Matthew Carnell Boning Pigeon

Matthew Carnell

My last full week at Cordeillan-Bages was great with every day in the kitchen i am finding it easier to find my way 

round and get more jobs done... The biggest highlight was my parents visiting me it was really good 

to see someone familiar. Tim and I got the opportunity to sit down and eat dinner with my parents, 

which was great that the chef would let us do that.

We had full 14 course degustation which was completely mind blowing. Some of the memorable 

courses were, The Iceberg Tomato. A beautiful light clear tomato soup with a tomato and inside a

tomato sorbet in the middle with a basil and mint leaf.

For Fish course i had Lobster with aromatics the lobster came to the table blown up inside a cling

wrap balloon served with citrus confit veg and a nice white bean puree.

Meat Course i had pigeon with a really intense red pepper puree a celeriac cylinder and a confit 

slice of beetroot.

Dessert i had the famous Deconstructed lemon tart it was beautiful Looked nothing like a lemon 

tart but every element was there in different forms.

This is my last weekend off in france and have decided to travel 3 hours down to San Sebastian on 

the coast of spain cannot wait for tonight going for a Tapas Crawl cannot wait to try spanish cuisine

I do not want to leave France and hope this will be the last time i am visiting this lovely country to work

and learn more about the country.................

Half way through

This second week has been just as good as the last week.

I finally got to do a service on the meat station this week with the Chef de parti Manu and the Sous Chef Younis it was the biggest rush and the heat from the induction tops was ridiculous. I got through the service all in one peice apart from a few small burns. 

Some Other highlights of this week I brought my favorite spread Vegemite to work for everyone to try saying that everyone in Australia eats this every day they could not believe it they all hated it not one of the 15 chefs liked it it was a great laugh.

Last week i went to the beach for dinner and went to a french bar with 3 chefs and 4 waitresses it was good to get out and have a laugh and get to know every one out side of work..

The only downside was yesterday on a bike ride down to the shops i poped my tired and it was hot, and had to walk home..

The weather here has been great last week was in the high 30's all week.    

My First Week

Bonjour, 

The plane flight was a long and frustrating flight. I was so nervous of the month ahead and what could happen that the flight felt like 40 hours instead of 20. We arrived at that airport where we had a lot of fun trying to find our connecting train which was in a different terminal. Once we found it we had a 4 hour train ride which was quite enjoyable. We arrived at Bordeaux train station where we waited and waited for our driver who ended up not showing so we caught a taxi to the Cordeillan-bages. We pulled into this lovely well manicured 18th century chateau on a lovely day one we arrived we where taken into the dining room where we were treated to a lovely lunch put on by Thierry and his brigade of chefs. Once we had lunch we meet thierry and were shown through the kitchen were we would be working for the next month

At 6.30 that night we got to have staff dinner with the brigade of chef which was one of my favorite memories so far it was a great experence eating with the chefs and just listening to what they had to say and how good there english was!!!! (makes me feel bad about how bad my french is.) We then had the next 2 days of to get settled in before starting our first week.

The Wensday morning was very nerve racking we started work at 8 in the morning where our first job was putting away all the produce that had come in everything was so neatly packed and nothing squashing anything and very well organized. After that my next job was making and passing  3 kg of chicken mousse. by the time that was finished we stopped to have an early lunch before there lunch service...

The Lunch service was a massive eye opener as i watched everything has its right place all the chefs were quite and could only hear the voice of the head chef Jean-Luc calling orders and requesting food from different sections. Of course i was thrown strait into it i was on a escargot Amuse-bouche and running plates and bowls to the chefs... Once service was finished it was clean down time.. There clean down is ridiculous it was like a water park everything is cleaned and i mean everything. after an hour and a half we got to go home for a break from 3.30 till 5.30. Once we got back we did an hour and a half of prepping for dinner then it was time for staff dinner. When i got back i had to smash quail breasts for his conical( i think thats how you spell it) of quail and roll it around in a cone shape over a middle eastern spiced farce. Once dinner service was over it was then time for another big clean down. By the time that was done it was 12 and i was ready for bed.

Some other hi-lights was on friday myself and tim were very lucky to go to thierry marx's laboratory which was ridiculous they had a full photography set up for his new book and a chemist working for him full time experimenting with new flavors and techniques. For an example they took a strawberry and extracted the essence of of it and it formed a clear liquid that tasted like strawberries. Or they had created a sponge like mousse in a ball shape that was only made of liquid no egg whites no cream nothing and you were able to pick it up roll it and when you broke it open it would ooze out a sauce.

 

Yesterday we got to go to the beach with a few of the guys it was great time we got to get to know them and enjoy some time off

I start work tomorrow for my second week and i cannot wait.......