Eating on Jitneys

A couple of weeks ago I sat in during a Continuing Education Class at school taught by….dumdumdum…Christophe Michalak. Yes, the one and only. When I signed up for the class one of the chefs at my school told me that he is “totally hot in France right now.”

True. He also seemed to have an enormous prejudice against all-things-American. I mean, the guy knows what he’s doing. He also knew how to really style his hair. Here is a picture of his “pastry buffet”: it’s everything that the people in the class made during 3 days. I didn’t get to make anything. I washed dishes. But I did get to sit in on the class for free, get his recipes, and take notes…and pictures:

Here’s a good one. Chef Michalak told us to throw these marshmellow bears away because he was done with them. We took one look at them and knew we would not throw them away. We would, at the very least, take them to our class…and maybe take a little bite. Yes, here is Eva taking a little bite.

…buuuuut he needed them back the next day. And we accidentally left the bitten bear on the tray.  He already apparently hates Americans.  I’m guessing this didn’t help.

It was really cool to see his demos (even if he did have to use “shitty American pectin” and “no fresh raspberries??”).  I learned some things, and got a lot of cool pictures.

I really didn’t want this to turn into a pastry school blog photo show-off…but honestly, that is all i have been doing lately. That and scrounging for food. So here are pictures of pastry school, and explainations of what it’s like to be someone that loves grocery shopping that hasn’t had time or means to go grocery shopping in three weeks.

First, the sad stuff. Literally, I haven’t been grocery shopping in three weeks. I accidentally went to Costco with FVD two Saturdays ago which was probably the biggest mistake of the New Year. Costco…sucks if you don’t have at least 4 people in your household. I bought some Diet Coke because yes, I like Diet Coke. I am no longer ashamed. I also bought Orange Juice. Everything else just seemed like a rip-off. Also, driving to Costco on a Saturday is definitely the worst possible idea that could ever happen.

On to other topics. Since I have been working and in school I have had about 1-3 hours of personal time a day. I usually like to spend those hours showering, checking email, having some red wine, and watching TV. That sounds lame but when you only have a very small amount of free time in your day and it is 1 degree outside, please try and tell me that that is not what you would do too. Come on. Because of this lack of time, you might wonder…Eating on Jitneys…what are you eating? Well, I ask myself that every night while I’m walking back from the train. I have realized that it’s all about stocking up and hiding food from yourself. If I hadn’t bought that sweet potato 3 weeks ago or hidden those toasted (whole!) almonds from myself this summer I would be starving tonight. Being busy leaves to to make small egg sandwiches (scrambled eggs inside toasted bread, spread with mustard and cream cheese and sprinkled with diced artichoke hearts) and have boiled sweet potatoes for dessert.

Speaking of dessert…here are some pastry school pictures. I tried not to include these, but I am so proud:

I think it is very appropriate that my first blog entry, for this blog that aims at saving pennies and being thrifty, be about my recent trip to Chez Panisse - one of the top restaurants in the world. Ah yes, you know…the usual. I think it is not that cool that the pictures kind of suck, but I was much more interested in the eating and the chatting that were about to ensue than the picture taking. In fact, this isn’t even what I ordered (wild salmon with beans, beats, and other tasty treats). This was the morel ravioli with parsley sauce.

The meal started off with with the carbonated tap water that has become the restaurant’s answer to (unsustainable and kind of stupid) bottled water. They also provide a little bowl of mixed olives which was very exciting for me. Pretty awesome.

My friend Asi works there (thus our ability to get reservations) and was able to secure two bottles of wine ahead of time. She helps write the wine list so they worked perfectly with the meal. The kitchen sent us up a plate of octopus which is something I may never be able to say ever again in my life. They also sent us up two desserts (boms) as the pastry chefs are also friends with Asi. Thanks, Asi.

There isn’t too much that I want to say about the food other than it is so delicious and fresh. There aren’t many added sauces. It seems as though they let the ingredients flavor each other in plates that you absolutely have to scrap clean (which is easily done with the delicious bread).

After the meal (and before the dessert wine), the server brought us this glass teapot full of lemon verbena with mint leaves. Me and Asi totally chugged it! So great and fresh. A friend of mine who had recently been to Morocco said it was also very Moroccan, so cheers to that!

It is easy to understand why this place is rated so highly on their food alone. I mean, Tom Waits eats there! And Bill Clinton ate there! But the restaurant, and its founder, Alice Walker, were very huge players in the organic movement and the slow food movement and basically every other sustainable living food related movement that is spreading fairly widely right now. Read more about it here.