared. At the end of the day, the best part is producing something - whether it’s an exact replica of the chef’s example or completely unrecognizable from your starting point. It’s all about the proooocceeessss.
The night before, leafing through my notes, I was absolutely convinced that our exam dish would be the Paris-Brest. My roommate thought so too. But, ten minutes before the exam, when I peeked into the room to see the assistants bringing out the cartons of apples (necessary to make both the Tarte Citron and Tarte de Pommes), I thought: UH OH.
Expect the unexpected - is what I should have done. I was able to adapt quickly enough to produce a Tarte Citron and lined tart shell to my liking, and it’s crazy to see the small improvements from my first to final attempts of these techniques. #proud😌
Stay tuned for next week’s episode “Toto, we’re not in Basic anymore”
Cooking
Eating
FLYING CIRCUS!!!!
This recommendation was given to me by a classmate for the best bread in Paris with personality. The story goes that this bakery, while already well-known for their €6 cinnamon roll in the Saint-Germain neighborhood, went GANGBUSTERS during the pandemic with their superior ability to bring the most carefully-crafted bread to Parisiennes’ doorsteps. Aside from really dope marketing on their site, this place does free bike delivery across all of Paris - and they even have a daily subscription service (…I’m extremely tempted).
Doing
Ending this week on a sappy note, but extremely grateful to be here and experiencing everything that I'm seeing/eating/doing. Miss you all greatly, and would love any sightseeing recs to hit on my week off!💕
SO SO PROUD ❤️❤️❤️❤️ You’re killing it cheffff