Today we had our first demo. Chef Herve taught us about the ingredients we will be using in Basic such as dairy, sugar, flour, butter, eggs and nuts. It was a 3 hour class, all of them are, and it was awesome. Except I can’t feel my butt right now as I type this, and I am completely fine with that. It was really exciting, all of us wearing our uniforms all neat and tidy looking, ready to learn with our binders and notebooks in hand. You could just tell everyone was excited for the lesson to start. I got a seat in the front row so I got to see all the products that we passed down to everyone first.

You would think that sitting in a class for 3 hours would bore you to death, and you may be right. I know I almost died when I had 2 hour classes when I attended York University. But it really is true that when you are doing something you love, it can’t be boring. The only thing that was bad about it was that tonight I had class in the 4th block, which is 7-10pm. And by that time I’m usually starting to get a bit tired. I noticed myself yawning more as class went on and my eyelids feeling heavy, but I was too excited to get anywhere near falling asleep. And I think it would be impossible with Chef Herve as your instructor. He has a heavy french accent and the way he says things is entertaining to listen to. He adds humour to the lessons and that keeps most peoples’ attention. The way he explains things really gets the information through to you. So far he is my favourite chef instructor (even though I haven’t had any of the other chef instructors yet, haha).

Tomorrow we have our first real lesson, Lesson 1. Demo and practical. We will be learning basic doughs:

pâte brisée – shortcrust dough
pâte sablée – shortcake dough
pâte sucrée – sweet dough
pâte à foncer – pie dough
damier – chocolate and vanilla short-cake
petits sablés nantais – small shortbreads

I have demo at 12pm and then practical at 7pm. Then I have a HACCP workshop on friday morning at 8am. So you can read about what happens tomorrow in class on friday afternoon.

I’m excited! I need to iron my uniform again…