It's so awesome having Nina come visit. =) Nina stopped at the wrong train station in ITALY this morning, but it was all good. She made it back to Menton. We walked to a paying beach in Italy, but decided the free beach in France close to the restaurant was just as good.
This is the same beach I go to before work to swim and lie out. We chilled here for a bit. We ended up running into Lucas later too.
After the beach, we just went back to the resto to relax and chat. We took a walk around Menton.
Nina kept saying her nose was like this photo. HAHAHAHAHAH
We went to Chef's house for dinner. He lives in Italy. See the view of Menton?
Matias was on the grill tonight.
We had some delicious bread from the resto, cheese, salami, fresh heirloom tomatos, grilled sweetbreads (I LOVE sweetbread!), grilled aubergines and peppers, and grilled entrecote. Good shit.
Chiho and me. This girl is such a badass. She is tiny, polite, and sweet. She does the meat station and kicks ass. Super fast, clean, and organized.
Bartender, Lucas
And a little friend stopped by to see what was going on. Another stray cat. Just like always. The little kitty walked over to the grill and was staring at the meat. hahaah
Bon repas !
Afterwards, a few of them took the car back to the resto. Nina, Matias, Petit Nico, and I decided to walk back to France from Italy. AHHAH I love saying that.
Home sweet home.Life is work and work is life in this industry.
We all met up on the terrace again for drinks, then called it a night.
Yay! Today we had two guests come visit. My friend Nina from Paris, and Thea's friend, Camilla from Italy/New York. They went to the bar and hung out, had canapes and drinks. After service, we all sat on the terrace and had drinks.
Thea and Camilla
Here is Lucas, the bartender. He's got to be one of the nicest guys ever. And he's awesome because he came from Argentina a month ago and didn't speak a lick of French. Now he understands a lot and has no care in the world in trying to speak French, often times mixing Spanish and French together. He's doing quite well for being here for such a short period of time. And we all love the fact that he always says pero (but - in Spanish), instead of mais.
La vache qui tache, ("The Cow Who Stains") is a party game for any number of players, originally started in France... The only prop required is a cork, one end of which has been blackened in a candle flame.
Assign each player a number. Player one calls out "Je suis la vache qui tache sans taches numéro 1 et j'appelle la vache sans taches numéro X" ("I am the spotted cow with zero spots number 1, and I call the cow with zero spots number X"), where X is the number of any other player.
When the game first starts no-one has any spots, so the number of spots is zero, or "sans tache". The next player, X, must immediately repeat the phrase, using his/her own number and another player for X ("I am the spotted cow with zero spots number X, and I call the cow with zero spots number Y"), where Y is the number of any other player. The game repeats this way until someone makes a mistake.
If a player makes a mistake, like mixing up the cow numbers, taking too long to respond, or calling the wrong number of spots (explained below), that player gets "spotted", using the blackened cork to make a big round black dot on his face. If a player gets one spot, then that player must say "I am the spotted cow with one spot..." and so on for the number of spots received.
(THANKS WIKIPEDIA !)
Sous-chef, David, Meat girl, Chiho, and Petit Nic(on) - stagiaire en salle (serveur)
Me getting marked =(
We ended up playing the game in FRENCH, SPANISH, ITALIAN, AND ENGLISH!!! It was so funny! We tried Japanese but um... yah that didn't work out too well.
I usually go to all of Raf's triathlons... too bad I missed THE Ironman. But I was just as excited and nervous even though I was here in France checking the internet for updates on his and Timo's status.
Fucking amazing. It's crazy what one's body and mind is capable of.
First day off ! At the restaurant, we are known as "les filles" (the girls). We always hear "Salut, les filles! Bonjour, les filles !" and during service, "Les filles, deux qui passe ! On y va, les filles !" It's actually quite cute. So today, "les filles" went to the beach.
Here is Thea looking glamourous hanging out on the terrace near the gardens at our restaurant.
Sweet setup, huh? The restaurant is in a huge house on a hill with several levels. We all live on the first (French) floor.
We ran into a few people from the restaurant by just walking around. Small town.
On the way to the beach.
Les filles à la plage.
It has a really cute centre ville here.
After having a deliciously cold coke and Orangina, we walked back home. Isn't it beautiful?
The boys were supposed to have a football (aka soccor) game today (they were talking about it for two weeks already). We stopped by the field where they were supposed to play but no one was in sight. By the time we got back, we saw the boys playing football on Playstation 2. They were still in the same position when we left for the beach... LOL I guess that was their way of playing le foot !
Unfortunately, yesterday was Denny's last day in the kitchen. He is moving back to Italy to work early tomorrow morning. Even though I only worked with him for a short time, he was a fun person to work and hang out with. He was like the 'charming class clown' of the kitchen. And it was entertaining to hear him speak French with his Italian accent, and at the same time mix the two languages together. Thea and I taught him to say "I like big butts" (from the song). Denny kept randomly saying it throughout the day... except it came out sorta like this: "I lika beeg bahts." HAH!
The whole kitchen sans Mikael (he was in Spain for a pastry event) went across the street to an Italian restaurant to wish him Bon Voyage. I've gotta say it is refreshing to be in this kind of restaurant atmosphere where people hangout and are genuinely friendly. I also really enjoy working with people from different cultures. I have hardly mastered understanding native French speakers so it makes it quite challenging trying to communicate in French since most of us have accents. But that is what makes it all the more interesting. Anyway, it was cool to sit down with chef and his wife and just shoot the shit.
Denny - tu sera manquer ! (Chef (Argentina) and his femme, Dani, Masa (garde manger, Japan), Davide (Sous-chef, France), Mateus (Fish, Argentina), Denny (Garde manger, Italy), me, Thea (CA), Chiho (Meat, Japan), Arai (Meat, Japan)
And lots of “flower pots” for the garniture for a lot of the plates.
It’s funny because Masa comes into the garde and asks for flowers. He has a hard time pronouncing “fleur” in French so it comes out:
« Deux flrurururuur. Deux flurururur ! »
« Quoi Masa !? Tu veux quoi ?! »
« Deux flururuur – oh putain, le francais est difficile. »
HAHAHAHA It’s so cute and funny. Me and Thea are always like “Masa, tu es adorable !” Here he is plating the haricots salad.
I swear it takes 5 minutes to plate this salade. The presentation for all the plates at this restaurant take forever - tons of sauces and details.
And Thea
Here is Enzo, aka MacGyver, the plongeur. He is always listening to his MP3’s. I always ask him « Qu’est-ce que tu fait-la ? » He is always making random things for his house, etc in the garage. He said that he is the MacGyver of handy work so if I need something fixed that I can ask him.
And here is Denny and Masa playing their pinching game. They are so ‘cute’ together ! So much love in the kitchen with the boys - seriously. A lot of touching and bisous with everyone in this kitchen. HAHAHA. It’s so entertaining.
Oh and btw, tonight was a special night. Some food journalists came to eat and the chef came up with a 26-course meal for them. It was nuts. It was a bit crazy in the kitchen so I only got a few shots of the plates.
See the utilisation of the "pots de fleurs" ?
And here is Mikael. He is funny because he is the one and only pastry chef in the kitchen.
EVERY NIGHT, I mean every night he is always saying
« Je suis toute seule! Je suis tout seule! Je n’ai pas de temps ! x 10 » (I [work] all alone ! I don’t have any time !)
And he also has to make the plates of cheese. So then he continues with something on the lines of :
« Je suis patissier. Je ne suis pas fromagier. Je suis patissier. Putain de merde. Je doit faire les assiettes de fromage ! Je ne suis pas fromagier. Sucrée ! » (I am a pastry chef, not a ‘cheese chef’ ! Swearing in french I have to make these cheese plates ! I am not a ‘cheese chef’. [Sweet things])
Me and Thea work in the garde next to him during service and he often mumbles in French without directly talking to anyone. He always like “klsjfoieurjlsf, mon bébé. Sljflkjeij mon amour. SLKFJSLK mon treasure.” Hah !
Like Denny, he calls everyone “mon bébé, mon amour, mi amoré.” I wonder who started it ?
The service was a bit crazy – chef was yelling a lot, especially at Masa. It’s strange because we really only hear chef yelling for him. MASA !!!!!!! Like really yelling for him. And sometimes during our mise en place, chef will sneak up behind Masa and be like
« MASA!!!! » « Oui, chef ! » « Ca va ? Tu vas bien ? »
It’s hilarious. We all think chef really really likes Masa so that is why he is so hard on him. Tough love.
I think overall, the night was a success. We finished service around 00h30 and hung out on the terrace a bit.
Masa looks like a cartoon character. He has perfect baby skin and little freckles, and dresses all “snazzy” and Japanese on his days off. Can you believe he is 30 or 31 ?!
Survived 6 fun filled days in the kitchen. From now on we work single shifts, Tues - Fri, and doubles on the weekends.
I started this blog to write about my first trip to Europe. Without this trip, I would have never pursued my dream of becoming a cuisinière. This blog then progressed into an illustration of my life as a student at ESCF - Ferrandi in Paris. Now I am off to the real world of cuisiniers. Vive la France!
Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.
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