Home life

Since my last entry I left the country twice, returning last Sunday from my last trip. My daughter has been ill since then, and though she went to school on Monday (she came home for lunch for mom’s comfort food and a rest), she had to stay home on Tuesday, Wednesday, and today, Thursday (we saw her pediatrician yesterday and it’s all under control). So both of us have been home pretty much all week, and other than reading, playing, drawing and watching videos, what else is there to do at home but cook?
I thus resumed my gluten-free (GF) baking experiments, starting with a raspberry-yogurt cake courtesy of France’s darling Estelle Lefebure via Elle magazine. I would like to say that Elle a Table is a respectable food magazine in France, though many a French chef might beg to differ. It could be on par with Gourmet (R.I.P.) or Bon Appetit magazines. As for Estelle, she was a famous model in the late eighties and nineties, and was married to French heartthrob David Halliday, son of Johnny Halliday (if you’ve never heard of any of these people, never mind). The point is, France is just waking up to the concept of GF, so I pounce on any recipe that falls under this category, regardless of the author!
Estelle’s cake turned out too sweet, a bit gummy and not raspberry-ish enough. Of course I made few alterations, as any self-proclaimed cook would (don’t give me a sarcastic look, mom!), such as replacing the fructose (um I ran out of that…) with agave syrup (too sweet and caramelly in the end) and adding Xantham Gum (which was not called for). Xantham gum (XG) is used in anglo GF baking in order to replicate the texture of a finished product containing gluten. I have no idea exactly what it is or how it works (Wikipedia proved a bit too technical for me and what with my medium-to-short attention span I lost interest). It’s like cream of tartar. The Americans put it in their egg whites, and the French don’t…. so the cake was underwhelming, but with my daughter unable to keep anything down, I still ate it all up, sugar and XG and all, down to the last crumb.
Unsatisfied and unfettered by that venture, the following day, I dug deep into my kitchen closets and found coconut and chocolate. I had no choice but to bake another cake! This time I scoured the internet for a recipe, returning to the same French GF blogs, found a somewhat convincing formula, added extra GF flour and XG, and ta-da! Overcooked the damn thing.
After my two attempts I had to be realistic – the GF flour I bought sucked (it couldn’t have been about me!). How could so many yummy ingredients and so much TLC turn out so … blah? There was only one thing left for me to do, buy chestnut flour. Having ingested my quota of sugar for the rest of the month, I decided to make a “cake corse,” or Corsican bread (as in banana or zucchini bread, but savory, meaning to say soft and airy and not dense and tough as country bread or sourdough). This was my last chef’s recipe, and even he admitted that I surpassed him in making my version (I think it was the cooking time). It has brousse, a Corsican cheese resembling a light ricotta, figatelli (a Corsican sausage which I conveniently replace with bacon) and of course the chesnut flour. I have never been to Corsica but I imagine it full of beaches and hills and wild pigs and chestnut trees. Now this flour costs a prohibitive 15 euros per kilo, which is about $11 per pound at today’s exchange rate. If find this obscenely expensive, especially since as a kid I used to pick chestnuts off the ground in the forest near Paris for free, but hey, what’s a hungry GF cook to do. So here we are, day 4 at home, getting ready for greatness….

Beach life

So it’s been two weeks since my last entry. Have I been lazy? No. busy? Oui. I had visitors, then finished my internship and spent a week end celebrating one of my dearest friend’s hen week end (bachelorette, in American) in Ibiza. Tuesday was my last day at the restaurant, which was sad, but the break is also nice. Since last September I have been working through every school break! Now I can focus on the months ahead, working, honing, refining, redefining… and experimenting. What I am craving right now is Asian food, which makes sense after nine months of very French cuisine. So today I set out to make adobo, the Philippine national dish (soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, laurel, pepper corns), but when I went to the store I saw some beautiful squids and had a vision of Thai basil squid which can be easily found in NYC (alongside pretty much everything else) but not in Marseilles. I also saw this gorgeous matcha-lychee-raspberry tart on the wonderful www.zencancook.com so I was all set. The squid didn’t come out quite as I wanted but the tart was as pretty as it was fresh and delicious (I didn’t have mint so I used basil and made a gluten-free tart base).

As for my meals in Ibiza, I had a perfectly cooked sea bass at Blue Marlin, preceded by a simple but reliable grilled prawn, avocado and mango salad. My cordero (lamb) was unfortunately overcooked at KM5, though my girlfriends were raving about their beef skewers.

http://www.bluemarlinibiza.com/
http://www.km5-lounge.com/

Call me sexist…

Yesterday all our guests arrived pretty much at the same time. The chef was frantic and quickly lost his cool. For someone who’s been doing this all his life I found it surprising. More importantly, I cannot work in a small space with someone who is panicking. My friend once used the term “grace under pressure” to qualify me. At first this made me laugh, because I, of all people, get wrapped up and emotional very rapidly. I have had some heated encounters in the United Nations where I definitely lost my cool. But in the kitchen, truth be told, not even the chef can make me run, and I mean that literally. At my last restaurant, where on my last day my chef told me “elle me prend pour un con” which can loosely translate as my having an attitude problem, the same chef once gave me an order (can’t remember what) and added emphatically: “Cours!” which means “Run!” I did no such thing. First of all, it’s not allowed in a kitchen (and yes, I am selectively anal when it comes to rules – deal with it!) and secondly, there is no way on earth I am going to run because some punk in a funny hat told me so. As for why it is not allowed, it’s really a simple security rule, as one may easily slip on a parsnip peel and end up cut or burnt or worse (both).
So as I watched my new chef stress himself out, I just went on with what I know and am fond of; multi-tasking. According to research this is a feminine quality, which might be why so many chefs (mostly male, I guess) go bezerk in the kitchen. You’ve all heard the anthropological stereotype of the cavewoman nursing a baby while stirring the bison stew, warding off the saber-tooth tiger and watching the toddler all at the same time. In the workplace this can be translated as working on half a dozen applications (in my old office, these would be mostly outdated and bug-ridden) while picking up the phone or chatting with a client or colleague. In the kitchen this means preparing different foods at the same time or all at once as was the case yesterday. But really it’s also a matter of perception… the chef mentioned he was planning on putting more pressure on me so I would pick up some speed (ie. I’m too slow), while the waitress told me: “Heureusement que tu restes zen” (“Good thing you can keep your cool”)!
I didn’t mean this to sound as sexist as it does… what I wanted to say was that it takes more than proper seasoning to run a kitchen, it also takes certain qualities, some of which are typically feminine. Chef Frerard once told me of a young apprentice who could run his station like a pro with minimal training. I don’t think he meant that his sauces were yummy... but that he knew how to multi-task. As to why are there so few female chefs in the kitchen? That’s another issue altogether…

Another vegetarian alert... this is hard-core.

I think there will come a point in my culinary career when I will have to give up meat… that’s how I felt with the pigeons at Les Trois Forts and how I felt at my present job when we made pig feet terrine and veal’s head. To be completely honest I have enjoyed pig trotters in the past (hey, I’m Filipino after all), but this experience was completely disgusting. The chef gave me a dish full of boiled trotters and asked me to tear them apart and throw away the bones but keep everything including the jelly and juices and all that… so like the pigeons, I took this as a challenge, of course I could do it! Let me tell you that pigs feet are more like human hands than I thought. They were literally like soft and pudgy hands. I did my best to stop thinking of them as what they felt like and just tried to complete the task at hand (no pun intended). I remembered what my first sous-chef would say (“You are a robot!”) and tore through the flesh, the smell of death rising up my nostrils. If I remember my biology classes correctly, hands (and feet) are the parts of the body with the most bones. I can confirm this! The freakiest part was a row of bones smack in the middle of the hand, er… trotter, that resemble a row of perfectly aligned teeth. So as I tore into each hand… a row of teeth appeared. I wanted to take a photo because it was the weirdest thing ever but I couldn’t be bothered to remove my gloves to take the photo, but most of all I didn’t want the chef catching me doing that… in retrospect I really should have. All I have is a photo of the untorn trotters.

A few days later when the chef asked me to try the terrine I did… it was really gross and I didn’t finish it.
As for the veal head, I had no idea what that was, but when he reached for an actual whole head wrapped in a net and plastic with the eyes shut, that was really too much for me to bear. I couldn’t even take a picture , it was so horrific. Thank God he cooked it while I was absent… but when he sliced the head to serve it to his clients, I really thought I was going to hurl.

The happy kitchen

As much as I have been enjoying my internship, I have also had some doubts as to whether this was the beginning of a new career for me after all. Sure, I haven’t been very aggressive in my job-search, being still in student mode, and making the most of it till the very end. The thing is, the very end is approaching fast, and it’s time for me to plan out a post-end- of-June road map.
In the meantime, I am into my second week at the restaurant, and it is going as I wish. On Saturday, the chef gave me to honor of leaving me alone in the kitchen throughout the lunch service, while he worked the dining room. It was an exhilarating, albeit sweaty experience. As much as I like teamwork in the kitchen, I am finding out just how much I also like working alone there.
Chef Claude is a heaven-sent mentor. He’s been kind, encouraging, patient and open-minded. I’m not saying he’s the best chef or anything like that; as a matter of fact there are a number of things I would do differently in my own kitchen. It’s also funny some of the habits I’ve carried over from my other experiences – it looks like I am developing my own identity as a cook. This can be seen in the way I work (from left to right on the chopping board), to the way I clean up (I use way too many paper towels) or the way I taste (only with a spoon!) or plate (with metallic circles and lots of chives and squiggles).
A kitchen is really like taking a glimpse into the chef’s mind. Some are shiny and some are cold and others are moldy and out of date. Saturday night, after working Chef Claude’s tiny, modest kitchen on my own, I got a glimpse at Marseille’s only three Michelin star kitchen, and was overcome by a sense of awe and admiration at the quiet dexterity of every cook seemingly in synch with every other one, everything immaculate and shiny, everyone going about their business with perfect precision, without a wasted movement. The chef, Gerald Passedat, the only one without a toque, was working too, not screaming at his staff while feeding his dog foie gras, as I had always pictured him. Did I have any regrets as to my choice of internship? Not for one second.

Déjeuner en Ville

Ever since my traumatic experience at my last restaurant, I’ve been wanting to find out how my next and last internship would turn out… today was my first day, and I am much more than relieved. Not only is the Chef actually nice, he doesn’t scream or swear or smoke in the kitchen, and the food is delicious! I now know for sure that I made the right choice, as I was hesitating between another Michelin-starred restaurant (three stars, actually) where the chef is known to be human only with the one non-human in the kitchen: his dog (not only does the dog preside next to him in the kitchen, he is fed choice cuts of meat, foie gras and the like).
My new chef is bald and round and has a big white moustache. He had a classical training starting at age fourteen in his native Strasbourg, but since has lived and worked as a chef all over Africa. He took over this business in downtown Marseille five years ago, and has a steady clientele who come for lunch from the nearby offices around the Vieux Port. His cooking is very personal, meaning to say he is not interested in trends, as was the case with my last three restaurants. He described his style as “rustic,” which suits me perfectly, as for me this implies authenticity.
Today we served aioli, which is steamed fish and vegetables with a home-made garlicky mayonnaise – his was divine. We also had turkey with cèpes mushrooms, which was probably good, but I personally prefer serving seasonal dishes, and this for me was an autumn dish. There were a lot of salads as well, and Corsican flavors such as bruccio (a fresh cheese, served savory or sweet) and figatellu (a sort of dried pork sausage). I am not working this week end but I can’t wait to see what we’ll prepare on Monday.

Déjeuner en Ville, 3 bis rue de la Coutellerie, near Vieux Port

Petite parenthese parisienne

Nothing like a weekend away to give you a fresh look at your surroundings. Last time I was in Paris in October of last year. The weather was cold and grey, and though I enjoyed my time with my friends, I longed for the lingering warmth of the south and I was psyched to start my cooking adventure. Six month later, my Parisian visit was like a breath of fresh – and very chic – air. Getting off the train the first thing I noticed was the number of women with very short hair, similar to the look I sported on my last visit to the city of lights. I reflected on how Marseille women value their long, dark , Mediterranean locks. I also noticed the color in women’s clothing – Marseille women love their black, another Mediterranean trait. Then of course came the designer bags (loads of Chanel) and the heels, spring-colored eye candy whichever way you looked. Saturday was such a sunny day that all Paris was celebrating and it was a pleasure to sit back and enjoy.
Saturday evening my girlfriend and I made our way towards the Marais to check out a “secret” bar tucked away behind a bright-lit taco eatery. There was no indication anywhere of a bar except for the guy hanging out on the sidewalk, who turned out to be the bouncer. We were about to leave the place, defeated, when we decided to ask him about it, and lo and behold, he showed us the way towards a dark and cavernous back room with flickering candles, a DJ who looked like he was twelve, and a bartender whose beard, glasses and lanky frame made me doubt for a second if I was really in the third arrondissement and not in Williamsburg. The music, décor, cocktails and even the waitress were a perfect end to our day, even though the place was overheated (having only been open for two weeks, they were still working on getting the AC going).
Back in Marseilles on the Sunday, I was amused at the uniform of training suits, mostly Adidas, that most men had on. And definitely, the shoes were different, mostly sports shoes for both men and women, with the first few Birkenstocks appearing – no doubt these are meant to dodge the dog poo on the sidewalks, which Paris, at last, has been able to get rid of.
And today, after class, I took my daughter to the beach downstairs from our house. She played in the sand and in the water while I read and worked on my tan and thought to myself… Marseille isn’t that bad after all!

Candelaria, 52 rue de Saintonge, 75003 Paris