Pyramid construction?

Today, I assembled the Poire et Sichuan Chocolat small entremets. I had prepared the maple pear jelly inserts and szechuan pepper dark chocolate mousse in Flexipan pyramid molds earlier this week. They are frozen before being unmolded and glazed with a shiny chocolate glaze. A square of very moist chocolate cake is lightly soaked in simple syrup and then a thin layer of praline crunch is spread. Then the mousse pyramid is laid on top (carefully!). Before display, a little chocolate shave is added at the apex like a mohawk hairdo.

The world of Flexipan is novel for me because we had limited exposure or use for them during school. The multitude of shapes and sizes makes the possibilities endless, especially in the large-scale creation of entremets and inserts. Now I wish I could purchase many of them but they are not cheap and they seem to only come in large quantities. Perhaps they are less expensive in France? I can just see my suitcase full of pastry equipment and supplies after our trip in April!

The value of clogs

Regardless of what profession I am in, I have always valued comfortable feet. In fact, one of the main reasons why I chose ophthalmology was that I preferred doing surgery while seated rather than standing. After my first week at Ganache, it was apparent that my previous footwear, which had been cheap gardening shoes that were also used as operating room shoes, was not adequate to prevent achy feet at the end of a working day. The "investment" in Dansko professional clogs was a great decision as my feet are now much happier after a busy day in the kitchen. The House of Clogs on Robson Street had many shoes from which to select and the nice saleswoman gave me a student discount.

Yesterday, I was working out front during the mad Valentine's Day onslaught. It was dizzying how busy it became, especially between 4 and 6 pm. The majority of customers were husbands or boyfriends and we were selling as fast as we could. Many items sold out quickly, especially the Valentine's Day pavé and crème brûlée. Because of the extreme rain and heavy foot traffic in the store, by midday, I was mopping up a large puddle which had formed in front of the display case. The experience has taught me a great deal about the challenges of running a successful pastry shop and what planning and streamlining is required to hopefully make things run smoothly. I just wish that I had been wearing my kitchen clogs instead of my regular shoes because at the end of the day, my poor feet were so sore!

Un livre marveilleux

Eric and I are planning a trip to France at the end of March and I have been reading a fabulous book by Peter Mayle. For those who love France and food, this is a must-read. We plan to spend much of our time in Provence and Paris in search of fine food, delicious pastries, and unparalleled chocolate. Although we went to Paris for our honeymoon back in January 2004, the rainy cold weather was not ideal to explore as much as we had wanted. Now, with my new appreciation for pastry, I plan to visit as many patisseries and chocolateries as I can, including Pierre Herme, Michel Cluizel, and Patrick Roger. We might even stop in Montelimar...the birthplace of nougat. If anybody knows of other must-visit patisseries and chocolateries, let me know!

Mindless macaroons

Macaroons 005, originally uploaded by CharmChang.

When working out front at Ganache, I also have some assembly and packaging responsibilities. It is all very mindless work and it gives me time to reflect on how different my life is now compared to before when I was in medicine. In the past, I always craved time when my brain did not need to be active and thinking. This actually did happen occasionally during ophthalmology (for example, when seeing the 10th patient of the day with blepharitis and dry eyes). Nowadays, there are times when I have a surplus of mindless time and I am unsure of how I feel about it.

Yesterday, I took over 700 macaroons and paired them up (by size) so that today, I could sandwich them together with filling. Ganache makes four flavours of macaroons (strawberry, lemon, coffee, and chocolate) and they are sandwiched together with flavoured buttercream (or lemon curd for the lemon macaroons). The work is repetitive and not difficult. My days out front are typically mindless, interrupted occasionally by bursts of activity. Although I have absolutely no regrets about my decision to leave ophthalmology, I do find the contrast of my old versus new life quite astounding at times.

Going green: two ways

Despite being sick with the flu for the last two weeks, I have been working hard at Ganache. Unfortunately, everybody has been sick at Ganache! After the initial fever/achy stage, I have followed my usual pattern of illness...coughing, coughing, coughing...and then more coughing.

Getting to Yaletown has been easier than I first thought. I am now a BC Transit user! This is very exciting for me because I have been the typical Vancouverite for so many years, travelling solo by car wherever I went. Luckily, the Number 16 bus conveniently passes down Arbutus, right by our street and drops me off at Seymour & Davie about 20 minutes later. This leaves only a very short walk to Ganache. At the end of the day, I conveniently catch a ride with Eric home. My new routine is making me very environmently conscious as well as richer by saving gas and I encourage anyone who is reading to do the same!

The other way in which I have been going green is in the kitchen. In fact, I am feeling less "green" since I am more comfortable with the new techniques and products at Ganache. My involvement has now moved beyond just making components of random entremets. I have been assembling finished products (although still not doing the final decorating touches, that is Chef Peter's job) which include cutting out joconde sponges, cake bases, making the mousses and assembling the whole product. For example, on Saturday, I made 48 Matcha-Exotique 3" entremets and it took me almost 4 hours! Trimming each black sesame joconde sponge to the right size and fitting them into the rings, cutting out the sponge rounds, making the green tea mousse, then putting them all together with the frozen mango-lychee gelee inserts is a very time consuming process! My multi-tasking skills and efficiency are works in progress but I think I am improving. Getting faster and neater are my goals for this practicum.

To my pastry classmates out there, I must say that I have been fascinated by the new techniques I have been learning. Did you know that you can freeze left over mousse, then defrost it in the microwave until the right consistency again and use it? Undoubtedly, there must be some loss of volume but it still works!

An introduction to Ganache Patisserie...

This has been my first real week at Ganache Patisserie in Yaletown. It has been a combination of excitement and nerves. Let me first explain how I ended up here...

Early on during my pediatric ophthalmology fellowship in Ann Arbor, Michigan two years ago, I was already so unhappy and so I started looking into pastry schools. My sister, Michelle, had a friend, who has a husband, who has a sister, who is married to Chef Peter Fong, the owner of Ganache. (Confused?) He gave me some valuable insight into his own pastry experiences at Dubrulle. Two years later, my Pan Pacific Hotel practicum was in place but did not start until April 2007 and so I had January to March to fill up. Not wanting to lose momentum in my young pastry career, I contacted Peter again and as luck would have it, he needed someone temporarily during this time period!

My time at Ganache is spent 3 days in the kitchen and 2 days in the front. Having absolutely NO retail experience ever in my life made the experience out front the most stressful so far. Dealing with credit cards, making change, and entering items in the register are novel experiences for me. Measuring strabismus in squirming 2 year olds still seems much easier to me oddly. Regardless, I am learning as fast as I can and it is becoming much less stressful.

The kitchen experience has also been overwhelming mainly because my body is not used to the physical demands in the professional kitchen. Everything is heavy. Making 30 litres of italian buttercream was a wild and messy introduction into the professional pastry world. Within the first hour of working in the kitchen, I also had hit my forehead on the oven handle and was bleeding! My feet and back have been aching after an 8 hour day (I can't imagine doing this for 10 or 12 hour shifts!) and so I have invested in some compression stockings and professional kitchen clogs. We shall see if these help...

Ganache makes at least 20 different entremets/cakes as well as several traditional types of cookies (madeleines, financiers, canelles, macaroons etc) and chocolate items. Most cake items are made from 4-5 different components at least, which are then assembled and decorated. So far, I have made a handful of components, all in big quantities much different from school - for example, a raspberry-balsamic gelee, caramel-milk chocolate mousse, dark chocolate-raspberry mouse, german chocolate cake etc. They use many Flexipan molds and frozen inserts. Eventually, I will get to the stage where I will be assembling entire entremets and finishing them off completely!

From ophthalmology to pastry...

I graduated from the Professional Pastry & Bread Making Course at Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver on December 15, 2006. It was the best 15 weeks of my life!

After deciding to leave ophthalmology, I was uncertain about my next step. Luckily, I have a wonderful support system who understood my decision and cheered me on to find what made me happy despite my own self-doubt and anxieties. Undoubtedly, after 14 uninterrupted years of post-secondary education, I was weary about going back to school yet again. But this time, it was for the right reasons.

I have learned so much from Chef Marco Ropke who is the Pastry Instructor at NWCAV. My new passion for food and love of pastry not only stems from his influence but also from my new found friends from school. Through their encouragement, I have slowly built up my self-confidence in my skills and creativity.

As I journey through my first baby steps into the professional world of pastry, I hope to share my ups and downs, new discoveries, and ultimate success with you. This blog will also likely become a bit of "show and tell" of my own sweet creations from the past, present, and future.