Paris - day one, part two

We made it back to the hotel to check in and ended up in a horrible, stinky, dirty, old old room.  Sunken beds, stained blanket, crumbling bathroom...ugh and ick.  I almost started to cry.  But I didn't.  We couldn't sleep there.  I don't know if we were being spoiled American tourists, but seriously...it was gross.  So Natalie was wonderful and managed to talk them into giving us one of their more recently renovated rooms free of charge.  So much better!  The lobby was so nice and cozy and updated, I was so shocked when we saw the first room.  The second room fit in so much better.

So after we dumped our stuff in our nice clean renovated room (sigh of relief) and brushed our teeth we rushed off to our cooking class!  By now it is 8 am Alabama time and we were sooo sleepy, but we pulled it together and had a great class.  We heated cream and vanilla sticks and did that thing where you pour a little of the hot cream into the cool eggs...temper?  Something like that. 

We melted chocolate.  We "burnt" butter.  We zested citrus fruits.  And ended up with five great desserts. 

Now take a look at these beauties!

These are madeleines an almond financier.

This is a chocolate lava cake!

Then my most favorite thing ever!!!!

My very own creme brulee.  Oh my.  So delicious.

We also made a pear tart, but I didn't take a picture of that one.  Wierd. 

The chef even e-mailed us the recipes so I am determined to try these out. 

We had a great time.  There were 7 of us in the class. 

By the end of it we were beside ourselves with fatigue.  We'd been up for 30 hours and needed sleep.

And guess what? 

Expecting rain, we woke up to a sunny morning!