Oooops!

This is Why I Wear an Apron

Mistakes happen; even in professional kitchens.  And when bad luck, miscalculations, loss of balance or other acts of God occur, the laughter is faint and restrained- because we're all thanking God it wasn't us, but know that next time it could be.  It's almost a kind of kitchen respect.  Make fun of your coworkers for their personal lives, but don't rub in big mistakes in the kitchen (or at least I haven't seen it yet any place I have worked).  

I am now working in the Bandes post of Laduree.  I don't know what Bandes really translates to in English, have not bothered to look it up or ask.  However at Laduree, Bandes is the little kitchen where the Pate a Choux pastries are filled and finished, and large slabs of lovely Plaisir Sucre and Carre Chocolat are cut into the individual portions and finished as well.  It's not exciting work; it's more routine like it was in Decor.  But I do love referring to the tiny choux puffs as La Tete (the head for the reglieusse) and laughed when I saw the etiquette on the plaque that said, "corps de religeusse".....am I at Laduree or the catacombs?  

My first task this morning was to mix the various flavors of Creme Patissier for the filling of the choux.  Cafe, Pistache, Rose, Violette and Chocolate.  I take 2 large tubs of creme patissier from the Entremets Kitchen and scoop all of the creme into a very large mixing bowl (Cuve in French).  I whip up the pastry creme and then tote it back to the Bandes kitchen for weighing and mixing with the flavors.  Most of the cremes are flavored with very extracts and sirops.  The Chocolate is mixed with, you got it, Chocolate.  Mixing chocolate into Pastry Cream is not an easy task.  You have to melt the chocolate and then temper it into the cold pastry cream in order to get it to mix completely.  At Laduree very hot milk is involved in melting the chocolate....and this is where today's ooops! happened. (Thankfully I was not involved, except that I was waiting for the milk.)

One patissiere is working dilligently cutting the Carre Chocolat into the perfect sized squares.  Just above his head is the Micro-ondes (microwave).  Things are coming and going in and out of the microwave like clockwork.  He is doing a little dance to the tune of, "Pardon, excuse-moi" while performing his cutting task.  He gets a brief 4 minute break while the milk is heated to tres chaud in the microwave.  Other patissieres come in and out of the kitchen looking for keys or ingredients they couldn't find else where.  A third patissier, trying to be helpful (he is taller than me) goes to retreive the very hot milk from the microwave.  We now have three dance partners.  Someone missed a step and the rest is a blur of white. Afterwards there is hot milk streaming from microwave, onto the counter, over the blocks of Carre Chocolat and spilling onto the floor.  The kitchen is quiet, we exchange nervous glances and NO ONE dares to laugh.  

I say a silent THANK YOU GOD IT WASN'T ME.  

Composure is quickly regained, the mess is promptly clean up and the tasks are restarted, and I think everyone is a little more careful in their movements as the day's work continues. 

It's not the first big mess I've seen, nor will it be the last.  During the my two weeks on the night shift, one of the patissiers drops a large bucket of pistachio paste (not cheap!) directly upside down on the floor, creating a dark muddy green looking puddle.  Just last week, a fellow stagiare realized after pushing frozen coulis pieces into the rose cupcakes, that they were using Strawberry instead of the Raspberry that is supposed to be in there.  I quickly helped remove the Strawberry flavored ones and then helped redo the Raspberry.  

As you can see from the photo above, I have made my own messes as well.  Back when I was working on my cupcakes for cupcake camp I had a little mishap with my handheld mixer.  The container I was mixing in was not heavy enough to stay in one place as I mixed.  I had to keep one hand on the container and use the other hand to hold the mixer.  In a momentary lapse of concentration, my hand holding the container released it while I had the mixer on high speed.  The container spun wildly around, sending Chocolate cake batter in a 360 degree splatter pattern- on the floor, the door, the cabinets, the wall, the stove, the clean dishes, and me!  I'm still amazed none got on my shirt, my apron protected me well, but I felt like such an idiot.

This is why I am not a doctor.  I loved how one of my instructors at school always said, "there is no open heart on the table, it's just pastry".  The chef at Crema had another great saying, "you're allowed to make mistakes, just don't repeat the same one over and over".  This is another reason why I love what I do.  The stress is really only the stress you put on yourself. Yes, I want to produce beautiful and flawless pastries all the time, but it's nice to know I can still be human.  And in this business, sometimes you get to eat your mistakes and they can be quite delicious!