In the kitchen world the language used is very important to be able to describe a dish, or to understand it when reading a menu. Most of the words come from the French, because most of the techniques and cuisine bases where also created here in France. In the professional world it is also important to know how to describe your creations in an attractive and truthful way. The oral and written language are also part of the culinary world. I have been looking for a website that can help us translating and describing the techniques, from French to English and vice versa, I did not find a proper site until my friend Paul James Kirrage,a member of the Institut Paul Bocuse team gave me the link of his new website, and finally, a gastronomic translator on line, www.pjkhospitality.com, thank you for this amazing service Paul!
It is so interesting to melt different arts into one. Ideas from both sides merge together into one creation. The power of the image and the charm of food together can go far. A good dish can look even better with good photography, for instance. Add some graphic design with modern ideas to the mix, and the result will hopefully be a yummy photograph. El Sarten and RGB Studios just started to work together in a fun culinary and design experience... Click to enlarge the image.
This dish was made with a variety of shellfish and squid in a creamy light broth with vegetables. It is really interesting to work with products from the sea because of their nature and also because they have to be fresh, in fact, beside the fish, almost every other product arrives alive.
Located around a 45-minute drive from the centre of Paris, Rungis Market is one of the biggest in the world. This school trip began at 4.30am, when we arrived at the market, then we spent several hours visiting all the different areas of this enormous place. Each area is determined by product: meat, vegetable, poultry and fish. The fish section was particularly impressive; all these high-quality products from the sea were perfectly handled and stored in the correct conditions. It was a fascinating journey into the world of all the marine creatures that humans eat. Some of the fish here is even sold just a few hours later in the largest and most important fish market in the world, the Tsukiji shijō.
I am very happy that my blog will have new visitors, it is now part of the Institut Paul Bocuse website, this site is visited by thousands of people around the world, there are students of 39 different nationalities, making all this extra interesting! Check it out, go ahead and help me promoting this passion all over, lets all become cooks!
It is ironic to talk about health and looking after yourself when my own system is not working properly at the moment, but this is also an opportunity to remember that health issues are important and things can go wrong at any time, that is the reality. The importance of having a healthy lifestyle should not be forgotten, even if our mind or body is going through a period of crisis. Personally, when I eat well I find it easier to look after my body and my mind, and honestly, a good meal fills me with such pleasant feelings inside that it can make problems easier to deal with. Drinking herbal teas, fresh fruit juice, and pure water and eating simple foods like organic vegetables and honey can purify our bodies and clear our minds. Make that soup that makes you happy, or those sweet home made biscuits and a cup of hot chocolate on a rainy day. Listen to your body and please your soul and your spirit, not only your stomach. I stopped eating fast food four years ago, and now when I walk beside one of those places I feel fresh and clean inside. Think about it: we need food to survive, it is the lifeblood of our bodies, so we ought to do it properly. Food can help you or harm you, so make the right choice and care for your body and your soul.
It will soon be the eighty-second birthday of Paul Bocuse, a man who has been very successful and accomplished a great deal from a lifetime of hard work. He started cooking when he was fourteen, as an apprentice in the Restaurant de la Soliere in Lyon, where he worked under Claude Mare, the chef. He also worked with "la Mère" Brazier, and Fernand Point in Vienne. He obtained his first Michelin star in 1958, then a second in 1960, and he became a Meilleur Ouvrier de France in 1961 before obtaining the third star, which he has managed to keep for the last forty three years in the Guide Michelin. In 1987 he gave his name to the most important cooking contest in the world these days, the Bocuse d'Or. He has been voted Chef of the Century and is President of the Institut Paul Bocuse, the Euro Toques, the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (cuisiniers) and the Fondation Paul Bocuse, and has also received several awards from the French government. He owns many restaurants and hotels around the world. As our great Chef Franck Petagna use to say, he created the " sprit de cuisinier", the cooks spirit, and he is still waiting by the doors of his restaurant in Collonges Mont d'Or for his clients to arrive.I learn from him that time is essential to become a good chef and you must dedicate yourself to it completely in order to succeed. He gave me my diploma last year. People think that when you finish your cooking school you are a chef, but I think that this is merely the moment at which you enter the professional world. The title of chef will only come with time.
The wind blows hard and the sun shines to welcome the spring, the blue sky melts into the green landscape, the birds make their music and the flowers perfume the air. I feel that this moment of my life is very spiritual, this is definitely more than just working in a kitchen: it is putting your soul in what you do, it does not always happen, is not often what you feel in the early, intense stages of becoming a chef. At Michel & Sebastian Bras things are different. It is very hard work, as it is crucial that the client leaves satisfied. It is a 3 Michelin star restaurant, one of the most exclusive restaurants in the world. The responsibility of keeping the reputation they have built up over many years is in our hands. It’s a silent pressure that we carry every day. Although at times it can be difficult, it is also a pleasure to be part of a team like this. I find the humility of the people here touching, which caused me to think on my hike over the surrounding countryside. I see the plants and the flowers as what they are, living things, because I am convinced that nature has a soul, and that we are able to connect ours with it. I went out this afternoon after work, I was once again amazed by the beauty of nature, rolling on the ground like a child, taking pictures, trying plants, hugging the earth, I fell asleep, in love.
Is this what they call happiness? Sometimes it takes less than we think.
Today I received a comment in one of my old articles where I talked about making yourself happy by cooking something quick and nice at home.
Anonymous said...
"i think your wasting your time presenting a meal like that to eat for yourself..maybe try cooking something for flavor before cooking for looks...coconut risotto? wtf....are you indian / italian or somthing?
baby steps my friend...baby steps"
April 30, 2008 11:30:00 PM MEST
I want to dedicate this article to him, his words inspired me.I found them very interesting indeed. If we all took baby steps the world would be different;life would be more spontaneous, we would be amazed by the most simple things around, there would be no war, no racism,just playing, all day long...
At La Palme D'or, the two Michelin-star restaurant where I now work, things work in a very particular way, namely fast and perfect. Their mentality is to push the team to its limits, all in a very hot environment.
One of my duties as the lowest ranking member in the team hierarchy is to go and look for things for other people, bringing them from the fridges to the different stations.
One day at work, I started to wonder just how far I walk in fetching all these different things in a day. So I did the calculations and found out that every day I travel 2.4 kilometers, around 12 kilometers for every week. In this profession whoever wants to success, has to run for it. Distance is just a number, the will to succeed is what really counts.
In the 'Sirha', the Bocuse d'or is the most important cooking competition in the world. 24 chefs are selected to represent their countries for this great event, which attracts not only the millions who attend the cooking fair in Lyon, but also more than a thousand journalists from 30 different countries. The atmosphere in the stands facing the kitchen is comparable to a football match – no exaggeration! Supporters come from every country to watch the remarkably high-level cooking on offer, which unfolds before their eyes in kitchens where everything runs like clockwork. This year, the winner was France, represented by Fabrice Devignes: a well-deserved victory. In second place was Denmark with Chef Rasmus Kofoed: excellent work. In third place (a closely-contested position) was Switzerland and Frank Giovannini. Each dish was transported by a MOF (Meilleur ouvrier de France), amongst them Alain Lecossec, one of the chefs from the Institute Paul Bocuse. The panel of judges formed an impressive pantheon of stars from the cooking world. Counted among them was Heston Blumenthal, the British genius behind the Fat Duck, a restaurant in the South of England that has been voted one of the best in the world; Juan Mari Arzak, a great Spanish chef; the Frenchman Serge Vieira, winner of the last Bocuse d'or two years ago; Olivier Roellinger, an important French chef; Jerome Boscuse, son of Paul Bocuse; Pierre Orsi, MOF and renowned French chef and, obviously, Monsieur Paul Bocuse, who, even at 82 years old, is still present at the competition that bears his name, and which is undoubtedly the most important cooking contest in the world. Anyway, it's getting tiring listing all these names; in short, all the big cheeses were there. My cheese and oenology teachers were the maitres d'hotel, and several students from the school worked as waiters for the judges during the meat and fish rounds, so that the jury could taste each dish and award marks accordingly. C'est la folie!
During this fabulous week spent in Burgundy, we were lucky enough to get to try some great local products like good wines and different fresh market ingredients that I then used to prepare dinner. The beautiful surroundings and the good company of family and friends made this week something to remember.
Fois gras with home made ravioli and a red porto sauce and mushrooms emulsion, celeriac salad with an orange and cumin vinaigrette, duck breast with a wild mushrooms fricassee and a mandarin sauce were some of the classic French cuisine meals made to celebrate our journey in the French countryside.
You can prepare something nice without having to be in the kitchen all day; this dish was made in hardly any time, and is a great example of a quick supper. The coconut risotto is ready in a mere twenty minutes, during which time you can prepare and season the tuna fish before it's added to the frying pan for the final touch. Here, I used a light wasabi sauce to accompany the dish, which anyone can make in less than five minutes. Cooking shouldn't be stressful; on some days, you're able to take your time and enjoy it, on others it's easy to create a delicious dish in hardly any time to enjoy with your friends and family.
Awarded the title Meilleur Ouvrier de France in the year 2000, Chef Franck Petagna worked in the Hotel Martinez in Cannes before spending 10 years in Biarritz at the Hotel du Palais with Jean Marie Goutier. He worked in many countries, was respected everywhere, and joined the team at the Institut Paul Bocuse in 2001. His intelligence, technical skills, and generous spirit made him one of the best chefs we have ever had the pleasure to work with. Franck Petagna was a great chef and a great man, there is so much to say about him, and I can't find the right words. He lost the battle to a terrible cancer, and we lost a very special person. I dedicate this article to him, to Chef Petagna, to this great man, this great warrior.
This simple recipe created by Ferran Adria is a great idea of how to make a dessert in just a few minutes. Mix 80g of pealed pistachios, 20g of flour, 3 eggs and 80g of sugar in a bowl, combine the mixture and put it in a siphon loaded with two CO2 cartridges. Leave it to rest in the fridge. Put some of the mixture in long, thin glasses (fill them up to about the middle), then put them in the microwave for 40 seconds at maximum power. Take them out and remove the biscuit from the glasses. The result is an extremely light biscuit that you can use to make small desserts combined with other ingredients like a pistachio cream, or a pistachio mousse; it also goes well with chocolate. I always say: try a recipe and then create something new with it. I, for example, was thinking of making a biscuit like this with a lobster bisque and little pieces of shrimp as an appetizer. The important thing is just to have a go.
At the Institut Paul Bocuse ,the two-star Michelin chef from France, Thierry Marx, shared some of his life, his extensive knowledge and his advice on having a restaurant with us today. He gives great importance to how both the kitchen and service teams should be managed and emphasized how a restaurant's success can depend on the personalities and motivation of the staff. He is a person that I admire because of his charisma, and his unique philosophy on how to be a good chef (he takes his team to teach them Judo, where they learn how to handle difficult situations and stay in control).
He also showed us different techniques used to prepare different products, both saving time and achieving better results. From the "soufflé instantané de chou-fleur aux huîtres avec une crème au citron vert" (oyster and cauliflower soufflé with lime cream), to the salt cod with passion fruit 'spaghetti' and frothed mango, or the Szechuan pepper minute-meringue cooked in liquid nitrogen (-183 °c) with a sparkling blueberry coulis and chocolate decoration, all his dishes impressed me.
It was a hard week at Saisons, the gastronomic restaurant in the Institut Paul Bocuse: not only were we cooking, but we also created the menu. While I'm working, I have a habit of eating slices of raw ginger, as it has several qualities that help me in the kitchen. It's great for energy and concentration, and it keeps me awake and active. During our last service on Friday night I started to eat a bit too much of it, and at one point my body temperature rose to a point where I was too hyperactive, I was breathing really fast and I just couldn't stop moving. I enjoyed it, but I also learned that I should start taking smaller doses. I accept it: my name is Rodrigo Pacheco and I am a ginger addict.
Sunday is a day to relax, to sleep a bit more, to take it easy. I suggest you try making this salad for brunch, and your day will start just fine.
First, you have to choose the best roquette leaves that you find, and with the least pretty ones, make a pistou composed of half a garlic clove, some good olive oil, salt, ground parmesan cheese and a couple of turns of a black pepper grinder. Add some fresh vegetables nicely cut - take your time. Make a bed of this salad on a plate, and place some smoked salmon fillets on top. With a mixer, make a sauce composed of a tomato, olive oil, part of a garlic clove, salt, black pepper and some wasabi. Pour this sauce lightly over your salad, add some toasted bread, some pine nuts and some parmesan shavings. If you want to make it extra nice add a glass of a fresh Champagne to this special brunch. Enjoy!
For any event in your home, like a reunion for friends or family it is fun to prepare creative finger food to offer to your guests. This is an example of an easy thing to do, get inspired by this and make it your own way, remember, simple but good, it always works.
After spending two weeks in this beautiful country, everything that I can say about it is positive: the people, the food, the architecture, the weather, and, of course, the prices! We were lucky to be able to leave the Czech republic with such a good impression. Of course, cooking was involved in our trip too!
The sight of beautiful countryside, the sound of thunder in the sky, the feeling of the wind on our faces or water from the ocean on our skin can overwhelm us with the awesome power of nature, and it's great, isn’t it? Well, for some of us, itś a similar experience to go to the market and see all the wonderous products produced by nature, on display in such an extraordinary variety of colours, shapes and textures. I was going through old pictures of La Boqueria in Barcelona, one of the most amazing markets in the world, and this feeling came back. Visit this market yourselves and I´m sure you´ll see what I´m talking about!
Château Virant : Cuvée Passion & Huile d'olive d'Exception.
We visited Château Virant, in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, close to Montpellier. This château is an important wine producer in the region, but our visit was focused on the olive oil they also make there. We visited the olive groves, and were shown how this magnificent culinary element is produced, finishing our day with an olive oil tasting, which allowed us to discern a real difference between the various types of olive and to learn the basic criteria to better appreciate and use this important culinary product. A buffet and a wine tasting were, of course, also part of our trip!
(Olive oil should always be stored in a cool, dark place to keep it from going rancid. It is excellent for our health and should be included in our daily diet)
I enjoy cooking, travelling, and being part of nature. I have a Bac + 4 in Hotels and restaurants management in Chile, and a Bac + 3 in Arts Culinaires et Management de la Hotellerie at Institute Paul Bocuse in Lyon, France. >View my resume
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