sandra

Since the sad demise of Si Señor, there is NO good Mexican food in London, except in my home - since Marisol, the owner, took off to sunnier climes (Spain) I have found several Mexican products outlets, including El Azteca Foods in Elephant and Castle, and they will deliver... I am Mexican, I have been considering a small taqueria... If you can manage to get yourself invited to an event at the Mexican embassy, you're in luck too... I think Mexifresh is a supply/delivery company, but the may have expanded - may have to go south of the river - again....

I appreciate your concern - both times the samples were analyzed by Bluebird themselves....

Apart from the bad quality, etc etc... we have gotten food poisoned by "freshly" prepared food from Bluebird and a friend was also food poisoned with foie gras in the restaurant upstairs... Just passed by today and saw all the construction - good riddance...

The Japan Centre on Picadilly has a supermarket downstairs which incorporates a fish counter - it is specially sourced for sushi and is usually very fresh. Bonus: you don't have to wake up at the crack of dawn... While you are there, try the lunch counter on the ground floor - great katsu-don. sandra

One of the best lunches I ever had was in Perpignan, France and it consisted of a duck leg confit sitting on a bed of crunchy, garlicky, sauteed potatoes and a side salad of rocket - so simple, but could easily be ruined if not made properly... Also, duck confit inside a cassoulet is another favourite... I would consider it a main course item... I'm really starting to miss the cuisine classes by reading your posts! I'm halfway into my patisserie at LCB and so far so good, but I do miss the pace of the kitchen!

Malawry, The sexy uniform is universal! I'm about to don mine again for patisserie which starts this week... What are the black disks hanging from the ceilings in the main kitchen? My LCB school is different in that we have 4 kitchens and the demo group gets broken up into 8-10 students in each kitchen and of course, each kitchen is much smaller - There is only one patisserie kitchen and one boulangerie - all of this in a very narrow, 4 floor townhouse-type building in the center of London. I'm not quite sure how these compare to LCB Paris kitchens - maybe Loufood can fill this in... Thanks for the photos! Sandra

OUCH! I can't tell you how many times I burnt myself like that! When you take the pan out of the oven, you remeber to grab it with towel - after you set it down, you forget when you go to grab it again a few minutes later... The big blisters on your plam will heal, I can tell you that! I'm heading back to school myself in two weeks to start the Patisserie portion of the course, not really looking forward to it, but must be done! Congrats on the midterm!

THE TAMIS.... one of my personal favourites.... Have you had to use it for fish or chicken yet? We always dreaded the days we had to make mousses - as soon as the tamis came out, it was groans all around... Your puff pastry story reminded me that I still have some in the freezer from the basic course...must use it... Sandra

Malawry, The final exam was as follows - we got a list of 20 ingredients, including lamb, artichokes, phyllo, peas, potatoes, chilli, etc... we had to devise a summer modern European dish to cook and present within 2.5 hours using all the ingredients and nothing else - also included in the exam was an imposed dish that we all had to make the same, this was a pate brisee tartlet filled with spinach, a poached egg and then hollandaise sauce. Then all the chefs in school try it and grade it - the next day you go sit in a room with them for 10 minutes and they tell you their comments...

Great reports Malawry! Tomorrow I am graduating from Le Cordon Bleu in London and I have been re-living all the classes through your posts - I loved every minute of school and I'm sure you will also. Some differences: we bring our food home instead of eating it there (my poor husband is sick of French food!), we don't have any written work, other than our notes, and no written tests, certainly not math I would have failed with flying colours! The chefs do the demos and clean up after themselves...and they also bring up ingredient trolleys for our practicals. Yesterday we had our final exam, and today we were critiqued by the chefs and then shown our grades - it's very nerve wracking when it's the final! Something for you to look forward to! Oh, and I know what you mean about the turned mushrooms, it's one of my personal favourites....