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L'Art du Blog
Welcome to The French Pastry School's blog. Our blog presents to you - our friends, colleagues, alumni, sponsors, and anyone who wants to learn more about us - the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the inner workings of the school. Here, you will find stories and articles about those who make the one-of-a-kind and life-changing experiences possible, as well as those who benefit from those experiences.
The perspectives of the various contributors to the blog range from that of a current student, to articles about our esteemed visiting guest chefs and teachers of the professional Continuing Education classes, to stories from our own founding Chef Instructors, Jacquy Pfeiffer and Sébastien Canonne, M.O.F.
Find our most recent blog entries below. We hope you enjoy reading these stories and learn something new about The French Pastry School.
Please contact us with any comments or questions regarding on any of the following articles or to obtain more information. We look forward to hearing from you!
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March 8, 2010 -
The Path to Mastering the Art of Cake Decorating
His mother’s pastries, the bodice of a wedding dress, his grandmother’s patience, a Japanese Kimono, an unusual orchid, a painting in Australia, some fabric in Zimbabwe – these are a few of the elements that have shaped and inspired Master Cake Artist Nicholas Lodge’s many creations over the past three decades. Since emerging in the cake industry at age 17, Nicholas Lodge has gone on to become one of the most recognized artisans in his craft in the world.
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December 4, 2009 -The Proof is in the Pudding
Maggie
The moments right before class begins at 6:45 am at The French Pastry School are usually calm—we recline outside the door of our kitchen classroom and, hazy-eyed, discuss our weekends or the recipes we are about to learn. Today, however, is an exam day and we’re lined up attentively, silently holding our tool bags like armed soldiers waiting for battle. The written portion of the exam will soon be finished but the practical will span the rest of the week, a test of both our technique and our powers of organization.
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October 23, 2009 - Brain Freeze
Maggie
In high school, my math teachers tried desperately to make their subject fun, exciting, and, most challenging of all, relevant. They made up cheers and songs by which to remember our times tables; cute rhymes to memorize the order of operations; and, without fail, algebra problems predicting the imminent doom of two trains hurtling towards one another at varying speeds to remind us that, yes, math does apply to “real life.” Somehow, irresponsible engineers didn’t grab my interest—instead, I went to college to study English and avoided math like the plague—that is, until this week, when Chef John Kraus made it interesting.
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October 14, 2009 - Life through Rose-Colored Lollipops
Maggie
It’s a rainy October day in the city; out the window of the ground floor kitchen, we can see the business men and women running by with umbrellas or newspapers over their heads. My classmates and I, however, are snuggly buttoned into our crisp, white uniforms perched over our pots of boiling sugar. Today, Teaching Kitchen One resembles the inside candy shop around the holidays. It’s one of our first days in the new kitchen—we switched classrooms halfway through the term—and the unfamiliar surroundings lend to the pleasant surrealism of the experience.
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September 25, 2009 - I Would Pipe Five Hundred Miles
Maggie
When Chef Laura Ragano gave her demonstration this morning, I watched her steady, delicate hands pipe curlicues and dots on a sheet pan to show us how it was done. She made a fleur-de-lis out of buttercream that looked like the ones on the French Coat of Arms—mine, with ends that curved out too far, looked like a little man with a head, two legs and a belt. As I finished for the day, I piped a little woman next to him to make it look like I had done that on purpose.
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September 21, 2009 -
Rolling in Dough
Maggie
With the deft of hand I’ve only ever seen on professional magicians, Chef Johnathan Dendauw shapes a lump of cream-colored dough into a perfect round. The class collectively blinks and misses the subtleties of the process; “Here,” he gestures, “I’ll show you again.” His long fingers scoot the next lump across the BOOS bread board and, before we know what we’re seeing, a tight ball emerges on the other corner.
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September 16, 2009 -
The Similes of Pâtisserie
Maggie
The oven’s temperature is set, the raw product is waiting on the speed rack and Chef is giving a few final instructions. At this point in the demo, someone invariably asks how long it will take to bake and the answer is always a variation on the same theme: “It’s ready when it’s ready,” “It’s done when it’s done,” or “It takes as long as it takes.”
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September 13, 2009 -
It's a Piece of Cake
Maggie
After two months of the program I’ve gotten used to the way the classes work. We go from topic to topic, squeezing as much information out of the experience as we can in as little time as possible. If we finish items on the syllabus early, we get to ask our chef instructors to show us recipes that aren’t in our textbooks. Like everything else in this industry, learning at the French Pastry School is all about efficiency.
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September 9, 2009 -
A Paris-Brest Saved, A Paris-Brest Earned
Maggie
“Chef, have you seen my choux?” Every student at The French Pastry School is responsible for their own product and mine had gone missing—I was distressed but our instructor, Master Baker Jonathan Dendauw, always seemed to have the right answers. My table partner, John, and I had spent the previous day perfecting the recipe for pate a choux, a rich paste that puffs in the oven, creating a doughy cavern that most chefs fill with pastry cream.
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September 4, 2009 -
Diverse Beginnings
Maggie
When I stepped out of the elevator on the first day of class, I encountered a group of seventy-two silent students. We were neatly filed into rows of chairs and sitting up very straight: the room was filled with an excited tension. This was not like the other First Days of School we remembered—the next sixth months would start our lifelong careers in pastry—and we couldn’t wait to get started.
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August 23, 2009 - What's Next?
Maggie
Four months before I graduated from Wellesley College, I was having lunch with the chef who had mentored me through all things culinary for the past five years. After a few minutes of munching on our sandwiches and catching up, he asked me the question that I had been both excited by and afraid of: “What’s next?”
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June 16, 2009 - Article by The French Pastry School
Bronwen Weber's Incredible Career in Cake
Bronwen Weber’s exuberant personality comes through every part of her expression, whether in conversation or in one of her amazing sculpted cakes. Her passion and joy for what she does is clear. Through making, decorating, and sculpting cake, she’s has found avenues for all her passions: artistic work, competition, and teaching.
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August 1, 2008 - Article by The French Pastry School
Chicago Welcomes the Queen of Jam
Christine Ferber has earned more than international acclaim as a Master Pastry Chef and Master Jam Maker, more than national awards for excellence in her craft, and more than orders for jam from the President of France. She’s done more than publish a variety of books on jams and pastries, translated into many languages, and still more than received invitations to teach all over the world: She has earned the nickname, “The Queen of Jams and Jellies.”
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Maggie Fahey is currently enrolled in L'Art de Patisserie program at The French Pastry School of Chicago. She recently graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in English and Spanish and is pursuing a career in pastry and food writing.
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