In week five of my journey into french cuisine, the Julia Childs in me lay dead as my team and I navigated through a few disasters. First, one of us (Pravin, really?? – we’re friends by now!) folded all of the Madelines flour mixture into our half melted butter. It should have been just half the mixture poured in and folded in stages. It wouldn’t be fair for me to put all of the blame on him for the end result of our first batch though. It should be said that Arthur melted the butter at such a high heat that we had to restart the process and of course I forgot to tell Arthur that the time was up for us to take the baking tray out of the oven so our first batch burned. But our baker’s luck didn’t stop declining from there.

Arthur and I were put in charge of the Poires Au Vin Rouge (Pears in Port Wine). However, we decided that conversation was more important than keeping an eye on the delicate dish. The result was boiled pears in wine. The optimist in our team (Pravin) asked that we look at all of these mishaps as an opportunity to learn. And so we did. We learned that novices should be reading the recipe instead of talking. We also learned that fun in the kitchen is so underrated. The french have a culture of honouring food; the process of making it and the joy of enjoying the finished product around the table. Conversation and laughter are certainly part of that honour system. This week, our team fully experienced that french system. After an entire day’s work, it’s certainly what I needed. I won’t tell you about the result of our Cherry Clafoutis (Cherry Batter Pudding). Let’s just say that the end result isn’t as important as the process.

You learn many things about people as you work with them. This week I learned that the spirit of the community is more important than the task.

– Bridgett

Bridgett Leslie is the 2014 Winner of the British-Australian Literary Award. Visit her at www.hopewords.org or https://twitter.com/bridgettleslie

To book one of Ann Palmer’s classes, please visit her website.