I thought that after college, except if one has a problem that needs twelve steps to solve, most people choose to indulge moderately. If anything, we drink too much and throw up. Not the case tonight.

May 1st is a national holiday in France (and in most of the world). I was excited because it meant two days off in a row. Tonight, Jen and Jeremy threw a dinner party for what seemed like the entire country of the Philippines (how did she find so many fellow Filipinos in Paris?). Brain and I tagged along. We drank a good bit, but I was in charge of dessert, so I stopped early. Well, early enough. I went into the kitchen to start dessert, and Brian came in a said that he still had the flu and was going home, sorry to miss dessert, blah, blah, blah. He had gone to say goodbye to everyone else when I heard a crash and a scream. I went into the living room to find Brian unconscious, ghostly white and bleeding from having hit his head when he collapsed. We had to call an ambulance; he didn’t regain consciousness until after the paramedics got there. They carted him off to the hospital: apparently, he had mixed flu medicine with alcohol (in large quantities) and a good deal of pot and it knocked him on his ass, literally. I haven’t seen anything like this since college, and frankly, I’m not sad to have left it behind.

I give to you the dome aux marrons, a.k.a. the spiky boob cake.

Don’t be fooled, there’s no chocolate here, except the mist we sprayed over it with the chocolate gun.

Mmmm…chocolate gun.

Even though it was very humid this morning and threatening to rain, I had time off, so I had to walk. I found myself at yet another beautiful outdoor market, and I couldn't help but buy strawberries and a ton of other gorgeous fruit. I am addicted to Parisian markets.

This afternoon, I made a strawberry treasure cake. My piping is all over the place, and the whole thing is uneven. It could be worse- there were two people who had mousse melting all over the place again. It's pretty sad to see a white topped cake oozing pink strawberry goo from the seams...

Everyone in Paris had spring fever today, and I was right there with them. It was a rare day for me insofar as I was done with class at 11:00 am. Faced with a beautiful day and an open schedule, I did what any normal pseudo-tourist would do. I walked. I walked from my apartment to Beaubourg and back. I sat outside the Centre Pompidou and people watched and drank hot coffee even though it was so warm out that I got a little sunburnt.

Most of Paris smells like Bourbon Street, except replace the stale beer smell with dog poo. On my walk, however, I passed a small square on rue Rivoli that was overwhelmed with lilac and honeysuckle bushes. It smelled so fresh and so delicious that I kind of freaked out a little. I stood as near to the gate as I could and just inhaled for a full five minutes. I didn’t look any crazier than most people in Paris, and hey, even city folk appreciate a little freshness.

At 8:00 on a Saturday morning, we were working on a braised lamb chop with onions and potatoes. We were all a little smug when our chef showed up at 9:15, an hour and fifteen minutes late for the practical. He had over slept.

So at 12:30, the whole of intermediate pastry was gathered for a demonstration of inverted puff pastry. Usually, we start right on time. The chef mumbled something about Ben, the translator being late. “He left,” I said. “I just saw him leave.” The chef left the room. Marcello looked straight at me, "Do you think you could do it?” he asked. Stupidly, I said of course I could. In a second, Marcello was out of the room. The chef and Marcello walked back in the room and looked straight at me. “Let’s go,” the chef said. It was later reported that 95% of my blood was in my face, but I translated the class for 48 people.

Where was my camera when I needed it? If I had a picture of the dish I made today, you’d say, “Wow, that looks wonderful, rich, and delicious!” Then you would have read what it was and changed your mind. But remember, it looked good.

This morning, I amused myself making gorgeous toast rounds with red wine-braised onions and bacon that accompanied my Coq en Barbouille. It sounds so good in French: it’s rooster (again, cock jokes abound) braised in a red wine sauce. Not bad, until you get to the thickening agent. Nothing coagulates a sauce like 50 mL of pig’s blood.

Where was my camera? Laying around, having random pictures taken by Gerardo (photo left). Thanks, G.

It was a bright, sunny, really warm day today, and overnight the trees budded. All the trees on my walk to school had tiny, bright green leaves this morning and I found it so exciting. After living in New Orleans where the leaves never fall, I forgot how wonderful spring buds are.

This afternoon, I made a vanilla/chocolate mousse cake called “Plaisir,” or “Pleasure.” It was anything but. The problem with a warm, sunny day is that they cannot regulate the temperature in school and it was so hot inside that none of our mousses (or meese as it were) would set. Several others in the class and I had the horrific experience of lifting the mold off our two hours of work and having it flatten out and ooze all over the marble. I saved myself the embarrassment of taking a photo. And I had been doing so well in pastry…

After having off for Easter Monday (is that even a holiday?), I am actually going to have a “normal” week. How sad is it that I look at this week and think “normal” when it is going to be kick-my-ass busy?

Today was an all fish day. Really, who plans to cook fish after a three-day weekend? Who plans this, people? We stepped into practical this morning to cook trout stuffed with morels in a lovely cream sauce. Lamentably, the trout was from FRIDAY. It smelled like four day old garbage (actually, it smelled much more…specific. But hey, this is a family blog). The slime on the scales was almost impenetrable. I was such a sad waste of morels- even the chef wouldn’t taste the finished product. He said he trusted us.

Jeremy and I were especially pumped for the afternoon practical and demo: the theme was Alsace. Alsace is a region of France that borders Germany and has heavy German influences in its cuisine. How sad we were when we made braised red cabbage and a beer vinaigrette to go over cod. Cod? What about a pork loin? Yes, pork loin is obvious and uninventive, but cod? Cod is for deep-frying and tartar sauce.

I am currently eating my words with a gorgeous Vouvray. Cod is definitely underrated. (No need to mention the Vouvray alone in my pajamas bit. I said it was going to be a tough week…)

Easter was lovely, albeit low-key. I made truffles until 9pm on Friday night and then again all day Saturday. I’d post pictures, but most of it resembles poop. They tasted good, though. It was terrible to have class all weekend because I missed the opportunity to play in Ireland with Christine and her cute little family. I have to admit, as I was tempering those 6 kilos of chocolate, I was bitter.

Easter Sunday, I joined Shannon for mass at Notre Dame. Knowing Catholic guilt, and that many, many of the naughty faithful save their yearly church-going for Easter, I was prepared for a crowd. I was not prepared to be almost trampled by old European women in the scramble for seats at the 11:30 mass. It was unreal how crowded it was- I thought this type of Catholics swarm only gathers for pope-sightings. The service was really great though, especially the music. I was happy that I went.

The Jamaique is a particular cake, not for everyone’s liking: it’s a coconut mousse topped with a passion fruit mango mousse, all held together with paper thin layers of chocolate cake. It’s very light, and a lot of fun to put together. I feel like I’m doing pretty well in pastry these days.

Our wine group met tonight. The wine group is interesting and fun, because we have a semi-sommelier in our midst. He goes out and buys wine from a region, and then we taste, take notes, and compare. It’s informal, but slightly academic, because we do have goals when we taste and our discussion is focused and specific. After we get through the tasting, then it unravels into a drinking party. However, last night, this guy Andy, who I don't really like, showed up with three girls that had never come before. One of them is a recent graduate of my Alma matter. She thinks this is a great bonding point for us, and I wish she wouldn’t. She represents everything that is unholy about my college: she’s pretentious, entitled, ignorant, and totally sheltered. The three of them completely ruined the tasting. One girl knew nothing about wine whatsoever, and would chug her glass before we even began discussing it, and the other kept asking totally off task questions like, “what's the big deal about Bordeaux?” (we weren't tasting Bordeaux) or “how can I tell if a wine is a good value?” Fine questions, but not what we were there for. And I thought the Middlebury girl talked a lot! Her friend, question girl, makes her look timid. Middlebury girl worked very hard at every turn to make the conversation about her, like “this wine reminds me of my dog,” or “I'm allergic to everything.” I was not very pleased. Jeremy declared that Andy's guest passes had been revoked. Good.

I just got to watch my all time favorite episode of Will and Grace, the one where Jack and Grace take Elliot to his school dance. So funny. I feel like I deserve some American sit-com action after the day I had.

So we will be making this weird, de-boned chicken terrine in cuisine (I know, I’m selling it hard). The way you cook it is to poach it, then let it sit overnight in the cooking liquid, and cut and serve it cold the next day. Yeah, no one wants to eat this. But anyway, instead of tying it up, we are supposed to wrap it up and soak it like this in a kitchen towel. I really don’t feel like leaving one of my precious kitchen towels to poach in chicken broth for 24 hours, so I decided to go and buy some cheesecloth. Normal people might use cheesecloth instead of regular laundry to cook with. I got my vocabulary all in order and set out to the store to buy the cheesecloth. I went to literally six different stores: two of which were closed, and two of which sent me to the other two stores, and cheesecloth doesn’t exist in France. I just know that no matter how many times I wash this puppy, it will smell of salty chicken and carrots, and cats will be following me wherever I go.

I ventured out today to catch a minute of the 30th Marathon de Paris. Do you see the guy on the bike? Does this seem wrong to you, too? I thought the people who crossed the street in front of the runners were also pretty bad, especially the ones with the strollers. People here seemed much less interested in their times- everyone who had “fans” standing around me stopped to hug them or chat when they saw them. It wasn’t quite like anything I’d seen before. I don’t blame them, though. If I had just run thirty-six kilometers and I saw someone I knew, I’d stop and beg them for a piggyback ride home.

I have the flu so bad that I can barely move and it hurts to write this, but the French just made me really mad (again). Since everything hurts, I’ve been watching a great deal of French TV. Besides 10,000 reruns of “Friends” (dubbed, of course), there are a lot of news shows. I just watched one where they were talking about Katie Couric going over to CBS evening news. For me personally, this is great simply because I can’t stand Katie Couric, I love the Today show, and I never watch CBS evening news. It’s win-win for my news line up. The French story described her move and her career and then ended the story noting that this is the first time ever that a woman will be the solo anchor for the evening news in the US. Then they did this huge montage of all the solo woman anchors in France, cleverly pointing out how “behind” the US is. Again, come on France. Because you put a bunch of skirts (in low cut blouses, I might add) behind a news desk, you’re much more socially advanced than the US? Women didn’t get the right to vote here until 1945! If you ask any of our chefs point blank, four out of five of them will tell you that women (and a number of ethnic groups) can’t cook. So, sorry, Canal +, I just don’t buy it. And Katie, thanks for choosing CBS.

Today was a monumental day for us in cuisine: we made sausage. And rest assured, it was every bit as juvenile and as sexual as you would imagine it to be. And gross, don’t forget gross.

Now, in modern times, there are machines that make sausage. You put the meat and seasoning in, put the casing over the end, push a button, and- voila! Sausage. But our school likes to keep us in the Stone Age (hence all the kneading and whipping by hand), so we put our forcemeat in a pastry bag with a medium round tip and piped it in. As you may be aware, sausage is greasy, and casing is thin and fragile, so this was not as easy as it may sound.

In my practical group of non-native speakers of French and English, I truly expected to be the one throwing out all the innuendo and bad jokes, but then the chef walked in. From picking up the casing and declaring it as a “not very effective condom,” to pulling the casing over the tip, wrapping his thumb and forefingers around it, asserting that anytime you hold something of this nature, your grip on the base should be firm but gentle, to letting out a passionate moan as he began to squeeze the meat out of the bag into the casing, the chef took the cake.

I bought a pineapple at an open-air market and I just ate it until my mouth hurt.

Food update (beyond pineapple): dorade (which is “sea bream” in English. Do we eat this in the US? The French name is so much more appealing. I don’t want to eat anything called “bream.”) wrapped in lettuce with a shrimp and sun-dried tomato stuffing. It sounded really weird to me too, but it was actually good. I’m kicking myself, because my dish was pretty and I forgot to bring my camera.

Three people I go to school with have asked me to teach them French. The girl who asked me is Russian, and when a Russian comes up to you and says, “Can I ask you bery serious question?”, the answer to that question is immediately “Yes.” Plus, it was a huge compliment to my French abilities that they would choose me. So I went to St. Michel today to buy textbooks for my impromptu language school. I love textbooks. I spent an hour and a half in the tiny French language section of the bookstore, with all the different texts spread around me, with everyone in the store stepping over me, comparing and contrasting. Maybe this will be really fun…

I have a new rule: don’t be the first person to arrive at a wine party.

Last night, Jamie had people over to try wines that she bought on her trip to Germany. She told us to come over at 9. I felt really guilty because I left my house at 9, and didn’t get to her house until 9:30. Punctuality is not really a universal notion; I was there a half hour before anyone else. Naturally, Jamie offered me the first samples of her wine, and by the time the other people showed up, I was two to three glasses ahead. German wine is very light and sweet, and it goes down as easily as piña coladas. Jamie is a very gracious hostess, reminiscent of Christine. She never let a glass go empty. It was a great time, but when Jamie was pouring Jennilee her 22nd glass and Jenni pulled her glass away and Jamie kept on pouring all over poor Jenni, I knew it was time to go.

Yesterday was also the practical for the Fraisier. I know my cake tastes good, but it really isn’t that pretty. Perhaps I could go into making pastry for the blind….