First off- Graduation.
Now, there has been some confusion over which graduation I am talking about as I have, no, not finished my diploma yet. See, the diploma is divided into 3 courses: Basic, Intermediate, and Superior. I have merely passed Basic. For which, I get a diploma.
So, graduation morning, I made my way down to the school for the ceremony. Many of the chefs were there, up at the front. It was a nice change from my last two graduations (under-grad and high school) because there were less of us (about 80 including cuisine and pastry), so everyone got his/her moment with the chef instead of feeling like a cattle call. PLUS, there were no stupid speeches.
"One day I was walking with a PEP! in my STEP!" (That's for my Elliot School GW friends out there)
Instead, the chefs in charge of our course just gave a nice summary of us as a group and how we had done the past few months.
In fact, two of my kitchen group friends turned out to be 4th and 5th in our whole class! (And my grade is only .3 less, so I think I probably did pretty well too!)
(The two chefs in charge of Basic Cuisine, the translator, and the Director is in the suit)
It was a lovely time.
Then they poured us champagne. I had not yet eaten breakfast (we had to be there before 9am!), so I drank my breakfast of champions!
(my diploma)
(With the two chefs in charge of Basic cuisine)
But, we could not stay too long because then me and two of my friends had to head over to Le Meurice Hotel in Paris for lunch.
So, here's the Le Meurice website: http://www.lemeurice.com/restaurants-bars (the first picture is the dining room that we sat in)
It's a 5 star hotel in Paris and it just so happens that we have a good friend and LCB graduate who is one of the chefs de partie. He got us rezzies. Pretty awesome.
The meal was incredible. We did the fall tasting menu. If you find yourself in the next few weeks in Paris and with a couple hundred extra euro, I would highly recommend. My favorite dishes: the beeftail cooked for 24hours and topped with a mushroom duxelle and the blood sausage with beet root. Incredible.
There are no pictures, because well, it's just no the type of place where you whip out your iphone in between courses.
Our friend came out to the dining room to say hi in his chef's whites and then joined us at the bar afterwards for some lovely drinks.
We stayed at that bar for about 6 hours. But it was worth it and no one really felt the need to leave. In fact, while we were there, Julianne Moore walked in and sat down at the table next to us (there are only about 10 tables at that bar) while she waited for her table.
Now there are two versions of what happened next. I'll let you decide which one happened.
1. She saw us and noticed how funny and quite frankly awesome we were and came over and asked if it would be rude to join us. We of course said not at all and had someone pull up a chair for her. Then we joked about how great Sauvignon Blanc is and her opinions on all things. In the end, she promised to get us a white lion before we had to leave to celebrate a friend's birthday.
2. We awkwardly gawked at her and she gave us a feigned smile before we continued to act like she was just a regular person because we are SO above acting like paparazzi groupies. And she sent over a note with the promise of getting us a white lion.
So there you have it. Two stories. I'll let you pick the one that suits your mind the best. I know what happened.
Anyways, congrats to everyone and I can't wait to be back in January! However, now that I have internet consistently, be expecting more posts again. I apologize for the hiatus!
And as Julianne Moore would say, "Laters, white lion lovers."
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