Update from Susan

Bon jour, everyone!

Well, Steve and I have been back in the USA now for almost 2 weeks. While we have certainly adjusted to the time difference, it's a little more difficult to adjust to being away from Paris. How I love that city! The experiences we've had over the past 2 years or so have been wonderful, to say the least. For me it has been a much needed and much sought after change from what I had been doing for so many years. I can say with certainty that I love baking and pastry, and I love this new career!

My recent second stage (internship) at Patisserie Pascal Pinaud was again a challenging experience, but I felt much more at home and at ease with the flow of the place. I was able to function as part of the team and was given more responsibility, since I didn't have to be supervised as much as I was last winter. Communication was still dicey at times, since I am far from fluent in French, but I did feel that my comprehension was much better and I could at least communicate verbally in my very basic French. And let's not forget the importance of gestures and sign language to get a point across! Chef Pascal speaks English as well, so when push came to shove, we could comprehend one another.

I was able to do and experience a large number of things at Pascal's, assembling various layered creation, doing more with the bread and brioche dough, using the "rolling machine" for the puff pastry and just generally getting more experience in the basics of pastry making. I even dabbled a bit in the final decor for the entremets, the cool cake creations that go in the front window so the passers-by can drool over them. It was a hectic work place and often pretty messy with chocolate and creams flying through the air, and I was always amazed at how good the placed looked nettoyage or cleaning process was finished at the end of the day.

I hope to return to Paris some day, although I suspect my work days at Pascal's are over. He told me I could come back again next year, and perhaps I will, but I think it's time to move on to new experiences in the pastry world. We'll see. As I look forward to the next adventure I'll look back at Paris with great satisfaction and hold the memories and experiences close to my heart.

Now we anticipate the closing on our condo this Thursday morning after which we will start moving boxes from Dick and Dorothy's basement into that new space. The majority of our goods will arrive from Vermont next Monday, 19 November, and we'll being settling in with a vengeance. We are so fortunate to have family close by who are willing to lend us a hand and give us a roof over our heads as we make this transition.

The big news is the prospective job on my horizon. This morning I had an interview with Joe Hafner, the chef at Gracie's, a well established restaurant in downtown Providence. I would be THE pastry person, doing all the prep for the desserts and pastry end of the menu, working primarily in the mornings so I could then get out of the way of the savory chefs as they get cranking up for the evening service. Joe is very interested in the French approach and is looking for someone who is dedicated, organized, wants to grow with the job and has interest in new ideas as well. The next step will be a day of baking for me at the restaurant, doing a number of dishes, some standards that he wants to keep on the menu (creme brulee and something chocolate to name two), as well as things that I would like to make. This will occur in two weeks, the Monday after Thanksgiving, and, if both of us are happy, I will have a job! It's something that sounds very appealing and intriguing to me and would be great experience at this very early stage of my career. Piano, piano!

So there you have it, in a somewhat large nutshell. Life is good, and we all have to keep remembering just that!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Susan