Rungis, Je..The Me, Finals Week.

Wow, what a week! This post will be mostly pictures, because description will be hard. We've cooked some interesting things lately. Roast Duck, Shrimp, and a lot of Beef.. Throw some Pork and Veal in here, and we would have been cooking for kings. The smell of stress, fright, and mind rot is in the air due to finals coming up. Written exams have been taken by the Patisserie students, and a universal cry of help was heard from the Demo room on that day, doesn't look to good for us Cuisine students. 100 points of matching and true false, mixed with a fill in the blank recipe portion, should be exciting. In between all of the 50 grams of carrots, and 2 onions memorization's we have to do, some fun was thrown in. Thursday night, well actually, Friday morning at 2 am, I joined a classmate and his boss, on a trip to Rungis market. The largest food purveyor in the world, with buildings the size of full grocery stores, filled to the brim with whole sides and cuts of beef, pork, lamb and veal. A room for poultry, and fish, and vegetables. Fruits and dairy, and cheese all having their own home. We were only going to see the Fish and Triperie (meat house.) But it was quite a sight regardless.

Friday night, I joined my friends Miguel, Micheal, and Bill at a dinner at Je.. The Me. It was featured on Anthony Bourdain's 100th episode of No Reservations. A small, 19th century grocery store, turned restaurant, it was amazing the quality of food that was put out by this place. First courses were roasted wild button mushrooms, paté of foi gras, and fall vegetable risotto with shrimp. They were all good, and warming on the cold late fall night. Main courses were a wild chicken roasted with cabbage "En coccotte" or in a casserole. Scallops with couscous, and my dish, which was crispy veal liver and sauteed duck kidneys in a brown sauce over a rice cake. I had the cheese plate for dessert, and chocolate cake and ice cream was served with pistachio cream and thyme ice cream; baba rum, and rice pudding with beet ice cream were the other desserts. Two very good Bourgogne wines and some digestifs rounded out what was a fantastic meal in a fantastic restaurant. Also, I acquired a internship there for a week during my December break, so I'm very happy. I should get studying. Happy National Bologna Day America!!