French Friday: French Pastry School of Chicago

May 15, 2015 {135/365} Ooh là là!

This morning, Ryan, the PHS culinary arts teacher and I, along with ten Pewaukee High School ProStart students, left school at 5:00 to take the Amtrak Hiawatha train from Milwaukee to Chicago. (Note my how my alma mater is represented in the station!)

Have you seen this movie? Kings of Pastry is available on Netflix. It chronicles the journey of Jacquy Pfeiffer, French pastry chef, as he competes for the honor of Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF). Along with Sébastien Canonne, MOF and one of the judges of the competition, Jacquy is also the founder of the French Pastry School of Chicago.

Here is the group with Sébastien.

We got a great tour of the school and briefly watched a master pastry chef teaching about the tradition French wedding cake, croquembouche.

We went into a cooler to look at some showpieces.

Isn't this lotus pretty?

We had expected a hands-on experience, in fact, we had hoped to make macarons. Who knew?

Unfortunately the tour only included a walk-through and some candies for the road. We were quite disheartened. By 9:35, it was over.

After the mixup, we weren't sure what to do. Our return train didn't leave until 1:15.

So we wandered around Chicago...for 9 miles and three hours.

It was too cloudy and humid for the observation deck of the Sears/Willis Tower.

So we walked to Millennium Park.  All in all, it was a disappointing day.

Speaking of disappointment...I miss Marshall Fields :-(