Imagine getting a job in a restaurant where you don’t know where anything is in their kitchen, you don’t know the menu, the recipes and menu change daily, and you also only know about 70% of the language. When you did know the language fluently you never studied food terms either which makes it even more challenging. Then imagine a French sous chef 10 years younger than you barking orders at you in French and expects you to know (only after one day of training) what to do……well this is the situation I have found myself in here in Puycelsi, France…. and although I have had a couple of crying spells I am loving every minute of it.
The things that got me through the first week was remembering how strong I really am and how much my mind can swing my insecurities into a direction that doesn’t help me, knowing that this crying was just the fear within me, which also doesn’t help me. And if those two things still didn’t help I’d plug in ‘Just Dance’ by Lady Gaga…because when I became that worried, I’d listen to that song and dance around in my room for those three minutes and guess what? Afterwards I didn’t care so much anymore!
My living situation is pretty good for a stagiare. Most of the times you will end up sleeping in a room with other people or worse on a cot in the back of a restaurant and have to open and close the place down every day to get a meal. My Executive Chef and Owner is gracious, kind, and generous. I live with two French young men in their twenties one who is the head of front of the house operations and the other is Fabian, our sous chef. We have a cottage behind the main hotel and restaurant and each have our own room, a small kitchen and share a bathroom. We have a nice terrace in the back, and I have two windows in my room which lets in a lot of light. The internet access here can be iffy sometimes, we can only gain access out of one room in the house because of how many concrete and stone walls there are in this town it tends to block signals. In the morning the weather is cool and calm, it’s one of my favorite parts of the day here when I can go for a hike or run before my day begins. In the afternoons it gets pretty warm, around 80 degrees F for a high, but there is a breeze as well and it has just been absolutely gorgeous when I can get out in it!
There are crosses such as this all over Puycelsi...they are quite breathtaking with the background...
Sous chef Fabien preparing salad chevre chaud...(Warmed local perigord goat cheese served in a puff pastry shell and mixed greens with their house mustard vinagrette.
The food here is fresh, and it’s local-I mean local people. The farm is literally less than ½ a kilometer away where she buys all of her produce. The meat market she goes to is in Toulouse and they get all of their meat from farmers within the country which for us would seem anything but local, but let’s remember that France is smaller than our big ole state of Texas. So far so good….I have done everything from make quiche, to petit gateau’s, crab cakes, walnut brownies, and am currently in charge of all of the salads for service and deserts when called out. Did I mention everything is called out in French? I used to be fluent and it is coming back slowly, but it is challenging none the less. Sometimes the plat du jour is served with a salad on a specific plate and sometimes it is not. There are two restaurants served out of our tiny kitchen here so everything goes on two different plates as well. They are definitely keeping me on my toes! The following are some more pictures of the town, and food shots with captions so you can see what I have gotten myself into here. It truly is the experience of a lifetime, and I am so grateful to have been given such a tremendous opportunity for my growth personally, and professionally. Stay tuned for the nextupdate in a few weeks....
This is a typical sign at the meat market in the METRO in Toulouse, France....
C'est moi! Happy as a clam to be cooking in France!
Entrecote (ribeye) cooked to perfection with homemade compound butter and pmme de terre, what makes their pomme de terre so outrageously good is that they cook them in duck fat...kind of like how us southerners like to cook in bacon fat! Sorry vegetarians...but scenes like this bring tears to my eyes! Behind that is a quiche that I made for the plat du jour that day with seafood and lots of spices and fresh vegetables.
A regular item on their menu-Duck confit
This is a Salad Tarneise on their menu. It is made up of mixed greens, duck magret (raw duck breast) mi-cuit fois gras (duck liver that is not canned and cooked only half way-a true delicacy for this region...Devin thank you for informing me on this before I arrived!) tomates, and Chevre du Perigord a true goat cheese that is nutty, creamy, just the right amount of tartness...oh, and delicious!
Petit squash with fillings of stewed tomatoes, carmelized onions, garlic, and ground filet mignon
Amuse-bouche which literally transaltes in French to: Pleasing to the mouth. It is typically supposed to be served as one bite, but this is a little large, they had me prepare something on the fly so I used what they had and toasted some baguette from that morning, added carmelized onions on the base, some duck magret and a balsamic reduction sauce over the top.
Petit tarte served with boudin sausage, carmelized apples, puff pastry and those wonderful pommes de terre and a salad.
No...these doves are not for eating! They are funny and hang out by the walk in cooler outside and when they think no one is looking, they like to come in for a stroll and pick up bread crumbs and such off of the kitchen floor. They are beautiful, but can also be quite bothersome and unsanitary if not watched carefully!
Of course I couldn't leave out the wine! The region for wine here is Galliac, which specializes in a grape called Braucol. What you will usually find is a blend made up of Braucol, Syrah, and Merolot. The wine is easy drinking and tannin rich. The best part? It's under 5 euros a bottle for a decent one! Stay tuned for more foodie pictures and updates mes amis...there was just too much to post in these first couple of weeks! I will be travelling avec mon petit ami Devin in October to Cahors, Bordeaux (specifically St Emillion) and the Dordogne region of France with even more photos of the cusine and wine that I find there as well as more adventures in Puycelsi. Bon Apetit!
