As part of our cultural experience, one of the professors hold a cooking class at the Fondation Etats Unis (United States Dorms) on fridays. We meet at 11am for the 5 hour workshop, which included prepping, cooking, and enjoying a 3 course lunch. We had a special guest, David K. Campbell- University Provost, and his wife to cook with us. We started by setting up the kitchen and learning the vocabulary for all of the kitchen equipment. Then we started with a classic French dessert, mousse au chocolat. The recipe is on the back of the Nestle Dark Chocolat bars and only has three ingredients. Not to brag but- my partner and I made the best mousses in the class. Then we started on the rest of the meal: tartelette aux tomates, salade avec chevre chaud (warm goat cheese- which I was in charge of melting), jambon avec endive et sauce bechamel, et pinot noir. Thirteen of us cooked together and made a huge mess. The recipes were very simple and each had about 3-4 ingredients. It was a lot of fun and a really good lesson in vocabulary- mostly franglis. We enjoyed conversation and a relaxing lunch after cooking.
Cooking secret: We replaced the milk for the bechamel sauce with the liquid from the sauteed endives. It changed the color but made it a lot more flavorful and complimentary to the dish. That is the second chef to let me in the Bechamel secret- and I have a feeling that the French have a lot more culinary secrets that I need to learn.
