With the excitement of yesterday firmly behind me, and a decent night’s sleep under my belt, I was in school by 8am to partake of my morning duties. I was effectively sleepwalking, but I was there. My duties, distributing tea towels, filling sinks and laying down mats didn’t take too long, so I knocked up a quick dough to try my hand at another loaf.
I had a mixed bag today - one interesting dish, one boring dish. I decide to start with the interesting one - caramel eclairs. Interesting because it requires me to make choux pastry, which I have never done before. It is now three days since the demo featuring this. I have a quick flick through the recipe and crack on. I distinctly remember one very important point about not allowing the butter and water mixture to boil before the butter has fully melted, as this alters the proportions of the recipe. Unfortunately, I remember this as not allowing the mixture to boil, full stop. Having added the flour and whisking in the eggs one by one, I am amazed to find my pastry is not taking more than three eggs (it can take up to five). I fill my piping bag and watch in horror as the ‘pastry’ flows through the nozzle with just the slightest hint of encouragement from gravity. This should not be happening. I press on and pipe some ‘eclairs.’
I probably don’t need to go on with this story, and I certainly don’t want to. It is fucking depressing. I’ve spent the last few days wandering about with my head in the clouds thinking grand plans of butchery and farmers’ markets and the future of food for civilisation, when I can’t even read and follow a basic recipe. Okay, so choux pastry isn’t exactly basic, but its not rocket science, and I have fucked it up with one very simple mistake. I am not happy. I’ve always been a bit of a perfectionist and held my own talents in far too high an estimation. This kind of reality check hurts.
I attempt to galvanise myself with the boring and easy Provencal Bean Stew. I nearly manage to fuck that up too by over sweating and caramelising the onions as I piss about trying to clean up the disgusting snail like trail my choux stuffed piping bag has left in its wake. I am clearly losing the plot, so Florrie consoles me over the choux incident, and I watch her take another student through it step by step. If I have time after the stew and bread I will have another go.
I don’t have time. As usual, things take forever to happen. My stew is on eventually after much chopping, crushing and bouquet garni making. My laughable and vile ‘eclairs’ are in the hens’ bucket, along with the rest of the ‘pastry.’ I knock back and knead my bread again and put it back in the proving oven in a couple of tins for its final rise. I still need to make some kind of dessert, so try out a toffee apple recipe, since we have a surplus of them following the trip yesterday.
I finally manage to get all the crap together. The caramel for the apples becomes toffee with the addition of butter and a shot or two of sherry vinegar. I get it to the hardcrack stage and roll the apples. I am getting a good feel for caramel, which is something I knew fuck all about a few weeks ago so I take a tiny bit of solace in that. The bean stew is ticking along nicely - I add parsley and olives towards the end of the cooking. I really need to get the seasoning right here. Seasoning is a tough one, as so much of it is about confidence. After the pastry, mine is at a low, so it is really hard to back myself. I think it needs a bit of sugar as the tomatoes are just starting to go past their best. And it definitely needs a fair bit of salt and pepper to free it from excessive bean-ness. I have a go but am really not feeling it. I dump it in a bowl with the lamest parsley garnish, next to a plate of toffee apples and pine for the moment I can get out of here. Thankfully the bread is really good, though it has a few stretch marks so could have risen a bit more. I'm getting there with that, at least.
The weekend is a long one. When I get back in the kitchen next Tuesday, I need to pull my finger out. Things don’t happen by accident round here. You don’t knock up good food without thinking about it. Drifting into the kitchen, eyes half closed with a few skim read recipes is not enough. I need to spend more time on the recipes - reading them, understanding them, learning them. I need to get more rest so I’m not so tired. Standing in the kitchen this morning staring at my car crash of a workstation after the choux-ing, I thought long and hard. If I’d spent more time last night getting ready for this morning, and less time writing this fucking blog, it might not look like that. I’m here to cook, not write. And if I want any of my crazy dreams to have even the faintest brush with reality, I need to remember that.
Still, the weekend’s here now, so I will console myself in the Blackbird before I place my life in the hands of the world’s least favourite airline tomorrow afternoon and prey that they convey me home without irritating me too much. The way my day’s gone today, I definitely won’t be buying one of their scratchcards.
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