Award
design
Today I gave myself an award for choosing the designer who created my award winning corporate design. For normal people, not in the know: the CCA Creativ Club Austria awards a bronze, silver or gold Venus statue to outstanding solutions in advertising and graphic design. Studio Es won two bronze statues for corporate identity and photography. We are very proud of each other.
Places in Paris
Travel
Places to be in Paris if you’re a pastry chef. Or if you’re a person who, for some other reason, likes to hang out in bakery supply shops:
E. Dehillerin
18—20, Rue Coquillière 75001
I believe this to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet.
Déco Relief
6 Rue Montmartre 75001
Mora
13 Rue Montmartre 75001
La Bovida
36 Rue Montmartre 75001
Black cake
design, work
Hermann’s birthday cake. Somebody paid me for making a black cake. How perfect.
A woman is only a woman, but a port is a port – Winston Churchill
Recipe
Cherries in port
250 grams port (e.g. Graham’s late Bottle Vintage 2006 or Cockburn’s Special Reserve)
150 grams sugar (or to taste)
500 grams frozen pitted cherries (use fresh cherries in summer)
zest of half an orange
1 pc star anise
1/2 bean mexican vanilla
Simmer until thick and shiny. Eat all at once (you might want to cool them slightly). Pour hot over vanilla ice cream or chocolate cake. Chill and serve with cheesecake or anything ricotta.
Music
inspiration
Alex asked me what the most important tool in my kitchen is and i told him high quality wireless headphones. Baking for two nights through without sleep can be challenging, especially if your past two weeks already consisted of 14 hour shifts and no weekends. Here are some songs in case you find yourself having to bake for 500 people all by yourself, and if you, like me, are a person who refuses taking cocain to an almost childish degree.
I’ll Be Surprised, Skinnyman
Chaos, Talib Kweli & Bahamadia (Sorry, no link – not on iTunes)
Eternalists, Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek
Ayo, Bossman
Dangereux, IAM
Blood Makes Noise, Suzanne Vega
Longueur D’Onde, JP Manova
Staring At The Sun, TV On The Radio
Ballad Of The Thin Man, Mike Patton with Jamie Saft Trio
Just A Man, Faith No More
Ace Of Spades, Motörhead
Bring Me The Disco King, David Bowie with John Frusciante
(play this one when you’re finally going to sleep for two hours)
Tile Cakes
design, Urban, work
So I called my friend Christian to ask if he would like to make some screens from my tile drawings so we could have a whack at screenprinting on frozen chocolate cream. Luckily for me, Christian is always up for a good experiment and immediately agreed. How great to have people like that around!
As expected, the screens turned out perfectly and so did the first results:
Sugarflair Black Extra on Dark Chocolate Ganache and White Chocolate Cream.
Tile drawings n° 1
design, work
Back home from Paris. I decided to do something with those tile photos I made. Buying black Edding markers is always a good start in my opinion.
Surviving Paris on coffee at Ten Belles
Travel
Here’s how Xavier Cotte welcomed our group to Le Cordon Bleu, „We want to congratulate you for your courage. You applied for the intensive session. We believe you have no idea what you signed up for.“
Well, I have to give them this: 40 hours of new input a week is, in fact, intense. With practising and studying on the side, I find myself in desperate need for a lot of coffee. Luckily, Ten Belles is only a short stroll away, and as the coffee in the rest of Paris is pretty much undrinkable, I’m stopping by often, and it has become one of those places where you suddenly feel at home, without really knowing why.
You look like I need a drink – Mae West
This is one of my favourite quotes of all time. I think of it every now and then when I’ve just made something that didn’t quite work out the way I planned. Like this Croquembouche I’m currently staring at in disbelief. The picture of which has somehow magically disappeared, by the way, so I can’t share it with you. I’ll go with a Smoke Martini instead.
Knives and the Canal Saint Martin n° 1
Travel, Urban
Today I took my new knife kit for a walk. As I live close to the Canal Saint Martin, life is easy and pretty. Later, the knives and I will have coffee at Ten Belles. We are all looking forward to it.
Not all of us can, and some of us don’t – Eeyore of Winnie the Pooh
… as my caramel stabbed me in the back when I was giving my attention to something else for just a millisecond.
Tiles n° 1
inspiration, Travel, Urban
The Parisien Metro tiles are easily among the most beautiful things on earth. I love how the tiling is done. How they were doing doorways and corners. How they would mix different kinds of tiles, sometimes just throwing them together without caring about whether the joints match.
