multiple things always happen at once

We had a great day, retail wise yesterday. It was Passover, so we should be busy. We started the day by needing more macaroons, banana loaves, and sponge rings. We also finished our first Easter cookies, the large bunny and chick cookies. Dipped our first little egg cakes as well. I feel a little relieved to get that stuff started. Today we will do the little chocolate eggs, and finish our first lamb cakes.

It's a good thing business is good, because yesterday the pump motor on our pan washer went out. The thing just seized up. It was about 5pm yesterday, when we finally got the motor off of the machine. It's one heavy son-of-a-gun. Today we'll take it to the motor shop, with a box of morning pastries and we'll see what happens. Funny how that box of pastries opens a lot of doors. When my son was little, maybe eight or nine years old, he played hockey. Still plays actually, but skate sharpening is an on going battle, in a hockey players life, hockey players parents' life, as well. Skate sharpening is almost a craft. The Wilmette Bike Shop used to be the best around. I assume they still are. When you'd go in the back door to drop off skates, there was just a "Sea of skates" there to be done. Didn't matter what time of day you went in there, you could always hear the machine running. The unmistakable sound if metal against a grinding stone. I learned that if I went there mid morning, with a box of pastries, I never waited. Never got charged either. Larry would say "Just wait right there". I'd stand there and watch him do his thing, and off I would go. I'm sure we'll get the same treatment at the motor shop today. They aren't going to repair a ten horse motor, for a box of danish, but I bet they get on it quicker.

On top of the pan washer goin' down, we took a truck in for a "Wheel hub replacement", to the dealer. It was under warranty. I love that, it was under warranty, so was the water pump and the door hinges, on the side door. So when we pick it up this afternoon, it's only gonna cost us, just over a thousand dollars. I told them to go ahead with the "Recommended radiator flush, transmission flush, brake fluid flush, power steering flush, and fuel injector flush". Damn truck will be clean when we get it back. I don't know enough about things that run on gasoline, to make good decisions about them. Besides, we needed macaroons in the store, I had chocolate on the stove melting to dip the eggs, we had a new intern yesterday, I was tryin' to remove the motor from the panwashing machine, had to place my flour order by noon, we had a big breakfast delivery on the campus at 10am, that involved brewed coffee, and I was trying to teach Zack how to decorate the Easter cookies. So. I probably agreed to some unnecessary flushes, yesterday.

I've said it before, "Some days you're the statue, some days you're the pigeon".

high near 70

Saturday morning, tomorrow is Palm Sunday. I should be all worked up, seeing how Easter is one week away. If it was eight days before Christmas, I would be so wound up. 1976 was first, full time, Easter here at Bennison's. We baked and baked, for two weeks, gettin' ready for the day. I was working nights then, I started at 10pm. I came in early on Good Friday, we had a heavy night, of course. I got here around 8pm, by the time we opened on Saturday morning, there was an inch of ice on everything in God's world. Back then we were closed Easter Sunday, so on Monday morning when we came in, it was all here. Lamb cakes, bunny's, basket cakes, cookies, egg cakes, awful, just awful. It tarnished me for life. Unfortunate really, Easter can be a very busy time for bakers, but I just don't get into it. I'd rather make a hundred gingerbread houses, than ten lamb cakes.

Today, down at GCM, we are selling a new variety of bread. Sweet City Loaf, it's a crusty white loaf, laced with carrots, onions, hazelnuts, flax seed and honey. It was a very good first try, next time will be better. It seemed short on "Stuff". We need to kick up the carrots, and onions, and we are going to add a little ground cumin. I got the idea from Dan Klecko, baker buddy up in Minneapolis.

Looks like we'll be going back to the Wilmette French market this summer. We'd like to anyway. I've requested an application. the thing that I'm always hesitant about is, "Who will staff it"? My daughter graduates from college in late May, her and a group of friends, so we have a new crop of "Staff". Making the product is the least of our concerns. Even getting it there, is not much of an issue. But who's gonna sell it, and bring it all back? Those are the real concerns.

Gotta get upstairs, get started on our lamb cakes, as much as I'm not looking forward too it, it's gotta be done. Predicted high "Near 70", next Friday. Gotta see it to believe it. I was next door at the hardware store, day before yesterday, I picked up a fifteen pound bag of ice melter.

a sunday market?

We found some fresh raspberries and blueberries, that were tart suitable. I know this is America, I know we can get all fruits all year 'round. But that doesn't mean the stuff tastes good. We got some strawberries in, early this week, sour as a cornichon. Huge, red, shiny, taste like hell. They sat for two days in the fridge, and finally got some sweetness so we made strawberry tarts, yesterday. Sold 'em within a few hours. Jennifer also made some fresh raspberry tarts, really bad ass! We make our tarts shells with an all butter dough, that has a hint of almond flour. The almond flour, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't do much for the flavour of the crust, but it gives it such a nice nutty brown colour as it bakes. I learned this from Laurent le Daniel, he has a few incredible pastry shops in Reims, France. He also taught me to bake tart shells in a cooler oven. The shells get a nicer, deeper carmel colour all over. The real consequence is the tart shells get much stronger if you bake them long enough to caramelize the sugar in the crust, they also develop much more flavour. She filled the raspberry tarts with chocolate cremeux, French term. It means, "Absolutely the best, over the top, chocolate pudding, ever"! She boils whipping creme, adds sugar and egg yolks, and cooks it to thicken. She pours that over semi sweet Belgian chocolate, and smooths it out with an immersion blender. Pout it in the shells and let it cool. She topped them with fresh raspberries, really did a good job with them.

For the blueberry tarts, she used the same tart dough, but filled them raw, and baked the whole deal together. She used almond creme, lemon curd and folded in a few blueberries. After baking she topped them with a pile of fresh blueberries, and a light dusting of confectioner's sugar. Really pretty, she did an equally good with these. Her and Tracy do a great job with our tarts and galettes.

We are contemplating adding another farmer's market to our list. We got an email from a group in Roger's Park that is doing a sustainable market on Sunday's. Easy hours, 9 to 1. I'm all for it, but it needs to go before the board for approval, if ya know what I mean. We have been approved for the Evanston market, that starts May 8th, and Andersonville starts June 23rd, I think. They have extended the hours at Aville, gonna start at 3pm til 8 pm, until a certain point in the year. Probably when the clocks get set back, they'll wrap it up at 7pm. still waiting to hear about Green City.

Well, gotta get upstairs, gotta get this whole Passover thing started.

cornstarch, who knew?

Monday morning, off to a sluggish start. Head cold to boot! Big week, this week. Startin' the Passover bake tomorrow. Coconut macaroons, sponge cake, honey cake, florentines and flourless chocolate cake, by the truckload. I worked at Konopov's bakery on Devon avenue, in Chicago, in 1976. Briefly, maybe three months. But it was the right three months. Right thru Passover. I learned a lot. We made a lot more Passover variety, than we're making here, but the bakery was right at the corner of Devon and California. Chicagoans know what that means. This place rocked. Bagels and bialys, and the hallah, man. I didn't know you could make as many different sizes and shapes from one dough. Racks and racks of product. Friday nights, they set the oven at 500'. They had a huge rotating oven. When the stuff got brown, out it came, baked or not. They had no time to be concerned. Three or four of the items, we make here, are recipes that I got there. We follow all the rules, no flour or dairy, as they did. They weren't kosher, in fact the place was sold to an Italian guy named Tony, lasted, maybe eighteen months.

Kinda funny, way back, I started makin' the coconut macaroon cookies that we made there on Devon avenue. We package them so they don't dry out. We use a clamshell dome, I think in ten ounce units. So we packaged them, wrote a product label with the ingredients. The recipe called for cornstarch, not much. Mrs. Freid was a customer and my son's, maybe second grade teacher, at the grade school next to our house. She set me straight, "Can't use cornstarch. Corn is a legume. No flour, dairy or legumes are acceptable". Mrs. Fried bought our hallah bread, every Friday, for as long as I can remember. So we took the cornstarch out of the macaroons.

I've also learned that in France, bakers/pastry guys, can buy powdered sugar without cornstarch. Here at home, it's not available to us, on a commercial level. All of our powdered sugar has cornstarch in it "To prevent caking". The Frenchy's also believe that, it's one reason that it's difficult to make macarons here. I've never found it to be an issue. Maybe I, just don't know. So this time of year, we stock up on, one pound boxes of powdered sugar, that is "Acceptable for holiday baking". We buy it in a retail size pack. No, we don't use it for our Passover goods, we save it for the French macarons. Not sure how we addressed that issue, there on Devon avenue, but then after all, we were putting cornstarch in their cookies.

Not sure how many, if any, Jewish bakeries, there are left on Devon avenue. Used to be one every other store front. Gitel's, Faber's, Konopov's, Tel Aviv, Levinson's, Devon Avenue Bake Shop(for us goys), Ackerman's, I'm turning into my father, I can't remember the rest. I think most of their customer's have been transplanted. Most of the bakeries have closed. The neighborhood has completely changed. There is a Russian bakery on Devon, baking in a tandori oven.

I mentioned before, I like being a part of a family's "Holiday celebration". I'm very comfortable that the younger folks, buy our goods and run the Bennison's boxes out to the alley, to be hauled away, before the grand parents arrive for Seder. The ones I find funny are the orders we get for a pound of coconut macaroons, a honey cake, a chocolate lamb cake, a loaf of seeded rye, sliced, and a long poppy seed hallah. What??? That's Mrs. Clark's order, every Easter. See, that means something to me, that I know that. She shops here year 'round. I see her and we speak, I know the names of her grand kids. Maybe I should introduce her to Mrs. Freid.

black specks

Friday, March 19th was St. Joseph's Day. Not really a big holiday here in Evanston, but we do our part to please all religious groups. Not sure of the significance of the day, but I know it's an Italian thing. It is celebrated with "Zeppoli". We use our cruellers, split them in half, and fill them with a ring of pastry creme/custard or cannoli creme. On top of the custard ones we put a whole, glazed strawberry and on the cannoli filled ones we use a red cherry. The red colour is important. We did well with them yesterday, I think we made about fourteen dozen. Italian bakeries sell them all day long, I was happy with what we did. We also made St. Joseph loaf, a hearth bread, round in shape that we use two strings, of the same dough, to form a cross on the top. With our computerized register system, we can tell how often people order from us. Yes, there are people that only show up on holidays. I'm fine with that as long as they keep coming. St. Joseph's loaf is a good example. We only made twelve loaves, but it is an important part of someone's celebration. Just like the lady who gets a poppy seed coffee cake for her daughter every Christmas eve. Yes, it is a pain in the neck, but after years and years, how could I tell someone "No". I like the idea that we are a part of someone's "Family tradition", even if it does create my family tradition of sleeping thru every major holiday. Seems we have disappointed a person or two, by not having any Zeppoli yesterday afternoon. We have a few orders for today yet. Something did happen yesterday afternoon, that I'll never forget. It was just about 4:30 yesterday afternoon and a lady called to complain about "The black specks in the pastry creme filling in her Zeppoli". I'm comfortable that she is someone who was never here before. I'm assuming it was someone who grew up on Twinkies and Dunkin Donuts. Give anything to know what she thought after she ate it.

We did very well with our Irish Soda bread this year. I think the count is around a hundred eight five, or so. Much better than we ever did in the past. We were out early on the 17th. We also had orders for yesterday and today as well. I'm not surprised, i mention it before, stuff is really tasty, moist and sweet. sold a lot of shamrock cookies as well. We didn't do anything different with those cookies. I'm thinking maybe the weather had somethin' to do with it.

Have a good weekend.

two things 'bout home

As if you couldn't tell, the last five or six postings were written while I was away. Internet time in France, of course does exist, but very expensive. Ten Euros an hour, about $13.50. I wrote when I could.

Wednesday morning we were off to Orly to catch a flight to Nice. I was in the air when they announced the winners of the competition. As soon as I was able to turn on my cell phone, I called Craig. He immediately sent me a text, "No news yet". Within five minutes "Taiwan won bread". Two minutes later "France won pastry". Another two minutes, "Holland", won showpiece. I was disappointed Dara didn't win. I felt bad for Peter. If it hadn't been for that brioche. Although it is not possible for them to allow someone to win, that finishes late. Just can't happen.

We spent the next six days driving from Nice back to Paris. Spent one night in a really neat mountain chalet type place, 1250m up. It was between Geneve, Switzerland and Strasbourg. One night in Strasbourg. I came across a pastry shop in Strasbourg that was owned by Thierry Mulhaupt. Thierry taught a one week chocolate class, the French Pastry school in Chicago. Beautiful product, place was busy.

We returned to Paris, Sunday afternoon. We planned to stay at the airport Sunday night, to avoid the rush of returning a car etc. We had enough time we hopped the RER back into Paris, spent the late afternoon on the Champs de Elysee, had some lunch, decided we'd do pastry and coffee at Laduree, down the street. Couldn't get close. They have two doors, one handles the two story cafe, and the other is for their retail trade. There were at least twenty five people, in each line, on the sidewalk. I was able to peek in the retail side, incredible. Gotta be the busiest bakery on the planet. I thought Porto's in California was it, but I've changed my mind. Stuff is not inexpensive, but it is perfect, every piece. The packaging, is the best part. Clerks in tuxedos, both male and female. Every baker should see this place, it's beyond words.

Glad to be home, I love being in France, but I love home more. After eight or ten days, I need some flour in my lungs. Thank God it had a chance to bake up there in Lille. Once I left Paris, bread and breakfast pastry, became very lame. Most of it was purchased frozen, just like here. Up in Lille at the LeSaffre research lab, they put a lot of effort into parbaked, frozen product. They were working on different additives, chemicals etc. Gotta say, product was pretty nice. It was handled by people in lab coats, in a perfect environment. Get out here in the real world, stuff can get "Mishandled". Anybody in the food biz, will understand what I mean.

I'm here in the office, just brought down a sixteen ounce cup of coffee and a chunk of a fresh baguette, that got broken by the oven loader. The two things I missed most, a real coffee cup and good bread.

dara's day

Tuesday morning I caught the 6:15am bus. Dara had started at 4:20am. As expected she was well on her way. She had come to France thinking that she had to do a two meter structure. She practiced it that way, up in Lille as well as at home. Once we got to Paris, she realized that the two meters included her twenty inch high platform. She was relieved. I can say it now, she had issues up in Lille, getting’ that thing to stand up. As she said “The universe takes care of itself”. She chose to cut down the “Wobbly” portion of her design, to a sensible eight inches, instead of twenty. The convention hall was of course empty. Doors open at 9am. I had a good chance to view the efforts of the Monday bakers. Peter was there and offered that the croissants done by the French baker, were “Black on the bottom”. Peter’s chances improved. I asked “Did he finish on time”? Peter said “Yes, he did”. I knew his chances just got slimmer.

The Monday bread bake was done by Morocco and Holland. No issues, nothing special. The artistic work was done by Slovakia and Uruguay. Again, nothing special. One note, I really question if the bread plaques were done by the same person who baked for Slovakia on Monday. The detail displayed in the plaques was absent on the showpiece. The showpiece was large, very large. It was full, but without detail. She even did a lot of raw, “Dead dough”, completely within the rules. France and Costa Rica, did the pastry portion. France’s pastry was nice. Nice brioche, very nice. He did a border on one of his pieces that didn’t fit the category, from where I stood. Viennoiserie, to me, as I was taught by Didier Rosada “Needs to be done in form that would be done in a bakery, and can be picked up with a tissue and placed into a paper bag, carried home and remain in the same form. No sugar spikes, chocolate curls or flower petals”. This piece had a joconde biscuit frame. Something that belongs around a cake, not a breakfast pastry. The Costa Rican pastry was flat and bland looking. As an example, he did one piece that looked like a violin or fiddle. Shape was nice, but there wasn’t any filling on the neck or the things you turn to tighten the strings. What if a judge got a piece of that? Here it’s not so much an issue, but in the Coupe, there are eleven judges. No way you can cut one of those into eleven pieces and not disappoint one of the judges.

Dara’s pulled it off, the last minute change, that is. The base was shorter and it made things much more stable. She was cruisin’. A component was uncle Sam’s hat. Red and white with a blue band, with white stars. She did that and her waving American flag’s better than she did in Lille. She looked good, on time, confident. Another component she did was a big, abstract star. Five points, none equal. She baked it/on a mold she had made. It was about twenty four inches long, sixteen inches wide. Curved/bowed, concaved. The points hit the oven deck, not the middle of the star. She bordered this with dead dough, than made a lace curtain type look, with laminated dough. Her minimum requirement was twenty five percent “Live dough”, dough with yeast. This was a good way to deal with that issue. She added a duplicate border of dead dough and baked it. It was very cool, a big part of her piece. Her plan was to create the base, then build the top half, and at the end set them together. Everything went as planned until she set the top on the base. The lacey star piece wasn’t secured and it hit the floor, from about two feet up. She picked it up with a dust pan. The hearts dropped of all those who saw it. In unison, a hundred gasping mouths. Twenty five minutes to go. All she had left to do was set it together and clean up. I hollered at her “Make it over, take the penalty of going over on time”. She came near the ropes, Craig and I were there, we again told her make it over, she asked about missing the live dough volume, hey, desperate times call for……… She made a star using only the dead dough border and finished, maybe seven, eight minutes late. It looked great. To bad it was missing that lacey part. When the piece was viewed, finished, it really made it complete. Now it was missing something, seemed rather hollow. Of all the artistic work, Dara’s piece said United States more than other carried across the intended message. Theme was the fourth of July. She did it well. Created fireworks coming out of the inverted hat, resting on two, duplicate waving flags. The artistic baker from Spain said “Ella es un ganador seguro”, “She’ll win for sure”. We’ll see. She did a great job.

Tonight it’s off to dinner with Tim Foley, his wife Pat and their daughter Lauren. Reservation was made by Jean Joho at a place called Chez Michel. Should be good, Tim doesn’t spend much time eating at Denny’s while in France.

Tomorrow we are leaving Paris around 8am. I won’t be there when the winners are announced. As soon as we land in Nice, I’ll be on the phone with Craig. I’m anxious to hear, not nearly as anxious as Peter and Dara.

i walked where lionel walked

It's late Monday afternoon, here in Paris. I didn't go to the convention today, I needed a day break. Spent the day walking around Paris, my favorite thing to do here. Hop on the Metro, with a specific destination in mind, and start walking back. When we get tired, hop on the Metro to get back. Today we were in St. Germain, home of Le Bon Marche, incredible store. It's a department store that has a separate building that houses the food department. Bakery, meat, pastry, chocolate, butcher, cheese, hot food, cold food, even a butter department. Fabulous! Extreme quality and respect for what they do. We stepped out of Le Bon Marche, down the street a few blocks and into a cafe for lunch. We were sitting there and after a few minutes I looked up and we were on the corner of Rue de Severes and Rue Cherch Midi. Cherch Midi, the Cherch Midi. I asked the waiter, "How close is Poilane"? He said “Cinq cents mètres”. I was five hundred meters from hallowed ground. Any bread bakers reading this know, eight Rue de Cherch Midi is Poilane bakery. Lionel Poilane died seven or eight years ago in a helicopter crash, his helicopter, flying out to his island. Poilane bakery bakes two percent of the bread consumed in Paris. That’s a lot of bread. Organic flour, wood fired oven, great bread. He has a unique shop, offers a few different items, a few different loaves, a loaf cake or two, and loads of Poilane paraphernalia. Genius, total genius. The bakery is now run by his two daughters, Apolonia and Athena. Both Harvard business school grads. The shop is very unpretentious. The walls are lined with his offerings. There aren’t any display cases as you might expect. There was one saleslady that answers questions and packages goods and then you move to the counter where another sales associate will take the money. I overheard another rookie ask about baguettes, saleslady replied “Ne baguette pas, seulment tranches”. “No baguettes only slices of miche”. I think the coolest thing I saw was a miche house/cutting board. It had glass sides and a canvas top. It was designed to store your miche half cut side down and then there was space in the glass sides so you could slice the bread as you needed it. Two hundred forty euros, around three hundred U.S. Ya gotta eat a lot of miche to support that.

Tonight it’s off to dinner with Dennis and Melanie, from Swedish bakery in Chicago. Dinner at the Maison Alsace on the Champs de Elysee. We’ve had dinner with them, every time we’ve been to Paris, for Europain. Kinda funny, we live five miles apart, but we have to travel forty two hundred miles to have dinner together. I see Dennis, once a month at our Baker’s dozen meeting.

Jusqu'à demain.

tough startin' with frozen dough

Sunday morning I got on the 8:15am bus, got me to the convention centre around 9am. Peter was well on his way. He started his bake at 6:20am. Roger immediately told me that he forgot his brioche in the blast freezer overnight. He arrived in the morning, dough frozen like a stone. Roger and I walked back and forth in front of the six bakeshops, two for each category. France and Sweden baking bread, Hungary and U.S. doing pastry, and Netherlands and France doing showpieces. Day went well, for the most part. When the bell rang, Frances’ bread was beautiful, Sweden’s’, not so much. Both showpieces were spectacular. France did a music theme, and the Netherlands chose Valentine’s Day. The assignment was to use an event or religious holiday that depicts your country. Evidently, there is a day in France, nationwide, that celebrates music, national holiday type thing. Never did get a reason Pay-Bas chose Valentine’s Day. The Hungarian pastry was what one might expect. Rather well done, but a couple pieces were very plain. His name was Robert, and at the end of your bake, you get asked a few questions by the jury. He openly admitted that the croissants they make back home in Hungary, are made with margarine. Admitted he struggled with using butter. Not sure if I mentioned it, but it was mandated that each pastry candidate produce a plain croissant, a pain aux chocolate, chocolate croissant and a brioche aux tete, brioche with a head. Peter’s laminated products were beautiful, as expected. He does a terrific job on laminated dough. Peter finished about twenty minutes late and his brioche was unacceptable. They judged it none the less. The penalty for not having one of the products is far more severe than having a poorly done item. The penalty for being late is very difficult to overcome. At this point, we can only hope that the Monday baking, French pastry baker stumbles as well.

Sunday night it was off to dinner at a place called Astier. Very old classic French place in the tenth, at Place de Republic. We had an upstairs room. Dinner was hosted by the BBGA. We had about twenty five folks there. Craig, guild chair, Dara and Peter, and an assortment of other guild members. One person in attendance was James Maguire. Another baking legend. He had a restaurant/bakery in Montreal. Fluent in French, knew Julia Child, who knew Raymond Calvel. When it came time to translate one of Calvel’s books into English, Calvel found Child, and child found James. He knew the lady, who knew the man. Dinner was very good, cheese course was better. Dessert was bad. Peter was gassed. Gassed to the point of delirious. I understand, been there. Not only is it exhausting, the mental strain, but part of the whole experience is dining and drinking with the entire competition body, until 1am, nightly. And I’m sure it is not a good showing if you don’t take part. We did it, out late, and on the early bus, “To support all the competitors”. It’s tough, really tough.

During the day Sunday, I got to see, what the late finishing bakers did on Saturday. The North Korean bread looked very “Clumsy”. Again, due to the rice culture. The Spanish pastry looked very “Spanish”. Kinda plain, very typical. I think places like Spain and Portugal, do better with plated desserts. The Polish artistic piece was pretty much the same one he did for the last Coupe. It was clearly short of the “1.8 meter, height minimum”. Not sure what he was thinking.

I guess we’ll see what “Frenchy” does tomorrow.

time to get started

Late Saturday afternoon, I started the day running out to the airport to meet up with Patti. That went well. She was in pretty much on time. Back into Paris with her, she went right to bed and I headed off to the convention. Got to the show around 1pm, Peter was heading off to nap. Somewhere behind the bakeshops. Roger and I set off to see some of the show. Peter was due to do his “Secret ingredient “ selection at 3pm. We returned to the competition area around 2:50, Roger went to get Peter. He appeared from the back, with a headset and sunglasses. Looked like an astronaut. Headphones were for quiet and the glasses for darkness. Japan/bread, Holland/viennoserie and Spain/artistic had the 5am start this day, they were finished. North Korea /bread, Spain/viennoiserie and Poland/artistic, were still at work. They had a late start so they were due to finish at 3:15. I never really heard what Peter drew in the lottery. He seemed pleased. He headed into the back to gather up his tools. He spread everything out in his bakeshop, over his two tables and the head judge came to inspect. He has a checklist of ingredients/tools that Peter had to submit back in early February. Mario, head of the jury, baker in Montreal, had to be sure that everything was on the up and up. No prescaled ingredients, or unapproved contraband. He was comfortable peter was playing by the rules and off he went to Robert, the Hungarian pastry baker. Both candidates in one category, started their two prep together, but they had staggered starts for the eight hour bake. I was off to view the work done that day, that by now was on display.

The Japanese bread baker had practiced at the Lille facility with, I was somewhat familiar with his product, No surprises there. Bread was o.k. He did a roasted onion loaf that had enough black pepper in it to totally numb any judges palatte. Not a good idea. Strange thing, and I don’t know why, but the competition only offered type 65 and type 45 flour. Candidates had their choice of with or without ascorbic acid, but no typical, type 55 flour. French flours are rated by their ash content, that is what the number means. Both the Japanese, and the Tawaiian baker had issues with the type 65 flour back in Lille. This flour seemed much “Whiter” than what I saw in Lille. These baguettes were much nicer than what he did up in Lille. Asian bakers prefer to do a four hour straight dough, no preferment. They are not fans of fermentation flavor. Centuries of white pan bread and rice, caused this. The Holland pastry was fair. It appeared he ran out of time. I learned later that his father had passed away four weeks earlier. Nice guy, very personable. Fluent in English. The Spanish artistic piece was done very well. His plaques around the base of his display were really nice. He did a guitar, a bulls head, a toreador's cape, and a Spanish style hat all centered around a near life size chair.

They started judging the goods done by the bakers that had the 7am start, and I headed back into Paris. It was Mediterranean food to go that night for dinner, in our room, split a bottle of wine, a little CNN, and off to bed. I know I’ll sleep better than Peter will.

delivery to the convention centre

Friday night, finally made it to Paris. Yesterday, Roger and I baked three different baguettes and a load of croissants. Baguettes were amazing! I mixed a poolish baguette, and Roger mixed two baguettes. Both heavy on water, long fermented. All three mixes were really nice. We agreed that the flour has that extra hint of extensibility, that really makes some nice bread. Beautiful open structure. The flour is very forgiving. I had great results with the croissants, as well. Again the extensible nature of the flour really allows for some outrageous oven spring. And the butter, like laminating velvet.

On Thursday, Dara finished her plaques. As the artistic candidate, she had to produce twelve plaques, don’t remember the dimensions. They are about twelve inches by sixteen inches. Twelve inches at the base. They must be labeled for the twelve months of the year, and display Americanism. She did a great job, on them, countless hours of work. She started them months ago. They are all made from “Pate mort” or dead dough as we know it. Boiled sugar syrup, rye flour and buckwheat flour. Nothing you could ever eat. But they hold up for long periods of time. Dara spent $$$ to get these shipped here, she had to use a “Fine arts” shipper. Pretty impressive the boxes he made for each of them. She had to do some slight repairs on five of the plaques, and then spray them with edible varnish. Today we dropped her and her plaques off at the convention centre. I got an early glimpse at the display stands that were made for each competitor.. They are about four feet in diameter, sixteen inches tall. The top horizontal surface is about three feet in diameter, so these twelve plaques will go all the way around the base and lean in slightly. She will have eight hours to produce a showpiece to set on this surface I’m speaking of. She bakes Tuesday.

Peter, will do his two hour prep on Saturday afternoon, and bake on Sunday. This afternoon, after Roger and I dropped Dara and her plaques off at the convention centre, we went on to return the car to the airport. No need to have a car in Paris, that would be an absolute curse. Plan was for Roger and I to drop off Dara, drop off the car and pick up Peter’s suitcase from British Air, and take the RER train to Gare du Nord and then the metro to our hotel. Turns out, it wasn’t a suitcase. It was a fifty pound crate, no handles! Peter had taped it and strapped it, so we managed, but if you ever ridden the Paris metro, you’d understand. There are times when you get on and off that train whether you want to or not. We wrestled that box back to the hotel, Peter opened and voila, it was all there. We were all relieved.

So tomorrow, it’s back to the airport to pick up Patti, bring her to the hotel, and then back out to the convention centre. After the episode with Peter’s treasure chest, I’m looking forward to today’s travels.

A bientot.

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the games begin

Friday night, finally made it to Paris. Yesterday, Roger and I baked three different baguettes and a load of croissants. Baguettes were amazing! I mixed a poolish baguette, and Roger mixed two baguettes. Both heavy on water, long fermented. All three mixes were really nice. We agreed that the flour has that extra hint of extensibility, that really makes some nice bread. Beautiful open structure. The flour is very forgiving. I had great results with the croissants, as well. Again the extensible nature of the flour really allows for some outrageous oven spring. And the butter, like laminating velvet.

On Thursday, Dara finished her plaques. As the artistic candidate, she had to produce twelve plaques, don’t remember the dimensions. They are about twelve inches by sixteen inches. Twelve at the base. They must be labeled for the twelve months of the year, and display Americanism. She did a great job, on them, countless hours of work. She started them months ago. They are all made from “Pate mort” or dead dough as we know it. Boiled sugar syrup, rye flour and buckwheat flour. Nothing you could ever eat. But they hold up for long periods of time. Dara spent $$$ to get these shipped here, she had to use a “Fine arts” shipper. Pretty impressive the boxes he made for each of them. She had to do some slight repairs on five of the plaques, and then spray them with edible varnish. Today we dropped her and her plaques off at the convention centre. I got an early glimpse at the display stands that were made for each competitor.. They are about four feet in diameter, sixteen inches tall. The top horizontal surface is about three feet in diameter, so these twelve plaques will go all the way around the base and lean in slightly. She will have eight hours to produce a showpiece to set on this surface I’m speaking of. She bakes Tuesday.

Peter, will do his two hour prep on Saturday afternoon, and bake on Sunday. This afternoon, after Roger and I dropped Dara and her plaques off at the convention centre, we went on to return the car to the airport. No need to have a car in Paris, that would be an absolute curse. Plan was for Roger and I to drop off Dara, drop off the car and pick up Peter’s suitcase from British Air, and take the RER train to Gare du Nord and then the metro to our hotel. Turns out, it wasn’t a suitcase. It was a fifty pound crate, no handles! Peter had taped it and strapped it, so we managed, but if you ever ridden the Paris metro, you’d understand. There are times when you get on and off that train whether you want to or not. We wrestled that box back to the hotel, peter opened and voila, it was all there. We were all relieved.

So tomorrow, it’s back to the airport to pick up Patti, bring her to the hotel, and then back out to the convention centre. After the episode with Peter’s treasure chest, I’m looking forward to today’s travels.

A bientot.

still no bag

Yesterday, Roger left for the airport around 10am. Returned to the hotel at 10:30pm. Flight after flight, no sign of peter's missing bag/box. Eight flights from Heatherow to Paris, didn't get on one of 'em. Every phone call found a different person and a different answer. Late night, we got a promise that they would change the luggage tag, and hopefully that would do the trick. This morning we spoke to British Air at Heathrow, they claimed it was on the first flight out. Checked on-line, no luck. Not that it wasn't there, the web site took us nowhere. Roger is searching for a phone number into British Airways baggage service here in the Paris airport. Needless to say, Peter and Dara are getting stressed out. Dara needs the brown rice flour, that Peter added to his box, and Peter needs all the irreplaceable hand tools, even more.

My time in the bakery yesterday, was AWESOME!!! Here by myself, shapin', bakin' baguettes. Baguettes came out nice. French flour is very forgiving. It doesn't have that strong elastic property that North American flour has. The elastic side of the protein is much milder. Very timely, our transplanted British host Nigel just stepped in the office here asking me how "My" bake went yesterday. We started talking about the differences in the wheat from North America to here. He made a good point, "Used to be that wheat fields use to wave in the wind. No more wheat is designed to grow a foot shorter than before with a very sturdy stalk. That way there isn't nearly as much wind damage as there used to be". In the states we have a song that has a line about "Amber waves of grain". So much for boasting about using non genetically modified wheat!

Just overheard Roger say that the phone number he has is the right one, but the office doesn't open until 2pm.

Well, I had so much fun yesterday, I made another baguette dough for today, only this time I planned ahead and made a poolish for the baguette. I also made a good size piece of croissant dough. I'll letcha know how it goes. The dough is laminated with 26.5% Montague butter, 85% butter fat. Butter is created just for lamination.

Can't wait. Baguette is screamin' to be divided.

au revoir, ayez un beau jour

why not? great fun for me

Wednesday morning in Lille. Dara Reimers, the American artistic category competitor, felt ill and headed back to the hotel to get some rest. I think she completed her piece yesterday, to her satisfaction. Last night I headed back into Paris, to pick up Peter Yuen, the American competitor in the viennoiserie category. When I left yesterday, Dara was just beginning to assemble her piece. Height requirements state that the piece must be six feet tall. I dropped her off this morning, at the baking centre. By the time I parked the car and got to the bakeshop, she had bumped the table, and the structure became twelve feet wide. Crashed into quite a mess. So all I saw as pictures.

Peter arrived in Paris around 6pm, last night. British Air lost two of his bags. They said they would be on the next flight. We sourced out something to eat and waited. Peter is traveling with Roger Gural. More about Roger later. The next flight turned up with one of the two bags. Charles de Gaulle airport is about two hours from Lille. By the time Peter got everything sorted out, we left the airport around 9:30pm. It was a bad situation. At that point, they both had been awake for near twenty four hours. Plan was for Roger to return to the airport in the morning. If the airlines delivered it, it would get here Thursday. Peter is only going to get one full run of practice on Thursday, as it is. We returned to our hotel just short of midnight.


Roger has a lot of baking experience here in France. Paris, Toulouse and Nice. He is currently a bread instructor at The French Culinary Institute in New york City. He was the American competitor in the Mondial du Pain, competition in Lyon. It's a different type of competition from the Coupe du Monde. Here in France, I guess worldwide, the Coupe will always be the "Grand Daddy of 'em all", as says ABC's Keith Jackson. Every trade show, in every country has a competition now. The SIPA cup in Italy, the IBA cup in Germany, and at the MOBAC show in Japan, they have one as well. None like the Coupe, not yet anyway. All others will always be compared to the Coupe, the Coupe has set the bar. Roger is also one of the three American bread competitors, preparing for the LeSaffre Cup in Las Vegas.

So Dara is resting, Roger is on his way to Paris, and Peter is busy tormenting the Taiwanese bakers. I'm in a bakeshop, in France, got an oven, a mixer, flour, water, salt and yeast. So, I'm gonna bake some baguettes. On his way out the door, Roger spewed off a formula he'd like me to mix for him, and I'll make one of my own. His is a rather wet dough, sixty eight percent water, only .4 percent yeast. He wants it just brought together, under developed and fermented for four hours, a fold after thirty minutes, one hour, two hours and three hours. I made a straight dough mix for myself, sixty five percent water, .8 percent yeast. I mixed it a little further and plan on one fold after two hours. So we'll see. Tomorrow we will re construct the formulas and see what we get. Maybe a preferment or two for tomorrow. American bakers are very intrigued by French flour. What better opportunity? I can already say, it's slightly drier than our flour, and the ash particles in the flour are more amber than ours, and their seems to be more ash.

Let ya know tomorrow what turns up, once out of the oven. Timers' goin' off. Gotta give the dough a fold.

here in Lille, finally

Boy, been a while, I see that my last post was February 17th. Not surprised, that whole Valentine's day/Fat Tuesday thing was the most whirlwinded situation I've ever been in. Right now, I'm in Lille, France, heading towards Europain 2010, in Paris. I am here representing the Bread Bakers Guild of America, acting as a manager type person for the American bakers practicing for the Maîtres de Boulangerie, Masters of Baking competition. The trip got off to a bad start when my flight could not land in Paris and we got sent to Frankfurt. Strong winds prevented us from landing. I was to meet Dara Riemers at the airport in Paris. She was arriving an hour after myself. That got twisted up, and on top of that, her flight landed. So we were set back a day. Once I found her, we got the car loaded and off to Lille, we went. Lille is about an hour and a half drive north of Paris, very close to Belgium. We are being hosted by the LeSaffre yeast company. We are working in a test kitchen in the LeSaffre baking centre. Incredible place, incredible people. Our host is a very jolly Brit named Nigel Saunders. When I competed in 2005, Nigel was our host then, as well. They take good care of us here, anything we need, they jump to accommodate us. We are complete guests of LeSaffre, so any bakers reading this, you need to be using Red Star/LeSaffre yeast.

Very impressive, the attitude and the attempt that these French folks are making towards the baking industry. We drove by a yeast plant, a mile or so from here, enormous. Nigel was telling me that they have two yeast plants in France, one in Maisons-Alfort and this one in Lille. They also have on just over the Belgium border in Gant. They produce dry yeast in one, compressed in another and cream yeast in the third. Yesterday, they were test baking baguettes, all I know is, there were baskets of baguettes by the door, for anyone to take on their way out. Each baguette was clearly marked 1,2 & 3. I tasted 'em all. Couldn't tell much difference between 'em. They all tasted fine, very industrious. Fine tight crumb, nice, nice crust, not much in the way of fermentation flavour. Beautiful colour, and scoring marks. Not surprised, it appears they were made by Francois, not sure of his last name. He heads up the team of bakers that does the baking in the LeSaffre booth at Europain.

The LeSaffre yeast company sponsors both the Coupe du Monde and the Maîtres de Boulangerie. When I competed in 2005, we rehearsed at the Maisons-Alfort facility. The countries that compete in the Coupe du Monde, go thru a preliminary competition to earn a spot. Those early rounds of competition are referred to as the "Louis LeSaffre Cup". they house, fly & feed, all the competeing teams and their coaches. Quite an undertaking. Later this year there will be a Louis LeSaffre cup competition during the IBIE show in Las Vegas, in September. Something all bakers should be looking forward to.

Hey, for once I gotta run, but not upstairs. I gotta check on Dara, see how she is doing. Had a great croissant at the hotel breakfast this morning, reminded me of home.