Wednesday, October 15, 2008

My farewell gift

Finally the moment I had been waiting for at the bakery has come...and with all the responsibility, trust and belief in my abilities...I turned around and resigned!

The Bakery over the past few months has been everything I was hoping for and more. It is the culmination of those few first awkward months where I didn’t know much French and couldn’t find anything in the place or work out any of the systems…(I later came to the conclusion that there were none…that explained a lot!)

It has been 7 months now, and Anth is exhausted…but along with his ridiculously long weeks, and our “sneak the time in” breakfasts together, he too has had an experience he will never forget. He said to me at 2am, after arriving home from a 17 hour day at work “this is the biggest, most high-profile, most amazing project I have ever worked on., and it will be the last I do for someone else!”…I am so utterly proud of what he can achieve even when he is just here to support me!
Needless to say we are now looking forward to some travel (notice I don’t say Holiday!) throughout Europe to get a taster of the next possible adventure.

This time we have had OS has certainly confirmed to us that travel is a priority in our life, if not intrinsic to who we are. Our children will be bilingual for sure, as this is the only thing we have found to have held us both back.

I must admit though, Anthony understands a lot of French for someone who knows hello and how are you?, and I was quite impressed by my own efforts today buying a box to post mum’s birthday present home in – it is amazing how much you can understand and communicate, even when you can’t conjugate words to save yourself!

Today, at the bakery I despatched an order for around 100 people for Ralph Lauren, without the help of JC…yep that’s right I am the right hand woman of JC. Does that make me the right hand-once removed from God? Or Mary Magdalene?!!
(No Jesus-Christ doesn’t work with me, just Jean-Charles).
This might not sound overly impressive, but sending that order out the door – of Ralph Lauren no less, was a moment for me when I realised that all the career experience I have had in my life, can, and has tied itself into a perfect little bow in an area I am so passionate about.

I feel so lucky that I have come here with a dream of getting into the food industry, and not just done that, but I am walking out with a box of tangible passion and practical knowledge, even tied up with a bow!

So how did I get here? Well, firstly I stopped sitting in our lovely little window and staring at Paris…


and I threw myself into it!

I copped all the shit that the other wait staff gave me because I was “too enthusiastic!”…

And then I did a few things, namely…

“Mondays with Caroline”





Joined the American Library (that’s not me)


Registered for the Salone del Gusto, Slow Food & Terra Madre (a food Convention of sorts)…




Had a wonderful and enlightening chat with Rose



Got a day in the pastry kitchen



In subsequent blogs I am going to tell you a little more about each one of these things, but for now, I need only tell you that this melange of ideas, actions, talks and listens, has been the ingredients for what I now know will become a lifestyle, not just a passion or a fad…I really am looking forward to the rest of my life more than ever now, as I feel I have found my framework through which I can experience it.

1 comment:

Diane said...

I remember when you first started working in the Rose, you were enthusiastic, and I remember hearing you try to explain things in French to people..... so cute..... but seriously by the end of your time here, your French sounded so good!!!! Well done!
By the way, I miss you at Rose now....it's just not the same!!