Last week of the first month

This week flew by and I just now had the time to sit down and put it all together. I had felt high and low like a manic–depressive on a typical week. I loved my new life and a day after I was miserable, I felt sick but then healthy again, I was super hungry and extremely full, very tired and sometimes very energetic, top excited or totally apathetic, anyway you get the idea. On Sunday I was racing to finish writing, doing homework and of course laundry and dishes that never end. In the evening I went  to a swing-jazz dance club alone. I left there with mixed feelings, I had fun and loved the music but I was a bit mallow, didn’t get anyone to go with me, and had a hard time with the language and meeting new people. Then Monday morning I woke up to an early week which is hard for me to basically wake up  at around 6AM every day. This week was special because we had our first restaurant service, it pretty much occupied the whole week with mental and actual preparations. We had Chef Antoine this week again, and he let us choose our own groups for the service. I went with the Amuse Bouche dish which is the little bite every guest gets when they sit down, before even placing their order, meant to amuse the mouth before dinner begins. We will be circulating the dishes every service to make sure everyone gets to make everything, but still I regret a little bit about my choice. I felt like I’m out of the game. At the beginning I was very happy in the preparations day because I had the best group with Rob and Barbara but the day after we noticed we got help by others which afterwards didn’t want to get our help back. The meaning was that we were more of observers. More then that I felt sick the first half of the service day, when we were doing the mise en place, and the last thing I needed is to see and smell food (which made me so nausea). Chef Antoine kept changing things we talked about and when he came to show me something he usually was angry with how I did it and took over, which is something I don’t like so much. When the first half of the day had finished I really hated our dish, what made it harder to enjoy serving it! I left on Wednesday night at 22:30 home not feeling the rush and excitement everyone else apparently had. The day after we had the lunch service so we had to be back in the kitchen by 7:45. Anglo B was suppose to take care of the amuse bouche of the lunch so the three of us had to help other groups. I was worried after the day before that it’s gonna be boring, doing just the boring stuff we will be given without feeling a part of a group effort. Also I made the mistake of not having coffee that morning, made me work like a zombie, and not having a dish of our own made me not care so much for the outcome or being too fast. I was helping the appetizer group for a while and then transferred to help the fish group. Luckily they needed a lot of help and by the middle of the day I was rolling this fish together with them feeling at last like I was doing something important with a group. The service that lunch was a lot better then the day before. We all had our role in the plating and waited for these orders to come, we were organized and done a very good job. Finished very satisfied and happy. After our service was finished I went around all the other stations to taste their trimmings and leftovers which were very good. This was also the first time we had been working along side with group Anglo B which I found interesting to see these people and how they act in the kitchen. We were also lucky to be “barked”  by their chef Stephan which was a bit amusing as I couldn’t understand anything he says. The feeling of accomplishment and tiredness made us want to rest in the park for a bit so we carried ourselves with beers to the Luxembourg gardens next to school to chill in the sun which was a nice ending to this day. The day after, Friday, we had our second regional menu day. I love these days! I will tell you all about this day in a post but generally I felt so high when making, serving and eating that lunch. It was extraordinary and delicious. This is how I finished my week and started my weekend.