This morning we had a Side Table Service demonstration by the Maitre d'hotel, Ferdinand Mambriani. It was pretty cool, I must say (gosh I'm starting to talk like the kids). Ferdinand is a guy my age who is a pretty distinguished French/Swiss chef who is actually Italian but speaks French, Italian, German and English. Over 4 hours he demonstrated the art of preparing dishes and serving them at the table in true Swiss silver service style. The dishes he prepared and demonstrated were as follows:
- Caesar Salad
- Sole meuniere
- Roast chicken
- Steak "Diana"
- Shrimp cocktail
- Crepes Suzette
- Irish Coffee
The 'piece de resitance' was the crepes suzette when Ferdinand said he needed an assistant and he pointed at me (probably because I was the one asking lots of questions). So I got up quite apprehensively because he was a little scarey when he was ordering his sous-chef around. Anyway, he gave me a pan and pre-prepared crepes and I had to follow what he did and make the sauce and set it alight and add the crepes, fold them in quarters and let them soak up the brandy sauce. It was quite a show! I did a marvellous job, I thought, and then I had to serve the crepes to all the students with ice-cream. I wasn't allowed to use tongs or anything, just a fork and a spoon. Several photos were taken, but not on my camera, so you'll all have to wait till I get hold of a photo for the evidence.
Excellent, how very cool!! Can't wait till you show us your new found skills when you get home.......YUM!! xx
ReplyDeleteI'll need to bring my chef, Fernando, back with me.
ReplyDeleteEddi