What I Love About Being a Chef (Again)

Many, many years ago I had the chance to apprentice as a pastry chef for an expensive little restaurant in San Francisco. I was considering spending a small fortune to attend the CCA at the time, so this was a golden opportunity.

I absolutely loved the cooking part of the job; spending all day making different flavors of ice cream and fruit sorbet from scratch, making paper thin tuile cookies and handmade chocolates and rich sauces, working with sugar to create beautiful, fragile decorations such as sugar corkscrews and orbs, and making puffy loaves of golden brioche and stuffing sheets of pasta to make agnolotti and ravioli.
Then service would start and the restaurant became a volatile place. Frenetic people running around, cursing, yelling and sweating. I wanted to escape back to my tranquil little pastry room and be left alone to create delicious things.

But with the good comes the bad, right?

In the end though, I quit.
Working 10-12 hours a day without a break, 5-6 days a week, and making a pittance while trying to pay the rent in one of the most expensive cities in America took its toll. The apprenticeship had turned into a full time job without any of the perks of a full time job.
And I discovered that this wasn't the life for me. I am so glad I didn't spend that small fortune going to school at the CCA!

However it was the beginning of an intense passion for cooking and food in general.

the shady terrace at En Bonne Compagnie, looking toward the Canal du Midi

Since then I have been a personal chef, taught cooking classes, done many catering jobs and written about food. Recently an opportunity to work for some friends literally fell into my lap and couple of weeks ago I stepped back into a restaurant kitchen as a sous-chef.

It couldn't be more different from my first restaurant experience!
Thankfully. (the cursing - mainly by me - and the sweating are inevitable though!)

panna cotta with rhubarb compote


What I love about being a chef again:

• Working for friends
• Satisfaction at the end of the night
• Learning new things
• Giving people a meal they'll remember
• Working with food
• Great hours
• Receiving my first paycheck in France

What I'm not loving:

• Moments when I lose my confidence
  
• When the temperature in the kitchen hits 40 degrees C (that's 104 degrees F) during service
• Making mistakes
  
• My rusty knife skills
• My skin is breaking out

But with the the good comes the bad, right?

If you're ever in the Minervois and craving something delicious, then come to Restaurant En Bonne Compagnie, on the Canal du Midi. Please be sure to send a "hello" to me in the kitchen.

Restaurant En Bonne Compagnie
Quai des Negociants
11200 Homps
Telephone 00 33 (0) 4 68 91 23 16

. Pin It

Photo du Jour - Canal du Midi

Summer season slowly starting on the Canal du Midi. Pin It

Photos du Jour - Wine Tasting

I spent two mornings last week doing blind tastings to help choose wines for le Chai in Homps. It was really interesting! Especially trying to describe the flavors and my general impression of each wine in French. I should have done some studying beforehand.

At each tasting there were about 10 of us, split into pairs, tasting 12 to 13 wines each. The wines were grouped by price and type - vin de pays, AOC Minervois or AOC Minervois la Livinière.
One morning I tasted 12 Minervois white wines and the next morning I tasted 13 AOC Minervois reds priced between €5-7.

I learned a lot.
Like teeth brushing just before wine tasting is counterproductive. Good thing there was some French bread to help clean my palate!



A bit of French wine tasting terminology:
expressif
boisé
fruité
très vanillé
notes de miel
bien équilibré
léger mais très agréable
encore bien jeune mais déjà agréable
arômes de fruits
exubérant
élégant
harmonieuse
complexe
souple
rond
fermé Pin It

Photo du Jour

Had to pick up our table wine on Monday at Le Chai Port Minervois in Homps. We love this place!


Going on a little field trip today to the Pic St. Loup region to go wine tasting with a friend who is a Master of Wine.
Beautiful, sunny day. Wine tasting and lunch. The best kind of day. Pin It

Photo du Jour

Small lock on the Canal du Midi, just outside of Homps. Pin It

Daily Photo

A tranquil spot on the Canal du Midi between Homps and Argens Minervois. Pin It

le Weekend

Friends drove over for the weekend, one from Cassis and the other from a village near Florence, bringing with them their charm, cooking skills and Pecorino cheese, wine and succulent, thinly sliced, cured meats from Italy. I made an insalata caprese and we had a perfect Italian feast!

We drove around the region on Saturday, to Caunes-Minervois, to Rieux-Minervois where the unique, heptagonal church of Notre-Dame is located and to taste some wine at a wonderful shop called le Chai Port Minervois on the Canal du Midi at Homps. They cooked lunch (yes, they were the perfect guests) of tomatoes provençal and baron d'agneau followed by a salad, then fresh and aged goat's cheese that we picked up in the market in Rieux. Dessert was apricots from our garden and white peaches. C'était magnifique!
That evening there was a big birthday bash at our friend's house, complete with live music, great wine from the village, dancing and my husband joining the band for a couple of songs, singing in his Barry White-like, smooth, deep voice.

Sunday morning was spent at the kitchen table with coffee and baguette slathered with butter and confiture de fruits rouge, discussing our next trip to see them in Cassis. We haven't been in three years and since they've recently been issued a boat driving license, the plan is to rent one and cruise out to the island of Porquerolles which looks like absolute paradise!
A lazy lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, a trip to le Somail to the Librairie Ancienne and we reluctantly said our goodbyes.

Can't wait for our trip to Cassis in August!

The weekend was full of fabulous photo ops, and I forgot my camera every time we left the house. Merde. Pin It