Eggs, viennoisserie and pink piggies

We had our first drawing lesson following a month-long break last week which was a shock to the system. Firstly, chef has become our new translator now, so instead of understanding maybe 70% of what is being said,  its now down to about 50%! The problem is that chef is so engrossed in the discussions with our art teacher (and his ex-colleague) that he forgets that there are 10 foreigners sitting in the classroom with him and after a big long schpeel in French, he turns around to us quite naturally and says "Do you understand?". Um.....no? Luckily, we only had 2 hours of lectures, 1 of which was spent discussing what was expected of us for our (copious) homework. Some of us would explain that the instructions were not clear enough to which the counter-argument from the teacher was that at least 5 people in the class "got" him. I'm convinced that these 5 people "got" him out of sheer luck rather than being on the same artistic wavelength?!! Lost in translation working out in a good way, huh? The remaining 2 hours was then spent in lab making eggs, various fruits from almond paste and chocolate rose - much more fun than sitting on our butts deciphering the ins and outs of perspective in French :) We have a largish gap between now and our next lesson so cue, LOTS MORE HOMEWORK!! Char!! Unfortunately, the marks I received this week for my homework weren't entirely stellar so the enthusiasm for dessin is dwindling rapidly......

We had boulangerie on Friday as usual this week but in a different lab and with a different chef,  chef Christian, who reminded me of "Mr Propre"! (our normal chef for boulangerie, also chef Christian was away slumming it in Finland!). We spent the morning making different types of viennoisserie including brioche, as well as croissants and pain au chocolat for the first time. Lots of fun and we even had time to make some olive fougasse, all done by hand. We finished up by having a go at making some more almond roses (another chef so another method), chef's rose was very pretty (was also happy enough with my own attempt, see above)and his cheeky piggie sculpture of Chef Didier was inspiring! Couldn't be further from the truth as he resembles a beanpole rather than a porker ;)