Lesson #23

As I entered the winter garden at school, a guest chef from Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa was making decorations into fruit and vegetables. Watching him carve the fruits and vegetables reminded me of being on a cruise ship!

Wow, I can't believe I only have 2 more weeks of class and then my final practical exam. We're not on lesson 23 of our 30 lessons. During class today, we were given a list of recipes from which they would be picking for our final exam. Included in the list were several recipes where we had to truss poultry, others where we would need to fillet fish, and in 3 of the 10 dishes included a rice accompaniment.

During demo, Chef made beef strogonoff, rice pilaf with vegetables, salmon and watercress gratin, and grilled langoustines with spices with a virgin olive oil sauce.

I had a long break between classes so I headed to a nearby cafe to catch up on blogging. I haven't blogged in a week!

It's funny how accurate the weather forecasts can sometimes be. I checked the hour-by-hour forecast before leaving for school in the morning, and it said that it would be mostly cloudy for the majority of the day and then would be raining at 6pm. At 10 minutes 'til 6 (right about time for me to head back to school from the cafe), it started pouring rain. Thankfully, it let up slightly just as a paid my bill and ran towards school.

For our practical class today, we made the beef strogonoff and rice pilaf with vegetables. It wasn't until after I'd gone home and eaten it for dinner that I learned that the cut of meat we had used was filet mignon! In France (and almost everywhere else in the world), they call their cuts of meats different things than what we do in the States. Today, we used the tail end of the tenderloin, which in U.S. terms translates to being filet mignon.

It was a warm night, perfect for some gelato, so we headed to our fav Deliziefollie where I got the caramel and Italian expresso gelato. I think my waistline may be starting to see the effects of my daily indulgences and my classwork :-( Thank goodness I lost all the weight at the beginning of our trip so that my clothes still fit!