Busy day.

I started my day at the Louvre with some sketching in the cour Puget.
Next week it'll be my last lesson until after the New Year and we will go to the Natural History Museum in the Jardin des Plantes. I suspect we will be drawing the exhibits in the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution.
I love this class. We go to museums and sit for 3 hours in front of a variety of exhibits and draw. It has taught me to observe, to measure, to take time over hands and feet and to be blissfully unaware of passers-by.
This is Julius Caesar.


After a nice, chatty lunch with my friends from our English group, we went to a cookery lesson in the 15th to learn about festive sweets and desserts. How much sugar, chocolate and butter can you bear...? Quite a lot..? Kilos of it..?

For the first 90 minutes I was in a daze of confusion. We (and I really mean the chef) was mixing, melting, browning, chopping, stirring, beating, spreading and separating ingredients simply to make the components for the dishes. How many types of meringue are there? Too many.

This was the Bûche de Noël being carefully rolled up. It is not made of sponge as I had thought but of an almond biscuit mixture that has to be soaked in a sweet coffee liquid to make it pliable. I think this was the dessert that required a kilo of butter ( for the crème au beurre filling and topping).
It was at this stage that I was hearing "camembert" for "crème au beurre" and it didn't seem odd at all. I had heard correctly "cul de poule" and so cheese had to be an acceptable ingredient. I even thought that I heard a giraffe mentioned at one point but I must have been high on cholesterol.
We (the chef) made ten component parts to make four complete dishes. We learned basic techniques and good tips and I got told off for putting my crème anglaise ON TOP of my bûche and not around it but , hey, I'm english and I know where custard goes.


This nougat glacé is not a hard chocolate left in the box after everyone else has had their pick. It is mostly whipped cream added to Italian meringue with added raisins, cherries and crushed nougatine. It was served on top of wafers of nougatine with tangy fresh fruit and raspberry coulis. It looked and tasted gorgeous but we had lost our appetites and could only pick at the dishes - except for the chocolate truffles...
Now, they were just out of this world and for some reason I haven't got a photo of them to show you.