My Dream Stage

No, no, I swear it was real! Internships are hard sought and you never truly know what you’re getting into when you apply. After a 40 minute drive by freeways and through farmlands, I arrive at work at 6am Tuesday - Friday and 5am on Saturdays, not bad for the pastry life. My day starts after I change into my uniform and enter the packing area/break room, I walk through the plastic dividers to the chocolate tempering room, and through another set of plastic dividers to the chocolate lab then make a slight right to the pastry kitchen. Along the entire route, I say individual “Bonjour”s and “Salut”s to each person to both acknowledge their presence and make them aware of my own. Immediately I get started on finishing the pastries to be sent out this morning to the shops and doing final decorations to special orders. Afterwards, we start up a x7 recipe of creme pat, maybe refill some diplomat cremes we used that morning, or even start a giant mixer on some lemon cake.

Everything we did there was made fresh and in-house, nothing was ever solely from a can and dumped into the mix. Every ingredient we had was sourced from the local and neighboring farmlands: Gilbert, the milk delivery man, would come by every two or three days and give us another giant milk churn holding roughly 20L of fresh cow milk, we’d get weekly deliveries of Plougastel strawberries specifically for their namesake pastry which was highly popular, and even the flour was sourced from a local factory nearby. This was only part of the reason why everything tasted delicious. The other reason was our chef, Richard, who has been with Le Derf for 10 years.

Chef Richard is a jolly, tea-loving, shaved headed Frenchman who speaks only a little English and mostly endearing phrases like constantly repeating “you know?” or “perfect!” with an occasional quote from a movie that throws you completely off because it has no context whatsoever. His recipes and skill were above or at least at the standard that I was exposed to at school and I was able to learn a whole lot from him. My faithful teacher and translator was Alexandre, a near-fluent English-speaking Frenchman who was nearing the end of his tenure as a pastry chef to pursue his real love of construction and welding. He was determined to pass on his 10 years of pastry knowledge to me, considering we were the same age and I was just starting this profession as he was leaving it. He taught me many tips and tricks; I learned that you should pick up an alphabetized pocket notebook to jot down recipes you can quickly thumb to when needed, that you should hold the half of the peeled orange in your hand with a towel so when you juice it your fingers don’t get sliced, and so much more.

Amongst the chocolate side of the house there were 15 hard-working people maintaining the entire operation from making the caramels and fillings, to portioning and moulding, to demoulding and packaging, and finally to labeling and shipping to the 5 locations spread throughout Bretagne. One had even went to ENSP for his Chocolate CAP and we would infrequently chant “Yssingeaux!” to each other when we ran out of things to say. Some days a chocolatier would join us in the pastry kitchen when we had a big individual order of 200 mini-pastries, and I was able to spend an entire day on the chocolate side of the house doing many different roles of closing macarons, decorating chocolates, and filling chocolate shelled heart-shaped bonbons with caramel and ganache.

After a lunch break around noon-1pm, we’d wrap up any last minute recipes or items off our daily to-do list and then get to cleaning, usually ending the day around 2:30pm. My drive would be roughly an hour because now everyone else in the city was awake and moving about. The days flew by and before I knew it, my two months were up. It was so wonderful meeting everyone and being able to learn in that welcoming and friendly environment - Chef Richard gave me a big hug and bisous which is very rare for him, I’m told. My last day included bunches of gifts from my fellow dessert makers, including a double round of champagne by Bruno Le Derf himself alongside a little speech. It really was an honor to have worked there and a memory I will cherish forever.

Welcome to France

Hey there, I take it you’re just joining me in this new adventure outside of the comfort of school. I had first started documenting my journey on my Instagram @sweet_lise_treats profile so if you haven’t already gone and had a look, feel free to do so now.

For a quick refresher: back in August of ‘22 my husband, dog, and cat all moved from the Pacific Northwest of the United States, over to the central-south farmland France for me to fulfill my life-long dream of attending pastry school. In September, I started a 6-month intensive program with 25 other international students to learn as much as I could about French pastry. Immediately following that program, I then attended a second 2-month intensive expert program with 7 other international students to really hone in my skills and learn even more advanced techniques. This entire experience was truly one-of-a-kind and something I will cherish forever. If there’s enough desire, I can even write up some deep-dives into what classes were like and what specific desserts were my favorites.

Alright, now that we got that out of the way - what do I mean by “Welcome to France”? Considering school is like a safe little bubble where you’re sheltered from so much, I’m now out in the world exploring what this new life holds. After my programs at school, I earned a combined 3-month internship at a place of my choosing. The first place I chose was in the NW region of France called Bretagne (Brittany), in a city called Rennes. My time there can be summed up in about three words: confusing, compact, and odd.

Confusing:

My motivation letter to all my applications included the need for us to converse in English as French is my second language, and I am definitely not fluent by any means. When I walked into the kitchen I was greeted with a barrage of French pleasantries which I took as normal and responded in kind. He then started to give me a standing tour of the kitchen and after a minute of me standing there I realized he was still speaking in French so I piped in with a question to clarify “Are we going to be speaking in English later in the day?” and he brazenly replied “Non, pardon, je ne parle pas anglais.” I took a big gulp and realized what I was in for - a big ol’ ocean of sink or swim.

Compact:

It was a cramped, skinny, shotgun of a kitchen with a table running down the middle. On one side we had an oven, stovetop, dishwasher, and sink - pots and pans, trays and boites (plastic storage boxes) were shoved into any places they could fit. Utensils like spatulas and whisks were conveniently located next to the sink. The other side of the table housed four freezers, one giant fridge, a microwave, a sheeter, and all the other miscellaneous tools and accessories one needs for a pastry shop. Underneath the table were smaller fridges for special orders, freshly made ganaches, and thinly rolled dough. At the end of the long table, was Chef’s desk; it housed his computer, the recipe booklets, and all the chocolate and praline pastes. It was cramped and on a typical work day we had 4-5 people in the kitchen, Chef included.

Odd:

Before and during my time at school I was learning French; I hired a private tutor while in Seattle, was using all the applications on my phone, and we even had French language courses at the school. Nothing prepared me for this kitchen experience. I would like to point out that I made it a point to focus on kitchen-related vocabulary and to learn phrases and requests that may be asked of me while working. However, nothing prepared me for the really unique flavor combinations this shop had: dill pesto with a passion fruit mango mousse; black garlic pastry cream; parsnip puree with semolina flour. Let’s just say, I wasn’t ready for the vocabulary being thrown at me on a daily basis.

Once I hit a month, I realized it was time to find a new spot that could fit my newfound criteria: has a least one person who speaks English, produces high-quality traditional pastry, and hopefully a little more room so I don’t bruise my butt again by running into the sheeter handle (yes, that happened weeks ago and my bruise is still present). I searched hard for my second stage, trying to make sure that they met my criteria and believe to have found it. Stay tuned for a deep dive on that.

Life as a pastry student alumna

After 8 intensive months of daily pastry making, learning, and doing the time has finally come to say goodbye to the comfortable safety of school life and hello into the wide open world of pastry. So many memories were built, and so many days were had of pure joy. I couldn’t ask for a better experience for my introductory journey as a French pastry student.

My standards are now set so high but I’m happy for that because there are simply so many different pastry shops in this country and in this world. I expect to hold myself to the same standard I was taught and now I not only get to enjoy sweet treats but properly dissect them into their individual layers to suss out what makes them ‘work’ as a dessert.

The journey was long - so please enjoy some select pictures of me living my best life.