semaine de cinq.

    After sleeping in, I jumped on the metro and met up with Sara in the 1st to shop around at some cooking supply shops. We wanted to purchase some pastry bags to practice our piping at home since we would be making some cakes the next week that were more delicate. I met her at E.Dehillerin, an amazing shop that has literally every cooking tool or supply that you could imagine en masse, and all extremely reasonably priced. As an added bonus, as pastry students we get an additional 10% discount when we show our student cards. Score! After nerding out and checking out all of the amazing tools for about an hour, we bought our pastry bags and wandered to some other cooking shops in the area to see what they had to offer. We saw some fun things, but the environment and offering of E.Dehillein was our favorite. I've already made plans to bring some of my fellow cooking lovers when they visit; it's worth the trip!

Enjoying the charms of Les Halles

    After we finished all of our shopping for cooking supplies, we decided to wander around the neighborhood and stumbled upon now one of my favorite streets to wander in the city, Rue Montorgueil. It's filled with Parisian charm and all sorts of cafes, food shops, and flower shops; the works. We spent a couple of hours enjoying the neighborhood and our afternoon and then stopped at a café for a Noisette and people watching; the pass time that we often find ourselves enjoying.
     We were feeling hungry for an actual meal and were craving something a little more ethnic, so we jumped on the metro to head to La Chapelle in the 10th for some more shopping around and samosas. I was able to find an inexpensive emulsion blender in a small shop (so that I could enjoy some green smoothies with actual nutrients to balance out my increased butter and carb consumption,) and then we stumbled into a small Indian bakery and restaurant where we picked up a couple samosas for 1 Euro a piece. It was exactly what we needed, a little spice and flavor change up for a savory treat.
     We wandered a bit more and decided that we were almost ready to call it a day, but not before stopping at a bakery that had amazing award winning baguettes nearby. We each got a baguette and a pain aux chocolat for the next day, headed for the metro, and said good-bye for the weekend.
     I woke the next morning and enjoyed my pain aux chocolat and coffee while I started to pack for my weekend in Munich. After cleaning the apartment (who wants to come home to a mess? Thanks for that lovely habit and ritual ma ;) ), sorting out our e-tickets and mapping my expedition to the train, I was running slightly behind schedule but made it to the train just in time. I joined Allie and giddily watched the French countryside roll by. After all of these years working for, and with a German company, I was finally going myself! We enjoyed a small meal on the train

Train food

during our six hour ride (not as expensive as I expected for what we got, yay!) and geared up for our German adventure.
    We arrived in Munich around 10pm, navigated to the metro and went to meet our airbnb host at our apartment for the weekend. He was incredibly welcoming and helpful, and even provided us with chocolate bars and a beer each as a welcome gift. After giving us the lay of the land, some suggestions for places to check out and directions, we said our goodbyes for the evening and Allie and I prepared for our first evening in the city. Since we would be at the festival all day Saturday, we decided to check out one of the local bars that our host had suggested to get a vibe for the city and locals that we would be hanging out with the next day.
    The bar was called Substanz, and we had an awesome evening feeling extra short surrounded by extremely tall Bavarians, dancing to great music, enjoying a German beer and the eclectic décor. The day started with Pain aux Chocolat in Paris and ended with beer in Germany...what more could a girl ask for?

View from our lovely table in the beer garden

     We walked back to the apartment a couple hours later to get some sleep in preparation for the shenanigans of the day to come. We woke up, got ready, and were in the festival by about 10am. We had read that getting a table could be tricky and that wandering once you had a seat was a bad plan, because you were not guaranteed to find anything after that, so after buying myself a hat, and grabbing a pretzel for breakfast, we picked a tent and sought out our table for the day.

Prost! Liter 1 of the day

     After striking out inside the already overcrowded hall, we found a table of friendly Bavarians and one American at a great table out in the beer garden. The weather was so fantastic and our new friends were sweet so we spent the next few hours bonding over a couple of liters courtesy of our awesome waiter Dennis and learning how to properly cheers like a Bavarian.


The before, and after. Clean plate club.

     Around 1pm and between our first and 2nd liters, and after our 30 minute epic adventure that was braving the bathroom line (a mob in reality, at least the girls were friendly! After waiting in close quarters you bond,) Allie and I decided that it was time for some actual food. Our friends told us to get the roasted pork with a dumpling on the side, and Dennis provided us with an extra dumpling so that we could share our meal and miss nothing. The meal was exactly what we needed, and we devoured it, quickly. Our Bavarian friends enjoyed watching us annihilate and enjoy our lunch since they had finished theirs while we were in the bathroom. (I'm not kidding, it's an event, and potentially traumatizing if the crowd's weren't friendly. Prepare for battle if you need to use the restroom while at Oktoberfest. It's a necessary evil.)
     Around that time, our new friends were ready to move on to the Oldtown tent and invited us to join, but we decided to hold down the fort at our table since our LCB friends were making their way to our tent. After a lot of coordination and a new round of Bavarian friends, our group was finally complete and Alex, his sister Megan, and Alex met up with us at our table. We all hung out for a bit and then attempted to make our way into the tent with no success, so we found another spot in the beer garden and enjoyed another liter and some food.
    After another hour or so of shenanigans, laughs, and bonding in the beer garden, we were ready to venture out and check out some of the carnival rides that the festival had to offer. I thought that Leavenworth's Oktoberfest was adult Disneyland last year; this was the real deal, rides included. We proceeded to go on just about every ride; Ferris wheel, roller coaster, weird human ramp/slide, etc. before heading over to old town to meet up with some of Alex's friends from Germany.


Rollercoaster!

     After a quick round on the dance floor (our own weird version of a waltz) we joined Alex's friends at a table for our last liter of the day while enjoying the charms of the beer hall.
    The festival shuts down at 11pm, so around 10 they start closing down the tents and ushering people out of the halls. We gathered our group and made our way to Substanz for night two. After a couple more hours of dancing and socializing, Allie and I called it a night and walked back to our airbnb.
     We woke up around 9 the next day, got ready, and trekked to the metro to head towards downtown Munich to see some sights and eventually make our way to the Hofbrauhaus. I had only been to the one in Las Vegas for the company's 30th anniversary dinner two years prior, so I was excited to enjoy a liter in the original.

Glockenspiel

     We wandered for a bit, stopped at Starbucks for a coffee and a city mug to add to my collection, and then went back to the city center for lunch and to watch the noon show of the glockenspiel. I ordered the classic white sausage with a side of sauerkraut and a pretzel, and while it was not my favorite ever, I at least tried it! When in Rome right? (Or in this case, Munich).
     After watching the glockenspiel, we moseyed over to the Hofbrauhaus to enjoy our liters before catching our train that afternoon. We sat in the beer garden for round one, and Allie enjoyed a pretzel with our liters and we chatted with a lovely Italian woman who shared our table with us. We still had a little time, so we decided to venture inside for one more small drink inside the actual beer hall near the band.
     We found a table with some friendly gentleman from Spain who chatted with me in Spanish until we said our goodbyes and Allie and I rushed back to the apartment to make our train in time; which we did, by the skin of our teeth. Alex and Megan were flying home, but the other Alex happened to be on the same train so the three of us sat together chatting and reliving the adventures of the weekend before arriving back in Paris around 10:30pm. I metro'd home to my apartment to catch some sleep before my demo and practical the next day.

Dacquoise

     I woke up bright and early the next morning to learn all about meringues. Chef made a variety of meringue treats, but the Dacquoise cake was what we would be making in practical that afternoon. Since we don't use any machines in basic, that meant whipping up egg whites and buttercream frosting...by hand. Workout for the day, accomplished! We were also going to be working with marzipan to make roses, and while there's definite room to improve, for a first effort and with shaky hands post butter cream and meringue creation, I'd say it was a solid first go.
     The next day, I had another demo where I learned about the Moka, a cake which I've determined is the French version of Tiramisu. This happens to make it quite delicious. The challenge for this one was the decoration and building the cake, since we would have to cut the layers and smooth the frosting to perfection. Chef told us multiple times that it would be a challenge, gave us lots of tips and tricks, and wished us luck.

Moka

     The next day I had practical first thing to make my Moka. The recipe also meant that it was day two of hand made buttercream...arm workout round two. It somehow seemed to go faster this time around though (I guess I knew more of what to expect) and I was pretty proud of the end result, despite the shaky hands while piping the décor.
      This cake happens to also be extremely delicious, and dangerous since it's coffee flavored and one can at times convince oneself that it's acceptable breakfast food...coffee cake anyone ;) ?
     I'm done with classes for the week which is nice since it's been a crazy week, but tomorrow we have a student party on a river boat tour down the Seine starting by the Eiffel Tower so we're all pretty excited. Our attendance is required...rough life.